If only we could all be so lucky.
This girl:
Turned seven last week!When I was pregnant with Reese and would tell people I was due in December (Christmas Eve, originally), the reaction I got about the due date was almost always a negative one ("too bad it's so close to Christmas...").
Unfortunately, I believed those many comments, and developed a fear that her birthday would always be overshadowed by the holidays and she would feel less special, less important, and less appreciated.
Those people were wrong. Dead wrong. If you have a December birthday, and you aren't enjoying it, then you is missin' somethin'.
If you don't love Christmastime, you are also missing something.
The entire month is dedicated to celebrating the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ. There is hope, love, joy, gratitude, tradition, charity, and holiday magic in the air.
Reese is one of my greatest blessings. She has given me the one thing I have wanted more than anything else in my life. On the day Reese was born, I became a mother. Her life is a gift that brings me so much joy and fulfillment that no other gift could even measure against it, save the gift of my Savior.
So it is only fitting that we celebrate her during the wonderful Christmas month.
I am glad that she already recognizes what a special and sacred time of year this is. I am grateful for fun holiday traditions, for holiday cheer, for Christmas carols, for charity drives, for warm fires, for hot cocoa, for shiny presents, for inspired sacrament meeting talks and Christmas devotionals, for glowing trees, and for selfless giving.
I am grateful for fattening goodies and egg nog, for exchanged gifts, for thoughtful musical numbers, for ugly sweaters, for naughty elves, flying reindeer and magical folklore, for decorations both ridiculous and sentimental.
I'm grateful for live nativities and Handel's Messiah sing a longs, for elves and gingerbread, for lists that need to be checked twice, for funny Christmas movies, for the Almond Box, for white Christmases, for sleigh rides at the square, for pretty downtown toy store window displays, for Christmas pageants, for school parties, for Festivus, for people dressed up in robes and bath towels on Christmas Eve, for the threat of coal in stockings, and I am especially grateful that through all the chaos and shiny hubbub, that I can still recognize that there is a reverence to this wonderfully busy season.
If there is one word I would use to describe the atmosphere shared between Aaron and I in the moment when we met our baby girl for the first time, it is reverence. Overwhelming reverence radiated from the newness of our baby girl and hushed the adrenaline driven chaos of the doctor and team of nurses rushing around us. She hushed our world.
I am not trying to be blasphemous and compare myself to Mary, or anything, and perhaps only the mother of a December baby can really appreciate the experience I just described.
I honestly feel that my first December baby gifted me a very real understanding of what took place on the most important night in the history of time, when a baby came to earth and hushed the entire world and reverence fell over all mankind.
I am grateful for December Birthdays.
Happy Christmas Birthday to my Reese. On the 14th, we celebrate you, and may you always enjoy your special birthday season. You are thoughtful, eager to please, obedient, organized, compassionate, funny, brilliant, beautiful, appreciated, and oh so very special.
You are a light in our lives. You bring us closer to Christ.
You are our Christmas Star and a breath of heaven.
We love you to the moon and back.
7 comments:
What a beautiful tribute! Happy birthday, Reese!
There is something about a baby that does make a reverent silence, even if it is just for an immeasurable moment. Well said.
Beautiful post.
We love her, too!
Love this post.
Berkeley was born in December - 17th. Her due date was Christmas. I feel like I've done well because every year she says she wishes her birthday was on Christmas! It is a happy time, and, yes, people said the same thing to me - too bad for her. But we've just made sure that we treat her birthday just as we treat anyone else's birthday.
Also, I don't think that you're being blaspehmous - thinking about Mary. In fact, whenever I think about Christ's birth, I think of Mary. I think of Elisabeth - the mother of John the baptist - and I'm overcome by this overwhelming feeling - reverence - that I've been blessed enough to be a mother. So many people who deserve the experience never have the chance. Truly, bringing another life into this world is a miracle. And Christmastime is the best reminder of this - as both Mary and Elisabeth were mothers under miraculous circumstances.
Reese is such a beautiful, smart, wonderful girl, happy birthday. I'm glad that she enjoys her birthday being in december. I hope Spike likes having his day so close to the 4th of July. Fireworks just for him. I love Christ and a glad he was born, but I really don't enjoy Christmas time. For years I have tried to force myself and made myself feel awful cause people would tell me that I wasn't feeling the Spirit. I don't like sugar cookies, eggnog, hurried crowds, or standing awkardly in my cold entryway trying to think of what the ediquitte for carolers is. It is great that other people like it, I am not a grinch, but I am not missing out on something. I know what it is and it isn't my thing.
love this post.
love that your kids will have a chance to look back and read what their mom was feeling and thinking about them in such deep and descriptive detail.
What a beautiful post Meg. I love Christmas and ALL events leading up to it. I love it that Reese loves her December birthday. What a beautiful time to have a baby, your special gift at this wonderful time of the year.
Beautiful! I totally agree, when you first meet your baby, it is definitely a reverent, spiritual experience. I think we get a glimpse of what it must have been like to be Mary and bear the Christ-child. And I love that you make her birthday just as important and special as it would be in any other month!
Post a Comment