Recall Together

It’s not that the girls were naughty Sunday.  There were just circumstances that occurred that led Jesse and I to want to pull our hair out.  Like Harper’s exclamation, “Mommy!  I found the stamps!” minutes after she’d just had a bath and put on her Sunday best.  Minutes before we were to leave for church.  It is amazing the little amount of time it takes to coat our living room in green footprints, as well as turn one’s cheeks, fingers, and lips green.  If I ask Harper to clean up her toys, it’s an all day process.  But pay homage to Oscar the Grouch using our home and her body as a canvas?  Done in three minutes.

And Hadley apparently took some sort of “I’m going to wake up and never stop talking or moving” pill on Saturday night that lit a fire under her butt so that we didn’t know if we were raising a 5 year old or stuck in a pin ball machine.  It was only while she was buckled into the carseat that she realized none of her limbs were moving.  This doesn’t usually bother her but yesterday she complained, “I just don’t know what to do right now.” After being worn out from trying to get Harper to look as though we weren’t auditioning her for the next Muppet movie, I said, “Hadley?  Why don’t you just be quiet and look out the window.”  She thought about that for a moment and said, “I suppose I could clap my hands.”

That’s what she did.  All the way to church.  Which is a thirty minute drive on a good day in DC traffic.  It wasn’t a good day.

So on Sunday night, when we planned on decorating our tree, I wasn’t really in the mood.  The day just hadn’t gone how I wanted it to go.  I thought perhaps we shouldn’t get a tree this year, though the first whiffs of the balsam fir Jesse brought into our home changed my mind.  The girls were wound up as ever but we opened up shoeboxes filled with tissue paper wrapped ornaments and got to work.  “Look out for the Harper! Look out for the Harper!” our newly three year old yelled as she climbed onto a chair, an ornament in hand and remnants of hot chocolate all over her face.

We have ornaments from every year Jesse has been alive.  A wonderful gift from his mother, she gave him one each year then gave them to us when we were married.  Our first Christmas we had 23 memories hanging from our first tree, plus one for me: a gesture that told me I am part of the tradition now too, and our memories will mesh together as our ornament collection grows.

I love looking at the ornaments I received from students and friends over the years as well.  I have a wooden angel from my friend Janel, and an “official” 2004 White House Christmas ornament given to me from a student the first year we moved here.  I have several apples with my name on it given by parents of students I taught. Last night I showed Hadley a fancy lady in a sparkly, colorful dress and told her that it was given to me by one of my students when I was a teacher.  I told her he wrote great stories and drew the best pictures.  She said, “Then you should be the one to hang this ornament up, Mama.”

I like to read the book, God With Us during Advent.  On Sunday morning, I read about recollection and the importance of not just contemplating Christmas by oneself, but together.  That’s nice, I thought as I sat between Hadley and Harper drinking my coffee as they made an “ice skating rink” with leftover syrup from their waffles.  And then I rolled my eyes and went to get a paper towel to clean up the mess.

Perhaps I wasn’t in the mood to get a tree because I wouldn’t be recollecting the way I want to: in peace and quiet, with the Christmas tree lights on and sipping a cup of coffee in my favorite chair.  But the prayer for this Second Sunday of Advent began like this: “As this season of preparation continues, Holy God who is with us, may we lean into every moment of our days to redeem the time, to make the most of our every moment.”

Every moment.  I’ll take them: the little green footprints, my Energizer Bunny of a 5 year old, the Aunt Jemima ice skating rink, and all the other moments that make up the ornaments I’m collecting.

I am linking up with Tuesdays Unwrapped at Chatting as the Sky.