Cyclone and I can finally get back on schedule. It's not the prune juice schedule, or the other "thing" that hits the females in a house at the same time (we are the only females in our house remember besides the gerbils and hamster that remain anonymously gendered for the moment). It's our daily walk, to the school, through 4-5 blocks of neighborhood and home. The snow was falling in clumps this morning, gently swaying bunches. It muffles sound when it comes down that way, so things looked and sounded quieter and more gentle. Even the traffic (not the car that almost ran us down at the lights on a yellow, but anyway). Christmas holidays are thankfully over, I mulled the days in my mind as I walked. There was the Wheelies visit, singing carols with my husbands family after a ridiculous present game that had everyone chorkling long after it was over, Christmas Day (that morning didn't come off so well... 3 boys and so many expectations!! I'll save that for another time!) and wrestling with my niece outside. Now that was quite the scene! Myself, aka "Zelda the Destroyer" (42, a little out of shape) pitched against "Sky-Scraper" (my niece, the 14 yr old, very tall, very confident that she would pulverize me). Little did she know, I am a mother of boys, that I had a very difficult morning with one of them, and all my frustration may show up in a power struggle of dynamic proportions!! For half an hour we strained and struggled, grabbed and slammed, snow was flying, our legs and arms were flying, Zelda was bent on squishing Sky-Scraper, ditto for SS but neither would back down.
Finally the time had come when Zelda had used all her reserves and more. Sky-Scraper knew it was over as Zelda mumbled through tembling lips, "I'm finished! You win!" Now, that was a Christmas Day to remember!
The rest of the time seemed easy after facing the Christmas Day challenge in all its griefs and joys. Perhaps that is why I relate more with Easter...I expect stark grief and loss (remembering the One who faced it and overcome) and the joy of Easter morning. Christmas has become Christmas carols played in malls (buy more stuff!), money (debt), personal enjoyment (or hard emotional stuff) and expectations that come crashing because its built on man-made happiness. Easter seems more realistic to me (let's downplay the chocolate bunnies, PLEASE!), to me all we can expect is the emptiness of death on a cross and the surprise of joy by the empty tomb. "I was born for that purpose. And I came to bring truth to the world"...the Jesus celebrated just a week ago, we cry that you'd bring the Truth back again and shake us out of our frenzy of self, till we listen.
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