The Woods on a Snowy Evening

That's Clementine above, last year when we vacationed at Mt. St. Helens. She quickly learned to position herself just so in the windowsill so she could look out over the snowy landscape and watch her siblings build snowmen or shriek with glee at the several herds of deer that passed through the forest directly behind the house.

I've been thinking about this picture all day, mainly because it is how I feel this holiday season: as if I'm on the other side of a sheet of glass, watching it all happen with a sort of awe and confusion, not really in the thick of it myself. Maybe I should be contented here. The goal in my life right now is to strive for simplicity in as many ways as I can find it, and there is this thin line, light and transparent as a window in winter, during American holidays between genuine simplicity and psycho commercialism. Maybe I'm afraid I'll get sucked in. It's cold on the other side of the glass, and people aren't typically too forgiving of grown women without their pants on in public.

My plan is to delve as deeply as possible into our "Rust Family Handmade Christmas," and for the sake of the kids, I'll fake the holiday spirit better than Meg Ryan faked that classic orgasm in When Harry Met Sally. And the kids are pumped. This morning in the car on the way to school, Elias couldn't stop talking about all the great ideas he's come up with for the gifts he'd like to make. He thinks he can construct a Fraggle (yes, as in the Muppets) for Clementine entirely out of paper. He's considering hand-sewing a stuffed music note for his dad (pretend you didn't read that, Chris). He told every friend he saw as he hung up his backpack and coat at school about our "homemade Christmas," his voice emitting the same pitch and fervor you would expect of "Guess what, Jimmy? We're going to Disney land and we're going to live there forever." When Chloe got home from school, she asked for immediate use of my laptop and wondered where she could find wire and glass beads for a secret project she was working on.

Seriously, people: these kids don't want toys from the store. My kids. The ones I birthed. Shouldn't I have gotten this memo sooner? Hot damn. We should have done this years ago. If we can just ban Christmas music, it will be the Best. Christmas. Ever.

I'm hoping to make a very rudimentary advent calendar tomorrow. Instead of the traditional piece of candy or small gift on each day leading up to Christmas, though, I'd like the kids to get personalized notes from either Chris or I--little observations we've made of them, what we love about their personalities, plans we have for the future. I'll be laid up for a day or so after a minor surgical procedure (more on that in the next post), so I have no excuse not to be productive on this project. Other than that really lame one: I can't because I haven't finished the manuscript that was supposed to be done two months ago. Because let's face it: that's about as bad as "The dog ate my homework." Except in this case, metaphorically speaking, the dog really has eaten my homework.

Crap.

And if anyone has ideas for an easy handmade plush giraffe, I'll be forever in your debt.