This week has been a funny one, it seems to have been a split of relaxing and being slow with rushing and being busy!  Some of it is great busy like our lovely  science club, some of it is necessary busy with dentist appointments, hair cuts and errands. Overall, though, I feel that we are generally winding down towards Christmas.  There is less ‘work’ on our calendar and more events, a christmas craft day with friends, an outing to a heritage estate for traditional christmas fun; connecting with friends before and during the holidays, all good stuff.

In between all that I’m trying to be a bit more present with the boys at home, to shed guilt and worry about ‘doing enough’ and just spend a bit of silly time with them.

 

When I think back to my own special memories of Christmas they are of little, silly moments with my Mum and sister, when we were on holidays and just hanging around together.  She’d always do a big clean before the holiday and would have War of the Worlds blasting out, I don’t know how old I was when I finally told her it scared the pants off me!  Even when I was little I didn’t want to spoil her energy and enjoyment, as it turned out she just laughed, we laughed together.

I remember distinctly putting up the tree when I was about Huwyl’s age, I was jumping around the house in a net curtain making my Mum and sister laugh.  The joy of the freedom of it all is what made that memory sharp and immediate for me, all these years later.  The smell of my Dad walking through the door at night, the scent of fresh air clinging to his big air force duffel coat, showing him the tree we had decorated.

Those are the kinds of memories I want the boys to have.  Silly times with us all smooshed on the sofa eating popcorn and watching truly terrible Christmas movies!  To my adult brain these hours seem a little purposeless, but I know in my heart these are the times they enjoy the most, these are the memories they’ll treasure.

And these are the moments to treasure because, well, they are growing up right in front of my eyes.  My teeny baby is becoming a young man, all rangy limbs and bouncy thoughts; and my teeniest one is catching him up pretty fast too, no longer a little toddling thing but a person with thoughts to share.  It’s all going by so fast.

 

I have all my lovely Christmas school resources lined up, but I know in my heart we’ll be working on them after the festive season is over; a nice way to stretch this season out.  For now is the time of days that drift into one another, gentle hours of just being a normal family, punctuated by the busyness that we wouldn’t want to be without.  I know there are things we could be learning about right now but I’m satisfied just watching them, soaking them up.  These years will be gone in the blink of an eye and I really don’t want to miss them.