Do you ever build with blocks? Or do you remember what is what like? You stack the blocks taller and taller without proper engineering strategies or a building permit. You can only go so high before the whole thing falls.
Sometimes I feel like I'm living my life like that. Adding things, trying to please everyone, make people happy and be what equals a "good mom" in my own imagination.
Yesterday I was thinking about how *J* used to love doing a gingerbread house and we haven't done them in a few years for a number of reasons. Yesterday I started thinking that if he got to build one this year, maybe he would find some of the Christmas spirit that he seems to have lost in being a teenager when the magic seems a little more evasive.
The problem is that I couldn't just get a kit for him because the other boys would want to do it if he did one. (I do not predict that all of them working together on one little house would go well.) It's not just the cost of 5 kits which would be done with varying amounts of care and interest (although everyone would have to have one) or that some competition (which I detest) would follow.
The problem was that I didn't want to go in search of the blasted kits on Christmas Eve Eve Day. In my head I was trying to figure out how to manage it. Who would I bring with me? Who would I leave home? What if I had to go all over town with 10 stops before finding enough?
Do you see where this is heading?
I was getting in a tizzy about something I thought might bring some joy but in thinking about it I was stacking more blocks on my tower and it was starting to teeter. In fact, the more I felt like I had to find these kits and put on my "patient mom" hat to help the younger ones, the more I felt my tower of blocks starting to tilt dangerously to the side.
I have a lot to do, but so does everyone else. I want to have fun and enjoy the time we have together. However, I need to stop and breathe and perhaps not add more blocks to the tower but be happy with the blocks we already have...like decorating sugar cookies on Christmas Eve like we always do.
And I also need to be sure the foundation of my tower is strong and that comes from remembering the reason for the season, the birth we've been waiting for.
That will happen whether I make gingerbread houses or not; whether the house is spotless or not; whether I've created a picture perfect image of Christmas or not.
In other words, I need to get my heart and soul in the right place.
Praying we can all keep our towers standing..and if we teeter, we can lean on others and on God for support.
-Peace
Scroll down this post: http://swistle.blogspot.com/2010/12/gingerbread-and-school-supplies-and.html a bit and check out the completely home made gingerbread houses. You don't need a kit, and in fact *may* already have all the supplies in your house. If not, it's something you can bookmark/copy for another year. :-)
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