Christmas is over, (I suppose officially, since today is the Feast of Epiphany) so it's time for a wrap-up. I had a loud, chaotic, happy, blur of a holiday with my family in North Carolina. It started fairly slowly, with just Margaret and I at the house and others visiting occasionally, but the intensity ramped up quickly. At the end of the week, there were generally five children (under the age of 5) and nine adults to be found at any given time. It was easy to find them, too -- follow the sound of squealing, jabbering, occasionally distressed children and you'd be sure to find at least a chunk of the adult population. The other part would be hiding.
The downside to so much activity in the home is that days pass in a kind of busy haze so that it's hard to grab onto too many distinct moments in retrospect. But I think that we Cabanisses like our happy haze, and no one seems to be complaining of not having done more. There were two separate Christmas dinners to accommodate different arrival days, two gift-openings (and ensuing pandemonium), many days-worth of Christmas desserts and goodies, and a full week's-worth of lolling about. There was probably about a month's-worth of chasing after children, but coming back to my own house with no other responsibilities than attending to my own whims feels oddly lonely and empty. And incredibly indulgent. In the end, I think I'll be able to come to terms with my freedom and selfishness and enjoy that second cup of coffee as I stretch out on the couch with a good book, but it's still a substitute for that better, noisier, demanding, frustrating, hilarious thing called family. I miss everyone without fail as soon as Margaret and I pull out of the driveway for the return trip.
As for Christmas being over, it seems to me that this is a pure matter of opinion and taste. I expect to see trees thrown out on the curb come Monday morning, but my roommates and I will be keeping our twinkle lights and decorations up until February. When I think that Christmas, with its cheerful, month-long period of anticipation, comes
not four days after the official start of winter, leaving three long months of cold, icy darkness to slog through, I wonder who's responsible for this set-up. I'd like to ask him what he was thinking. We need all the cheer and coziness we can possibly scrape together. For the past two days, the DC-metro area has been pounded with 40 mile-an-hour gusts of icy wind, and the thermometer (without accounting for wind chill) has hovered around 20 degrees. I'm occasionally woken in the middle of the night by the sound of the ill-fitted storm pane banging against my bedroom window, and every crack in our drafty house suddenly feels twice as wide. Pedestrians in the city are insulated up to their eyes against the cold -- a fact which seems like sufficient reason not to go out at all. If you can't breathe normally without fear of your nose-hairs freezing, it's time to rethink your plans for the day. Accordingly, I have spent nearly all day today curled up under a blanket by the light of my bright, sparkly Christmas decorations, drinking hot liquids and listening to music. Whatever helped to make the pre-Christmas season seem delightful, I think, should continue in full force for as long as necessary, which should be sometime mid-March.
Now if I could only figure out how to keep the anticipation of a long visit with my family, there would be no reason at all for thinking Christmas has come and gone.
