Decorating, Night Hikes, And Ten Kids (Living in a Shoe)

It's 9:30 on a Saturday night. There is Christmas music softly playing. A tree all lit in front of me. And I just received these texts from Abe:

Mike is working tonight, but yesterday he brought home a Christmas tree (it's a big-tree year). 

I spent a good portion of the afternoon dragging our awkwardly-big ladder around and around trying to get lights (along with the inherited, red beads my mom always used on our Christmas trees) all wrapped on. 

Then, after dinner, the kids were let loose with the ornaments. (The bows, red balls, and little knit santas from Mike's childhood along with the conglomeration of gifted ornaments, purchased ornaments, and all the many little ones made by the kids over the years -- Perry the Platypus, the one where it appears Jesse had six fingers, and even the tiny marshmallow snowmen Summer made this very afternoon to pass the slow wait before she could decorate.)

(The snowmen on this ornament were made by Jesse's first or second grade fingers. And there are six of them ...)

When the tree was finished, the star placed, and the little ones all settled into bed (sort of settled: Mette came up to complain that Summer has a Christmas night light while she doesn't, and Summer came up once to make sure I wasn't lonely and again to sneak markers and paper down to her bed), Abe gathered his remaining five siblings and off they went for a night hike. (I should perhaps be a bit worried? It’s 36 degrees. And dark. But the above pictures, I assume, are evidence they are at least still alive and well enough ... wherever they are. (Or at least several of them are alive and well enough ... wherever they are.)

In the meantime, it feels kind of magical to be sitting here all by myself, in this rare quiet, on the first night with our lit tree. (And I keep being tempted to go outside just long enough that I can come back in and smell the tree anew again!)

It's been fun having Abe and Daisy home with us for the Thanksgiving holiday. With them home, I figured I better round all the kids up quickly for a snapshot before heading to Thanksgiving dinner with Mike's family:

Look at the lot of them! (And look at Anders expressions. Anders!)

Sometimes when someone asks how many kids I have, and I respond with "ten", it sounds like an incredibly big number. Much bigger than it actually is. I'll almost find myself adding, "Well, yah, I mean it is ten kids. But it’s not like TEN kids." 

Other times, like when I look at pictures like the ones above, I almost can't believe it. It really is TEN kids all right!

Our stocking holders don't hold nearly all of our stockings. We have six holders. An N, O, E and L, and two snowmen (one to put on either side of “NOEL”). 

When we were putting them up yesterday, I told the kids, again, about buying them:

"I always remember getting these stocking holders. Dad and I were just newly married. We didn't even have any of you kids yet. We were at Target and they had all of these stocking holders. Ones that spelled JOY and PEACE and NOEL and then of all these snowmen and reindeer and things. And I remember dad and I just trying and trying to decide how many we should buy. It seemed weird to have all these empty stocking holders that might never get filled. But it also seemed a shame not to get enough matching ones if we did end up having a lot of kids. Anyway. As you can see, we did not get enough."

Afterwards Abe said, “It’s funny to think if you’d seen stocking holders that spelled the word CHRISTMAS, plus a snowman at each end. And if you’d known that still wouldn’t be enough!” 

Haha! I didn’t believe him! I had to count! (He’s right … that would only be 11 stocking holders. Though I suppose Mike or I could go without.)

It occurred to me that even if God had told me that: "You'll need to birth enough kids to fill all these stocking holders.", I wouldn't have understood much of anything about what it meant. All the complexities and details of the whole business ahead. (Just as I probably still understand very little about what it will mean getting them all to fully-independent adulthood.) And I think it's kind of miraculous that we don't need to know everything God has planned for us to do, or how we will actually accomplish any of it. We can just keep plodding along and somehow ... twenty-one years pass and ten new people are on the earth, right under your very own roof! It makes me wonder what other journeys, and things to overcome, and learn, and accomplish are ahead. Some of them seem so long and so impossible to work out. But these ten kids existing -- here in my very own family -- are a testament to me that we can trust we will be led to keep doing things far too big for us to ever understand or plot a course to accomplish on our own. It comforts me, and fills me with trust, and makes me love this team of Heavenly Father, and Christ, and the Holy Ghost, and countless angels for helping direct our footsteps to do all of these unimaginable things.

(The kids have arrived home safely by the by. Goldie burst in with an exclamation of, "I love our tree! And our whole house smells good!" Her comment was followed shortly afterwards by Anders who, having overheard me asking Abe and Daisy when they were leaving tomorrow, moaned, "You should've done nothing fun with me! 'Cause now it'll make me miss you!" It’s true. It would be much easier to let them go … if they would only be a little less fun to have around. Luckily we have them back for birthdays and Christmas throughout the month. That makes their leaving a little more bearable.)

And, to end, a friend recently shared this charming illustration by Gyo Fujikawa of "The Old Woman in a Shoe". It made me laugh. It's so great. Mike said we should frame a copy. The shape of the house is a bit different than our own, but other than that it looks about like life around here. And I am seriously considering adopting her efficient bedtime routine. ...

The End.