“Mommy, you be the mommy, dolly will be the baby, Molly will be Molly, and I’ll be the big sister”, enthusiasm gleams from her lips.
My four year old wants to play.
I sip my Irish Crème coffee on my tattered couch. Morning hasn’t quite set in yet.
It’s December, and our stockings hang awaiting anticipated pleasure. Excitement is building in her young heart and I want badly, so badly, for things to be perfect for her.
But they’re not. And not the love that I have for her, or my strength, or conviction, can cover all the cracks and crevices that she has to step over, and sometimes into. It breaks my heart. This not being able to fix it business.
“Mommy, you clap when I come in the room”. She’s putting on a dance recital. She enters, black tutu and leotards. I applaud, I cheer.
She leaves again. Then returns. “Mommy, now clap when baby and I come in”. She has fairy wings now and hands me a crown. “You wear this”. Her small hands entrust me with a yellow crown made of construction paper, smeared with feathers, glue, and buttons. “There, you are beautiful”, as she places it carefully on my unbrushed head. She begins her dance.
I look around. Laundry sits folded, not put away from the night before. The coffee table littered with things. So many things. Behind us the Christmas tree sits half decorated and leaning. For the night before it fell. The carpet still wet. Needles. Haphazard needles. A weary mother who could not make it stand just so.
And then I see her, really see her dance. Her arms point straight. Fingers, each one of them positioned carefully, stretched wide. Open. She spins and twirls and watches her reflection in the tv. Christmas carols surround us. Something about shepherds. Holy nights. Stars. And a Savior. She sings and dances and twirls unabashedly . Joy-filled. Amidst our less than perfect Christmas.
My daughter teaches me everyday about love. About how it covers all. Messy living rooms, broken Christmas trees, broken lives and all. About my imperfect self, my imperfect life, but the very perfect love I have in the gift of the giver of love. And I begin to experience and know, just a little more, Christmas as it was intended to be, as it needed to be, when I unwrap Jesus.
