Christmas. Regardless of what the holiday means to you, for most of us, this time of the year is widely met with anticipation. For most of us it started as children. First Christmas meant a time of presents, special treats, visits to Santa, holiday visits with family, driving around looking at Christmas lights...the list is practically endless.
As we age, some of the magic of the holiday fades. We discover that Santa isn't real, yet (at least in my family) we kept playing along...for years. It's one of the oddities of having siblings who are so spread out. However, there are still exciting things to look forward to: a long break from school, your favorite Christmas treats (we had neighbors who were more like our second family growing up who made egg kisses every year at Christmas and they were definitely a favorite!), maybe snow to go sledding in, and of course presents...somehow the presents really don't get old.
For many of us, Christmas was also a time of anticipation in our respective religious establishments. I was raised Catholic and thus Christmas followed the season of Advent. A time of waiting to celebrate the birth of Jesus. We also celebrated Christmas at church through Epiphany, which meant the Christmas carols didn't end on December 25th. Growing up, we were certainly taught the meaning of Christmas...in fact, one of my earliest Christmas memories is of my dad playing his guitar and teaching me the words to Away in a Manger. We are working to teach our own kids this. It's why this year the only decorations in our house are our Christmas tree, the stockings and both our pretty Nativity scene and the kids' small play Nativity scene.
Sometime in our adult years, the focus shifts. We may say Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, spending time with family, forming traditions, and making memories, but the truth is it becomes a season of busyness. There are Christmas parties to attend, cookies to bake, presents to buy and wrap, the list just goes on. It seems like everywhere you look there is a new tradition that you need to start. A new way to celebrate that you have to do. Something else that, if you let it slide, will make the holiday less magical for your children. And so we cram. We commit to holiday parties, cookie exchanges, secret Santas and the like. Driving around to look at Christmas lights is no longer good enough...we drive long distances to elaborate (and often expensive) professionally done displays. We volunteer, donate, and do. Gift buying gets bigger and bigger and the list expands. We convince ourselves that our kids probably do need a new gaming system (for the third year in a row) and probably a new tv to go along with it. And then we think, maybe...just maybe, we really should buy our hairdresser's cousin's wife a present. I mean, after all, she did talk to you that one time at the salon. You'd hate to leave her out.
At this point, it may sound like I am jaded towards the holidays. I can assure you I am not. However, this year, we have the added anticipation of adding a new member to our family exactly one week before Christmas. Knowing that I will be largely incapacitated with healing from major surgery and caring for a newborn has really forced me to take about 20 steps back this year. I already mentioned that we did very little on the decorating front. The reasoning here was twofold. First, as our first year in a new house, we are in need of new decorations that fit our space. This means more shopping, which I just don't have the time or energy for right now. Second, I knew that no one was going to be overly thrilled about having more to take down and put away in the midst of the newborn non-sleeping haze. Alexandra, in particular, was upset about this. She loves all things pretty, decorated and overdone. Truthfully, I would LOVE nothing more than to turn our house into a Winter Wonderland for her because I know the absolute JOY it would bring her. But this is not the year to do it. The kids both have Christmas parties (on the same day naturally), Christmas performances, pajama days (at both school and church), and a Polar Express parade (on the day the baby comes) requiring a box large enough to fit Alexandra decorated like a holiday train car...since she's five we can all guess who that task falls to. The list is never-ending. As we were leaving church on Sunday we were handed a stack of cards with ideas for celebrating the Christmas season with our families...the idea being to draw a card every day and do the activity on it. Some were simple: sing Christmas carols together. Others were much more involved: bake Christmas cookies for all of your neighbors. I played the part of the Christmas troll and threw the cards away. We just don't need ONE more thing to DO this year.
Over the weekend Nat helped the kids bake and decorate sugar cookies and we took them to a Nutcracker Tea performance. In the past I have also helped them bake gingerbread cookies that we decorate for Santa...a task which he has promised to take on this year. We also have a gingerbread house waiting to be assembled and decorated which we plan to do this weekend. Presents have been (mostly) bought...at least for them. We still have our families to largely figure out. And everything needs to be wrapped. See I want this year to still be magical for my big kids, but I also want to keep things in perspective. For me, we are reaching the climax of 16 months of anticipation. It has been 16 months since we decided to try to add another family member. As I sat very newly pregnant last Thanksgiving I remember Nat and I laughing about how next year we would have another little one at the table. I'd be lying if I said I didn't shed a tear over that at Thanksgiving this year. At Christmas last year I talked about having to find new stocking hangers as our current set of four wasn't going to work next year. And, yes, I am extremely happy that I got to hang a fifth stocking on our fireplace this year, but it's still sometimes sad to realize it wasn't for the baby we thought it would be.
And so, this year--in a season that has largely been marked by anticipation, I am faced with a new kind of anticipation: the anticipation of holding my brand new baby as we celebrate the birth of a baby more than 2000 years ago. Even 9 days away from delivery, my head and my heart are reluctant. Reluctant to believe that a year that started out so terribly bad, could possibly end so well. Reluctant to understand that almost exactly 11 months later life could look so different than it did. Reluctant to bask in the awe of the season. There aren't many times in my life that I have been more anxious for something to be over and be able to move on to the next season and yet I want to embrace this time to. It's also my last time (ever) to be pregnant, my last time to feel a baby moving inside me. It will be my last time to look into a brand new face for the first time and know that it's my child. And these are my last days with just two kids...the last days before Woodson becomes a big brother and can no longer be my "baby."
I often wonder how I'll look back on this year. Will this be the year that the kids remember Christmas as laid-back and relaxed or the year Mom and Dad phoned it in? Will I look back and remember the anxiousness of this time or the excitement that surrounds a brand new baby. Will the memories of this Christmas fade as the years go by...or will I always remember the anticipation I felt leading up to Christmas 2014?
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