I understand now. I know why the Grinch was cranky. Scrooge too. They paint those characters in poor light, making them out to be evil and thoughtless and cold hearted. We're not supposed to be able to relate to them - they're the bad guys. But now I get it... I see their point! Christmas is wonderful; the build-up to the Big Day is exciting and fun, the anticipation and hope and belief in the unknown is remarkable. The Day itself is amazing - the love of being together, the fun watching each other be pleased with surprizes and the feeling of being thought of enough that someone searched for just the right thing, nothing like it. BUT, Scrooge and the Grinch are old hats at this Christmas business. While everyone else naievely goes about their Merry way of building up to Christmas they are cranky for ONE reason. They remember the week AFTER Christmas. Everyone else, including myself, seems to forget the week after and gets swept up in the wonder and belief and merry ha ha'ing of Christmas preparations that we poo poo the warnings of those in the know (afore mentioned Grinch and Scrooge) and call them evil and shake our unknowing heads at the way they are missing the moment. In fact, they are trying to warn us - "don't get too nuts about this folks, wait 'til you see what comes next!"
So what's next? Feeling crappy from eating too much, exhausted from too many late nights, unprecedented mess of STUFF that needs a new place to be put away, overtired (read whiney) kids, a dead plant p*ssing needles all over the house, mounds of garbage from packaging and wrapping materials, traffic from boxing week shoppers, decorations that hide until everything else has been taken away, guilt over money spent and last but not least, a let down feeling that it's "all over" for another year, with 363 more sleeps before Santa comes again. Bah Humbug.
Tee hee... just kidding of course - though each of those have a grain of truth. I do find the week after Christmas kinda tough to get through because of the feeling of it being all over, but I'm soaking up my last few days off with the kids. Today we went to the movies to see "The Water Horse", which was far more scary than I anticipated. Poor PJ would just get settled back in her chair, proudly announced "No monster now" when the creature would come out of the water again and she'd be clamouring back into my lap and hiding her face in my neck. Hey, I kinda liked that part.
We had a fantastic Christmas Day. Steve's parents were here for most of the day and his sister was here for dinner. My parents joined us by internet camera and the kids LOVED showing each present to them at the laptop. We woke up at 7, which is pretty good for three small kids, and opened our stocking stuff. Santa spoiled them silly:
Elliot's Haul
Jack's Collection:
PJ's stash:
We cleaned up that mess and had a brunch with everyone. Then we let into the big stuff under the tree. For the first year, every kid opened all of their own presents, which was nice (previous years have left a pile of unopened presents after the young child was just done with opening). We cleaned up the mess and settled in for some quiet game or nap time, then rustled up a delicious turkey and roast pork supper. After supper, Steve and I "remembered" the big present the kids got, their bounce house! So they opened that and played in it a while.
Boxing Day we headed to Steve's parents' place for a couple nights, and spent most of our time hanging out. We got to see my g'mother, and give her our gifts - aparently I got full credit for the presents my parents gave her, which is easy points for me. We got home yesterday and spent much of yesterday and today getting the house back in order - the tree is down, the presents put away... I have energy left over to tackle other jobs that have been left undone for too long, like our bedroom, which unfortuately becomes a dumping ground for anything we want out of the living room on a moment's notice.
We're excited for New Year's. We're headed to Moncton with three other couples for a day at Crystal Palace, an indoor amusement park with rides, etc, then dinner and hanging out at a hotel. The hotel has a pool too, which is always fun for our kiddos. I'm hoping the weather is good!
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are surviving the fall out. Be safe NYE. Here's to a happy, healthy and hopeful 2008. May it be a year of wishes coming true... I know I have one wish I'm counting on.
N
No comments:
Post a Comment