Christmas timeline

It’s Cookie Day, MFers!  

That’s just me cracking myself up. You’re all lovely people, not an MFer among you, I’m sure. 

It’s Saturday, December 21, a very cold but bright and sunny day. My younger son came home this morning at 9:15 or so. He brought one of his roommates, who is staying with us until Monday. The boys made an enormous breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs, and toast, and they’re going to hang out and watch college football while I make cookies. Right now they’re asleep on the couches in the family room. 

I think I’m finished my Christmas shopping. I still have at least two grocery store trips between now and Wednesday but that’s no big deal. I could go now, or I could start making cookies. I’d rather do almost anything than make cookies but I would also very much enjoy finishing the cookies early and being done with cookie making for the season, so I think I’ll do that first. At least I made the dough last night, so I’m ahead of this game. I’d be even more ahead if I was actually doing the thing right now instead of sitting on a couch next to the Christmas tree writing about eventually getting around to doing it, but then you wouldn’t have anything to read, would you? I’m a giver, is what I am, and at no time more so than Christmas time. 

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Cleaning up after making cookies takes almost as long as actually making the cookies. After you wash the bowls and spoons and cookie sheets, then you have to clean cookie dough and flour off the counters and walls and floors. You’ll find little clumps of cookie dough and little flour spills in the unlikeliest places - on refrigerator shelves and on the insides of cabinet doors and on the gosh darn air fryer - and I assure you that I did not air fry the cookies. 

I wonder if that would work. Note to self: Try to air fry some cookies next year, just to see what happens. 

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I did make the cookies early, and was so glad I did. By 3 PM, I had neatly packed boxes and bags of cookies, a full cookie jar, and a pretty clean kitchen. I’ll be finding stray flour spills and the odd chocolate chip here and there for the next few days, but you gotta break some eggs if you want to make an omelet. Or cookies. 

Yesterday was the shortest day of the year. After I finished the cookie clean-up, I ran to the grocery store and then took a walk with a friend and her dog. All three of us were bundled up and we were all quite comfortable despite the cold. I came home to an empty house just as the last light of the day was fading. I watched the December sunset with the Christmas tree twinkling and the darkness collecting. It was peaceful. 

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The rest of the weekend was rather hectic, as I expect much of this week to be. We had people in and out of the house all day on Saturday and Sunday. It was fun but on Sunday night, I had to shut down for a bit. Right now the house is a little bit messier than I’d like but curling up with a book and an old TV show and tea was a better idea than cleaning up the last few odds and ends from a weekend of visitors. Those little moments of wintry Christmas peace are precious, and I’ll have plenty of time to clean tonight. 

It’s Monday December 23 now. I worked for part of the day. I’d planned for a full workday but my colleagues were all working a half day, and their departure would have left only me in the entire half of the building where our office is located. So I went home and logged on for a bit and then called it a day. And now it’s officially Christmas vacation, until at least January 2 and possibly January 3. 

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I love Christmas Eve, and even more so when the President declares it a holiday and I don’t have to take a vacation day. I love having my kids home. I love having Christmas movies on in the background as I prep food for dinner tomorrow. And I love the sense of peace that descends right around 4:30 PM as the sun is about to go down and everything that you can do to prepare for the holiday is done and anything that isn’t done isn’t going to get done and it’s all fine. It’s not sunny today. The sky is pale gray, almost white, and it’s cold and still. It looks like snow, and it smells a little like snow, too. The green bean casserole and the macaroni and cheese are in the refrigerator now. Time to make the pineapple stuffing. I’ll finish by 2 and take a walk and then watch “The Holdovers” until it’s time to go to Mass. 

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We went to Mass at 6 last night. Eventually, the church was standing room only but there were still seats when we arrived, ten minutes early. A child had just vomited in a pew near us and the little boy’s sisters and father were cleaning up the mess, with the help of an usher and some hardy parishioners. Other than that little flurry of hazmat clean-up activity, you’d never have known what happened. We came home and ate whatever was hanging around and then made popcorn and watched Christmas movies. It wasn’t as cold as it had been over the weekend but we still had a little fire because it was Christmas Eve. 

And now it’s Christmas and we just finished opening presents after our traditional Christmas breakfast of eggs and cinnamon rolls. My children are 23 and 20, and they’re happy to eat first and open presents afterward. I was up at 7, prepping dinner and making cinnamon rolls and bacon and listening to Christmas music. 15 years ago, we’d have been opening presents by 7. My children used to wake up at 5 on Christmas morning, and I would send them back to bed until 6:30, just on principle. Now I wait until 9:30 or so before I finally wake them up. It’s 11:15 now, so I’m going to put the ham in the oven. Maybe I’ll have some more coffee before I take a walk. It’s chilly but mild and pearly gray, a perfect midwinter day. Winter is starting to reel me in. It’s starting to win me over. The view out my window is overgrown evergreens and tall bare deciduous trees against a grayish white sky. Everything is still. Everything seems peaceful, right in this place and right at this moment. That’s all I can ask for, is this place and this moment. That’s all anyone can ask for. Merry Christmas.