this moment

Just on the other side of my window, beyond the sage curtains I hung recently, past the doubled reflection of gold and green and red and blue lights on our 10-foot tree, I see the black and bony outlines of the leafless maples in our backyard, splayed against a weakening, slate blue sky.

Inside, we're warm. Dave is stuffing the stove with tinder dry logs. The heat from two crock pots (one with a roast for tonight; the other containing a slowly disintegrating roast, chunks of which will fill soft hoagies at tomorrow's Christmas potluck) keeps the kitchen toasty and fragrant. Larry lies prone on his green mat, striking a favored "I'm all tuckered out after pulling your sled that last hundred miles, Ma'am" pose, but he's done not a lick of work all day. He's barely budged from that mat. Just short breaks now and then to accept bits of bread and beef from me.

Until I stopped to capture this moment, I was sitting at the kitchen table knitting an icy blue, baby lash scarf. I suppose I needed to rest too. Zac had coaxed me into burning Lulu's To Sir With Love on a CD for him (I've ruined my children with old movies), and you know how physically exhausting it is to hit that "copy" button. He's upstairs jamming to Lulu, Tera is in the living room laughing as Squishy and Mittens cat-wrestle each other on the carpet, and I've got my headphones on and Rascal Flatts blasting as high as my laptop will let me go.

In an hour, our nephew, Christian, has a basketball game. We've been invited. We'll claim our spot on the middle-school gym bleachers, and shout and groan and clap till our hands hurt, and then we'll come home to a fork-tender roast.

If I could bottle this feeling and pass it around, we'd all soon forget the memory of tears.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights ..." --James 1:17