Tis the season to be obsessively writing lists.
Here's one I prepared earlier.
1. Get Santa photo. It may involving bribery with cold hard cash this year or just the promise of a $1 slushy from Hungry Yucks. My kids are cheap to bribe. Last year I only managed one with the youngest. It is the only year we have missed a group shot. They are not always perfect. One year Offspring 2 had vomit on his shirt from Offspring 5 and Offspring 4 had just had a tooth pulled. It is one of my favourites Santa photos. Now some of their voices have broken, I am not so sure of their co-operation.
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| Token Christmas photo 1 |
2. Get tree up. This finally happened yesterday between the marauding dog thinking she'd died and gone to heaven on a bauble chew-ability scale and several offspring needing to be dropped off/ picked up/ have things delivered/ have things bought for them. It is a simpler tree this year. I have misplaced a box of decorations. I don't care.
3. See family and friends on assigned dates to switch on relaxed, Christmas spirit for assigned time before re-entering the frenzy that is Christmas with a posse.
4. Stalk the local rotary Santa. Every year we track this sweaty hero down as he meanders around the streets of our suburb.
5. Attend lots of medical appointments in readiness for the impending muffinectomy and reconstruction in the New Year. The presence of tinsel and tiny conical trees in the waiting rooms will no doubt make it much less nerve wracking except that they will constantly remind me that I need to attend to items 1, 2 and 3. If one more well meaning person tells me how "lucky" I am to have the muffinectomy, I may choke (them) with said tinsel.
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| Token Christmas photo 2 |
(Time passes…..)
I never did finish that post. It was on my list. We did however get the Santa photo. Only because I booked them all at the dentist Christmas Eve morning so I had them captive in the car and drove them to the mall Santa throne.
Two of them had haircuts while we lined up so they even looked tidy for a change. This year nobody had vomit on their shirt, a bung lip or a bald head. It was all good.
They complained that it was a waste of skate boarding time. I countered with, "I am your mother and all I am asking for is an hour of your time to make my Christmas complete." Is that enough tinselly guilt for you? It was more like four hours if you include the dentist.
They did receive a free toothbrush and some foam antlers. Shorty Divine and I wore them all the way home in the car singing along to loud carols from my Rosemary Cloony Christmas CD. They shrank in horror. I do believed they loved it. I did. It was like that scene from Wayne's World with Bohemian Rhapsody only seasonal. Embarrassment is good for the teen soul. (They did also get the $1 slushy each from Hungry Yuck's.)
The tree went up and the dog did not eat any of it although we found some mysterious sparkly tinsel poos in the front garden. Must have been the reindeer. It is a new tree this year. Sturdy and bushy and I didn't even get stupidly sentimental about the old one although it was bought for the first offsprings' first Christmas fourteen years ago.
We saw the entire family this year on the pre Christmas enormo-bash. The whole 25 grand-off-spring were there from the first high school graduated 18 year old to the four year old pre school tag alongs. There was much wagging of chins, some tears, some dancing, a lot of loud joyous laughter. It is good to have a Christmas like that.
Several other late nights and carrying sleeping children from the car to the beds have followed. Sometimes we have extra children here in the morning when we wake.
The stalking of Santa was accidental this year as we nearly ran into his road block rounding a corner. This was a healthy counter to the four year old at Kindy that told my four year old "Santa is dead." Who tells their wee-uns such things???
Christmas day was the usual chaos. They all came to church although the boys' hair looked like they'd woken up in an alley. I looked around to see many similarly bleary teen boys. It must be the Christmas vogue. We sang carols and visited the stable. I cried. I'm a sucker for a newborn. Everything touches my heart a little more profoundly these days.
The Big Fella spent a lot of time on a beautiful lunch with Nanna M and we adjourned to Nanna J's for cake and drinks after as is our tradition.
I hope you all had love and laughter in your Yule tide parcels this year.
For us it has been hectic, happy and fulsome- a fitting end to a triumphant year of recovery, rediscovery and creativity. More of the same, please!
