Twists and Turns of December

What is the most important thing to celebrate in this twelfth month of the year?

I am glad we have my husband's family visiting us. Yes, I feel challenged emotionally by this.  But I am learning a lot, about myself.  It is humbling!

What are the quirks of this visit? Well, DS began hiding in his room from Day One, as he is a teen in high school and feels the intimacy of our house as being too small, for two guests, even if they are his grammie and aunt. 

We celebrate German-style decorating our tree on Christmas Eve.  On the 19th (which is early for us), we had to leap at the opportunity to buy the penultimate tree at Home Depot. At least our tree was green.....DH immediately described our Christmas tree as the ugliest we have ever had. He said it more than once. It was two days before our tree began to drink water, it had been so long removed from life support.

When we finally got a wee bit of spirit for decorating two days later, I tried different wording:  "It's a Charlie Brown tree," hoping it would lighten the mood.  

Speaking of lighting--every year I hold my breath anticipating a string of lights with a dud in them. This year, was the year, my dread was reality. The blessing? Our Charlie Brown was so small this year that one string was enough!

But the best relief laugh so far, was the cot that I ordered, special, from a major camping retailer, that my was to be bed for my sis-in-law. I ordered it at Thanksgiving.  It still has not come.   Our guests leave on the 2nd of January.  When I called to find out when it might arrive, I was told it would be in the warehouse on January 3rd.  Uh-huh.

Blessing was that a friend in our new home town offered to loan us a blow-up cot, before she took off out of state on the 21st.  Thank you thank you thank you, Elizabeth!  I owe you.  

Every time I see our cat sleeping on my sis-in-law's bed, your cot reminds me that all really is OK. The white lights on our tree continue to glow.  Our son comes out of his lair when he feels up to it. Everything really CAN work out, if I just step out of the way.

And don't judge.