As you can see, I took Christmas couch pictures before we left, and we're celebrating the 12 days of Christmas this year, which means--you bet!-- more snapshots. (Do they ever end?)
I am glad of this extended celebration for many reasons. Our girls were laden down with gifts and love while we were in Long Island, and this gives us a chance to parcel out our parcels (library bag sale books, a few board games, monsters I'm finishing, library bags still to be sewn, AND STOP LOOKING OVER MY SHOULDER, MILDRED!) in a digestible fashion while they explore the glorious gifts they've already received. Plus, I was sick for the week and a half leading up to Christmas, and my last minute preparations oozed to a halt. Now that I'm feeling spry again, I can finish gifts in time and still feel justified in procrastinating for 11 1/2 months of the year. Another plus, those wise men whom we placed many feet-miles from the others in the creche can move closer and closer to the Child.
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All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and
death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
-T.S. Eliot (portion of Journey of the Magi)
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I think they may have felt mixed emotion just so with the knowledge given by their Destination. He came bringing death to our old but life to the new. I hope you all met this knowledge with unreserved joy on Christmas Day. The Redeemer has come!
And now I'm set because my dawdling gifts don't matter, anyway.
Nor does a shallow blog persona and excess snapshots, but here goes nothing... (Yes, I posted so many you'll have to click on the December archives again.)
The wren's red locks are beautiful!
ReplyDeleteGreat photos, Abby! Did you use a flash for these? How did you do them? I love how dramatic they look. I really need to start taking more photos of the three little men together. It always seems to get put on the backburner with all the Christmas hub-bub. Arrgh.
ReplyDeleteMichelle
I love that first picture Abigail--they all look so relaxed. I hope Christmas with your family is wonderful--we are doing the same thing with mine, and I love it because I can procrastinate one week longer (hence, writing this instead of wrapping presents for monday!).
ReplyDeleteOh, and the card & letter were lovely. You even managed to do the impossible, which is to get David to read (and even laugh at!) a whole Christmas letter, so congrats to you!
Michelle,
ReplyDeleteNo flash. (Whenever I use flash, you can tell. The picture quality stinks.) On a sunny day, I tacked a brown couch throw to the wall and had the girls sit in front of it. I stopped soon after taking these ones because I was getting grumpy and short-tempered. Posed pictures and Abigail don't mix well. Maybe it's a good thing you don't take posed pictures of your three!
Michi,
Good! I'm glad you guys got it. Now to get together in person...