The cookie tray is down to a few sugar cookies that could possibly break your teeth. There are also a variety of rogue sprinkles on the tray reminding me of all that’s been created and enjoyed. It feels to me like the Christmas season has gone by extra fast this year. I love Christmas and I’m sad to see it go, but I spent some time reflecting today on all we’ve done and what I’ve learned these past 4 weeks. And so I give you, my second annual post-Christmas ponderings.
13 Things I Learned During the Christmas Season of 2013:
13. You can never have too many sprinkles or too much icing on a sugar cookie.
12. If you take your observant five-year-old daughter to the Nutcracker to see her first ballet, you may need to be prepared to do a quick anatomy lesson after seeing a man in tights. Of course this is depending on how well the Sugar Plum Fairy does at staying directly between your daughter and the said man in tights. But let’s face it, ballerinas spin around a lot. What can you do?
11. I might have a green thumb after all. I actually kept the amaryllis that my sister-in-law gave me alive over Christmas, and it actually bloomed. It’s a Christmas miracle.
10. W
hat’s the deal with these colorful rubber-band bracelets?! We were a little “late to this party” because our nine-year-old has been claiming for awhile that these bracelets are silly because they are just little rubber bands hooked together. But then suddenly, he changed his tune and he wanted a loom for Christmas so that he could make these bracelets. This requires finding 887 tiny rubber bands all over your house as well as seeing enough rubber bracelets on your child’s arms that I’m pretty sure he’d be buoyant in a pool of water, even while wearing his snow boots.
9. Peanut Butter Balls, Buckeyes, call them what you will, but I could not stop eating them. And if you made me ones with crunchy peanut butter that was absolutely irresistible, you are forbidden to ever make me those again because I can’t say no to them and I’ll eat myself sick. (You know who you are.)
8. Costco doesn’t take credit cards and if you dare to try to pay with a Debit Card and you don’t remember your pin number, well then, you’re OUT OF LUCK! Even if you’ve been shopping with one of your children for over an hour and have a heaping cart full of food and gifts your cart will be whisked away in Seinfield Soup Nazi fashion (‘No Groceries For You!’) and you will leave the store with nothing but the feeling of utter defeat. And though one of you will want to go home and pout, your child will encourage you to go to another store and buy everything on the list… again.
7. Christmas song lyrics are sometimes confusing to small children, but this does not stop small children from singing Christmas songs with “amended” lyrics. For instance, my three-year-old continues to belt out her version of a verse from Joy to the World with these words, “He rules the world with tooth and gum.” 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
6.
If you have two daughters that love clothes and those two daughters have two baby dolls that receive doll outfits that match your daughter’s clothes, then you will spend approximately 64% of your Christmas day changing a plastic dolls clothing and shoes as well as helping your actual child change clothes. Again. And again.
5. If you’re playing a game of “Steal the Gift BINGO” with your family members and you want your little brother to take the gift you opened, a measly 99¢, so that you can snag the more valuable $5 McDonald’s gift card, you can present the less valuable 99¢ as a “free iphone app” and your little brother will go for it. Well played, Kordy.
4. If your Carbon Monoxide Detector starts beeping and says you need to seek fresh air immediately, you’d better do so as well as call 911. When you do so, the nice firemen will come in their huge firetruck and will help you. And even if you’re miles away in a store when this happens and your husband calls you and tells you what is going on, you may begin to feel symptoms of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning… until your husband calls you and tells you it was just a faulty detector and everything is fine. And then you feel better.
3. It doesn’t matter if I’ve checked my list twice or twenty times, at least 2 Christmas cards that I mail will come back to me due to a wrong address.
2.If you’re at a bowling alley with your family and friends and your bowling ball gets stuck in the ball return and if the guy who comes over to help you happens to bring up the fact that he recently took a bullet to the elbow (because this naturally ties in with losing your bowling ball) and he asks you if you want to see the wound, it really doesn’t matter what your answer is or the fact that there are small children all around, he’s gonna roll up his sleeve. I’m just saying.
1. Having the privilege to teach a group of preschoolers at church (including my own daughters) all about the true story of Christmas is simply the best. And even though we had a little confusion about the angel’s name being Gary instead of Gabriel and the Wise Men bringing Frankenstein to baby Jesus, I think I got the main idea across to their sweet little hearts. There’s just nothing better than watching their eyes grow large as we talked about the best Christmas gift EVER being Jesus. It just doesn’t get any better than that.
Christy Cabe 
I think Gary is a great angel name 😉