An hour ago I got home from my ward Christmas social. There were horse-drawn hayrides. There were Christmas movies. There was the Grinch and Rudolph. There were donuts and hot chocolate. There were Santas. Presents. Oranges. Chocolate coins. Sticky-fingered children. Winter coats. Toques. Caroling. General holiday jolliness.
It was a nightmare.
Somehow the church building got triple-booked so there were three wards squished into it at once—one ward undertaking the same chaotic merriment as us and another ward trying for all their worth to ignore the tumult and have a spiritual evening honouring their young women’s achievements for the year.
I seriously felt like I was in that one Book-of-Mormon version of Where’s Waldo where the Waldo (was it Moroni?) was lost among the chaos of both a wedding reception and young men’s regional basketball tournament all in the same cultural hall.
Everywhere I looked parents were corralling—or trying to corral—one or all of their offspring. Cocoa was splashing onto hoodies. Snotty noses were wiped with mittens or bare hands. Candy was consumed wrapper and all. Tears materialised, exploded, then froze on frosted cheeks. Santa was harassed interminably. Infinitely. Children were running around, bouncing off of each other like atoms under pressure, their winter gear acting as tempered shells for nigh indestructibility.
And there I stood amidst it all, untouched, unaffected, completely free of stress, like the eye of some sort of parental hurricane that I’d miraculously escaped.
And while I was standing there, free from cares and sucklings both, the thought crossed my mind…
…how did I get so blessed?
In case you were wondering: Poor Kyle and I will not be conceiving little Worthington scions any time soon.
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