I'm not sure what's going on with my precious gifts from above lately, but they have formed a mutiny against me...or decorating for Christmas. N said he didn't even know why we bothered decorating the Christmas tree because it just meant we had to take it all down in a few weeks. B wanted a decorated tree, but he wanted me to do all of the decorating. I was done with both of them, so I divided the ornaments into four piles: N's, B's, mine, and those ornaments not dedicated to any particular individual. A lot of the ornaments in the last category come from my childhood, but I'm equal opportunity about who hangs them on the tree. And it's not like the boys are super old, so they only have as many ornaments as years they've been alive...so clearly, it was pure torture to put 14 and 11 ornaments, respectively, on the tree.
We laughed over N's unfortunate choice of ornament when he was in Kindergarten (Jeff Gordon), then laughed harder when the string broke and he crafted a noose instead. We laughed even harder at the candy canes B made when he was younger, and an ornament with a picture of him with a shaving cream Santa beard. My yellow fro angel, also with a golden noose around her neck, is an all-time favorite, as is the crumbled up aluminum ball with a pipe cleaner hook sticking out of the top.
We have a very classy Christmas tree. In fact, they both gave me crap about how it wasn't just solid colored balls and plain lights and simple. Is that the purpose of a Christmas tree? I always thought it was supposed to be a delightful hodgepodge of ornaments, handmade or not, each with a specific memory attached. When I look at the tree, I don't look for symmetry or a color scheme...I look at the elf with a cell phone attached to her hand (my sister has one, too) and think of how I miss my sister. I look at the little chalkboard with my name on it where the boys write whether I have been naughty or nice each year (Newsflash: It's always naughty). I look at the handmade ornaments from each of our preschool "careers" and laugh at how imperfectly wonderful each of them are. I look at the rollerblades ornaments made out of stocking material each of the boys got the year they went ice skating for the first time (it was a disaster...which makes their collective desire to play ice hockey all the more entertaining), and remember their faces when they saw my sister and me doing synchronized moves around the rink, totally dry, while their pants were dripping in puddles around them from falling down so much. I look at the first ornament I ever got, then the first ornament I got as a mom...and I realize THAT is what Christmas is about. Imperfection.
I am far from perfect. I put on a great show, trying to pretend I am, but let's face it...I am a mess. And that's okay. Because I'm closer to not being a mess than I was when all of this started. And each day I move forward is another day I move further from the horrible chaos that was once the "norm" and into the beautiful chaos that I have chosen. And, begrudgingly, they began to hang their ornaments on the tree. N clustered all of his together, which makes me crazy (and he knows it), so I'm trying not to let it bug me, even though we both know I'll probably go move all the ornaments tomorrow while he's at school. B started, but didn't finish...so he'll help me finish tomorrow (and probably move the ornaments for me because it'll piss his brother off) when he gets home from school. And that's about the extent of my decorating. The stockings are dangling from the mantle (except mine because my stocking hanger is M.I.A.), the peanut Baby Jesus, Mary (with the alien eyes), and Joseph (with the weird beard) are prominently displayed (I think I was five...max...when these were made), and we're just going to keep our holiday cheer on the inside this year.
Speaking of holiday cheer...tonight was B's Christmas musical about the North Pole. It was cute, but I kept catching my B yawning. He kept catching someone's eye and smiling and making weird faces, too. Afterwards, he told me he thought he was rolling his eyes at me, but it turns out it was someone else wearing gray and purple with dark hair and "a white face." Good times, that B...never a dull moment. My favorite part was the group of snowmen who sang as they did the Thriller choreography, and then the head snowman moonwalked across the stage. High quality entertainment, right there. As we left, we celebrated never having to do that again, unless B decides to be in theater moving forward. He would be EXCELLENT in theater. The kid has a natural flair for the dramatic...as he told me SIX hours later that he thought his leg was broken after a kid kicked him in the shin with his basketball shoe.
We ended the performance with Chipotle for them (Blech!) and Mooyah for me...because it was next door.
After B went to bed, N and I watched the last period of the Stars game and co-existed fairly peacefully. It was a pretty good second day of the week, even if they were all Scrooge-ish about the Christmas tree. I guess if they want to be Scrooges, then I can be Scrooge-y with the presents, right?
Isn't that how it works?
Aubs
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