This Christmas season has not gone as I had planned. I am ridiculously grateful for the many, many blessings in my life, don't get me wrong...but, boy oh boy has this Christmas season not gone as I had planned. I feel quite certain this is one of those times that God had to remind me, yet again, that I am not in charge.
We have all been just silly about the new house...and I think we all had these pretty Norman Rockwell dreams of what our first Christmas here was going to be like. We discussed all the decorations we would hang and the dinner we would eat sitting at our gigantic "new" dining set...oh my! the things we planned. And a month, a ton of doctor's and dentist's visits, prescriptions not covered by insurance, severe colds, a bladder infection, bulging disks and a thrown-out back, a stomach virus, and a shitload of medical bills later...we have a tree up, we have decided the dining table is too big, and we will be going out for dinner and a movie with our boys on Christmas night.
And you know what? I am ok with that. Yes, I had a moment or two where I was just disgusted that I didn't get to Pinterest my little heart out once again this Christmas, but at the end of the day, it was house.
Our "new" house is my husband's grandparents' houseplace. And we LURVE it. It is an old house, but she has great bones. The house is a nice house...it is spacious and has a great pantry...it has alot going for it. But none of those are the reasons why we love the house so. The house just FEELS like home.
I hope that you are lucky enough to have known the feeling (maybe you are really lucky and you STILL get to feel the feeling) of walking into your grandmother's house. My grandma's house just always felt like home...it was the most comfortable place in my world. Everything was gonna be ok when you were at grandma's house. Everything was perfect there...you didn't have to look or act a certain way...it was ok to eat a second piece of cake, noone was judging...it was just HOME.
That is the feeling in this house. When we walk through the door, everything is just ok, because we are home. It is comfortable. It is perfect.
We still have so much left to do as far as updating and finishing the house...small things like touching up trim and painting and rehanging doors. We have all put in alot of hours together to get it where it is now. Alot of late night, delirious hours...and so "it was house" was born.
My boys and I all get a little silly when we get tired...and at some point during our late night painting sessions, someone started yelling "it was house!" from whatever room they were working in. And all of our minds work the the same, so it was immediately understood that this really meant "ohmygoshthishouseisfantasticandicantbelieveitsreallyours". So, for months we have yelled "It was house" to each other.
I think one reason we get so frantic at Christmas is that it feels like a one shot deal. We have a "season" to cram in all these activities and feelings and our favorite foods and such. What I have finally realized this year is that we should live those feelings all year long...why does Christmas make us feel so good? Because we make candy with our kids and give it as gifts to people? Do we have to wait until Christmas to do that?
Yes, obviously there are alot of "Christmas" things we wouldn't do year round..If you are being ridiculous right now and naming them all in your head, then stop...you know what I mean. It's kinda the same as people who save all their good shit their whole lives waiting for special occasions to use it and then die before they do.
Our Christmas may not have turned out quite the way we planned, but it turned out, and for that I am thankful.
It was home.
