Thursday, December 27, 2007

Some much-needed Christmas cheer


Of course it was a tough Christmas this year. But, it was really important to Thomas that we have a good Christmas for the girls. Natalie would never have wanted us to spend the holiday sitting depressed. It wasn't easy but we did manage to celebrate with the girls and my family.

The night before Natalie's passing (Christmas Eve-eve) was one of the best nights we've had together as a family in a long time. I'm trying to decide if it was because it genuinely was one of the best or if it just seems that way compared to the sadness of the days immediately following.



Anyways, that night we baked about 5 dozen cookies for no particular reason, ordered pizza and watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" while eating in a living room floor picnic. The best part, though, was what you see in the picture above. I was taking care of some last-minute stuff around the house while the girls were drawing at the kitchen table. I left the kitchen for a while and when I came back saw the floor covered in their version of snow. They had torn apart a small composition notebook and thrown the little bits of paper all over the floor. My first instinct was to scold them. But, you know, they were just too darn cute throwing the paper all over the place and yelling, "Snow! Snow! It's snowing!" So, I grabbed some paper and tore up even more pieces for them to play with. We played in the "snow" for about 30 minutes until Thomas got home with the pizza. He wasn't quite sure what was going on when he opened the door to our mess, but he quickly joined in the fun adding some of the baking flour to the "snow." It was fun and a memory I will always cherish just because it was one of the purely spontaneous moments in family life that are so perfect you want to freeze them forever...

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