Christmas So Far

I have been on vacation for one week. It's very nice to take a break from work and spend time with the family. Slowing down takes time, so I'm grateful for two-weeks-plus to do this.

Like always, I have lots of plans/ideas for my holiday. Some are turning out just like I thought. Others not so much, but so far it's mostly for the good.

I thought I would sleep more, but it seems like part of getting older is needing less sleep. I have been sleeping in until 7:30 every morning (I can hear Kirsi laughing as she reads that), which is kind of a luxury considering I normally get out of bed at 5:30. But I'm staying up until midnight every night. I have never enjoyed wasting time slumbering, and my back gets sore if I stay in bed too long. This week it will be harder to bound out at the crack of dawn because Andy is finally on vacation too. He likes to slumber. He likes me to stay. Some mornings, when he's home, it's like All-Star-Wrestling just to get my feet to the floor. But that's fun.

Spending lots of hours awake has allowed me to do a lot of things, which is what I had planned for this first week. I have: (in rough chronological order) kept up my cycle class schedule at the gym (pedalling for Almond Roca?), picked up an iMac at the challenge centre so our daughter can work on a film project over the holidays, picked up my dad from the hospital after day surgery to have a monitor implanted in his chest to track what the heck that heart of his is doing in there, made 2 cedar wreaths, shopped with Andy for a Christmas tree (big, beautiful, thirsty-fresh and only $16!), decorated the inside of the house including putting up the tree, attended a performance of A Little Night Music at the Playhouse (3 out of 5 stars), gone out for Italian lunch and Thai supper, watched "A Christmas Story," "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" and "March of the Penguins" on dvd, celebrated with the Shoreline Writers, taken the kids shopping for stocking stuffers for everyone in the family, enjoyed a singing advent church service thanks to the spectacular St. Andrew's United Church choir, stayed up late at the Vancouver Poetry Slam, phoned about a hundred households as a volunteer canvasser NDP candidate Dawn Black, taken our son to the barber's for a haircut, gone ice skating with my daughter and her friends, chaperoned a sleepover and provided the big breakfast in the morning, dropped son off at godson's so they could go see King Kong together, walked through the wet woods with Louise and Soleil, unplugged the clogged vacuum cleaner hose while chatting with Irene, re-negotiated our mortgage (we're in the home stretch and will own this place before our daughter graduates high school - yay!), tried to give blood but was just a bit too low on iron this time, worked on a big jigsaw puzzle, read the paper and drank coffee every morning, walked the dog a lot, baked pumpkin pie, washed a gazillion loads of laundry, cleaned up my side of the bedroom, and welcomed my dad over so he could set up a hand-me-down macintosh computer so we now have two computers online again (most helpful with teenagers).

What I thought I would do but have not is read. Except for the newspaper and the internet, I have not been reading. I am in the middle of a wonderful novel, but not craving it like I usually do with a captivating read. Maybe I should take a vacation from it and go wallow in the new Diana Gabaldon. We'll see.

Today is Christmas Eve. We're having friends over from out of town. Andy and I still have to wrap presents, and there's church. St. Andrew's family service is at 7, but we'll be there at 6 because Fiona and I usher. It's something like being a friendly greeter, something like packing commuters into a Japanese train at rush hour. On Christmas Eve it seems like the whole neighbourhood shows up at our church. There's always room for everyone, but you have to get cozy. After that there's Christmas day with supper at Andy's mom's and my parents coming too, then a whole week more of holidays to do some of the things that I planned, some not, and some that I never imagined.

question: how's your Christmas so far?

mompoet - my cup runneth over