What seems like just yesterday...Once Upon a Christmas..

     Today has been a very productive day, working outside to finally complete pre-winter yard work and to have pre-Christmas preparations underway.

     I have come in this evening to work at a particular story when I came across this story written some time ago, when the children were well on in their teens and the youngest at least a preteen.

Reading this through it's hard to imagine we are now well beyond those years.

It's true, life is change and every few years we will find ourselves amazed at what we have learned in facing many changes and how much we have grown from those changes.  

Christmas is definitely one of the seasons in our years when we reflect on so much.  I'm doing a little reflecting this evening after having read this old piece while working on a new piece in the hopes  of sharing it in time for Christmas.

Once Upon a Christmas

By Cathy Nevin

  In every corner of every room there is always something out of place, most often it’s toys!  Lego creations steal every portion of the diningroom floor that would otherwise be available to step up to ones chosen place of seating at the table.  In the boys closet a Playmobil village has sprung up in the last twelve hours; in the closet to keep it unannounced to abombinable monster that would be their little sister!  As the monster grows to her own age of grand creativity her room becomes either Barbie Suburbia or the local grocery store, where intruding brothers only shop when given special invitation!

That was then, this is now and toys have been set aside in the Rubbermaid Totes, claiming a corner of the basement!  Now the out of place items seem to be socks that never made it to the laundry, but have been plunged to the dark recesses beneath the sofa cushions, a multitude of shoes and collections of teen movie, music and horse and rider magazines. I think this too shall pass and realize rather sadly, that is just how we came to be at this point in our life…the days of lego, dollys’, sticky finger prints and table forts have indeed passed. Our children have evolved as the playmobil closet is now just full of clothes for the younger brother in his paint blackened room, the elder brother has moved into what he refers to as his basement apartment and the little sisters once Bubblegum pink, Barbie adorned room has a gentler colour scheme and is adorned by all that is horses!

With Christmas not so far I notice the Christmas catalogue has nary a dog eared page, no pages missing and even about three months after it’s arrival looks relatively untouched!  Santa won’t hear from my children this year and it now dawns on me it’s been a couple of years since our youngest wrote. Perhaps I’ll write; not willing to let go!  Santa always seemed to make the perfect choice, despite the painstaking task of prioritizing the list.  Now rather than hand me a page ripped in sheer excitement from the Sears catalogue, I might find sticky notes with short scribes, written with excitement equal to and resembling their earliest indecipherable notes to Santa all those years ago!   As big as our children wish to be seen; maturity, age, etc., Christmas morning they are suddenly regressed to those excitable little tots whom you lost count of how many times have entered your room asking, “ What time is it”.  With the right amount of sleep, we treasure that our children continue to awaken us with eyes bright and full of wonder asking for permission to retrieve their stockings!  We are reminiscing while learning to embrace their new age; not to mention ours!

I wish you with young children a long winters nap Christmas Eve, as I know “with eyes bright and full of wonder”, can begin as early as 4am Christmas Day! Whether young or young at heart may you keep the child in you and share all that Christmas truly is.