You know that feeling when you’ve spent two hours preparing a meal and everyone finishes eating in twenty minutes?
For me it’s an energy slump and my mind goes a-blur. I feel the same way the day after Christmas. I can never pull myself out of bed and the details of the day I so carefully crafted start to blend.
But this year, I didn’t want the celebration to end in a slump. So as we prepared and celebrated, I tucked away bits of our Christmas in China, to create a memory I could hold onto.
Often by the time summer roles around I can’t remember the gifts I painstakingly chose for the kids, and by the next Christmas, the memories are broad strokes; beautiful, but bereft of details.
Life is filled with wonder and there’s so much I forget. Now, just two weeks after the big day, it already feels distant, but as I prepare to share my 12 Days of Christmas Collage, memories revive and bring a smile.
Like first thing Christmas morning when my daughter climbed onto our bed and surprised us with a pillowcase full of snowflakes fluttering onto our heads. (The closest we’ll come to a white Christmas.) I was touched that she was active in making the day special. She’d been up every morning for days cutting snowflakes – now I know why. And it’s no surprise her little pieces of art found their way into my collage.
They also start off the little song the kids helped me compose, when they saw me snipping and taping. Here are our 12 Days of Christmas:
On the twelfth day of Christmas my family and I enjoyed:
12 snowflakes falling
11 cups of bone broth
10 Stu-dio C sketches
9 cups o’ cider
8 trips o’ shopping
7 pounds o’ (Chilean) turkey
6 camel fur socks
5 FOUN-TAIN PENS
4 family Skype calls
3 jujitsu belts
And a great start to 20-18
*It wouldn’t be life with teens without some Studio C sketches. Our two boys did get a push-scooter to share, so we included one of their favourite skits in the song, along with the YouTube link.
I love the calm after the New Year
By then, I’ve finally recovered from Christmas and celebrated the end of another year with my husband and growing kids. Savouring the good of the past year, and learning from the challenges, I’m always filled with thankfulness for a fresh start.
It’s a great time to create and I loved bringing into being this splattering of memories, with kids peering over my elbows. I look forward to looking back upon it when I flip through my sketchbook, perhaps with a cup of tea warming my hands, and camel fur socks warming my feet, during the cold nights of January.
Cool!!!