Priorities

This happens every year. I look back at previous Decembers and sort out the Good from the Bad, the Things I Should Not Have Done from the Things I Would Absolutely Do Over Again, and try to organize the current December accordingly. From previous years, the Things I Should Not Have Done: -traveled prior to Christmas. It doesn't leave enough time. -stayed up so late Christmas Eve. -taken the kids to ten o'clock Mass on Christmas Eve -stressed about every niece and nephew(21 of them) having something to open Christmas Eve -forgotten to water the tree The Things I Would Absolutely Do Over Again -stayed home all of December to cook, bake, have parties -made toffee and put it into jars for ready-made gifts when someone unexpectedly drops by -made more toffee -taken the kids to the 4 p.m. Mass on Christmas Eve -welcome being snowed in and taking the opportunity to relax -have a special Christmas dinner with a few close friends on a day other than actual Christmas/Christmas Eve This little Christmas house is one of my efforts to focus on my priorities, namely, making Christmas magic for my kids. It was a partial success. I took one of our old moving boxes and made wallpaper with some scrapbooking paper I bought, then cut a big felt tree out of green wool. I meant to glue the silver beads on while Jack was at school, but I was trying to clean house and didn't have time. Decorating the tree was a semi-disaster. Jack was frustrated about having to wait for the glue to dry, also about Matteas getting into the jewels I told Jack not to open until we were ready to use them but he ignored me, so I let Matteas have half the jewels to keep him busy while I did the gluing. Jack wept over the loss of the jewels. In fact, he pretty wept the entire time over one thing or another. We quit, had dinner, and resumed later. Today he decorated. I'm anticipating that our Christmas House will get more use later in the day. I bought myself these mugs for tea. Damn Anthropologie. I go Christmas shopping with the best intentions, and then find things that I can't live without. Gifts are always a toss-up, you might not get anything you actually like, and I know I'll love these mugs. So what if I have to buy them for myself? The way I see it, bringing myself joy takes the pressure off of others. It just made too much sense to bring them home. They were happiness waiting to happen, I couldn't just leave them there. Yesterday was a circus. Jack was at school, so I tried to clean house so we could do some Christmas crafts in an organized space. Matteas was not an asset. While I did the dishes, Matteas threw all the couch cushions on the floor. While I was cleaning out the fish tank(which hasn't had live fish in it for, um, a long time) he threw himself on the floor and wept. While I swept the dining room floor, he re-cluttered the living room floor. While I picked up the re-cluttered living room, he snuck into Jack's room and took apart the elevated track which Jack had carefully built before school. When Jack got home and saw the destruction, he wept. There were a lot of tears around here yesterday. After my fourth failed cleaning attempt, Matteas got his bottle of milk and found me in the kitchen. "Come snuggle me, Mama." Okay. We settled in on the couch. He nestled against me, slipping one little arm around my neck so he could put his fingers in my hair. I held him and we were both quiet, and the house wasn't clean. I looked at his fuzzy blond hair, his big soft brown eyes, his little baby cheek. I nuzzled his hair and took a deep breath, smelling the sweetness of his skin and baby shampoo. He doesn't care of the house his clean, he just wants to be with his mama and feel her hair. "Matteas," I said, "you are what matters." "Mm-hmm," he said with his bottle in his mouth. Funny how often I forget that.