life is good when…

Well, when a cou­ple of things hap­pen. I’d think of ten and make a Top Ten list, but I’m too tired. For starters, it’s awful­ly nice when one of your old­est friends comes to vis­it and brings… com­pan­ion hol­i­day socks. And then your moth­er takes the mir­ror off the kitchen wall where she nor­mal­ly checks her hair (awful) before school dropoff, and turns it into a hol­i­day vil­lage for the table in the sit­ting room.

Can our friends stay here for­ev­er with us? One of my most favoritest moments in life ever (I can’t fore­see much hap­pen­ing before I die that will change this) is sit­ting on the sofa look­ing at the Christ­mas tree, lis­ten­ing to Annabelle and Avery play “Out­rage,” the game sold at the Tow­er of Lon­don gift shop (along with 4 mil­lion oth­er things your child CAN­NOT live with­out), while “A Char­lie Brown Christ­mas” music played in the back­ground, and John and Steve sat in the kitchen debat­ing the rel­a­tive mer­its of Marks and Spencer canned cock­tails (very few mer­its, as it turns out, as I can attest hav­ing reluc­tant­ly sam­pled the Har­vey Wall­banger, oh my it should be against the law) and tor­tur­ing Elliot, mak­ing him smell John’s socks and beg for mer­cy. In the back­ground sim­mered bolog­nese sauce, although I had been almost too tired to make it. “Just order Chi­nese, Kris­ten,” Alyssa advised, while the kids clam­ored, “Bolog­nese, bolog­nese…” “But it’s up to you, Mum­my,” Avery allowed. To have small chil­dren beg is real­ly com­pelling, so I caved. “You made a good choice, Kris­ten,” Elliot solemn­ly assured me. Alyssa sat next to me and moved but­tons and snaps on Avery’s favorite grey skirt so she can con­tin­ue to wear it in the New Year, and I just sat and felt hap­py to have every­one around me.

More tomor­row, but all is well here. How was your holiday?