A Magical Christmas

Anybody else think the week before Christmas is just magical? Everything seems so much nicer, somehow. Shopping takes on extra meaning when it's for things like bon-bons and mixed chocolates and whole hams and a great big turkey. Even if you have to traipse Geelong to find just the right one to meet mother's approval. We've been making up beds for the family, and cleaning bathrooms. Even that's fun when you're anticipating their arrival over the next few days. Mum is coming tomorrow, my brother's family on Friday, and my sister and her lot arrive on Christmas morning. Jemimah is just beside herself.

We've been reading lots of lovely stories every morning - The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski, one of this morning's stories, is among our favourites. This beautiful book about grief and healing, illustrated by the incomparable P J Lynch, never fails to bring me to tears. We always get something new from each retelling too. We're reading our way through Ruth Sawyer's The Long Christmas, one story at a time, and a chapter of Ruth Graham's One Wintry Night as day as well.

The unseasonal cool December weather has allowed for lots of cosy snuggling under Grannie as we idle away the days watching our collection of Christmas movies. A Christmas Carol today. It still scares Jemimah a little bit, so I get lots of hugs. Nice.

The kitchen table has been transformed into a Gift Wrapping station. Good job it fits ten, because wrapping takes up lots of room, and the three of us are tucked in amongst ribbon and gift tags to eat our evening meal. Last night we lost the family devotional under all that stuff. Daddy wasn't pleased...

My mother has been proving herself babysitter extraordinaire as she helps each of the Granddaughters make and decorate a gingerbread house. You'll see Princess Pea and her sister Princess Mini-Me's attempt above. Absolutely excellently fantastic, I think. Jemimah's turn is on Friday. Stay tuned...

Christmas music plays through the house, the space under the tree is filling with gifts, and lots of people are dropping by to give their good wishes and to bring small tokens of food and wine. Christmas cards line each available surface, and mistletoe hangs in the hall. Jemimah likes to station herself underneath to snare a kiss from the unwary whenever they need to pass through. Life seems so gentle. And so exciting. And so happy.

The nicest thing of all is that people make time for each other. There is no Sunday School, no basketball, no homegroup, no school. If you peep through our window you may find my Beloved and me writing Christmas letters. Jemimah might be entertaining her Daddy to trout pâté and crackers with a glass of wine in the cubby, or she and I might be dealing with Secret Women's Business at the wrapping station. Friends might be nibbling on a wedge of shortbread with their coffee.

With so many real life people to enjoy, I keep running out of time to blog. But I do think of you too, dear friends. I hope - whatever your traditions and whatever your beliefs about Christmas - that your days are every bit as exciting and deliciously satisfying as our December days are, here in our peaceful home.

It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

Charles Dickens