Anticipation

Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year. It's a Thursday on a sugar high, sparkling with promise. It's my rehearsal dinner, which I liked more than my wedding. It's a pile of brightly wrapped presents...safe from the carnage of Christmas itself.

Christmas Eve was EVEN BETTER than usual this year. Lucy was positively high on anticipation. Helping her prepare on Christmas Eve was like helping her get ready for a date with Santa himself. She did what any proper girl does before a date: she baked (chocolate chip, Santa's favorite, duh); she groomed (a bath, several rounds of teeth-brushing); she adorned (curled hair, clip-on rhinestone chandelier earrings, giant David Yurman-style necklace); she waited. She was so tired from all her preparations that she fell asleep after about six thumb-sucks. The sight of her limp in her bed, with a little curling-ironed ringlet on her cheek, made me want to tuck myself in beside her and declare Christmas over right then. But it's hard work being Santa, and I could not imagine explaining how "mom has a melancholic reaction to anticlimax, so we're just doing Christmas Eve, okay?" So we went through with the whole thing. I'd describe it here, but it's better saved for a later entry. Christmas Eve is sacred, after all.

Santa Almighty

Lucy thinks Santa is more powerful than we are. More powerful than Mrs. Robinson. Or the Easter Bunny. More powerful than God himself.

Our little Santa-worshipper has been a model child recently. HE IS WATCHING, after all. We remind her of this at every turn. Earlier this week, she was refusing to go to bed and Jason turned to me gravely: "Mom, you better get Santa's phone number." She wailed, then begged, as calmly as she could, for us "please please please please" not to call him. The fear of Santa is our main parenting technique at the moment. God (or Santa?) help us on December 26.

Also Worth Noting

An additional note on my previous post: I am happy. We are so rich in health and love and stuff (and parties and commitments and welcome obligations), that sometimes our life zooms by too fast for me to feel it.

I felt it today. While Lucy colored her snowflake ornaments and mixed the baking soda and the flour for our cookies. While we watched the butter and sugar in the mixer, and she patted my shoulder. I want to hang this day on our tree.

Tiny!

Ben and Mary Ellen are parents! Madeleine was born at 1:30 Tuesday morning, and we were lucky enough to meet her this evening. She is perfect in every way, with almond-shaped dark blue eyes that look like they'll turn brown, olive skin and a head of brown hair with a golden cast that I am guessing will turn blonde. She looks a lot like Mary Ellen, and she gazed docilely at me as I held her, then fell asleep. No trace of Ben...yet.

Thankful

Thanksgiving was a Major family affair at Bruce's lakehouse in Nocona. While the food was great as always, this year's highlight was the celebration of every holiday, all at once, on Wednesday night — including Easter, Halloween, Mardi Gras, Christmas, St. Patrick's Day and the Fourth of July. Now we can say we were together for all holidays this year.

As part of our Thanksgiving grace, all 20 or so of us went around and said what we were most thankful for. Blake, who is almost six, said he was thankful that we were having another party. Aunt Helen, who is 94, was thankful we could all be together. Lucy was thankful for her mom. I am thankful for all of it.