Christmas on the Farm

Merry Christmas from the farm!  As you can see things are completely normal around here ...

... oh these boys of mine ... send them out to do a few chores and this is what I find them doing! lol  I guess it's just too much temptation ... all that fluffy, wet, perfect snowball-type snow.  I feel like this pic should be one of those old Norman Rockwell type paintings ... such a classic feel to it ... like it could be any two brothers at any point in time past or future.  Where there is snow and boys there are sure to be snowball fights! :)  

It's taken us a bit this year but we finally got into the Christmas spirit.  A couple of months ago Joe and I found our Christmas tree while we were out fencing ... we marked it at the time and I went back a couple of days before Christmas to get it. (Cheating a little perhaps but muuuuch easier with the tractor)  Everybody wanted to wait to decorate until Grady got home, I guess it didn't really feel like Christmas without ALL of us together yet.  (Not sure how we're going to navigate that one over the next years as they come and go! lol)  Anyway, we finally got into the spirit of things and the kids did a great job of making our humble home look festive and bright! 

This month I celebrated a birthday ... my 29th.  Okaaaaay maybe not my 29th, maybe not even my 39th, but let's not go there ... age is only a number right?!?!  It was a wonderfully ordinary day full of the wonderfully ordinary activities that make up my life.  It started at 5am with Rick half singing, half mumbling a silly made-up song about how he was glad that I was born.  There was something about labour and crowning and he even made something rhyme with episiotomy!  It's all a rather hazy memory from the 'not-quite-awake-yet' sleep fog I was in but those certain words definitely stuck in my head.  What a dork!  What a ridiculous, goofy, loveable dork I married!

Everyone in my family made me feel special and loved and it really doesn't get better than that!  Sophie spent most of her afternoon baking and decorating a beautiful double layer black forest cake for me.  It was gorgeous!  Shaved chocolate adorned the centre, ringed by bright red cherries nestled in artful whip cream swirls and the whole edge surrounded by tall spiky chocolate rolls that she'd melted and rolled by hand ... perfect!  A masterpiece!  Aaaaand then she picked it up to bring it to the fridge and it slid.  The whole top layer sluffed completely to the side, taking with it all it's glorious decor and it sat there like a misshapen heap of disappointed dreams.  The cake looked sad but her face was even sadder.  All that time and effort on her part felt wasted and ruined, but I saw it through different eyes.  She had laboured all afternoon to give me something beautiful ... and she did ... it wasn't about the cake at all, it only represented her desire for me to know I was loved.  So she succeeded!  I did indeed feel very loved!  Plus I joked later as we sat all together eating it, that cake reminded me just a little bit about reality .... sometimes things don't work out the way we planned or go the way we intended, sometimes all of our effort and striving towards something beautiful ends up being a heap, sometimes we build our hopes and dreams on an unstable base and they slide out from underneath us.  Those moments only become a waste if we choose to waste them.  Pick it up and throw it in the garbage and you've lost everything.  How much better to shed a few tears of disappointment, then gather up the pieces and share them with the ones we love and have a laugh over the whole mess of it all.  

So that's my wish for all of us at the close of this year.  May you take the time to look back over the past 12 short months, gather up it's highs and lows in your memory, chew on them with family and friends and look forward to a messy and memorable 2020!

From all of us at 6S ...We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!