B is for Bridget, smothered with attention.
What's nice about right now is that I have been kept busy for most of today, and now as I struggle to shimmy into my black church dress, which is far more puritan than you're probably imagining right now, and my knee high Doc Martin boots because they aren't the least bit puritan and it makes for a really great outfit, I'm excited. I'm excited to go to church and see the candle lights and the tiny white lights and the darkened church and the single hot spotlight for Sam, the readers of the Christmas story and each soloist in turn. I'm excited to see Ben sing at church mostly to win the bet that this kinder, gentler Ben will not get struck by lightning for doing so.
I'm excited that my Christmas dinner table is filling up faster than an airport departure lounge eleven minutes before the flight is supposed to leave. What was going to be an intimate meal for just us four plus a handful has now swelled into a small crowd, and maybe my army is going to stay together just a little longer, just to get each of us through some of the hardest, and the most beautiful times of the year.
I'm excited that Jacob is somewhere waiting quietly for me to approach him first, like the wounded bird who lives in a shoebox that I am and I'm excited that Cole has made a little space for him at last in that silly memory room choked with its locked and overfilled file cabinets and I never seem to have the right set of keys.
I'm excited because it's Christmas and the spirit is contagious and the children are just about losing it and shortly they will turn the corner and quiet down some, eat a hot supper and then go and watch their stepfather sing, surrounded by their honorary uncles who love us more than anything in the whole wide world. It isn't a sad Christmas or a difficult one, just one that is, so far, going very well indeed. I will sit in the middle and be kept warm and be held gently because that is my place in this holiday, like most others and I wouldn't trade it for all the frankincense and myrrh on the planet.
Merry Christmas to all of you and the ones you love.
I hope you are warm.
