Table for Eight

I have a love hate relationship with Christmas.

On the one hand, there are all of these memories of snow, cousins, rosy cheeks, food and laughter. On the other, I remember stomach churning anxiety. I loved shopping for gifts but as a student, I always spent an obscene amount of money which usually represented my car note, rent or tuition for the next semester. And I stressed over the gifts themselves, worried that they wouldn't be good enough. Yes, I know. I was in desperate need of approval, blah, blah, therapy, blah, blah....

And then, I gave birth.

Children give the gift of Christmas back to us, don't they? There are letters to Santa, classic holiday TV shows, baking shortbread and sugar cookies and staying up until four in the morning with a set of Japanese instructions in an effort to assemble the gadget of the moment. I have loved this time of year for the past decade. To see the look of awe on their faces Christmas morning makes it all worthwhile. Besides, Santa is a great disciplinary tool as in,

"I'm picking up this phone right now to make a report to Santa about your behaviour, young lady" which usually yields the desired results: look of horror, mouth open in silent scream and immediate change in attitude.

But this year felt funky and for the life of me, I don't know why. I sort of wanted to blink and have the holiday go away. Bah humbug! And the crazy thing is that I couldn't get a handle on why I felt this way because I have been living a charmed life. I should have been spreading Christmas cheer instead of ducking it. Then, early this week, everything changed.

Dallas and I got our respective broods together to celebrate Christmas since the kids and I are heading out of town tomorrow.

It was a madhouse.

We had dinner and then opened our gifts. It was noisy, confused, wrapping paper everywhere and quite fun. I think Dallas might have been overwhelmed because I don't hold to any gift-opening rules. I let the children run wild. WILD. It was mayhem and for the first time this season, I felt the beginning jolts of Christmas excitement. We looked like a big, disorganized family and I loved it.

For years, I concerned myself with the quantity of gifts under the tree. I always fretted about whether the children would be disappointed. Did we have enough? Would they be happy? This year, none of that crap mattered. Sure, the kids enjoyed opening their gifts but looking around the room that night, the magic for me came from the sense that we were blending together nicely and defining family in our own way. At one point, I looked over at Dallas during the frenzy and he smiled in a way that said, "Can you believe this? Aren't we fortunate?"

Unbelievably so.