Scenes from Christmas

Get this green paint off of me!
 (Decorating salt dough ornaments, and not enjoying it AT ALL.)

Arlo's  first homemade Christmas ornament!

Helping Daddy unfurl the Christmas tree

I look maaahvelous, daahling.

Oooooh, what does this do?

This is clearly my most favorite new toy ever,
 so I know you couldn't have possibly just told me to put it down.

Heading out to deliver Christmas cards and homemade pumpkin pie granola to our new neighbors on Christmas Eve

Celebrating Christmas Eve by wearing my new Christmas jams and throwing toys in the dishwasher, of course.

The first gift Arlo opened from Mommy and Daddy on Christmas morning, a Blabla doll.
He is a raccoon, and we've named him Kit. Instant BFF's, y'all.

I have an insatiable appetite for books. I love to read them AND eat them.

We had a lovely Christmas morning with Arlo! We decided early on that we wanted to be very intentional with Arlo's Christmas gifts, so we opted to take a Want/Need/Wear/Read approach. Want = Blabla doll; Need = new Kleen Kanteen Sippy Cup; Wear = Christmas pajamas (he actually picked these out himself, clearly enamored of the sheepdog on the front of the shirt); and Read = 4 new books.  I was really inspired by the idea of putting such serious thought into these four categories, and it made shopping enjoyable, too. We had such a great time with this that we're thinking we'll take the same approach next year. 

A New Year

2011 was intense in myriad respects: love and gratitude, friendship and loneliness, rejuvenation and exhaustion, anxiety and peace. There are years of my life that I simply do not remember with any great detail. 2011 will not, most assuredly, be one of those fade-away years.

There was so much change–substantial change–in my life in 2011. I am wondering: Did 2011 change me? Like, fundamentally change who I am as an individual? Or did 2011 simply punch up the former subtleties in my life, in the way a pinch of salt brings out the richness of chocolate?

The trifecta of big change this year: parenting, quitting my job, moving our whole life to a new state. I don’t know that you can experience any of these things in isolation and not feel changed, on some level, by them. In concert? It’s like Extreme Makeover, Life Edition. For realsies. There were days where it seemed I just barely coped, and days where I maybe even, dare I say it, thrived a little in searching for a new foothold in all the upturned pieces of my life this year.

Something that was burnished to clarity this year for me was this: I am longing for less. Less stress, less distraction, less clutter, less material, less waste, less ambivalence, less drama. What I deeply crave, I now realize, is simplicity and presence. This isn’t a resolution for 2012, but rather a bubbling undercurrent I feel. For once in my life I am content to just be. It has been a difficult year, and as the turbulent waters of 2011 recede, all I feel is gratitude, dewy on my skin, for all of it. What is that about? I don’t quite understand it, but I’m just going to go with it.

I wonder about our 2012, what it will bring us. I wonder when Arlo will say his first sentence; I wonder if we’ll be able to grow a garden; I wonder if we’ll move again; I wonder if I’ll feel a drive (or the financial necessity) to return to work. But, ultimately, I am content to just be here. In this day. In the seemingly small moments–like nursing Arlo through a nap, having a cup of coffee while I read blogs, bundling Arlo in the stroller to walk the dog, or cuddling down with Nick at the end of the day while watching a movie–that make me feel sweepingly big things. I’m not saying that it’s all perfect, ’cause it’s not. But it is close enough.

If 2012 is filled with moments like these, well, then, surely it, too, will be a good romp:

Scoping out the menagerie at the playground

Thoroughly engrossed by passing skateboarders

We all live in a yellow submarine.

Helllloo up there, Arlo!

Oh, the cuteness.