As Christmas Day comes to a weary end, I can hear Tobie and Hazel laughing in the bath and the smell of new nailpolish wafts upstairs from Phemie's room. I plan to settle in front of National Lampoons Christmas Vacation with a little Bailys Irish Cream and some Christmas cake and take a big sigh, hang on, before we get too syrupy sweet, Hazel just tolds Tobie to shut up and now I've lost my train of lovely thoughts as those two start bickering from down below. Ok, so, as I was saying, big sigh, it's been a busy one but wonderful I must say. As things started to rev up a few weeks ago, handmade decortaions under way, carols in the park organizing committee gearing up, holiday plans, school breakups, piano concerts, school plays, school picnics, parents thankyou morning teas, my cert 4 looming over me like a black cloud, Christmas traditions galore that I absolutely will not let go of, amongst all of this I just happened to pull over one day to answer my phone and it was indeed a call that would change the next two weeks in the most amazing way. A birth, a client, due in a matter of weeks but deciding on a doula at the last minute. So amongst it all I threw myself into this, this intimate experience of an absolutley gorgeous couple and as I hugged them good bye the other day when they dropped in a gift, I realised that in fact everything else had got done and done with an added joy that came with seeing their beautiful baby born. It has made all the Christmas madness, which I love but do get stressed over and usually end up having some sort of screaming turn (refer to blogs of Christmas past), seem just the more brighter and I will forever be grateful to them for giving me this little Christmas miracle of a doula job!
But of course, there are wonderful friends that gather in the park even though the day is scorching, hand made decorations that were hung with a little more pride this year, Christmas cakes that taste decent (why has nobody ever mentioned how discusting my peach ones have been in the past), kitch decrations that we love hanging on our tree year after year that remind us of places we have loved, watching my girls put up our tree all by themselves, impromptu carols with a slightly smaller but no less enthusiastic group of dear friends after for only the second time in nearly ten years I think, we were officially a wash out on the allocated night, family and friends gathered around today, grandparents particularily enjoying the day, Daryl still wearing the hat I stayed up very very late to secretly make him, watching Hazel chase butterflies with her new net, and not so little girls looking so beautiful and grown up in high heels that only Santa would ever agree to! But the voice of Clark Griswald calls me to the couch and tomorrow we head to the beach for a whole month and I'll knit and read and just be with my family and friends and all that is becoming more familiar there year after year. I feel extemely grateful at this very moment for the huge year of change that I have had but have surprisingly embraced with only the occasional tear for my last little one going off to school. Merry Christmas. It really has been a good one.
