Peaceful

Peaceful...that sums up how I've felt throughout this holiday season.

We've had our years of the big decorated tree in the corner of the living room, the abundance of gifts underneath, the staying up way past my bedtime to do Santa duties, the being woken by wee ones mere hours after I'd finally gone to sleep, and the blissful exhaustion that all of that was.


But now that our kids are big (16 and 19) the holidays are delightfully easy going and low key. We had no tree, only lights thumb tacked to the walls in a delightfully whimsical way. We purchased absolutely no gifts for one another (just transferred money to the kids' bank accounts). We all went to bed when our own beds called to us. The teenagers slept till close till noon. And we were all well rested.

I treasure both experiences, but I gotta give peaceful the win.

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Love and Light

We've got lovely family joining us for the next couple of days, and for the first time in years we don't have a tree to decorate. I didn't even drag our porch plant in and put lights on it like I usually do. My inner voice just kept shouting...

"No tree, no tree, no tree!"

So "no tree" it is. Instead, this year I just tacked strings of colorful lights up, down, and all around on our living room walls.


Perfection!

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Holiday Traditions

Most years we make it down to the Trail of Lights and the Zilker Tree...after all, it's just a quick walk from our house. Last night we all went and happily my big guy's girlfriend joined us, too. What a lovely night of family tradition togetherness, right?

Well, here's how it went. My big guy and his girlfriend split off from us right away. I suppose to make the first night of a tradition for just the two of them. They graciously allowed me to take a quick photo of them first...you know, so I could prove we were together at least briefly. Then Dave took out his camera and stopped about every 10 feet to take an amazing picture. It reminded me of how it was when we had a male dog and he needed to stop to pee every few feet.

The little guy and I had a quick chat and agreed that we should move on on our own and let Dave catch up.

So our group of five was now two. The kid and I walked and talked and he gifted me with a selfie or two. And then Dave found us. And then the big guy texted me. And all of a sudden it felt like all five of us were together again.

Holiday traditions evolve...bliss.

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Lit Up

Year after year we've put lights up on the outside of our house for the holiday season...sometimes a big display of lights and sometimes small.  But for some reason, last year Dave and I never got around to it at all.  Now it wouldn't have been any big deal except for that our house is on a corner and all three of the other corners were lit up.  We felt the friendly pressure, though not enough to actually do anything about it. And one night we came home and our house had lights!  One of our delightful neighbors had decorated one of our bushes.

So what did I do today? Well, I ran out front and wrapped one of our trees in the very same lights that my neighbor had given us last year.

Feeling quite festive and accomplished...and sparkly.

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