Today I am on a quest to embrace sloth and gluttony, and wish only to curl on the couch with wine, popcorn, and one of my new Christmas-gift books, and yet I am faced with two universal truths: the laundry never stops, and the children require nutrition. I have acknowledged these interruptions in my sloth-like schedule, but not without a teensy bit of resentment.
My longing for relaxation is possibly spurred on by events from yesterday, which would be best described using the words “obsessive”, “frantic”, and “cleaning binge”. I have to admit that I take down and put away the Christmas decorations with the same zeal with which I put them up. I’m not sure how to explain this, exactly, except that every year at approximately 8:00 am on December 25 I fight the urge to clear away all the chaos and Clean All The Things. I do fight the urge, however, and Boxing Day in the Boyhouse is the day that all the Christmas items are boxed up and closets purged. It probably says something about my personality that I cannot relax and enjoy the holiday amid post-Christmas chaos and disaster.
I like to think that there are two distinct types of us cheery little Christmas elves: the Advent Elves and the 12 Days of Christmas Elves. I know some of us wouldn’t dream of taking the tree down until Epiphany, or New Year’s at least, but others of us (read: me) feel that Boxing Day is the Last Possible Day The Tree Can Be Up Whilst Maintaining Our Sanity. Advent Elves.
The boys have been happily alternating between putting together Lego sets and playing new Wii games, and are preparing to be introduced to Junior Scrabble and Perfection – gifts from my parents. Jake, especially, is interested in Perfection, although he may have a slightly different idea of “explosion”. He asked me if we should play this game in the basement because he didn’t want any of his complicated Lego sets to be damaged in the playing of Perfection.
Speaking of Wii games, we had bought the Just Dance 2014 game, allegedly from “Barkley”, and spent Christmas Eve getting our groove on. I don’t mean to boast, but my disco moves are pretty excellent, proven by my earning 5 stars on YMCA on my very first try. What can I say, I know my Village People.
My 5-Star disco dancing skills aside, it’s been a wonderful holiday so far, even if I have been still preparing meals and doing laundry. I have a stack of wonderful new books to delve into, new charms for my bracelets, new pajamas that have owls on them, and many other lovely things. My mother gave me an apron that is absolutely adorable; it’s a little TOO adorable, maybe. She bought it at a lingerie store so I’m not sure if it’s for cooking or “cooking” but in any case, I love it.
How was your Christmas, lovelies? Tell me everything. xo
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| Mark poured almond milk, just in case “Santa” couldn’t have regular milk. |
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We moved Jake’s bed into Mark’s room so they could have a “sleepover”, which is still going on and appears to now be unbreakable tradition. |
Love it! Want to come take my decorations down? We’re still at the farm until at least the 29th so my decorations may hang around until after New Years. They’ve been up since November so what is a few more days. o_O
I’m so going to have a YMCA dance-off with you in 2014.
We de-Christmas gradually. The Christmas music that was on constantly in the days before Christmas has not been played since the big day, but all the decorations are up and will stay up until New Year’s or after. I did spend about a half hour picking stuff off the the living room floor last night, so now the rug is visible. That’s the extent of my post-Christmas cleaning, for now.
I have thought of your two kinds of elves MANY TIMES since reading this.