I got up early this morning, partly because I always do, partly because I had a cream cheese coffee cake to make at my sons’ request. I made it the first time after finding the recipe in a magazine I was reading while he took a nap in the little bed beside me. He was three months old, I was a new mom and this was our first Christmas together. It was a few years before Caleb wanted to try anything with cream cheese in it but eventually his taste changed, kids were added, and one coffee cake turned into two. I have made one (or two) ever since and now kids from afar are making their own. It’s funny how traditions sometimes happen accidentally; how they give cadence to how things play out year after year.

Years went by, the pattern repeated, the fabric sewn into a favorite menu with each person’s choice for a side, the grandparents on Christmas Eve, the wrapping paper picked up after opening dreams come true and fed to the fireplace, satisfied kids gone asleep happy, another Christmas rolled into the new year.

And then one year I found myself alone, a parenting plan to consider, the awkwardness of trying to form new “traditions” that I somehow knew would never really “take” the same. It would be different forever. I would learn the conscious choice of learning to be content in whatever circumstances I found myself in. It rubbed places raw in my heart sometimes. It grew new leaves in other places. And the Christmases rolled into new years, just as before. I was surprised to be breathing still, to be celebrating still, to feel joy in the middle of pain still.

This morning the car was carrying chosen presents. I was heading down the road, the same path my parents used to take to us, to the same old farmhouse my son now owns, making a life for himself. It was still dark outside, the car seats creaking in the early morning chill, the neighbors houses still sleeping. There were just a few cars keeping company on the road. The day hadn’t been unwrapped yet. As the road rolled under me, Christmas music playing softly through the radio, I replayed the years over and a smiled settled inside of me, deeper than just on my face. My heart was at peace. My kids, in their various lives, had found joy of their own. I am proud of them for that. I am thankful to my Rescuer for making all things new, for giving me grace and a life I don’t deserve and didn’t see coming in the hardest places.

My grandson greeted me at the door, showing me all he’d received…so far….;my sons’ special person gave me a hug and words in a card that filled my eyes with happy tears and my nose with happy snot. My son had taken a broken wooden canister from my apartment and researched its history (1950’s Japanese!) , sanded it down and stained it and carefully repainted the design over the original. Nothing is more perfect to me than a gift like that. He invested time and enjoyed doing it for me.

I drove back home this afternoon, thinking about the years when Christmas felt like standing on tiptoe to breathe above the broken. I have found restoration and, as I sat the wooden box my son made new on my kitchen table, I took a deep breath. My lungs filled with air and I looked out the window above it. It’s a mighty fine Christmas. It’s a mighty fine life. <3