Hunting for Christmas Trees in the Whipping Cold

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year. I haven't been posting so much because it’s been a very interesting Christmas season.  And though this blog serves to document my sewing and crafting work- I cannot leave out some of my life’s interruptions that might deter me on my crafting journey.

Alongside all the merriment of the holidays has also been some unexpected stress. In short, we rent a home that is in foreclosure and over the past few weeks we’ve realized that our home may no longer be our own. So we’ve put in an offer in the hopes that the bank foreclosing on the property will accept it. It’s been so many phone calls to lawyers, banks, realtors, and our landlord. It’s such a big mess that I cannot find many solid answers to give us some hope of reason. Either way, we find ourselves in this situation: it’s our home, and yet we’ve been drawn into someone else’s problem.

I found these photos of us hunting for our Christmas tree the first weekend in December and it seemed appropriate. It was so cold, and the wind was whipping, the kids were whining, the baby was crying non-stop and I was anxious to find a tree and get back in the warmth of the car. I had so longed for our annual run to the tree farm, it’s such a big part of our traditions- but moreover a very pivotal part in "my" celebrations of the holidays. (All the hopes, dreams, schemes- making cookies, wrapping presents, decking that halls all in as perfect and blissful order as I can attend to).

And as I look over these photos I’m struck of the relation of that moment to what we’ve been going through over here. Everything is somewhat up in the air. A sea of possibilities ahead of us, yet none of them are at all what I want. I have had so many hopes and ideas of what our life would be, and now I feel like I’m hurrying to just hold on tight to what we have and now perhaps throw down and say, "OK. Here is where I want us to be." And all the while, the wind is so cold and I just want to retreat.

It’s been so many lessons all at once- that I’m not sure where I stand in my personal development as a human let alone a mother. But I’m reminded of these photos- which while we were freezing cold our smiles aren’t an illusion of our real experience, but a document of the experience I wasn’t noticing was happening right before me.

So, as I approach this new year, I wish so much that I will as an artist and mother, remember that life is happening simultaneously along side my interpretation of it. And, that like finding the “perfect Christmas Tree”, my family is right there with me…in the whipping cold.