Twas the night before the night before....

And all through the house, the children were finally sleeping, one with a cough.
Ooohhh, December, it is you and NOT February that are the shortest month. You whizz by, with Nutcracker performances and St. Nicholas visits and Santa Lucia buns all blurred together until the longest night gets here. Even that felt short this year, alight as it was with the beautiful full moon eclipse.
We have had a trying month, week and day. I have threatened and heard Papa Bear threaten to cancel Christmas or at least postpone it a week. Perhaps some of us ate a bit too much of the candy that was supposed to go on the gingerbread house that was not supposed to, but did, get eaten by the dog the first go 'round. It has been reconstructed, with more candy ingested and tempers shortened and lengthened again.
There was a live nativity nearby and we could not manage to get out of the house without catastrophe, so we didn't go.
Mr. Baby is getting his teeth all in one go, it would seem and has taken to waking up screaming several times per night. Mama's nerves are a bit fried.
And yet,
And yet.... tonight as Robert read to us from our lovely copy of A Christmas Carol (with illustrations form Roberto Innocenti) about the ghost of Christmas Present, a kind of peace came to this frazzled mama. The peace of knowing that what is most important is not the handmade gifts that will not be finished, or the Nativity that won't be observed, or the thousand and one things that have happened and been accomplished. Nope, they don't matter much. Even the little fights and squabbles that try my patience seem of little consequence when I listen to the story of Scrooge going 'round with the great GCP, seeing, encouraging and adding magic to the celebrations of Christmas everywhere.
Thank you kindly, Charles Dickens.
p.s.
mama did get a handmade birthday gift finished and wrote about it here:

Rhythm of the Home Blog