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Monthly Archives: December 2013
Christmas is not a When
Dedicated to anyone who doesn’t get to spend Christmas with their loved ones on December 25th, but finds another time to be together and make an ordinary day into a holiday.
Today is Christmas for you
but it certainly wasn’t for me
I try to think of what it was
and all that it could be
All the things that it is now
and what it once was, then
a who, a how, a which, a why
but certainly not a when
Filed under Family, Holidays, Uncategorized
Peace on Earth…or at Least in my Living Room
It’s evenings like this that it’s really hard for me to stop writing and go to bed. My office is no more than a section carved out of the living room with my ginormous desk and uber comfy leather chair, but to be honest the laptop and I often park on the couch. The living room is distracting, though. The TV is there, and is usually on. The boyfriend is there, watching the TV. Before their reasonable bedtimes the kiddos are climbing all over me (but the laptop is afraid and stays on the desk). In short, it’s impossible to get anything done.
But tonight? The fireplace is crackling away and the TV is off. I’m the only one in here. Other than the cats, who are thoroughly exploring the Christmas tree that was just put up yesterday. I haven’t pulled out the rest of my décor yet, but even so it is nothing short of a Christmas card picture. One of the good ones, not those cheap ugly ones.
Nermal thoroughly getting into the Christmas spirit.
Filed under Family, Holidays, Uncategorized
Exaggerations of Christmas Past
It seems that each Christmas is known for something different. There was the year the presents completely filled the room at my grandma’s house, the year I made every single gift by hand, the year my sister accidentally beaned Mom with the tree pruners. I thought for a moment my kids might remember this holiday as The Year the Christmas Tree Almost Killed Mom.
I lived for a couple years with just my girls. There wasn’t a man around, and I did plenty of I’m-an-independent-woman-and-I-can-do-it-all-myself stuff. I got the Christmas tree in and out of the attic, ripped up and replaced the bathroom floor, and took care of the lawn. I moved furniture and fixed the sink. Some of the things I did were challenging and satisfying. Other things might have been a little stupid.
I guess there is a little bit of that independence still in me, even though I do have a man around the house to open jars and kill spiders. I decided this evening it was time to get the Christmas tree down, and since my boyfriend was asleep, it was a job for one. What you should know about our attic is that the entryway is above the basement stairs. This means that when you are climbing the ladder into the attic, you have nothing but a downward staircase underneath you should you fall. Considering how much I hate ladders, this is nothing short of terrifying.
Getting up into the attic was not so much the challenge as coming back out of it. With the gargantuan Christmas tree box poised above me, I slowly descended the ladder, while visions of injury and concussions danced in my head. I imagined that, as the weight of the tree box hit the ladder, the whole contraption would break. The box would snap my head back as it fell, and I would crumple to the Stairway of Doom below me. My children, hearing the crash, would rush in to find the bloody carcass of their mother on the concrete floor of the basement.
Isn’t that delightful? A beautiful holiday fantasy? Fortunately, the reality is that I got the tree down just fine. I’m sitting right across the room from it, all in one piece.
Now I just have to hope the cats leave the tree in one piece.
photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
Filed under Family, Holidays, Parenting, Uncategorized
“I just need you.”
My attention was split between my laptop and a late night cable showing of Ghostbusters 2 when I heard the squeak of the door. At first I thought it was the cats, because they like to play around the bathroom door, but a few short seconds later I could see the figure of Violet stumbling toward me in the dimness.
“What’s the matter, baby?”
She said nothing, with her bleary not-really-awake eyes and a good size frown on her face. She just kept walking towards me.
“What do you need? What’s wrong?”
“I just need you.”
She piled herself on my lap, curling up and burying her face in my neck. She said she hadn’t had any nightmares, she was feeling okay, nothing was wrong.
“I just need you.”
My work was calling to me (I can’t ever seem to get caught up) but the weight of this child on my lap was calling me more. My mind drifted to beautiful spring days seven years ago, when a newborn baby girl and I would snuggle up on the couch. She would lay on my legs and we would play and watch TV. Sometimes she would fall asleep and I would read a book with the weight of the sleeping baby on my legs, warm and soft and perfect.
That was my paradise, in days when everything was happy and wonderful. The random and necessary course of life took a lot of that paradise away from me, but I got a little bit of it back tonight.
Ashley O'Melia, Author 