I am not sure where my obsession with white Christmas lights came from. All I know is that you do not have to be around me long at Christmas to know I love white lights, the colour gold and please do not forget the reason for the season.
This bend
towards to having it all perfect and sterile has been a bend I have had most of
my life. This 'cookie cut' idea of how
Christmas should be done has been interrupted by Holger most of life and to
think that he does not really get excited about Christmas and carols anyway. As young parents as our bio kids got
the ages of really taking on mom’s enthusiasm about Christmas, Holger started
catching on and is responsible for a lot of the spontaneous Christmas fun over the
years. In saying that though I need to
add that this has not always been easy on me.
When Holger
goes shopping for Christmas stuff he buys colourful things like flashy singing
lights… yes they sang and that drove me nuts.
Moriah, Jess and Dan were young and it was joke for them to put the singing lights on to
rile me up, I eventually caught on the fun, but secretly wished for the day they would break and I could have white lights on my tree again.
Last year I
finally got some new white lights. They
only lasted me one Christmas and then they broke. I forgot about that until I unpacked my Christmas storage box night before last.
This year we were late with Advent, we had a broken tree and no lights…Holger seeing my distress said he would buy me some lights, I reminded him I want white lights…
Yesterday
afternoon I put the lights on the tree, so that the children can decorate
after me and when I turned them on they were… yes you guessed right… coloured
lights. (At least they do not sing!) I asked Holger why he did not hear my need
for white Christmas lights and he gave his reason for the coloured lights which was
all about the maths of spend and price and… I sadly tuned out and into my I
simply want white lights. Is it really too much to ask for?
In the moment I realised that I was being a pain, the fun would be to embrace the colour… again, but with more grace this time perhaps?
Taking Jessica
to work at the crack of dawn this morning we talked about the lights. I told her I am going to adopt the theme “embrace
the coloured lights” as my new theme for
Christmas 2021. I smiled to myself as I
drove off thinking about how anal I can be, when I realised again how much I
try to control fun.
Deep in thought thinking about my behaviour as I drove I came to the conclusion that I certainly do have a way I like to do things and in my head the right way often... it was at that moment that I saw a middle age man on roller blades with his puppy and milk in his
hand, it looked quirky and fun. He clearly had been to the shops to buy milk on his roller blades.
There are lots of new creative ways to do things...
Here is to
me trying to embrace the quirky, fun and spontaneous more, while remaining to my belief
that Jesus is the reason for the season. Some one has to hold the narrative
in this family right, with this families bend to crazy out of the box fun and a dad who does not see the oversized Santa Clause
and other quirky traditions as a threat to that and he has no fear that the colour may overwhelm us.
Have a beautiful Christmas season everyone and may you find lots of colour and things to smile about this year.
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