That’s a Wrap on Christmas.

You have no idea how much I feel like Jo March as I sit in the basement (as opposed to the attic) writing by candlelight.  I even have a juicy Christmas orange to savor. I’m wearing my plaid night shirt and feeling very Louise May Alcott-y. Enjoying a night cap that you don’t wear.
I just said goodbye to the last family who joined us for this glorious occasion. I’m talking about Christmas, of course.  We began discussing the possibility of our very large family getting together for Christmas a year ago.  We’ve tossed out pie-in-the-sky ideas like this before and never followed through but this time there seemed to be a heart connection regarding this suggestion.  I think everyone knew it was time.  This Christmas would have been twenty-five years since the last time the entire family got together to celebrate Christmas at the Banff Springs Hotel.  1994 holds some very special memories. The family has evolved over the last twenty-five years and some have gone on before us while others have joined the family either through marriage or birth.  It is poignant to think about the ones that passed and joyous to think of those added.  Twenty-seven out of a possible forty-four  people gathered here in Calgary for Christmas.
So much expectation. So much planning.  So many decisions to be made. SO many logistics. So much anticipation. As brothers and sisters and cousins and grandchildren started arriving, our emotions were rising to a feverish pitch.  This was really happening.  We pulled it off.  Never perfection and not always as planned but everyone doing their best and bringing what they could to the table (literally).  We had Kiwi’s that wanted snow and wanted to see the mountains.  We had those that claimed it was all about the food (and there was not shortage of it – thank you Lord).  For some it was about the games and the movies and the music and lights.  While still others just came so they could be part of the ‘greatest Christmas pageant ever’.  Alright, no one actually came for that but we did it anyway.  A huge incentive for our gathering was our eighty-seven year old mother.  She stills works and just came back from an adventure in Australia and will probably outlive us all in-spite of the fact that she keeps telling us she may not make it to another Christmas.
This Christmas wasn’t about presents.  It wasn’t about ambiance.  God knows – He does –  that I tried to make it about ambiance but I got a quick education about the reality of six small children in our midst.  It wasn’t a competition.  It wasn’t a fashion show.  It wasn’t about keeping up with the Jones and ‘what’s everyone else doing?’.  It was simply about gathering together with family.  It was about loving and accepting.  It was about joy and peace on earth and good will toward men.  It was about enjoying each other’s company and having fun and catching up on all the happenings in our lives. To bring us up to speed regarding our hopes and dreams and mistakes.  We all make them, don’t we?  No one lost their cool or left early in a huff. It was about late night talks and sleeping through Christmas movies together.  I think we managed to get everyone that wanted to go, to the mountains.  The eggnog was flowing.  The Star Wars waffles sizzling.  The tobogganing run packed and exciting. The butter tarts plentiful – yes, have two or three.  Spruce Meadows seen.  Carcassone and Dutch Blitz  and Quirkle played. We were more stuffed than the turkey.  We didn’t forget the cranberries in the fridge this year.  Booked entire rows of seats at the movie theatre.  Kiwi’s skating in subzero temperatures and crying because they could not feel their extremities any longer.  And of course, Starbucks.

Star Wars, Starbucks, Star of the East.

And now…its over.  For another year.  For another decade.  For another lifetime.  But worth every expensive, testy, freezing, bloated, stressful, loud, and magical moment.