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Chasing the Christmas Chain
I don’t know how long it’s been. Probably since kids were tiny. Those little countdown calendars of some sort, you know. Nine years ago the format shifted from adorable and quirky to a low budget paper chain. And paper chain it has stayed nearly a decade later. Like EVERYTHING currently, it is more and more difficult to find daily time to chase the tradition. But if you know me, traditions matter A LOT, so chase it we must. The kids still all look forward to it, even those teenagers, so I’m willing to make it fit and work it out and do what we can to keep the chain going.…
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Ye Olde Christmas Chain. Again.
I am often guilty of working too hard in creating moments when the best moments are usually spontaneous. I am frequently guilty of contriving glorious traditions when my family is pleased with simple favorites. This is revealed to me every year when I think about our basic Paper Chain. The one made of strips of red and green construction paper. The typical little decoration that my children cherish. We were ready December 1 and we’ve been guns blazing ever since. (Well. No guns blazing. I’m probably not a person qualified to even use that phrase. I have, however, watched the movies Tombstone and Young Guns a plethora of times, so maybe…
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The Christmas Chain Took Us To Bethlehem
It’s hard to focus on school this month. This Christmas season feels shorter since Thanksgiving landed later in November. The kids and I just want to play and craft and bake and we don’t want to add or memorize or diagram sentences. (And this gloomy cold rain is not helping our (I mean, mine) attitudes either.) But we keep trying to persevere anyway. Only a few days late, we hung up our traditional Christmas chain. And so far we’ve watched a Christmas movie with snacks, decorated our tree (finally!) and this weekend we whipped up those infamous monster cookies and took in a new local event to our family –…
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the christmas chain
Every family has something like this – don’t they? You know . . . some count-down-the-days-until-Christmas-arrives sort of system. I’ve seen exquisitely decorated ones, numbered do-dads with a series of intricate doors and surprises, and even a chocolate for every day of December one. They all look good to me. But I’m pretty sure the appearance is not the point. Or at least I hope so. Because this year our family took the basic route. The classic old paper chain – one link for every day until Christmas day. (The great thing about having primarily younger children is that even old ideas are new to them. Which is why slap…
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A Christmas Catch Up (Because I needed one more than you did, I’m sure.)
You know what I need? More hours in the day? Better time management? Someone to sweep my floor continually? (How much are those robot vacuum cleaner things? No – for real. How much are they?) Maybe I do need those things. I don’t know. Maybe I need less distractions. Or fewer tasks. Or something. I don’t know. It hardly even matters because I don’t have those things. You don’t have those things. We’re just living the one life we’ve got and some days that’s not enough and some days that’s too much and at the end of the day we have the same number of hours as the next…
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Christmas Traditions
One small tradition we started a couple of years ago that I thought maybe I’d quietly back my way out of this year is the goofy little Christmas chain. The kids already asked me about this year’s chain before December even hit the calendar. So I coordinated and googled and pinterested (see how I made two words turn into verbs even when no one should do that?) and made a list of plans to write on the paper chains for all of the days leading up to Christmas. Some days were easy to plan – like Mosely’s birthday and the arrival of Papaw and Grandma and the arrival of Oma…
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these days ….
Every single day someone at our house says something about how none of us can believe that it is December. The year that crawled by also flew by. I can never explain it. Amid ALL THE THINGS, I am finding it nearly impossible to write over here. I’m also not making any more progress on my book. I was afraid of losing momentum when my class finished. And my fears were accurate. It’s time to put it on a calendar and set aside time. But I’m always so tired. And so busy. And so full of excuses. I saw a sweet friend post the other day about being exhausted after…
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the week(end) ramble — holidays are hard and they’re beautiful
There were no published words last week. So you might imagine I have a lot of stored up words for right now. And that’s kind of true. I used good old pen and paper and hand wrote quite a bit the last week. It was satisfying. Maybe those ramblings will find the light of day. And maybe they won’t. Holidays make me feel all sorts of things and some of that stuff I like to share and some of that stuff it’s better if I don’t. Being divorced has not stopped being hard. That brokenness is never more evident that when a season demands and promotes traditions…
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Five Finds Friday (why I can’t share all the funny things & merino wool)
It’s Friday. It’s also feeling like winter here. And by here, I mean inside my own house. The kids and I keep wondering, “Will our next home be warm?” And who knows? It might. FUNNY It’s about that time. My kids are about at that age. That age where what they say is inordinately hilarious. Where I laugh without reserve frequently at our conversations. But also at that age. That age where I can no longer share every hysterically funny comment they make. They’re getting older. Their access to the internet is still incredibly limited so they’re not necessarily ever reading my blog. But the tween…
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it’s a numbers game.
Otto can count to about twenty before he loses all sense of reality. After that his numbers sound hilariously complicated. “I love you more than forty two million two twelve eighteen six ninety pancakes.” (That’s a lot of love, folks.) I’m going to borrow his math skills for the night. Today my name (if you know me as “Momma” or “Mommy” or “Mom”) was said six thousand fourteen two nine twenty nineteen times. At least. I believe I was touched by small hands, oh so many small hands, about eighty seventeen four thirteen times. The volume level in our home was about sixteen nine thirty three eighty times too loud…
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Gingerbread Houses at Grove Park
The Christmas Chain has been ripped open every morning with eager anticipation. The words on the little paper strips have led us to watching a few more Christmas classics – like Pee Wee’s Christmas Special. (Yeah, I don’t believe that’s considered a classic at any home but ours. It’s an insane little piece of 80’s/90’s television. Please, please, confide to me that someone else has watched this show so I won’t feel as if our family is odd alone.) We’ve baked banana bread and drawn Christmas cards for our neighbors. We’ve visited our local children’s museum and created gingerbread houses. But there have also been some paper requests that have…
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Five Finds Friday (Bergen is very funny, a chance to help and a really great documentary)
It seemed like I had a little more time to do things this week. Oh, that’s right. It was our rest week from school. Of course I had more time to do things. Today the kids and I and some friends went on a dual purpose outing – a field trip and an interview for Travelers Rest Here. The couple was a fantastic pair of humans beginning this charming and exciting tea farm. They shared about their lives as I asked them questions and I was impressed slash overwhelmed slash in awe of all they have thus far accomplished and we all looked to be about the same age.…
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monday mayhem. or – life.
I decided today I didn’t have time to think of a blog post with a beginning, a middle and an end. And sometimes I think about skipping writing on days like this. (And sometimes I do.) But then I remembered that I’m the writer of this blog and I make the rules on this tiny square footage of blogosphere. (I also make up words too. If I feel like it.) So I think I’ll just write about whatever I feel like because I like that. And because some days there is no tidy beginning, middle and end. Just life. Messy and hard and true and good and stinky and rainy…
