~ Mega Claus and Moments of Grace

If it were up to me, all of our Christmas decorations would be ivory and white and gold. If it were up to me, all of the lights would be white and none of them would move. If it were up to me, there would be bowls of clove-studded oranges in each room and we would eat lots of shortbread and fruitcake and no one would ever sip eggnog.

However…

They don’t let me run the world (my oft-heard lament) and so it is NOT up to me. Because it is not up to me, our house is covered with red and green lights and our home is filled with glitter covered plastic decorations and strings of blinky lights. Because in years past I have had to rescue my little porcelain village from marauding cats, a horde of vicious dinosaurs, an attack from the Godzilla—G.I. Joe tag team and even, once, Finnegan the Flying Dog (“I didn’t know Finnegan could fly” I said, forcing myself to remain merry as I picked Glitter Snow from Finnegan’s scruffy hide...“Neither did Finnegan!” my youngest son laughed), I arranged my village on the sideboard, congratulating myself on choosing the safest location for my villagers to spend this holiday season. The other day, one of my sons pointed out the giant Father Christmas who had miraculously appeared in my village and was towering over the westernmost church (like every good prairie community I know of, my village has no less than three churches). “He’s waiting until you go to sleep, Mum, then he’s going to destroy your village...he’s going to burn it to the ground, stomp down the trees and eat all the food. Those kids playing with the puppies? Gone! That family standing in their yard? Squashed! That puny Santa over there by the workshop? History! You’d better watch out, little village, Mega Claus is coming to town! Haaaaaahahahaa!”

This is what I have to endure. My little porcelain villagers are living in fear on account of a mad giant on the loose in the countryside. It’s all a product of the garish decorations and blinky lights, I just know it.

In disgust, followed by the maniacal laughter of my son, the Mega Claus creator, I retreated to The Grotto, the safe, small room at the bottom of the house which is my sanctuary, my refuge from the daily madness I must put up with. These days, though, even time in The Grotto offers no solace. As the only completely off-limits room in the house, the only room with totally restricted access (the door is always locked and I alone know where the key is kept), at this time of year, The Grotto becomes the room for storing all unwrapped gifts, the room for sorting out who gets what, the room for storing everything that cannot be seen until Christmas Day. Right. Let’s do a little math, shall we—seven people live in this house and there are presents for each of them. The two adults in this house each have two parents and there are a few step-parents into the bargain, so there are presents for that lot as well. Once you start to add siblings, friends, aunties and so forth, you end up with presents, wrapping paper, ribbon, packing paper and shipping boxes amounting to five cubic feet more than the storage capacity of my room.

Which figures.

When I find I can’t escape to The Grotto, I do the next best thing—I start washing dishes. Ordinarily, my kids scatter at the sound of running kitchen water, so if you ever need ten minutes to yourself, try washing dishes. Unfortunately, Mega Claus must have messed with their programming (perhaps while waiting for me to drift into slumber so he could destroy my village) because my kids did not scatter. Within the span of three breaths, three of my kiddies had settled themselves into the kitchen chairs and a fourth was dragging the stool in from the office. I now had an audience. I had no help with the dishes, of course, I just had an audience. Rather than shoo them all away, demanding some peace, I decided to see how it would all turn out.

Moments of Grace—they happen at the most unexpected times.

We talked about hundreds of different things. Well, mostly they talked and mostly I listened. I stood sideways at the counter, reading their lips to understand their words over the splashing in the sink. My ivory and white and gold decorations conspired to soothe and calm my kiddies. Together, my children worked out a couple of problems, figured out a couple of personal puzzles, planned out a couple of surprises and ironed out a few misunderstandings. Occasionally, they turned to me for clarification, for a word they couldn’t find or for a detail they couldn’t remember or disagreed on. They included me, but I was not a part of it…I was apart from it, witness to it. Then they laughed. All of the children present at that moment laughed from deep in their bellies, all of them looking from one another to me, including me in their mirth. It was a Moment of Grace and I was grateful for the too-full Grotto, for, had I been hiding there, I’d have missed the Moment.

Last night I watched my daughters, head to head on the front room floor, wrapping presents for our cats. My eldest was showing her younger sister the best ways to cut paper, fold corners and affix ribbons. I sat on the arm of the chesterfield (something my children are not allowed to do), grinning like a mad fool. My husband wandered in and watched me watching them. It was when my eyes met his that my tears started and I left my girls to their work.

Tonight, when we hang our stockings (on the railing this year on account of the doomed village taking up the whole of the sideboard), I will know that I have already received more than my heart can possibly hold. I am well blessed.

I may moan because they don’t let me run the world, but perhaps it is just as well.