Bec's Happybox

Merry Christmas!

A happy and peaceful day to everyone. 

And just to show we're not above a little crass materialism, here is a photo of the children enjoying their Christmas morning loot.  A "baby grand" for M'hijo and fancy fake fur mittens and scarf for Sahsez. 

Peace

I like what Pooks said here about merriment vs. peace at Christmastime.  Or rather, what I interpret her pithy statement as meaning, which is that we should strive for the latter over the former.  Especially for religious folks like me, it really is silly to be always thinking about making Christmas FUN.  So I have stopped doing that.  And I think, by focussing on peace rather than merriment, we might actually get a bit of both.

Paring down:  no gifts for adults this year, as last year, and no putting up of Christmas lights, as last year.  Yes to the tree and stockings and gifts for the kids.  Yes to turkey, no to immense amounts of baked goods.  Yes to a lot of events in the first half of the month, no to events in the second half.  Yes to leading the children's music at the Christmas Eve service, no to serving on the worship committee in 2007.  Yes to morning pages, no to a tidy bedroom.  The result of all this?  I am feeling quite peaceful today, on the winter solstice.  Also helps to get up at 5:30 and have ninety blissfully baby-free minutes first thing in the day. 

Fragile

You know, Victoria really cannot cope.  Earlier this month, all hell broke loose because of two snowstorms.  Now, this week, we've had three (I think) windstorms and once again it is havoc!  Roads are blocked, thousands of places have no power, some have no phones, schools are closed -- it's insane.  I'm not complaining here.  It's just a little surprising to see how fragile we are.  I don't even have any water in case of earthquake and yet it seems it takes much less than an earthquake to throw everything into a maelstrom.   

We have been very lucky that we haven't lost power and we haven't lost our phone and we haven't had to boil our water like they did in Vancouver.  A few blocks away they don't expect to have their lights on again for a few days. 

It is sort of neat that my friend Farheen gave birth to her daughter last night in the dark, with nothing but her fireplace for light and warmth. 

Another Blog to Neglect

Here is some news that should make everyone happy.  For those who aren't crazy about my food and wine entries (Olivia, I'm looking your way), it will mean no more of them here at Happybox.  For those who do like those entries, I will henceforth indulge all my food- and wine-blogging tendecies over at Dinner in the Yellow House. 

December Babies

Okay, that previous entry was very whiny.  Here is a little antidote: the December birthday boys after some hard partying. 

Tobias turned 30 yesterday and M'hijo will be one on the 27th.

Surviving December

Before this month started, Tobias and I laid out some ground rules that we hoped would help us survive the season without too many crises.  Unfortunately, I can't remember what any of those ground rules were.  I think one of them was that I was supposed to buy a new outfit that I liked and then wear it to every event, thus ensuring that I would never ask Tobias his most dreaded question "What do you think I should wear tonight?"

But buying an outfit means shopping for an outfit and shopping for an outfit takes time -- M'hijo-free time.  M'hijo free times does not come easy.  I got quite a lot of it in November for NaNoWriMo, but my troops are still recovering from that and not jumping to attention whenever I start to whimper "I need some time..."

So, no outfit.  But Tobias did get me a pretty lovely cashmere sweater in Seattle this past weekend, so, even though it is not particularly festive (brown turtleneck) it may just do.  Anyway, half the women at the office Christmas party last week were wearing jeans, so apparently I can afford to be a little more casual than I thought. 

Other than that, I think one of our resolutions was that we would turn down a few events.  But this proves impossible.  I mean, to whom do you say no?  It's not like we don't want to see our friends and family this month, and every event is actually pretty important, it's just that there're so many of them.  This year, it's not just Christmas, Tobias' birthday, M'hijo's birthday and NYE that we're celebrating.  There's also an Impending Fatherhood party this weekend for a very close friend and a bachelor party and a wedding.  Yikes!  No one should be allowed to give birth or get married  in December. 

I haven't read my book yet.  Perhaps this weekend.