I feel like I am finally getting a chance to catch my breath after Christmas. The holiday started out a little crazy at the beginning of the week, the day before we were planning to travel 5 hours to my hometown. On Monday we realized that Tuesday's weather on our travel route would have everything from snow to freezing rain, so we decided that we needed to leave Monday if we wanted to make it safely to a family gathering on Wednesday (Christmas Eve). With a flurry of packing we managed to get clothes, gifts, snacks and children into the van. The rest of the week was a blur of cooking and kids, and three straight days of family gatherings. I do so love being able to spend Christmas with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in a place that is so familiar to me. But with small children out of their routine and eating more sugar than usual there is bound to be an element of chaos, and so there was.
But now I'm sitting back and doing some thinking and reading. One of my Christmas presents from Tom was a book I read last summer and decided was worthy of actually owning. Keeping House by Margaret Kim Peterson is a wonderful, encouraging read for any Christian woman who finds herself in charge of a household. I've especially enjoyed re-reading the section on handwork, considering my own recent sewing interests, and that I received several handmade things as Christmas gifts: an afghan from my great Aunt, a snowflake ornament crocheted by my grandma, and tiny stocking and cap ornaments knit by my sister. So I'll leave you here with a quote from Keeping House:
"Cooking, cleaning, laundry - these things are necessary and important and perhaps more lasting, at least in their effects, than we tend to give them credit for. But it is important to make things too - things to wear and things to use, things to keep and things to give, things that can remind us of our own essential physicality and of our links to past and future generations."
