Fruit Cake and Snow

When life gives you fruit, make some cake!  No--I am not channeling Marie Antoinette. Normally I don't follow the blogger trend of rambling on about the details of my life.  I have Facebook for that.  Tonight I feel like a little cathartic purge is in order. This has been a busy week.  I lack the energy to preach about health, peace or enlightenment. 

I have a teething 18 month old, a 3 year old that wakes up at 5:55 each morning, a husband who stays up until at least 11 p.m. nightly and a week that was filled with holiday events.  We started the week with a party thrown in the level of hell reserved for guilty Republican bankers, got the kids off to Good Morning America's studios bright and early on Monday, hosted an out of town guest this week, attended a late night party at the Plaza, made numerous preparations for our own party to be held this weekend... and now we are going to have the mother of all snowstorms hit us tomorrow.  Guess what?  I welcome the snowstorm.  Now we may end up with 0-5 guests at a party where we had expected 30 people.  I know... not much of a big difference for a Westchester party, right?  The party held in Dante's Inferno last weekend had at least 100 guests and numerous domestics and bartenders.  Many of the people we invited this weekend have at least 3 other parties to attend on the same night.  I honestly don't even know most of the invitees very well anyway.  With the impending storm, most of those social butterflies will have to de-ice their wings if they make it out at all tomorrow!  I wonder... will they be relieved?  I would imagine so.

The best part about our party getting severely scaled down is that the food we planned is perfectly good in the freezer or refrigerator for several weeks.  Our drink menu consisted of mulled wine and wassail.  Jamie and I will gladly consume every item we purchased over the next month, as we relax in front of our Christmas tree with Yoda on top.  I do so love my Yoda tree topper.  His light saber fills me with the childlike hope I experienced as a child, seated with my mother on the floor next to our tree, watching the flickering lights and daydreaming about Christmas morning.  I miss those days with my Mom.  Every year I looked forward to making candy and cookies with her for the holidays.  We would play her favorite Christmas music (which is now mine as well) and then prepare and box up the goodies for friends and family members.  My mother makes holiday treats for many people every year, to this day.

When I was a child I never hosted parties--that was Mommy's job.  I never cared about entertaining or trying to make friends.  My friends were automatic; from school, dance classes, orchestra, choir, newspaper, theater and church.  I never worried about friends or dates as I had them in spades.  I still have friends and I have a husband that makes most other women roll their eyes in disbelief.  He likes to cook.  He tucks me in every night.  He gets home for dinner most evenings.  He doesn't care that I'm not working right now even though that delays our plans for buying a house... and he still wants me to go on a yoga retreat in January to get a few days of peace by myself.  You just can't buy that kind of man.  Even if you wish for one, 9 out of 10 times, you won't find him.  As for friends, I don't have many, but the friends I do have are good ones.  They are talented, highly intelligent, empathetic, eccentric and generally entertaining.  I would rather have 5 deep friendships than 500 friends on Facebook.  My life is where I want it to be, so why shouldn't I blog about that? 

If a scaled down party means that Jamie and I will spend more quality time together before the holidays, then I am all for it.  I miss those days of marveling at the lights on the tree and the flickering holiday candles as soft music played on the stereo.  My fondest memories this season have been sitting with Rhys on my lap as he watched the Christmas tree and shouted, "Dee! Dee! Yoda!"  I like to sing to my boys.  At night, Rhys likes me to hold him while I sing and he watches the the twinkling tree lights.  When they move from the slow to the fast twinkle, he wiggles and smiles.  Rhys has his signature Christmas light dance moves.  This is the joy of the holidays. 

Because of my busy week, I attended only one yoga class.  I went this evening at 5:00 p.m.  As I settled into my mat, I let go of every expectation surrounding this little party.  As always, I left the class feeling like I had received a massage.  My mind was clear, my heart was light and my perspective was balanced.  I still stopped by two stores on the way home, so that all of the provisions would be ready... for what might be the most fun pre-Christmas weekend I have spent in many years.

When we finally kiss goodnight, no one has to go out in the storm.  I'll be holding my boys real tight, and all through the night we'll be warm!  My fire is never dying, and my dears, we're not goodbye-ing.  As long as they love me so... let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!