The Best Christmas Card Ever

Tonight I went to a workshop at PaperSource on creating handmade cards. 

Hmm? Oh. Well, because I wanted to, that's why. Because I haven't done anything just because I wanted to in... uhhh... hmmm...

You see how it is.

So I enjoyed every second of it.  I arrived early to find a  h u g e  table covered in brown craft paper (how I love that stuff) and neat stations fully stocked with an array of craft supplies that would make even the uncraftiest among us feel an electric jolt of elementary joy. 

And then, I played. Playing feels pretty good, in case you've forgotten. You have, haven't you? Well now, a little quality time with some office supplies would probably do you a world of good.  Cut and paste, people! Rock, paper, scissors, gluesticks!  It maketh the heart merry. (If you need convincing, pay Ann Voskamp a visit. Now there's a gal who knows how to party with a gluestick.)

So the PaperSource instructor, a chirpy 21-year-old art student named, appropriately, Cricket, showed us craftylicious things to do with engravers and templates and bone folders and rubber stamps.  Funnity fun fun! I even got to use some power tools -- a heat embosser and a Xion sticker maker machine thingy.  Heavens, I'm still trying to settle down.

My table partner was probably at Woodstock. When I glanced up to ask her for the tape runner, she had her eyes closed and was swaying and humming all groovy-like to the music.  I think it was Rocket Man.  "Oh my," she exulted, "I just got lost in the music for a sec. Elton John was just so... powerful, ya know?" And then, while Cricket was chirping about engraving tools, Woodstock Woman kept leaning over whispering to me in countercultural tones, "I don't WANT to do it that way.  So I'm NOT."  Trippin' daisies, babe, way to be revolutionary!  And then she'd nod at me all conspiratorially.  (Probably because I was wearing acid green and purple together.  With teal tights and lots of blue beads.  Right on.)

So I came home with a portfolio of swell projects which I made all by myself.  (Well, all by myself with Cricket and Ms. Woodstock and seven other remarkably normal women.)  I picked up some sweet paper skills, too.

But no matter what... no matter how clever I become, no matter how many ink pads or canisters of embossing powder I go through, no matter how many racks of dollar store Christmas cards I peruse after I've given up on all that... I will never NEVER top the Christmas greeting we put postage on in 1995. Because this, Gentle Readers, was our family Christmas card picture that year:

Not even Martha Stewart can beat that.

*hat tip to Claire for digging up the picture.  And for having those incredible curls.

her very last first day

Thirteen much-too-short years ago this fall, this beautiful little girl started kindergarten. She was all bubbly elation. Every morning, she lit up like a 1000 watt bulb the second she woke up. She never walked anywhere she could skip or run instead. She was all hugs and dimples and wild exclamations, an electric blur of torn tutus and and mud boots and fairy wings and bursts of operatic high C's that rattled our teeth. She was just sure that every squirrel in our neighborhood loved her.

She almost always climbed in my bed at 5 AM and put her soft, warm hands on my cheeks, and with her  little nose touching mine she would promptly fall back to sleep. So for a small, golden window of my life I got to wake up beholding a cherub every morning.

A kindergartner!  At last, she could do school with big sister! She was so happy to finally be in our first day of school picture and to have her own grade sign! But she didn't want a "K" on her grade sign because that was just a silly letter, and big sister got a nice pretty number on hers. She wanted a number, too. Since she was reading already (honestly, I never saw a child learn to read faster than she did), I caved in and let her have a nice pretty 1. And then I let her be a kindergartner.

Little brother arrived a couple of years later. Then a few fast and glorious years later, big sister's number was rather suddenly a 12... and so her sophomore year, for the first time ever, she had to learn to do school alone. That was also the year I was sick. It was all a very hard transition, and she was lonely and sometimes sad and scared. But in due time she rose to the challenges and emerged from all of that with an even brighter spirit, a will of iron, and a whole new set of fancy superpowers.

And now, my beautiful cherub is a senior. She's still 1000 watts of several sorts of wonderful: she is wise, perceptive, compassionate, ridiculously funny, trustworthy, intuitive, talented, elegant, grounded, beautiful, brave, and one of the most crazy fun friends I've ever had.

She loves the Lord with all her heart, can sing most anything, discusses Shakespeare with gnomes, penguins, and middle school children with equal ease, and really knows how to rock a fabulous pair of shoes.

I feel honored to be her mother, friend and sister in Christ. And I've grown to suspect that the neighborhood squirrels do, in fact, love her.

I know I sure do.

The days are sometimes long,
but the years are so short.