unexpected best

 

What interesting sensations at the tag end of this holiday season.  In so many ways, it was our best yet.   

It was about as bare bones as we’ve ever been, with NO lights outside, with the house not at all in the order that I’d like (every time I cleared & cleaned, an avalanche of stuff seemed to resurge), with the Murphy village never set up or the ice cycles dangled from the upper edge of the living room wall.   

But the nativity was the first thing set up and Flipper is safely rescued from behind the china cabinet & ensconced in Santa’s sleigh, the table-top tree John gave me on our first Christmas is atop the book case (well out of reach of interested cats) & we made it to Tableaux as well as Christmas Day church service.   

Maybe it's as simple as realizing out Christmas was more Maud & Mischa Petersham, less Norman Rockwell.

 

It was certainly our best yet - OUR best, not necessarily anyone else's.  We spent Christmas Eve watching a marathon of Jack Benny and Ozzie & Harriet Christmas episodes, which lead to us sharing memories from our own early Christmases, his on Akron Street in Philadelphia & mine at the Lockharts' various Bryn Athyn homes.  We took a grannie client to another friend's house for Christmas Day breakfast, then escorted both to church.  Immediately after church, we were off to the cozy home of friends where we have been welcomed for Christmas dinner ever since Mom was reunited with her O! Best Beloved.  Christmas night - another marathon, this time of Beverly Hillbillies, Bob Cummings, Racket Squad & Annie Oakley Christmas shows!

We still await opening our own presents.  It became a tradition to hold off gift-giving until the new year back in the days that John had tight end-of-year deadlines for commercial clients.  This year, he has a very nice assignment, but without the stress.  Were supposed to be celebrating today, New Year's, but that didn't work out.  Sunday?

Am taken aback by how I am processing it.  It was our best, yet part of me feels like we did it wrong BECAUSE it was so laid back.  Peter & Mim were even part of it, at a safe (for all of us) but loving arm's length!  And there were all those marvelous photos of Riley to hold in my heart.  

Reminds me of how it felt when I discovered at literally the last moment that I couldn't go to my first workshop at Rowe - disappointed, but not crushed.  Felt strange, not feeling despondent, just regretful that it was the best course of action given our finances at the time.  

Feel sort of the same right now.  Experienced our best Christmas yet, but am weirdly  resisting savoring it, like enjoying a Christmas without all the trimmings of yesteryear is somehow wrong.  Interesting to experience, important to hold onto what is actual - that it suited us to our very core - rather than fall prey to ghosts of Christmases Past.