Christmas tunes and drifted banks

In follow-up to that duets article, I published two more seasonal song lists and another Christmas article:

• From Bing to Bowie - top renditions of classic Christmas songs
  
• Christmas songs: the fun, the strange and the not-so-classic
• Create Traditions that make holiday memories

Our holidays have certainly been painted a dazzling white this year. The snows didn't stop us from a beautiful 4-day Vancouver jaunt to celebrate Chanukah and Christmas a bit early with dear friends and family, then returned last night to park at the bottom of our driveway and trudge through knee-deep unbroken snow with two sleeping babes in arms. Tucked them in then joined a warm and yummy celebration with our neighbours then a cold starry hottub, feeling fully blessed by our surroundings and community and serenity of space and mind.

The fir tree branches are stooped right to the ground with the weight of the snow. It's deep enough that this morning we dug a luge course down the driveway and into the wooded side lot, and just played and played all morning.

The drifted bank (from Jingle Bells -"we fell into a drifted bank and then we got upsot) came when i unwisely brushed off the car and headed into town to stock up on supplies and stocking-stuffers. All sense of Christmas joy and anticipation and that above-mentioned serenity were snuffed out halfway down aisle one, when i'd already been bumped and apologized to more than in the whole previous year. $300 later i felt exhausted and broke and like i'd sold out to the consumptive Christmas i've been ranting against. Did we really need those homemade eggnog supplies and fair-trade chocolate stocking stuffers to enjoy the next few days?

I should have been home playing with the kids, listening to some of those top ten Christmas songs (especially the David Bowie and Bing Crosby duet) and letting Santa bring homemade cookies and hand-carved play figures this year.