Krueger’s
Wasn’t feeling all that Christmas-y yesterday, but Mykala pointed out that it was not going to be that warm for a long time and maybe we should get the tree so Ess can see the trees outside in their natural habit. Wouldn’t want to raise someone who thinks Christmas trees come from asphalt lots in strip malls.
So, off we went. My worries didn’t leave my mind(1) away as we drove to Krueger’s Christmas Trees in Lake Elmo, but the adult worries preoccupying my mind started to look different, as though they would always be there and perhaps it was best to try to set them aside rather than dwell on them always. If I’d been entirely successful, this is where I would share how I did it. But I wasn’t.
It was a warm day, and Ess was bundled in her pink and white striped fleece suit. She looked like this:
She got into the Baby Björn with Mykala and Ess just thought the trees were amazing. Her little nose turned pink, and she reached for the trees when we stepped near to them. “Green, see Essie. The trees are green!” She seemed to think that was a good name for the color.
So I thought about student loans and our finances less while we were out there with the trees. I guess my brain seems to think that it is somehow irresponsible to take a break from worrying, like focusing on the worry gives it the importance it deserves or something unproductive like that. But for a while, I was far more concerned about Essie’s temperature (good) and if we’d found the right tree (we had, a soft, long-needled white pine).
So later that night, with me carrying Essie facing out in the Björn, I was amazed by how much love I felt when I saw her gazing (literally gazing, slack-jawed) up at the string of Christmas lights being de-tangled above her head. Then, I was in the moment… whoah, wait a minute, I’m crazy bonkers lucky. My wife, our child, me, in our little living room surrounded by Christmas decorations, with the same music(2) we played when were decorating when I was growing up playing on the stereo, with the hot chocolate my wife made for me. You don’t get that many of these evenings, self. So I cried, a little bit for me and my difficulty celebrating, and mostly for joy for you Essie; seeing the world through your child’s eyes is actually seeing the world through their eyes sometimes.
(1) The typical tumbledry post would be this transformation as we drove, where every turn of the wheels of the car underneath the bright sun of the perfect day melted away the ice of my worries, etc., etc. I’ll save the flowery language for when something like that actually happens. In the meantime, in the pursuit of a life lens with less rosy distortion, I’ll try to recount things as they happened, not as I wished they happened.
(2) Christmas with Johnny Mathis should always be the first album.