Endless Gifts December Eve

Walking into Church and “Come Thou Fount” was playing… and all for the little girl whose heart lit right up hearing “her song” and how the words have driven down deep into this heart weaving their narrative with my own

perfecting her dance move(a lovely little skip) with every step of her “greenway” walk, and she danced the entire way(M)

my hand in his, my head tucked against his chin, sweet closeness

my girl, the day after her aunt ( the bunny queen) came and encouraged her and her brother in their care of Pippin and in what a truly wonderful little bunny he is… my girl must have told me at least three times, all aglow… and O, the coos and loves lavished on our little man.  Those words meant so much.

Brown Paper Packages piled under our tree, to be opened all December long. Read long and soak the season. Yes.

Piano Guys: A Family Christmas, George Winston: December, Andrew Peterson: Behold the Lamb, Chris Rice: Living Room Sessions- Christmas

Cello. Utter, unexpected gorgeousness.

A clean bedroom and refreshed knobs on all the dressers. Sigh, happy.

Tree up and small girls with hands raised in excitement, dark silhouettes in front of the tree, gentle fingers exploring the treasures

finding a rainbow heart I colored just for her and she runs and hugs my leg and then…twirling with it… I hear her little voice, “Mommy loves me!” O my darling, yes!

Holding a sweet blondie on my lap and missing those days… when she needed to be held so much more. Grateful for a tall brother who met that need…but I miss. I miss. She still fits. I tuck her under my chin and sing. Small ones after their bath are so delicious.

Christmas carols round the breakfast table and first Advent candle lit

Pippin the perfect- for our family- bunny.

Curly hair

Flowers on my table

A nativity arranged

Joshua and a sunset romp, wild and free

the day we were out in the yard and I watched her run and spin and twirl and chase a butterfly and it was just…so like her. So her.

There is almost nothing that can calm and still my heart and all atwirl-ing mind…like, sitting quiet and going deep and counting grace gifts.Seeing.This fights the darkness and the whelming flood. It fights discouragement and heartache. There is almost nowhere else I feel most alive, most myself, most real.

“Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

“I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

“The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

-Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

 

So, I am going to extend this shy invitation: Keep Christmas with me? Count grace gifts?

Found in Him,

Rebecca