I’ve brought Lilith to work with me this week. She has knitted, bird watched and played outside my office window; it’s been pretty nice.

She hasn’t watched movies or brought a bucket of toys with her. She does a lot of drawing and chatting. We do a lot with kids that keeps them from us and wonder why they’re distant, aren’t focused… We also have lost faith in imagination and the power to think, it has happened to us, so we have passed it like malaise to our children.

As a non biological parent I am often times told that I don’t understand. I was told that when I didn’t have kids “You don’t have children you can’t understand what it’s like to not give your children what they want or ask for.” True, as a non biological I think it’s probably easier to be objective.

I love these children, it’s pretty amazing. I have a teenager and a child and so it’s a two front engagement. How I deal with my oldest daughter is different that our youngest. My oldest would have no interest coming. Lilith, to her credit, usually does it for a day, but isn’t into it for much longer, till this week. I’ve tried to bring her for a few days in a row and by day 2 she goes to the “I want momma” decree. But this week it’s been fun and laid back. She helped me move from my old space, into a new window fronted space. Today we brought the bird book and we’re marking down what birds we see outside my window. Later we’ll go home and eat homemade chex mix and she’ll be in bed by seven.

Granted, Lilith is a Waldorf kid, but she is no more magical unicorn than I am and she is at peace. More importantly, your kid doesn’t have to be a Waldorf kid for you to not give them a computer, pda, tv or other distraction. Kids want interaction, not pixels.

I usually know I’m on the right track when things don’t make any sense and the decision to go forward with a well reasoned plan is met with hesitation.

Going into my forties I have to ask myself if I’m going to settle and champion routine or if I’m going to continue doubling down on calculated risk taking.

In this next three year plan, it’s come time to shepherd the 1470 project either into a massive upgrade or we need to refine what we have, then evacuate. Of the choices, we can spend the next three years of our life grinding away and paying off the last debt, or we could sell the house tomorrow. We could literally change the roof, lay some more grass, refine things and sell it. Tomorrow would be more like a year or so, but after said year we’d have a fresh looking house, finished and ready for market, we’d make enough money to pay off the student loans and we’d then be able to start another house project.

I am not saying “Why are we sticking around?” I am saying “Have we considered what it means if we don’t stick around.”

What are we protecting? Is this routine actually something you cherish. Maybe more importantly the question worthy of asking is “Was it actually horrible going through the process?”

Is struggling to find routine better than having routine that does little more than guarantee that you’ll be maybe ok, but not happy.” Where is the journey that takes on opportunity for happiness. Not where is the happiness, this isn’t a rainbow, there is no pot of gold.

Where we’re going to go for the next three years will look a lot like the last few months. As long as I have my job and everything is ok. When my job is done, we will go into financial triage and I will take six months to find myself. After that period I still suspect it’ll take us thirty months before we’re back on track and able to get to 80% of the life that we had before, biggest impact being that we’ll be greatly delayed on the last debt.

Again the alternative seems super chaotic. We clean up the house, clean up the outside property, put a new roof on, sell it and pay off the loan We will be homeless, for a time, though not longer than say six months, we will find a new project house, we will remodel and we will start all over again.

The question isn’t to try to guess the answer of which I want to do. I am down with either but we must be charged and ready to seize the day, it must be inspired, for us.

We are both a little bit out of it, our ties to this world are tenuous. We both must rally to find what brings us to earth, to the hear and now. We must not settle into routine, we must rally to live right now. Not in three years, nor when the house sells.

My mother was a young girl when she had me. My mother was a child when she had a baby. My mother got married and had four years of play time, her and my father pretending to be mature, until routine struck and then they both fled matrimony; leaving me and my first cat “Sunshine” to fend for ourselves. Christmas was idyllic in that way it can be for young children. The fresh scented tree, the tinsel and ornaments, the various shaped boxes and bustle of activity; all things which really excite a child. So from one to five it was gravy. I can remember so much. From six to nine the “I want….” Somehow replaced “what did I get” By the time I was a ten I just realized I didn’t get to see my mom as much and what I wanted was kinda irrelevant.

Conventional wisdom has always worked with the concept that Christmas is when the curtain is drawn tightest, no one is supposed to break the 4^th wall. Your observations and doubts, your money woes and struggles are supposed to wait patiently for the garbage bag that you put all the packaging and wrapping paper in. The new year is a time to deal with truths, the end of the year is for celebration. But in our newly godless state it’s much harder to put the burden of happiness on ol’St Nick. If our Gods are falling, only worshipped by the most adamant of believers, how well can our fables suffer the truth.

While checking the mail this weekend I saw a letter from Santa Claus addressed to my seven year old. I’m not going to lie, my first response was to tear it up. That thought came over me cause her biological father is a –redacted-. As adults we’re just supposed to channel the good, for the children. I’ll do my best, Nick; I’ll get to her. It did bother me, but that is more cause in some ways, my choice really, he gets to have the fun and for me I just have to figure out the logistics.

The year before last our (then) 11 year old had to bite her tongue as she was resentful that she had to give up on the Santa concept. This occurred naturally, no one was trying to bring Nick down. I think her class had shifted finally to “you’re a sucker if you still believe in that red suited guy.” She was ready to be a whistle blower though and she didn’t want to keep the secret from our youngest. We admonished her not to be a dick and then-not without some mirth, pointed out that if she did let loose with the truth our youngest might further get her ire by being indifferent to the news.

In some ways Santa at least takes the heat off of you. “Why didn’t Santa pimp my tree with bad ass giftery?” you can shrug “Maybe this year we have to be nicer and holster our naughty.” Or “Maybe Santa is helping the under privileged kids and he’s stretched thin. ” The day she realizes Santa is gone will be without fanfare, I’m almost certain. It will not be like how our eleven year old felt, one more foundation of her innocence crumbling. Some kids think you’re a dick when they realize that the big man is not real and you were lying to them, because they definitely feel like it was a lie, a lie they want to continue to believe, but can’t. Other kids just come into the truth in their own time, they move on. They cross Santa off of their letter writing campaign and come directly to you with a list of demands and hopes.

2.

The first few years I can remember the tree would just be there one day and the gifts would trickle in. By the time Christmas came around there would be a good stack of squares under the evergreen and we’d be excited. Really though it’d just be me. My mother wasn’t angry, she just always had to work more for the holidays, so I spent a lot of time by myself, shaking the boxes, curiosity growing stronger by the day. I’d go slowly from jostling to just our right SIDS, hoping to figure it out. I’d do my best to peek through any breeches in the wrapping. One year I finally thought “I’ll just open one, what could happen.” It was a small one, so I figured (wrongly) that it’d be no big deal if my deed was discovered. Little did I know that it was the Darth Vader wristwatch. You know the one (If you’re under 35 you actually don’t know the one.) with Vaders arms keeping time and one of the arms held a light saber. I’m not making that up, right? That caused quite the stir, my mom was pissed. Worse yet, opening gifts before their time ruins the appreciation, like it somehow robs you of ever enjoying it. I was a shit kid and I don’t think I ever believed in Santa, the logistics of one night and this mutant deer named Rudolph, lighting the way with his nose while this fat white guy dropped off gifts to everybody… When you’re low on motor skills and can’t focus, the thing where they throw bizarre concepts at you for explaining a needless giftthathon is bizarre.

Screw Santa. Screw Christmas. Screw Holiday cheer.

Ok. Christmas isn’t for you, another one I was told coming into my thirties “We just do Christmas for the kids now.” The kids live Christmas every day. The Christmas model worked in the old days cause we didn’t have shit. It was great cause your parents put shit on layaway six months in advance and busted their ass to give you a life bonus, if you were a shitty kid you were still guaranteed to get a little something. If you were a mediocre kid, this was your day to rake it in and if you made your parents proud, well hell, they’d whore themselves out, at the office or in a stranger’s bed to see you be happy.

Christmas is a hard thing to live up to.

I didn’t tell our eleven year old at the time “If anyone is going to shit on Christmas it’s going to be me.” I mean, there is no upside to ruining Christmas. People who still like December 25^th should lead the brigade, the rest of us should shut the heck up. I mean like we should for damn sure not be writing this.

Again I say Screw Christmas.

So in our house one little child holds all dear and still wills Santa to bring his diabetic ass to our roof, where he is supposed to then shimmy down our exposed (architecturally revealed) fireplace and leave the hot gift action for our daughter. So it is here that I write about my frustrations. Except, I don’t know what I’m frustrated about, that’s not true, I kinda know what it is.

I’m pissed off we gave up on God so easily, but we’re still messing around with Christmas. It confuses me to no end that all the atheists soak up Christmas and then scoff that people who believe in God are the big idiots, really. I’m pissed off that we gave up community for the suburbs and enclaves. I’m confused that the marketers have refashioned God into fresh scents and chipotle flavor, chromed plastic and modern amenitiesI’m sick of consumption, but totally ok with deep research of new crap as a form of distraction meditation.

The world has moved on and it’s bumping past me while I stand still and try to take it all in.

I love Christmas. I used to love Christmas. I’m not sure how I feel about Christmas.