Tuesday, December 30, 2014

The Santa Clause

The holiday season. All joy and madness. Presents and prayers for peace. The house is warm and noisy. Sweetness hangs in the air with the scent of freshly baked cookies and scentsy. Laughter and giggles and guessing what Santa will bring keeps tiny minds busy. Anticipation and excitement. Christmas eve is here. The culmination of month long festivities that will all come together in the form of neatly wrapped packages adorned with matching ribbons and bows.

In the midst of these festivities I can not ignore that feeling. That can't quite put your finger on it but something is missing... feeling. Is it the absence of family celebrating with angels? The unsettled world in general? My longing for the presence of a God I can feel? I don't know. Enjoying delicious home cooked food and wonderful company I watched the clock tick torn between relaxing with family and a full belly or getting in the car and driving to the Christmas Eve service at the church I had attended the week before. Was that even the answer? I had not found God there while attending the previous service. I wouldn't know if I didn't go.

At the last minute. I decided that church was where I needed to be. After all we are celebrating the birth of Jesus. Aidan asked if he could come. The two of use left the happy chaos of a full house and got into my quiet car. We arrived at church... early which is somewhat a Christmas miracle. Families began to pour in and fill the pews. O' Come All Ye Faithful played on the organ until all were seated. The lights were turned down and candles were lit all around. The soft glow of just candle light as the choir joined in the hymn brought me to tears. A first for me. To be so moved. At church,

The readings of the Christmas story paired with hymns sung at a perfect pitch enraptured even my easily distracted Aiden. The pastor began his sermon "The Christmas Message" and I felt as if he was were speaking only to me. "Do you find yourself looking for signs from God? That he exists? Do you ask him for something concrete in times of trouble and uncertainty?" He went on to explain that the signs that God is present are everywhere and in everything. In the face our children, the smile from a stranger in the street, in every act of kindness. But the biggest sign of all was that he gave to us his son. He finished up with the thought that maybe God is also looking for a signs from us. That we see his miracles. Feel his love. All we need to do to show Him is be good to one another. Live with virtue. Honesty. Kindness. Not just during the holiday season but to keep that message and sentiment with you all year long.

The service ended with "Silent Night". As the words left my lips I felt that void no longer. What ever I had been missing was filled. I am not even sure what with. We snuck out a minute before the service was over cause my husband had been texting me for the last 30 minutes asking how much longer we would be. His exact words. These two are done. They need to go to bed. I can't take another meltdown.

We arrived home. Tracked Santa on NORAD. According to them he was only 45 minutes away. The kids flew up their beds. Got settled  and forced their eyes closed. I went downstairs to make breakfast and get it in the crock pot for the morning. Put the presents under the tree. Peel the oranges that Aiden insist we leave for the reindeer. Dump the (sour) milk that we left out for Santa. Pick up the cookies. Leaving just one with a bite taken out of it. Write a personalized note from Santa for the kids. And finally sit down to watch just a little bit of a Christmas movie. Exhausted as I was I just couldn't unwind.

I sat there staring at our tree. All the pretty packages. The lights. The mostly broken ornaments. And thought about the kids how excited they would be in the morning. And how tired I would be. I thought about church and how beautiful it was. I thought about Santa wondered why Aiden was pretending to believe. Was it because he wanted to still be among the believers or because he didn't want to disappoint me. The kids had already stumbled upon their present while wrestling when one got thrown into the closet door... breaking the hinge and exposing  the stash. I thought about all the upset and angry parents posting about how some shitful kid had disillusioned theirs and told them the truth about Santa. All reiterating that same sentiment... if you don't believe you don't receive! Why? Why is everyone so hell bent on squeezing every single drop out of the mystical Santa magic? Or that god awful elf on the shelf. Why did they all seem to think that learning the truth meant the end of Christmas. I haven't believed in Santa for almost as long as I can remember and I still enjoy Christmas. After all it isn't about Santa. Or even the presents. What does it say when we go to further lengths to push the realness of a fat man in a red suit than to explain the real reason for the season.

At some point I drifted off to sleep only to be woken what felt like moments later. "MOM CAN WE GO DOWN STAIRS?! MOM CAN WE OPEN OUR PRESENTS?! That was the voice of Aiden. The only one wake! Seark was so tired he had to be carried to the presents. All my hard work torn to shreds in 10 minutes! Wrapping paper covered the living room floors as smiles spread across their faces. More excited about each gift. Rylan more excited about the paper and boxes than anything else. All the presents were opened and the kids were happily playing with their new treasures. Me  and my husband sat down at the dining room table for some coffee and our traditional crock pot Christmas breakfast. We watched the kids with such joy and I thought well maybe it is a little bit about the presents. Aiden walked over and whispered in my ear "thank you for my presents mom. You got me more than I asked for." I said I am glad that you like them but they were from Santa... he said "it's okay I know that Santa is you... and I think that's even better than a fat guy in a red suit". He ran back into the living room to continue playing but not before he stopped. Turned around. And said "don't worry I won't tell Seark."

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Are you there... God?

I am not a big church goer. Translation... I don't really go to church... like ever. At all. I am not even a two timer. You know the devout Christians that feel compelled to go to the Easter and Christmas Eve services. Not me. I mean I have been to  church. Growing up we went every Sunday. I made my communion and confirmation and all. Then my church going just kind of tapered off until it came to an end. I got married in a church. My children all baptized. And beyond that... masses for funerals and other weddings is really the only time I attend. And reluctantly at that.

I want to be one of those holy rollers that feels some sort of divine connection when I attend a service. That I don't makes me feel guilty. In the last few years church has only made me feel... sleepy. I know terrible. But true. So rather than go and fight the urge to snooze I stay home. Sleep in. And preach to my husband about how we need to start going to church... next week. I want the kids to have some exposure to religion even if it is minimal. I want them to grow with some sort of faith even if they find it lacking as they get older.

In this season of peace of joy I always feel quite the opposite. Anxiety and unrest. The holidays are stressful and busy. The shopping and wrapping. Cooking and cleaning. There is never enough money or time to get everything done. By the time Christmas gets here I am spent... mentally, physically, and financially.

My Facebook news feed is filled with pictures of crying babies on Santa's lap and the latest antics of that creepy little Elf that does everything but sit on a shelf. And although I'd normally scroll right past the 900th over posed holiday photo they are a much welcomed break from this world blinded by hate and overwhelmed with sadness. Which leaves me questioning almost daily... Are you there.... God?

A believer that you don't need to go to church to find God I can not discount seemingly divine interventions that are pointing me to a place of worship. So when I randomly ran into a member of my former congregation who excitedly told me about the new church she was attending I took it as a sign. And maybe... just maybe I would get an answer to my question.

All week I was excited to attend this new church. Maybe it was her enthusiasm or just my longing to feel some peace... whatever the case I was patiently waiting for Sunday. Until Sunday came and it was dark. And dreary. And cold. I lay in my soft. Warm. Comfortable bed debating whether or not God could wait another week. And yes God could wait another week for me but could I wait another week for Him?

I laid in bed for another 45 minutes. Because procrastinating is what I do best and who doesn't love rushing around like a nut? Then I got up. Got dressed. Tamed my roosteresque hair. Threw a cute outfit on Ry and ran out the door while my husband cooked breakfast with the boys. We arrived at church with out a minute to spare. I pulled up parked the car and ran around the back to get the stroller out. I hit the trunk button and as the back flew open I reach in to grab the... when I heard a snap! and the back door came crashing down as I narrowly escaped being beheaded! I stood there for a second staring at the car wondering if I could have actually been decapitated and if I should just get back in the car and go home. I mean really God what kind of shit is this?! I could have still been in bed!

Okay no stroller since the trunk is out to kill me. I grab Ry and make the long walk to the front of the church... up too many stairs, and finally arrive at the door. Of course the service has already started. Sometimes I think I must subconsciously like to make a grand entrance as I am always the LAST one in. The very last. Extremely discombobulated person in the door. An attractive middle aged woman hands me a program and points me in the direction of an empty seat. Ry is wide eyed looking on in awe. There is a choir singing and beautiful bells being rung. Color is flooding in each painted window. Its breath taking and beautiful and instantly I feel... this is where I belong. What I have been longing for. The first song wraps up. The pastor begins to speak and the look of awe slowly leaves Ry's sweet face. With in a matter of minutes he is getting fidgety. Ornery. Whiney. LOUD.

Oh Jesus... don't let mine be the only crying baby. I put Ry down and he wobbles over to the little girl sitting at the other end of the pew. He reaches over and takes her toy with an incredibly smug look on his face and as she stretches her hand out to get it back he runs away! I take the toy from my fleeing little fugitive and he lets out a cry. No a shrill. A freakin ear piercing awful noise. He abruptly stops and quiets down. The pencil and envelope holder caught his eye. He looked right at me as if to say... I dare you to stop me I will scream like a banshee again. His tiny hands grasp for the pencils just out his reach. The other takes hold of a handful of envelopes. He inspects them momentarily and then tosses them like confetti. As I bend over to pick it all up he makes a mad dash for the alter. I stuff the envelopes back in their place and rush down the aisle to grab this 32 inch terror.

A song starts to play and Ry stands... still. Then he sways and claps with a smile from ear to ear. I think okay, I got this. That hymn gave me just enough time to regroup and get him settled. I would liken this few minutes to the calm before the storm. The organ struck its last chord and no sooner was my child once again wreaking havoc. I spent the next 45 minutes shushing, chasing, picking up, apologizing, attempting to distract... to no avail. Maybe God was there and I just couldn't focus long enough to find him. I put Ry's coat on and got my stuff together. As I was about to walk out the same woman that had handed me the program came over and said "you know that door right there is the children's room, right? Don't leave." She opened the door to a sound proof room. A speaker streaming the words of the pastor and toys all around. If I were not such a germaphobe this would have been the perfect solution. I took one look at the buckets of toys and thought what a great germ infested idea this is. My fear of the flu trumped my longing for peace. We left.

I stopped at Starbucks to ensure the morning was not a total waste. I enjoyed my peppermint latte as Ry drifted off to sleep in the back seat. I sat there in the quiet of my car. Peacefully sleeping babe in tow. Christmas Canon in D came on the radio and I found myself in silent prayer. A sense of calm came over me. Which totally confirmed what I had been longing to feel... God is everywhere. Even in the parking lot of Starbucks on route 17. And although I can find Him outside of church I may just go back next week... to get some exercise... as I chase Ry while he disrupts the service.



Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Sweet Baby Jesus... The first Christmas casualty

Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. For a number of reasons. Ummmm I love presents... just kidding. But seriously who doesn't? And giving someone that one thing you know they will love... priceless. Especially if it is your kid. Having children seems to drastically change your gift giving practices... or at least ours. Before kids you buy for everyone. EVERYONE. You get married and then you have twice as many people to buy for so you cut back on gift exchanging with friends. Then you have a baby and you cut back on everything. The holidays become strictly for the kids. Yours and others under a certain age with in the family. Before kids my husband and I would exchange extravagant gifts. After we started buying one big household item that we both wanted like a new TV or something super cool like a stainless steel fridge with an ice maker. Three kids later we... say Merry Christmas and watch the kids tear into their gifts from "Santa". The mythological fat guy that gets all the credit for your hard work and hard earned money.

I used to love decorating for Christmas. I would transform our house into a winter wonderland. Everything from shower curtains and bathmats, comforters and curtains, to villages with hundreds of pieces, lights that would blink and sing, even fake snow. I had stocking hung in every room and Christmas music obnoxiously blaring through out the house from the day after Halloween until weeks after New Year's. I loved all the vibrant colors and... glitter! Everything had to be doused with glitter.

After I had kids Christmas decorating was much more of a task. Even finding the time to do it felt like a chore. But once it wasdone I would fall in love with all of it all over again. And then I had a miscarriage on Christmas morning two years ago... And I wanted nothing more than for Christmas to just GO AWAY. After the longest day ever I put the kids to bed. Poured myself a glass of vodka and started to dismantle the décor. I went to the closet and started to pull out all of the Styrofoam lined boxes that I would normally place each ornament so carefully in....  when I felt this overwhelming tightness in my chest. I was about to have a panic attack... I opened the front door and as the icy air rushed in the only thought that I had was to not pack this crap up. I wanted Christmas to be over. Now. I didn't want to take hours undecorating the tree. I wanted it gone. Out of my sight. So I slipped the door stopper over and pushed the tree right out of the house. It went crashing down our front steps. The sound of shattering glass filled the air. Tiny shards flew in every direction. Covering our front yard in sharp slivers of broken memories. Aidan's Christmas ornament... shattered. The years of ornaments we had exchanged for our anniversaries in smithereens.  And oddly enough it made me feel better.

I took one look around the living room and got out the biggest box I could find. House after house I threw them in the box haphazardly listening to each one break. I had never in my life understood how someone could get angry or upset enough to break their own stuff. It's illogical. But that night it made perfect sense.  All in all it took about 30 minutes to take down what took me days to put up. I shoved all of the boxes carelessly in the closet. Mopped floor, changed the curtains and bed sets. I dusted and put all of the non holiday stuff back in its place... and exhausted went to bed. The next morning I woke up and let the dog out. As I walked down the steps with Chachi I felt the glass crunch underneath my slippers and immediately regretted my impulsive Christmas slaughter.

I regretted it that much more the next year when I took out box after box of broken glass. We barely had anything to hang on the tree. We didn't even have a tree. The one I kicked down the flight of front steps last year and tossed in the trash... was a fake tree... that cost hundreds of dollars. (sigh)
But there is always an upside. I have already given birth to Rylan who is only two months old at this point. I am exhausted and still a little bitter about Christmas and with not many salvageable decorations left there really wasn't much to do. Which was a bit of a relief. I sifted through and hot glued back together what I could. I even put some of the broken ornaments back on the new fake tree. Not quite the winter wonderland it had been in years prior but definitely a step up from the previous year.

So the holidays came and went and before I knew it they were back. This year I decorated while the kids were asleep. I watched Elf and drank hot chocolate and apparently got so caught up in what I was doing I forgot I have a very curious, very active toddler. I was quickly reminded first thing in the morning when his tiny hands began to grab for any shiny, glass, or glittery object within reach. Grab and run. That seemed to be the name of the game we were playing. And then it happened. Rylan grabbed the baby Jesus. Stole him right out the manger (where he isn't supposed to be placed until Christmas) .  Grab and run was getting old... the game changer? Grab and toss! And there he went.... sweet baby Jesus. Flying high. Crashing hard. In less than hour we had our first Christmas casualty. Since then the ornaments have moved further up the tree and most of the villages have been packed back up... it's a shameful half assed job... Oh well there is always next year.

Monday, December 1, 2014

friendless and fine

There are a few things that I know with a fair amount of certainty... I am good at. Big things. I am good at being a mom. My kids watch TV, eat inorganic foods, occasionally drink soda, and have a favorite curse word or two... yet I don't question my parenting. I am a good mom.

Little things... I can draw really well. If you ask my son I am the best at making bubble letters and cartoon super heroes. I am good at face paint. If you want to be red skull next Halloween I am you girl. Not to mention I don't suck at writing. Although I know how to I refuse to use proper grammar especially for my blog posts because I just feel like text book punctuation does not suit me. But grammar aside I can tell a good story and funny... I have got funny nailed. When I am in the mood I can be a riot.

So there they are... my strong points. So what am I not good at? Money. That's a big one. I live in a state of perpetual broke-ness. Not because my husband doesn't make good money. He actually does really well. I just have a habit of spending it. I am a shameless label whore that can not comprehend the meaning of a budget. Well that is not true... I know what a budget is just not how it should apply to me. The number attached to our bank account rarely influences my decision to purchase something and that seems to be a problem.

My other down fall (and the one that is bothering me most lately)... friendships. I have a really hard time maintaining them. Which some what defies logic. I have all the qualities of a good friend. I am honest. Which when I am friends with someone it is the one thing that they adore, even admire about me... until I am honest with them. I am not that girl that can pretend that something is okay with me when it is not. And as it turns out honesty is not the best quality. In fact most people like being liked lied to... especially when the question is something like "Are you mad at me?" or "did I do something wrong?" First of all I firmly believe that if you are even asking those questions than you already know that the answer is yes... to both. But no one wants to hear that. Those kinds of questions are asked with the hope that you will suck it up and lie for the sake of skipping a really uncomfortable conversation. Two unfortunate things for my friends I will be honest with you... no matter what... and two I don't mind awkward conversations. I actually prefer them over fake friendships.

I am loyal. Loyal to a fault. I will stand by even if you are wrong or what you are doing doesn't make any sense to me. If you believe in it and need someone there for you... well than you can count on me. I will even make excuses for you so that I can remain loyal... until you do something so entirely shitful that I can't overlook it, ignore it, or explain it away. And in that case I am the very opposite of loyal.

I am kind and generous. I will go the extra mile for a stranger so you can just imagine what I would do for a friend... the problem with that? Not even that I expect the same in return but I do expect people at the very least to be decent and thoughtful which is apparently an impossibly high standard. I am constantly disappointed by the actions of others.

But I think my inability to maintain meaningful friendships stems from two things my very low tolerance for bullshit and my zero tolerance for lies... even little white ones. And so I have a very small ever dwindling circle of friends which recently got much smaller. Admittedly there are times that  it makes me sad. I don't fit in and for the most part I don't want to but I do wish in part that I could let things go for my own sake. Maybe life would be easier if I didn't get so invested. But for me there is no in between... I am either 100% in or completely out. In the end I would rather be real all alone than choking on the fakeness in a group of girls that just don't get me.