I recently read an article in a tech-y magazine about how to fail at social media. One of the top five fails was: Inconsistency.

It has been so long since I last posted that I almost forgot how to log in. Sigh. Well, since my purpose for blogging was to capture random memories that I might not otherwise remember, and since any other method of "capturing memories" is hopelessly behind (yes, I mean my photo albums..journals, etc.), then I suppose a couple of months isn't so bad. Maybe my children won't be scarred for life after all!

It is Wednesday night, and I'm sitting in the living room amidst twinkly tree lights listening to the clock tick.....enjoying the quiet. Even as the Christmas music junkie that I am, tonight I am enjoying quiet. We've had a radio station on in the van that has been playing Christmas music for weeks, and I think I've heard George Micheal's "Last Christmas, I gave you my heart...." 15 times! And this wierd old song about wanting a hippopotamus for Christmas.?? Yes, tonight it's quiet. I feel strangely calm and unstressed this year regarding Christmas. The gift-giving in our families is pretty tame, we have no official parties to attend, and I'm not feeling the need to come up with perfectly decorated cookies...or a perfectly decorated house, for that matter! I feel like I might be forgetting something, but if I am I'm blissfully ignorant! We are just enjoying Christmastime. The kids really wanted to get a star for the top of our tree this year, so I picked one up at a store and when I brought it home my entire family told me it was LAME! I insisted on putting on the tree, which is as tall as our ceilings, so the lame star (and the top branch)were kind of folded over against the ceiling. I loved the Charlie Brown-ness of it, but when we were out a couple of nights ago, Peter found a star he absolutely loved. So down came the lame star and up went Peter's pick, with full approval of the star committee. I had no idea the star was such an issue!

Someone asked Janie what some of our Christmas traditions are, and the first thing she said was that we never put gifts out under the tree until Christmas morning. I laughed because what she thought of as a tradition was really just because A) Tim and I usually don't finish wrapping everything until Christmas Eve, and B) we've always had little ones who would tear into the wrapping long before Christmas Day! I wonder if this is how lots of traditions are started - out of circumstance! It's funny to hear what sticks out in the kids' minds....I try to make so many things "meaningful"..like reading the advent story every night...and then what they remember most is that we went to Happy Joes on Christmas Eve last year!!! I sigh, but with a smile on my face, because I love that kids are kids and that you can try your hardest to make them all deep and thoughtful, but what they're really thinking about is pizza and how they're hoping to get an Anakin's Y-Wing Starfighter Lego set for Christmas. I'd like to think the meaningfulness and the advent and the profoundness of why we really celebrate Christmas is taking root in their little souls...even amidst George Michael and the song about the hippo and the lame star mom got from the Walgreen's.

Well, you're perhaps wondering what the photo above has anything to do with this post. This picture is of the Charles Bridge in Prague, Czech Republic, which I visited on my trip with my dear friend Shannon. Prague was so beautiful, and one of the things I loved about it was that it holds the history of St. Wenceslas..Good King Wenceslas, as you may remember! This happens to be one of my very favorite Christmas carols because of the solid harmonies and the story/dialogue between King W and his page...and good memories of singing it at countless Christmas engagements with my fellow madrigal friends. The whole time we were in Prague, I SO wanted to just sing that carol out loud and imagine the king and the page gathering food, wine and wood to take to "yonder peasant" by St. Agnes Fountain!

The last line of the carol..."Therefore Christian men be sure, wealth or rank possessing...Ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing!"

I hope you're enjoying Christmas, that you have both wierd and meaningful traditions to tell of, and that you get to hear "Good King Wenceslas" at least as many times as you hear George Michael! :)