I’m sitting here curled in my favorite blue blanket thinking of yesterday and tomorrow. The blanket always brings me back to the time I was a ten year old kid and my Dad was still here and wrapped me up in this old thing and hugged me and made sure everything in the world was good. Thirty years removed the blanket is still here, old and falling apart, but here and keeping the memories and the legacy of things past. I’ve wrapped up two boys in this thing, the second still refusing to let it go and pass it down to his little brother. I don’t much blame him. He hasn’t had it for long and he recognizes what it means. He smells the history on it.
Or that could just be mildew.
Its all a matter of perspective, I suppose. We thrust great meaning upon things that, to others, are all but meaningless. I find significance in trinkets. I store memories in items, muggle made horcruxes that keep a bit of me alive forever. I also drink in moments. I drank in the moment of today, my first solo Christmas. The boys roused me about 7 am, anxious to tear into those gifts. As this is new to us, I started a new tradition of themes. This year the theme was Mind, Body, and Soul. Each boy got presents relating to one of the three and their job was to figure the category and how each gift fit in.
We did a dry run of the theme on Christmas eve day with their Christmas Crates, a loot crate inspired upgrade to the traditional stocking. They got hackysacks and bouncy balls to energize their bodies, Pokemon cards to challenge the mind, and Stuffies to warm the soul. The ‘real’ gifts followed suit. There isn’t enough time to explain what they were, but I can say that they were a big hit.
Christmas was a big hit. It was also a moment in time; one that will stay etched in my memory for years to come.