Merry Merry

What we lack in gift wrapping skills, we make up for with humor.

After I ‘opened’ this box from my husband and tried on the new mud boots that were inside, my son surreptitiously snatched the box, filled it with frozen alligator, kangaroo, and bison meat, replaced the post-it, and gave the same box back to me.

My son’s other present – a large frozen goose – was given to his dad wrapped in a sweatshirt. I get it. Frozen geese are really a bear to wrap.

My husband, saying that ‘what is lost is found,’ gave me a pair of silver hoop earrings. I’d lost one of my silver hoops months ago so this was an effort to make my jewelry box whole again. The hoops feel humungous, but everyone says they look okay. Still, as I told a friend I saw this afternoon, I might have to change my personality to match my new earrings.

This afternoon, I dropped a plant off at my old friend’s house. She brought out the boxes of Christmas cookies that she’d made, and her grandkids had frosted, and I realized, in that moment, that I had missed the whole Christmas cookie train my entire life. It is too late now. I’m never going to be a marathon runner either. The list of regrets grows.

Last, our daughter gave us a bird feeder with a camera. So, instead of sitting on the back porch with my cheesy, 5th grader binoculars, I can capture the pecking going on in my backyard anywhere, anytime. I could learn birds. It might be too late for fancy Christmas cookies or marathons, but I could actually learn birds.

It’s not beyond the realm of possibility.

How very merry is that?