Notes from Home

The Last Week of Advent ’09 Edition

So here we are in the final stretch. Are we ready? Are our hearts?

Waiting expectantly for the world’s most important birth.
(The question is: will we be able to find all those hidden baby Jesuses come Christmas?)

We hauled out the Christmas decorations yesterday and had an industrious afternoon. Normally we trim the tree on Gaudete Sunday, but this year we had a technical glitch that involved several unlit tiers on our artificial, pre-lit tree.

Cool New Gadget Alert: My husband went out and got one of these. The tree is fixed! The wife and kids are happy!*

Happiness feels good at Advent, don’t you think? It gears us up for all the radiant joy that should arrive in full on Christmas.

Because I am working hard to foster radiance, I tried not to be too upset when our poor St. Nicholas got disemboweled in all the hub-bub. (We were saving him for Christmas Eve.)

It worked! I calmed myself down and did not behead the culprit! Instead we had a mini-in-service on hollow chocolate.

Angela, (the culprit), found it intriguing.

So, yes. Radiant joy and patience. Joe, Jem, Cate and Felicity had a two-and-a-half-hour choir practice on Saturday morning—they’re singing at Mass on Christmas Eve—leaving me free to run a couple of errands in that part of town while I waited.

As free as one can be with a 5-year-old and an infant, that is.

As we were rolling down the aisle at the Sam’s Club liquor store, I heard—faintly, but distinctly—the sound of Carol of the Bells. “Listen!” I exclaimed. “They’re playing Christmas music!”

“It’s coming from your pocket.” Angela’s response was matter-of-fact.

“No no,” I said, peering up at the rafters. “It’s being piped in over the speakers!”

“It’s coming from your pocket,” she repeated flatly. I could tell that she was trying to be patient.

And she was right. It was coming from my pocket.

It was my cell phone.

(This “Who’s on first?” moment has been brought to you by Moms who Ask their Sons to Change their Ring-tone and then Promptly Forget.)

Walks are good for clearing one’s head when it’s befuddled.

Walks in the winter when it’s snowy and cold? Even better.

We’ve had some snow.

The dog doesn’t like it when I go on a photo-taking walk because I don’t have a free hand for her leash. She waits patiently for my return.

Dogs are good at patience.

See? That’s one patient puppy. She knows, you see, that when Anthony is done gumming that pretzel there will be bits and pieces left behind.

The dog is totally loving this baby.

It’s a radiant joy kind of thing.

Happy Monday, everyone! Happy last week of Advent!

Ed. Note: You’re wondering, perhaps, about that ginormous present on the right-hand side of the Christmas tree photo. It’s a front-loading washer, purchased during my husband’s appliance-buying frenzy of one month ago. I got tired of looking at a cardboard box and wrapped ‘er up! It is, after all, my present.

Sigh.

I told my husband that if that’s really to be my present, I also want a hand-written poem.

I think he’d rather go buy another washer.