the week of Christmas

my favorite time of day
every day of the year
but especially at this time...
my favorite time of the year...
early morning dark
in a sleeping house
full of extra sleepers...
the quiet
everything in its place
packages ribboned and wrapped and waiting
stacked on chairs, in corners, in closets...
[We won't put our tree up until tomorrow...
on the 'birthday' this year!
But that's when all the kids will be home]
Piles of ingredients on the counters waiting to be made into cookies or hors d'ouvres.
The snow glowing in little spots of golden light from windows left on thru the night,
and the huge tree across the street.
Our daughter home from out of town for this "long weekend"
the birthday weekend.
My mom here as well.
One child still to arrive home...later today.
the anticipation of the day...
of the week...

It'll be the first year ever without all of our family together.
Dom and Vanessa are at their own place...
with their own little Christmas tree...
wrapping their own presents...
and planning their own Christmas dinner {goose}
far far away.

I can barely allow myself to think of it
I long so much for them
to see and touch them
and have them near

but...there they are
and we are here

and it's a wonderful thing
nothing to be sad about
I just wished they lived over the state line
or on the other side of the county
rather than the over the ocean and on the other side of the world

but...

Tomorrow is our daughter's 23rd birthday
born Christmas week.
It was our fourth married Christmas...

Our first Christmas together I hardly remember?!?!
I believe we were in Alabama with my mother...
we ate and ate and ate...prime rib and homemade bread!
Our second Christmas we stayed close to home...
It was our first Christmas without my hubby's mom
and I was pregnant with our first child.
Our third Christmas he was almost one...
And the year our daughter was born he was almost two and we had our baby girl December 22!?!?
She came home from the hospital Christmas Eve....

enough said....

She has set the tone for every Christmas since...
Instilling in me the need to be prepared, early... to have everything ready...
and the desire to create a  very special birthday for her, separate from the holiday...

It's been like 'extra frosting on our Christmas cake' ever since she came into our life...way back when........

These last few years she has wanted to go to the market district; the strip...
and shop for provisions for Christmas...the Italian meats and cheeses and bread and flowers
and a birthday cake!
We'll come home and everyone will finally be home and my hubby will make the requested birthday dinner, this year a wonderful osso bucco for the birthday vigil dinner
and we'll drink lots of wine and tell loud stories around the table into the night
it'll be a great day!

and tomorrow the actual birthday
we'll go find a tree and come home and put it up
and decorate it
and I'll do the final dust and vacuum
and my mom and I will finish cookies
and the kids will do the sugar cookies
and we'll probably watch some Christmas classic movie
and then courey will take my momma home on her way home
and she'll go to work Wednesday and come back after work on Thursday
with grandma again and my nephew and his newly wed very pregnant wife
for Christmas Eve dinner.........

and there will be mass
and more food
and Christmas 'jams' to open Christmas Eve
and then the day

simply wonderful

and I hope Dom and Vanessa's packages get to them this week....