Christmas Came Early

Perhaps it is just me, but it felt as though Christmas snuck up on us this year. It could have been because many hours of my day are spent negotiating with, chasing after and, in general, raising an inquisitive, rambunctious, and all-around normal toddler boy. It could have been because we were in the early stages of being a new family of four. It could have been because just prior to the onset of the holiday season, this area was slammed by a freakish Nor’easter and by the time we had recuperated from the 7-days without power along with its aftermath of the “cancellation of Halloween”, insurance appraisals and tree removal, it was time to carve turkeys and decorate with pumpkins.

Like most people, I certainly became absorbed with the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. The television ads lured me in with their evil ways convincing me that I absolutely needed their fun and educational products for my eldest child in order to provide him a fulfilling childhood and pave his way into an ivy-league future. In addition, there was a self-applied pressure that was on to ensure that this was a memorable celebration for our family seeing that it was Ryan’s First Christmas.

The weeks flew by as our calendar filled up with holiday get-togethers and our home filled up with shopping bags, rolls of wrapping paper, and the seasonal scents of spruce and baking. We scheduled a photo-shoot to get a good picture of the boys for our Christmas cards and decorated the house with wreaths, lights, and other relatively kid-friendly trappings & trimmings. We purchased tons of batteries in all shapes and sizes to accommodate any toy that Santa might bring and both the digital and video cameras lived on their chargers so that they would be ready to capture any priceless memory at a moment’s notice. But BOY did this all take a LOT of work!

Before I knew it, the big weekend was here! We spent Christmas Eve with my side of the family. Over hors d'oeuvres, we shared many laughs watching the little ones unwrap their gifts and be charmed by the simplest of things. As Ryan slept the evening away in his crib, Caiden was enamored by a PEZ dispenser that looked like a Shop-Rite truck. And while my niece, Alison, played Santa Claus passing out all the presents to everyone and demonstrating her reading skills, her younger sister, Isabel, twirled around my living room like a ballerina modeling one of the three tutus that I gave to her. By 7PM, Dan was at work and I was at church attending the Christmas Eve service with my children enjoying the sounds of soulful gospel, hugging friends old & new, and relishing in the magic of the night as a whole.

On Christmas morning, I lay in bed nursing Ryan and basked in the quiet & calm around me (knowing that within a few short hours it would all be obliterated). As I traced the outline of his profile with my fingertips, over his button nose and around the curvature of his soft cheeks, I reveled in the beauty of my own creation and the joy that he brings to me. Soon after, I heard the familiar “thump, thump” of two toddler-sized tootsies hitting the floor above me and knew that it was “showtime” on Christmas Day. The priceless look on Caiden’s face as he came down the stairs and saw what Santa had brought was immortalized on home video and I know that many years from now it will be well-worth the jestly-hassling that I endured from my husband with regard to being “That Mom” with the camera in her hands at all times. Our morning was spent in a traditional manner of unwrapping our gifts to each other clad in pajamas and enjoying the ability to be as lazy as we wanted to be for a good portion of the day. Come 3PM, once all of the toys were out of their boxes and we had already memorized the incredibly annoying songs & jingles projected from each, we headed on over to Dan’s parents’ house to feast together and partake in the company and chaos that only a home full of 20+ guests can bring! While I enjoyed the comfort foods that were delicious and, moreover and better yet, not cooked by me, my boys loved being doted upon by their grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and all forms of extended family and the like!

Yes, it snuck up on me this year, but a revelation came to me on the night of Christmas. After reading “The Grinch” to Caiden for the millionth time and putting him to bed; after making a new path through the fortress of Hasbro that overtook my living room; after sneaking in one more nibble of sweet, over-indulgence in my kitchen, it was time to feed Ryan once more. The closing of Christmas Day was much like its beginning. Again, I lay in bed nursing Ryan and basked in the quiet & calm around me. Routinely, I began to trace the outline of his profile with my fingertips, over his button nose and around the curvature of his soft cheeks, reveling in the beauty of my own creation and the joy that he brings to me. And then I began to think about “The Reason for the Season”. It is so easy to get lost in the commercialism that the holidays bring, but the true meaning of Christmas lies within the anticipation of a baby boy who will enter this world to bring happiness, wisdom, joy, and a legacy of his own to those whose lives he touches. As Ryan’s sleepy blue eyes began close in contentment, a feeling of overwhelming love and warmth consumed me. And then it hit me.

Despite the fact that I received many great gifts this year (including the laptop that this blog entry is being typed on), for me, the greatest present of all arrived a few months prior. And in a similar fashion as the "Reason for the Season", for me, Christmas didn’t come quickly this year… it, actually, just came early.