Christmas in November

At one point in our relaxing yesterday, I turned to Nathan and stated: "It feels like Christmas today."

It was a low-key sort of day. One of those uber-rare (just wanted to use the word "uber") days when there is nothing to do except what you want to do. The laundry was caught up. The house couldn't handle any more cleaning. There was nothing we needed to do with the yard or house. There was nowhere we needed to be. And it was beautiful.

I spent the day in sweat pants, comfy BUNNY-HUG, and toque, sitting in my chair by the window and reading. I'm pretty sure that's where I was all day. I pretty much didn't move at all. And Nathan enjoyed a day of playing video games. He bought a new game on Monday and spent a number of hours wandering around the game with compass and map in hand. I'm convinced he really didn't do much more than that...

So yeah, it was a beautiful day. I could't remembered the last time I had absolutely NOTHING to do. There wasn't even laundry or cleaning that I should be doing. I thoroughly enjoyed reading my book, sneaking over to the couch every hour or so for a kiss, and basically just doing nothing.

What does this have to do with Christmas, you ask? Well, without family nearby and not having been able to travel home for the holidays for the past two years, the word Christmas brings to mind this type of day almost as quickly as a day filled with family and food and gifts. It has been somewhat lonely the past couple years, but we know that if we are around home for the holidays, we can count on a day to rest, reflect and enjoy what we enjoy best: being at home doing nothing...together. So yesterday was a sort of Christmas-like day for me. No, there were no presents. No, there was no turkey. No, there weren't even any Christmas decorations up. But it was a day worth celebrating. I was praising God for the day all day long and deliberately not taking any moment of it for granted. It was a day to be. And "be" we did.

(While Christmas alone in MB is lonely, we do love to spend it with each other. We would rather spend Christmas together alone than making plans for the sake of being out doing something because it's Christmas. Make sense?)