Sweat & Sparkle

No

We had a busy, festive weekend planned: more Christmas lights, a special shopping event, a mini road trip. How cheery and fun, right?

Except after my work Christmas party, more shopping, more wrapping, looking up recipes, and a never-ending to-do list that keeps growing, it just felt overwhelming. Well, guess what? There’s no federal law that requires us to attend every holiday event that comes our way. I thought about it and decided we would exercise our right to say “no”.

So we did just that. With one simple word, my husband and I cleared our calendar for the entire weekend. It was a rainy, chilly weekend, and we thoroughly enjoyed hibernating inside together. Just relaxing with a book and reading more than a few sentences is a luxury these days, and I loved every minute, listening to the rain until I got sleepy.

We ventured out for a low-key date night, and I ended up buying yet another roll of Christmas wrapping paper, something we absolutely do not need. We have enough Christmas paper to wrap presents for the next 50 years. But it was pretty, and instead of reminding me that we had more than enough already, my husband laughed and told me, “Go ahead and get it.” And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we have roughly 6,000 rolls of wrapping paper in the closet!

Last night, with the Christmas tree lights and mantle lights peacefully glowing and twinkling, I was grateful we shifted gears at the last minute and had a quiet, cozy weekend instead of running around all over the place. Those two days flew by at breakneck speed, of course, and it’s back to the hustle today. We are expecting no less than five packages in the mail today, some last minute Christmas gifts…so it looks like I have a hot date with those 6,000 rolls of Christmas wrapping paper!

Protected: 3 Months

Winter

Our Tree

A rainy December weekend is the perfect chance to put up the Christmas tree! It’s quite the undertaking in our house. We take our tree very seriously.

We pulled down boxes of ornaments from shelves and got to work. It takes a while, because we don’t have any of those pre-packaged boxes of matched ornament sets. No, our ornaments have been collected over the past 17 years together, plus ornaments from my husband’s mom, as well as ornaments we had before we got married and joined decorating forces.

One example is an ornament I made in sewing class in high school. It’s a teddy bear wearing a Santa hat, and while I believe it is a fine piece of impeccable stitchery, my little brother joked long ago that it bears a stronger resemblance to a dog than a teddy bear. (My husband agrees). What do they expect from a bear who is at least 30 years old?

Each ornament is wrapped in bubble wrap or tissue paper in several boxes, and they are unwrapped one at a time and placed on the tree. It’s fun unwrapping them, not knowing which one it is at first. I hand him the ornaments from his mom so he can have the honor of deciding their places on our tree. I have ornaments from my mom that make me want to smile and cry at the same time. I trust that, over time, it will gradually be more smile than cry.

We have ornaments that each of the kids picked out way back when my husband and I first met. I still remember being at the store, watching the kids circle multiple Christmas trees and select their own ornament. They were so small back then.

When we travel, we have started picking up ornaments where we can, like one we got at the beach this past summer. It’s been waiting patiently on a shelf for its turn on the tree. We have personalized ornaments from the zoo, and we still laugh at our inside joke about me accidentally calling a hippo ornament a rhino (hey, in my defense, they were carved out of wood and a bit indistinct).

One year, I had the idea to buy a bunch of tiny red bows and attach them to the ends of the Christmas tree branches. My husband loved it and said the tree looks so beautiful with the red bows, so it’s become part of the decorating tradition. The original bows are slowly wearing out and falling apart, so I have bought more to replace them as the old ones are retired. It takes forever to place them on the tree, but he’s right: it’s so damn pretty when they are all on the tree.

When we finished our tree yesterday and turned on the lights, we just stood in front of it for a moment, admiring it. I’m glad we put it up early enough to have a few weeks to enjoy it. I am already looking forward to many evenings of snuggling in the living room with my husband, the only light in the room being the gentle glow from the tree…and debating where we can possibly fit another ornament!

Top of a Waterfall

My husband and I barely had time to touch base at home and do some quick laundry before we packed for our next trip, traveling to the mountains for Thanksgiving. I haven’t seen all of my brothers since our mom’s funeral, and I couldn’t believe I was able to coordinate getting them all in one place, but there they were, in all their loud, outspoken, goofy glory.

I am not sure the stars will align again for all of us to be in one place at the same time anytime soon, so I clung to every moment and enjoyed the trip immensely. Old nicknames and jokes and stories from childhood sprung up, and we laughed, and I saw in each of them the younger version of them hiding not so far behind that I’m-so-mature-and-grown-up act they put on for the rest of the world.

On Thanksgiving morning, we went for a hike. Well, I use the term “hike” loosely. It started innocently enough, strolling casually on a wooden boardwalk, then a well-worn grassy trail. Our first stop was a cool stream with large boulders and a bridge, and we hopped from rock to rock, took pictures, touched the cold, clear water. When my younger brother asked who was in to keep going to the waterfall, we all joined in the trek, blissfully unaware what was ahead of us.

The well-defined, worn path grew fainter, and dirt was gradually replaced with roots and small rocks, then larger and larger rocks. The path got so rough that we started to wonder if we were still on a path or if we had somehow wandered into straight-up wilderness.

Maybe it was a good time to turn around, head back to safety, and wait at the mountain lookout for the crazy people who wanted to keep going…except we became part of the crazy people who wanted to keep going. How many times in one lifetime do you get a chance to hike to a waterfall?

So we kept going. And the trail, if we are still calling it that, got even rougher. We started wading across streams, picking our way across slippery rocks that jutted from the water. Instead of walking on the trail now, we were mostly climbing, stepping over large roots or pulling ourselves up jagged rocks.

Did I mention that I was just recovering from a bad cough and had no business being in chilly weather, in high altitude, climbing rough terrain? If I had known what it would take to reach the waterfall, I certainly would have turned back, but as my husband said, it was too late now. We may as well see the top, because we had gone too far to quit now.

When we heard water, we thought we were close. We were, sort of. We could stand at the bottom of the waterfall and watch the water crash down and stream along beside us, and it was beautiful…but my niece called to me from the very top of the waterfall, and she looked so excited, and how could I not want to be up there too?

I flopped down onto a huge rock like a chair, exhausted. Despite the cold, I was sweating, and my lungs were burning. I took one look at the climb to the top — basically straight up a rocky, muddy cliff — and said no. The bottom of the waterfall was good enough.

My husband encouraged me, told me he knew I could do it. I wasn’t quite as sure, but I got my rear off that rock, and up the cliff we started.

This was no longer hiking, as far as I was concerned. We were moving up one hand-hold and foot-hold at a time on the steep mountainside, gripping crevices in rocks, pressing our feet against muddy clumps of grass and edges of rock. I apologized to my manicure as we worked our way up, one rock at a time, and just as I was certain I was certifiably insane for even trying this nonsense, there we were.

How do I describe the top of a waterfall? We were standing at the top of the mountain, crystal clear water streaming over boulders and a pebble-lined bottom, wintry trees all around us. It was magnificent. Unreal. I still couldn’t believe I had made it.

My brothers, sister-in-law, niece, and nephew were all there, along with my husband and me, and we explored, carefully treading across the boulders from one side of the stream to the other. I sat on a boulder near the edge of the waterfall with my oldest brother for a while, watching the others, talking, peering over the cliff to the bottom of the waterfall and then ducking back when I got dizzy.

I turned and saw my husband standing on a boulder not far away, and he looked so handsome in his tan-colored jacket and boots and jeans, picking up stones so my niece and nephew could skip rocks in the stream. He had climbed that cliff with ease, offering me a stream of encouraging words as we inched our way up, and now he stood there just like he belonged at the top of a waterfall, strong and wonderful and all mine. I smiled. It is an image in my head that I will never forget.

When I caught my breath, we wandered into the woods beside the stream and found our way even further upstream, above the waterfall, behind where branches and leaves had formed a small wall and blocked the view from the waterfall. Behind it was a staggered step-down of rocks coming down the hillside, almost like a staircase in the stream, with flat, smooth rocks we could step on. Water had eroded the coolest channels and cups and tunnels into the rocks, and we spotted some fish in this higher area, too.

I am grateful that my husband pushed me to get off that rock and finish the hike. I would have hated to miss the top of the waterfall. It was so indescribably beautiful, an experience I would have greatly regretted missing.

It felt symbolic too. Pardon me if I get too sentimental and sappy, but it was a tough climb that looked impossible from the bottom. One step at a time, though, we zigzagged our way to the top, and it was well worth the effort. We made it. Hardships either drive you apart or pull you closer together, and I am beyond grateful that we always use them to find our way closer, higher, entwined more tightly together. There is no one else in the world I want to stand on top of a waterfall with.

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!