Breakfast with My Babe

Since being sick, I’ve been going to bed ridiculously early.  The day we were sick I was in bed before 9.  Last night I tucked myself in around 10 (which is early for me) but I don’t think I fell asleep until after 11.  I hate that.  I could have been finishing the sewing for Silje’s Christmas present.

This morning I feel good for the first time in a few days.  My ribs don’t feel bruised this morning, and my body doesn’t ache.  I got up with Solveig early and let Knut sleep in.  It’s normally the other way around.

The kids have made us very aware of how close Christmas is.  It’s a little overwhelming to think of all that needs to be done between now and then.  Mostly Silje’s present, and Christmas cookies that have barely been started.  Then there’s the catching up of laundry that happens after everyone is sick.  Everyone needs clean sheets, towels were used to cover every surface that day, as well as many sets of clothes were soiled.  Laundry after sickness is mountainous.  Let’s not even discuss the bathroom situation.

Preparation for Christmas always seems to be a mother’s job, doesn’t it?  I don’t despise it at all, I’m just thinking.  I think perhaps that’s the way it should be.  After all, Christmas is preparation for a birth, isn’t it?  In a way we’re nesting.  We worry that some things are clean that no one else worries about.  We want everything to be just right.  It’s like we share in Mary’s nesting at Christmas.  Christmas nesting.

My grandpa tells the story of when he was growing up on the farm.  His mother would lock herself in their parlor every Christmas Eve day and they weren’t allowed to peek.  Every Christmas Eve night there was the big reveal where his mother (my great-grandmother) would open the parlor doors and let all the kids see the twinkling candles, the tree, the presents, the decorations hanging everywhere.  In his reflection upon those days, it was purely magical.

It was his mother’s job to decorate for Christmas.  It was her gift to the family.  My grandpa was the 7th of 8 children, and in their little farmhouse in North Dakota, he recalls looking through the cracks with his older brothers and sisters of the parlor doors at his mother’s feet and trying to get a peek of the big reveal. 

We’ve lost a few of my great-aunts and uncles this year.  This is the first year that my grandpa and his little sister are the only ones remaining of his siblings.  Auntie Ingeborg who was the oldest girl passed away.  She was only a few months away from her 100th birthday and boy did she have some energy.  Last time Knut and I visited her we had trouble keeping her pace.  Uncle Si passed away too.  He was much shorter than me (if that can be imagined).  My first memory of Uncle Si was when he came to visit us in Colorado when I was a little girl and he offered me a Life Savers candy.  I said sure, and as I reached for one little circle he shrugged at me and said, “why don’t you take all of them?  Keep the package so you can have one whenever you like.”  You would have thought he offered me a million dollars for the treasure I got that day.  I still can’t have a LifeSaver without thinking about Great-uncle Si.

I’m glad we get to go home and visit my family this year for Christmas.  I want my kids to know their extended family like I got to know mine.  My great aunts and uncles prayed for me every day…by name.  It’s sometimes very lonely to think of that generation fading away.  I’m so blessed.

It’s a snuggly, cozy morning here on the farm.  It won’t be light for quite some time.  It’s kind of fun to be up for the sunrise, which isn’t too tough to do in the winter.