Friendship

After we placed the first presents on the wall, my oldest mentioned that she wished that we had enough to decorate the "little" false wall too (the hallway wall, for those who know the layout of the house). I told her that would certainly mean that they had a lot of presents, but that we needed to remember that we are so fortunate to have people who have blessed us so much already. With the same voice that mothers use to remind their children of starving children in Africa, and homeless children from Syria, I reminded her that the purpose of Christmas never is about the presents (as I cringed in my own heart at how much I wished I could fill the walls with gifts for my kids too--I'm only human).  

You can imagine the kids' surprise when our friends stopped by today with Christmas gifts from their family to ours. The kids were so excited to see their friends, and to make plans for the winter break that they considered the gifts briefly, and then got out the chessboard.  It was after our friends left that the kids realized that the gifts were for them, and would fit on the little wall and even fill in gaps on the big wall. Perhaps, my oldest's wish might come true.  I laughed that the kids were more excited by the visit than the packages.

Likewise, you can imagine our happiness earlier when a friend stopped by to drop off other gifts (coffee--the nectar of life) and a card. The thoughtfulness of friends when we don't expect it always makes me tear up. We never expect people to be so generous, mostly because we understand that everyone has so many struggles that they face themselves. Life isn't easy, even for the best of us.  But this season has shown us that we are so truly blessed with friends and family beyond anything we could imagine.    

My husband and I fall into the blues more frequently as we consider and worry about our family and life.  After a particularly depressing bit of news yesterday, today reminds us that we are still fortunate.  We have friends and family who care about us.  Not everyone is as lucky as we are. Yesterday, we did have to talk with the kids about friends who sometimes become uncomfortable and don't know what to do when their friends are sad or have something bad happen in their lives.  Tonight reminded our kids that there are people who don't care about that stuff, there are people who just care about their friends.