I shoulda taken a picture

But to those who weren’t here in the moment, the gooey marshmallow plops on the mirror over the fireplace would just look – sticky.  The crusty bits on the floor – a little grody and icky.

Perhaps we should have bottled up the full-on belly laughs to pull them out on days that could use a little extra chuckle. Wouldn’t that be awesome? On a too-quiet, oh-so-lonely mid-winter day, just open up a jar of musicplayingsilverwareondishesclinkingeveryonetalkingatoncepunctuatedwithashtonsammymollypinchedmeletsplayelfontheshelfnowthisiswhatialwayswanted!

Of course, that would be a poor substitute for the actual experience of being surrounded by the warmth and noise and love of family at our traditional Christmas brunch.

Today is my morning-after-Christmas-day since I had to work on Dec. 26. This is the day I get to sleep in and spend a morning in my monkey pants, lingering over coffee and ginger cookies as I survey the situation in the living room … it’s not at the too-quiet stage yet. I hear muffled chatter and giggles upstairs of someone Google-chatting. Ornaments are jingling and tinkling oh, so gently as Claudette stealthily strategizes how to remove one from the middle of the tree.

The mirror is clean now. The smooshed marshmallows mostly scraped off the floor. I may still find a stray bit of ammo a few months down the road but recovered all I could find. I’m looking forward to four days moving at a slower pace than the past six weeks or so. Getting caught up on gifts and cards and connecting with long-distance loved ones. Reading my new books, trying out recipes, games of Bananagrams, enjoying family time and napping … all necessary fortification to tackle a new year.

We've been making snowflakes at work to send to
Newtown. Since schools and others across the nation have
 been responding to the PTA's appeal with such abundance,
it's easy to imagine that they would run out of places to put
them. But I like to believe that where love is concerned,
there's always room for more. And when it overflows,
it just touches the next person and the next and the next ...