Christmas Projects

My daughter stopped blogging for a while to spend more time with her family. I'll miss reading her thoughts, but I appreciate her reasoning. She is such a wonderful mother and is raising some awesome kids (biased did you say? quite possible, but really she is and they are). She is overcoming her need for total perfection and making sure her house is really a home.

I am so proud of her. Each time I've been to her house lately she has had a project going and is involving the kids in it. One day it was making candy, you should have seen the proud little faces and sticky little hands as they dipped pretzels in chocolate and covered them with sprinkles. The little one was helping to roll Martha Washington balls and grinning from ear to ear.

They made a gingerbread house and she let them decorate it, choosing where the candies should go and later sneaking back in to pluck the most tempting ones off to eat. Sometimes it is hard when you have a creative idea to let go and let little minds form their own ideas and carry them out themselves. It really helps their self-confidence to know that their mother values their ideas enough to let them implement some of them.

The latest project was stocking making. Actually, she had planned to do this without their help, but when one eased in and asked if she could remove the pins and place them in the pin cushion, she smiled, backed up and let her do what she herself could have finished in a moment. She was so patient, even though I know she really wanted to finish up quickly while there was another adult around, and she could devote her whole energies to the task at hand.

Christmas is a time for sharing and giving, but we often only think of material things. However, sometimes it's the little moments of time and pieces of ourselves that are the gifts that mean the most and are remembered the longest. It is really encouraging to see those gifts being given so freely by and to ones I love so much.