It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

For the past few weeks I've been texting the Boys photos of the goings-on in the House on the Corner: Gallons of peppernuts baked and stored in ZipLocs. A gigantic stack of Amazon boxes that had me asking Husband if we can make the UPS guy a dependent on our next tax return. The Dueling Santas.

I have noted before that my slavish devotion to Christmas traditions winds down a little with every year. Years ago I decorated multiple rooms; now if there is an ornament or piece of tinsel outside the confines of the living room it is there by accident. Years ago I made six varieties of candy to distribute to friends and neighbors; now I think of these friends and neighbors fondly and wish them a warm Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays, or I Love Your Ugly Sweater, or whatever I think they would like to hear.

Years ago I hung all of our stockings from the mantle, just under the formal nativity set. I did that for 15 years, until we remodeled the living room and covered the (non-functioning) gas fireplace behind a new wall.

I know! Joanna and Chip are looking at me sadly--not that we covered up the fireplace, but that we didn't just take ALL the walls in the house out so that we could open-concept our entire house and never have one moment of privacy or reprieve from the stacks of dirty pans at Thanksgiving. But I digress.

When we lost the convenient stocking-hanging ledge, I had a moment of panic--would Santa skip our house? The next year the stockings were around a window sill, and the following year draped over the back of the sofa, before I stumbled across a rustic ladder in an antique shop, and voila! We were set.

You may notice, though, the ladder is a bit crowded and this was just our nuclear family. Since then we've added a second green stocking (Lovely Girl#1) and a placeholder stocking (Lovely Girl#2, whose engagement came after my self-imposed I Cannot Finish ANY MORE PROJECTS deadline and will have a green stocking next year), and this year we'll have a temporary stocking for a favorite uncle who will spend Christmas with us.

So the Christmas Stocking Ladder tradition became the Christmas Stocking Door tradition. The remodel had meant we replaced a French door to a balcony with a more energy-efficient window and for years Husband had threatened to throw this door in the trash, but I'm pleased with its festivity and have discovered I don't really miss the ladder at all. The door, frankly, has a lot more room for expansion, and family expansion is (moral-of-the-story alert) is what the original Christmas was all about.

We grow, we change, we move into new phases of life and find they're just as joyful and full of meaning as the previous phases.

No matter what they look like, they all look a lot like Christmas.

Together, Better

Two minutes later. This is love, and perhaps a tribute to modern orthodonture.

I was on my way home from grocery shopping Saturday when the phone in my car rang, and was so glad Earl has a fancy Bluetooth system so that I could answer without taking my hands off the wheel. Safety first, but I had seen who the call was from, and any time there's a Boy calling in the middle of the day it's best to make sure there hasn't been some kind of catastrophe.

"Hey, Mom!" Boy#2's voice came out of the speaker. "Just a second...I'm patching Dad in to this call."

The line went dead, though, and a couple of seconds later Two was back.

"Okay, I'm in Iceland, and apparently we can't make it a three-way international call. Call when you get home."

Iceland?

Husband was waiting at the door with the second phone when I walked in, and I picked up the receiver to hear our second-born tell us that he and the lovely young woman he's been dating for three years are now engaged. They had flown to Iceland for the weekend, and he knelt next to a frozen pond to ask her to marry him. (A side note: Proposals are a lot fancier than they were 35 years ago.)

We weren't surprised--several weeks ago we had been told to block off an autumn 2018 date on our calendars--but I was taken off guard when I found myself in tears. Look at the faces in today's picture. As happy as they are? That's how happy I am.

As parents, we hope our children will find mates who see the good, the strong, the special in our loved ones. Those of us who pray begin praying when our child is tiny that at the right time the right person will come into his life, and that they'll both be better because they're together.

That is what this tall, dark-haired beauty has been for my son. She helped him keep his head up during the slog of his doctoral studies. She laughs at his jokes. She encourages him to wear funny hats. She is a cutthroat game player. She holds her own in the chaos that is the House on the Corner. And she is so, so smart, a doctor who is training to help tiny babies see better.

Most importantly, she loves our son, demonstrating this in ways I can only admire.

A year ago, when Boy#3 needed a tuba player in his high school marching band, she gave up part of her Thanksgiving vacation to cheer on the Fighting Greenbacks (not even kidding) at the state championship.

And one time, when Two was trying to find where a gasket on his aging Taurus was failing, she (forgive in advance the caps gone wild) VOLUNTEERED to CLIMB INTO THE TRUNK and let him POUR WATER OVER IT. There are not enough dollars in the world or love in the universe to make me do something like this, but she was game.

What I'm trying to say is that this smart, game, lively woman is the one who makes my son a better man, and we have fallen in love with her just as he has.

We are so glad she will be our Lovely Girl#2.

Aaaaah, November.

Oh, my.

I have written so many blog posts in my head during the past few weeks. November is, after all, my favorite month. It contains my favorite holiday (Thanksgiving), my favorite gift (a birthday Skype from all four Boys wherein they talk and tease and tumble over each other like puppies, even though they are fully grown and live in four different states), and of course, my favorite Husband.

But I didn't take the time to sit and write out those blog posts. Instead, like all of us old folks who can't figure out Snapchat, I posted poorly framed pictures on Facebook.

The 13 pies that were my contribution to the Thanksgiving feast, for example, since for the first time in 25 years or so we spent the day away from the House on the Corner. Much Older Sister offered to host the extended family and the day was wonderful.

(A footnote on the pies: So much fun to make. I rarely make pies, so this was my excuse to experiment with crusts and fillings, and we ended up with seven different varieties. Except for the two pecan types which had to be chiseled out of the pans after the filling seeped under the crust, most were edible.)

But I haven't posted any pictures of the end of the month, which was spent with that favorite Husband. We had just ticked over 34 on the years-married counter so he knows me fairly well and invited me on the very best kind of anniversary trip--a CPA continuing education seminar.

You laugh, but I prefer this kind of get-away to a spa. For two full days Husband scoots off to hear about the newest tax wrinkles and I have the run of the hotel room, where I read good books (The Magpie Murders, which is delightful), binge-watch British procedurals (oh, Broadchurch, how I love thee) and justify these indulgences by pretending to be productive.

Then when his seminars are done for the day, Husband and I hit the town. We measure old pump organs in antique shops, and decide that even dismantled they will not fit in Earl's hatch.

We search out local food and find such delicacies as "Italian Nachos"which are built on a foundation of (I'm not kidding) fried pasta.

I do not have pictures of the visits to Lowe's and Menard's, but it would not be vacation without at least a few hours spent wandering around the clamps aisles.

So now I'm back, and I have a couple of posts to write. But I'm sighing happily at my remembrance of November.

It's my favorite.