Holiday Highlights: Mary's Doula and 4 Upright Bipeds

Epiphany brings a good round close to the season for us. It is after midnight and Geoff and I spent the past 3 hours taking down the decorations. I should say taking down the decorations, eating leftovers, drinking wine and recapping. I, the listmaker, love recapping. I have a spot in my notebook called "Post Mortems"-- how that errand could have gone more smoothly, how we could have been better prepared for that trip, what snacks never to bring to Church, you get the idea. One thing I was grateful for was my Mom looking at the two full plastic tubs in our dining room on December 20th and suggesting that I not worry about the rest of the Christmas decorations and just focus on the tree. This thought had not occured to me, I was content to berate myself for not appropriately decking out our house. Those two tubs would have weighed on me ad nauseum. Life is so much better when I let my expectations flex, why do I always forget this?

Anyway this is was our fifth Christmas in Philly, unbelievable to me. Burbridge St. was galant with its dignified light displays, David and Kristen with their globes on their Rhododendron, Calvin's family down the hill with the chunky retro color lights, the kids loved Lisa's house with the musical lights! Our Jesse tree was the best it's ever been with the additions of the boys' drawings this year-- a lion with an X over its mouth for the Daniel story, bones for the Ezekiel story, a ladder for Jacob's story.

Our goal was to have a three day stretch where we stayed in our PJ's cooked amazing warm things, read and built fires. We went 2 days strong but then broke it to go see a local matinee of Toy Story. After that, we had a good stretch again but then after another 2 days, the kids were dressing themselves and eachother, sort of alarmed that we were languishing so audaciously. We thought they would find it comforting.

One highlight was the Nativity Set we found. I have taught the kids, when looking at for a Nativity set, it's all about Mary and Jesus-- does Mary look beautiful but pure? Is the baby Jesus cute? We did this at Ten Thousand Villages and again at Bargain Thrift. The winner was $12 at Bargain, meets the criteria, AND Mary has a doula. No joke, have you ever seen a Nativity with another woman who is not an angel? I have discussed this with an art historian, an anthropologist and several others. Our Mary has a doula. I think it's in the Apocryphe.

Our break, of course, has included several amazing dates-- a lunch at French Bakery, a long-awaited double date at Bar Ferdinand, and even a few dates Geoff and I needed to have with friends. All soul-renewing and fun, laughing so hard over Sangria and tapas, and seeing Geoff come home after watching Science Fiction.

Also, we are pleased to announce that we no longer have 2 girls in diapers, but little Clara Margot has her own Days of the Week undies that have gone several week cycles of use and we have cut our Seventh Generation special order down to half! And lastly, on Christmas morning, Calliope busted out 8 steps. She may be the youngest but she gets points for drama! All of our kids are upright bipeds now, amazing.