Slacker Christmas

Four of our five children are home for Christmas. Today will be our big dinner, and the day for gathering the boyfriends into our weird family circle--a true test of their mettle!

The menu is leg of lamb, rice, sweet potatoes, asparagus, tossed salad, and caramel cheesecake with some white wine that the kids are picking up at the same time as the boyfriends.

Last night the girls and I played a silly game called MadGabs, a gift from our youngest son to our middle daughter. It's been a very long time since I've laughed so hard.

Yesterday morning I returned from the 9 am Christmas eucharist and at our house people were just getting started. The four kids and I were soon sitting around the living room, too lethargic even to get the stockings off the mantel. My husband, who loves his work, was (no kidding! on Christmas!) happily at work on his laptop in the dining room. Our youngest son cracked us up by commenting that we were having Slacker Christmas. I admit that I feel guilty about how minimalist our Christmases are. Our tree finally went up the night before Christmas Eve. There are four pathetic red bows tied on our front porch and --finally! as of Christmas Eve!--a wreath on the door. Slacker Son cut our tree down from our own vast collection of little pines, brought it in, and decorated it with lights and light-weight ornaments. We draw names and buy one gift for the person whose name we draw, with a $25 limit. So there's little to do in the way of wrapping gifts. (I send a few other gifts out to godchildren and a couple of dear friends, but that's it. ) So just before noon on Christmas, we dragged Daddy away from his computer, opened our gifts, and headed into the kitchen to make waffles. It was peaceful and happy.

I cried when I opened my gift, a collaborative effort on the part of all the children who had created a scrapbook of photos, letters, memorabilia from their childhood. They promise to expand it as more grandchildren join the family.

Christmas afternoon, seriously sleep-deprived Mama Priest was taking a long nap, when two of her youngsters bounded in and tickled her and attempted to drag her from the bed. They wanted her to join them and the dogs on a long walk. Ten years ago the kids used to do this. But they were smaller. Now they are taller than I am and most weigh more than I do. Fifteen or twenty years ago they used to do this, and my husband and I just laughed at our litter of human puppies wriggling all around us and called them "The Young of the Species." One of the kids, a toddler at the time, giggled and said, "We're NOT Young Peachies!" In 2008, the 17 year old baby and the 23 year old oldest daughter succeeded in wrestling Mom out of bed, and the two older girls and I and the two shelties headed out. The skies were freshly scrubbed after a lot of Christmas Eve rain. Everything smelled wonderfully damp. In the hour we walked, only two cars passed us. We also said "Merry Christmas!" to two neighbors sitting on their front porch with a banjo. This was definitely North Georgia Christmas. The temperature was around 60. (Eat your heart out, Chicago!)

We made and ate supper, played games, and called it a night.
Slacker Christmas!??
Maybe, but it was one of the most wonderful days we've had together as a family in years, with no agenda but enjoying one another's company. I'm not normally a weepy person. But I had to excuse myself in the middle of the MadGabs game to run off and shed tears again. It's been so long since we've been all together like this. I think it was the combination of missing our oldest child and my beloved granddaughter, and remembering all the years of raising these amazing children who have become wonderful adults.
"Those who go out weeping, carryng the seedd,
will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves." (Ps. 126:7)