Category / kids

What I want for Christmas

Char has been asking me what I want for Christmas (in fact, since the name draw, so has Marjie) so I’ve been putting some thought into the issue. Unfortunately, I’ve been having trouble coming up with ideas. In fact, I’ve been having trouble getting into the whole Christmas spirit. This is odd, because I love presents. I love Christmas morning and watching people open stuff and the reactions of the kids and even sitting up until 3am putting together bikes and tables and kitchen toys with instructions written in Chinese.

So I’ve been trying to put my finger on what’s going on in my head. This morning, I think I figured it out. I was going through old posts on the blog (cleaning up the occasional ‘promotional comment’) and I came across several posts that set me thinking.

Things like Anna Quindlen’s take on parenting, and about baby Zach and his Angel wings, and Jack’s many unusual questions, and Lily’s wishes.

And then I followed a link to the photo album and found the pictures of Abby and Grace in the hospital and the day we brought them home. And the answer was immediately obvious to me. How could I possibly want anything else? When I look at the photos of these two darlings in their incubators, all those wires trailing out, and remember how impossibly tiny they were… When I think about the other babies that were there with them, some for more than a year, some who will never be healthy… When I think about Zach’s death, how quickly it happened and how little control we have over the things that really matter in life. In short, when I think of all our blessings, I realize that I couldn’t possibly be wanting for anything more.

I’m looking forward to Christmas. I can’t wait to see the kids open their presents and be delighted by the wonders. (You should see them all now, lying on their bellies watching the train go ’round the Christmas tree, clapping and saying “Yay!”) And honestly, having the family there, seeing everyone, will be enough for me.

Well, that maybe and another batch of crybaby cookies.

"Happiness" by Raymond Carver

On the way in to work this morning, I happened to catch Garrison Keillor’s “Writer’s Almanac” where he highlighted the following poem. As an old (former) paper boy, I could instantly relate to the thoughts of Raymond Carver in “Happiness”:

So early it’s still almost dark out.
I’m near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.
When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.

They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren’t saying anything, these boys.
I think if they could, they would take
each other’s arm.
It’s early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.
They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn’t enter into this.

Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.