It is 1pm and I have eaten nothing but chocolate chip cookies today. If things weren’t crazy enough, they’re going to get even crazier this next week. We have one more full week before we pack up and head off to the East Coast for our Christmas vacation. We’ll be spending a few days before Christmas in New Jersey, then taking the train up to Boston on Christmas Eve (NYC and Boston on Christmas Eve! Does it get any better than that?) and then flying home from NH a few days after Christmas.

This means I need to finish all of my Christmas shopping, my Christmas cards, do all of the wrapping, go to various and sundry Christmas parties, hit Handel’s Messiah, visit my BFF in Louisville, put together a gingerbread house and eat it, bake Christmas cookies and eat them, and pack up clothes and breakable gifts for extensive traveling – all within the course of a week. I also could use a haircut. Oh, and check in with the midwives office to see if they have the swine flu vaccine yet. And maybe buy a few more maternity clothes?

But the light at the end of the tunnel is a snowy New Hamsphire. And a belly full of my mom’s Christmas cookies which put all other Christmas cookies to shame. And fires in the fireplaces at night. And staying up late with my sisters to talk about everything under the sun. And nieces and nephews in footed pajamas. And snow angels. And caroling. And grandmothers.

And in the middle of the night when I get up to pee and I realize that I’m hungry, I’ll tiptoe downstairs into my mom’s kitchen and I’ll pull out some leftovers from the fridge. Or steam two lobster tails that my dad has received in the inevitable Omaha Steaks corporate Christmas gift. Two because I’ll wake up my sister to eat one – we’re both pregnant and due a month apart – the only people who could get away with eating the prized Omaha Steak lobster tails. Although it’s been a bad economy – the lobster tails might not arrive. PLEASE SEND THE LOBSTER TAILS! TWO PREGNANT WOMEN’S LIVES DEPEND ON THEM!

There will be many conversations around the living room – all going at the same time and escalating at the same time until we wake up a napping baby because of our volume. And it will all be my fault because someone (most likely my brother-in-law) will have me so politically riled that I will shout out something dreadful like “I WOULD HAVE TAKEN THE MORMON!!!” And perhaps that’s what I look forward to the most? The great conversations about politics and religion where our minds are constantly being sharpened.

In the afternoon the guys will all go into the music room and sit by the tree reading through their new stack of books that they have received as Christmas gifts. It will be completely silent in there except for the swishing of pages being turned in unison. And the girls will muse in the kitchen about how we always wind up asking for practical household items that our husbands will also benefit from, while they still get to be kids and ask for books and cds that they want. There will be much eye rolling and then the conversation will turn towards whether or not a Boppy pillow is really a necessity.

I’m living for this Christmas break, not just to visit home, but also to finally spend some time with Matt who’s been working like a madman. And it will all be made even more perfect by the fact that my parents home is not a construction zone. We can put the hammers and reciprocal saws in the rear of our memory for a little while and enjoy not having to remember when was the last time we took the dog out to pee?

Does it make sense now, why I love Christmas so much? Why the lights and snow and tradition are so important to me? I grew up in New Hampshire, the place where Christmas is perfect.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 11th, 2009 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Family, Holidays, Stuff I Love. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.