We’re in Texas for the holiday season, so for the first time in seven years, we’re joining our families for all the festivities. Today was our first Christmas gathering and there are so many things I don’t want to forget about Christmas 1 of 4.
After everyone finished eating lunch, Pepper’s uncle asked if he could go get Pepper out of his room and hold him at the dinner table while we all visited. He held Pepper for a long time and gave him a good and proper massage. It made my heart happy to see Pepper so loved. They share the same middle name, which the internet once told me is the name meaning “happy friend.”
For 30-45 minutes I danced nonstop to the nutcracker soundtrack on cassette with my 6 year-old niece (whom I’d never met before) in the back bedroom. I also had the privilege of explaining to her who Benjamin and I were (she thought Benjamin was “daddy’s friend”). Then she told me: “Benjamin is a weird name. Cute but weird.” (That assessment just keeps making me laugh!) We looked at a map together and I showed her where we live compared to where she lives and all the states we drove through to come visit her. I also got to teach her how to work a cassette player, which was a privilege indeed.
Sometimes you don’t want to forget things because they’re so wonderful. Other times you don’t want to forget them so that you can make better choices in the future! Despite some efforts to practice smidges of dietary self-care today, everything was so tasty that I ate way too much and gave myself quite a stomach ache! Yesterday I baked lovely gluten-free sugar cookies and I ate way too many of those delicious bad boys today. All day long they were pure melt-in-your-mouth buttery goodness. Now they’re only regret!
Benjamin overdid it in his own way, so tonight I was on my phone searching for any kind of internet relief I could find. Even a placebo was acceptable. I just needed anything to help me feel like I was doing something to improve our situation! This led me to “yoga poses that undo overeating” on Cosmo.com, so I invited Benjamin to join me.
The poses did help some, but then we sat around afterwards and talked about Marvel Avengers stuff and speculated and laughed. Honestly I think that did more to improve my situation than anything simply because it took my mind off my misery.
So here’s to uncles who show love to their furry nephews, nieces to meet and dance endlessly with, and lovers to commiserate, cope and be miserable with. Christmas 1 of 4 was a wild success!