The girls and I were driving home
from basketball practice a few nights ago.
It was dark, illuminating the holiday lights adorning people’s houses. “Katie, you say ‘ooooooh’ every time there is
a display on your side, and I’ll say ‘ooooooo’ every time there is one on my
side. That way we know which way to look
at the cool lights!” Those girls had a
rip-roaring time, oooooing and ahhhhing at all the houses. The car vibrated with excitement and the two
of them squealing – “Ooooooo!
Lookit! Ooooooo! More lights – those are red! Purple!
Oh! My! Gosh – it’s a huge Rudolph!! Mommy keep driving so we can see more houses
that make us go, Oooooo!”
As we
finally pulled into our driveway after taking the long way home, it looked
naked and empty with just the one, lonely outside light. Apparently Sophie and
Katie were thinking the same as I was, because they started chirping, “Mommy,
why don’t we have lights? Can we put up
lights? Can we do it this weekend –
PLEASE!!!??!” I wasn’t running out to
get a blow-up Santa, but our house needed a little Christmas cheer – and I was
excited and ready to get our decorating on.
This year - for the first time - we
put up outside Christmas lights. In the
past it seemed as if it would prove to be a herculean task, given all that is
required to be a human being most days, let alone a human at Christmas
time. When the girls were babies, we
were in such survival mode that anything extra – meaning a step above just
decorating the tree - was enough to put me over the edge. I must confess, I think there was a year when
we didn’t even put up a tree. Negotiating a toddler who has the walking
abilities of a drunken sailor at best plus a delicately adorned Christmas tree
compounded with the thousand and one, “no touching, just looking please” that I
robotically commanded everyday was too much.
It was the tree or my sanity.
Luckily my sanity eked it out that year.
Thankfully, those days of baby
desperation are long past, because I have two girls who fully believe and at
the very least expect a Christmas tree.
In our garage, we unearthed bags of white lights that we had left over
from decorating the tent where we held our wedding reception. We decided to wind them around the hydrangea
bushes in our front yard. At some point
along the decorating process, I slipped inside to get dinner ready. Cliff and the girls took over, testing
lights, seeing which bulbs worked, plugging things in, and stepping back to
admire their progress. “Babe!” Cliff called to me, “Do the girls and I have
enough time before dinner to run to the store to get more lights?” “Momma!”
Squealed Sophie, jumping and clapping, “We need more lights!”
There is no guarantee what holiday
moments the girls are going to remember.
It is a good chance that they won’t remember the meal I cooked or maybe
they won’t remember a single present they received this year. But I do hope they remember the excitement of
driving to the store with Cliff to get more lights, so we could have a house
that when kids drive by they say, “Ooooooo!”
I know I will remember this one.
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