The Christmas Spirit

It's rest time at the Doublestein House, and the kids are too wired to sleep. We've had a really exciting two days, what with the mountains of snow, terrifying trips up and down the driveway, school and pick-up (wherein Marta has the Most Fun Of Her Entire Day, because in the tradition of little sisters wanting to be as cool as their big sisters, she thinks school is the epitome of WONDROUS ADVENTURE).

Yesterday after school Trevor took the girls sledding outside (result: Berit crying, SURPRISE!), and then we put on layers and layers and more layers to head downtown for Petoskey's annual Christmas Open House.

The open house is such a fun night. The streets are all closed off and Santa lights the giant Christmas tree, all the shops open up for wandering and goodies and wine or champagne punch, people bring their great burly dogs and the kids are all stiff from their layers, over-sugared and jumping face-first into the snowbanks. The Steel Drum Band plays and there are big pots of bean soup and chili and everyone's skating in the slush and ice down the street, and the fire trucks are lit up like Santa's sleigh.

We began our evening with pizza with our good friends at the Noggin Room, and the four girls all had one of those crazy fun times, where they ran and screamed (whoops) and giggled and felt as if the entire night was All About Them (cue running onto the restaurant's little stage and performing as loudly as possible for all diners made-up Christmas carols) (cue my leaping over chairs and tables to remove them) (cue the dads ordering another round of beer because why should we get them outside?). It was chilly but we were bundled and layered and the kids even took off their mittens to consume candy canes and cookies shaped like candy canes and drinks flavored like candy canes. They sang legitimate Christmas carols and Berit gave a performance of much bottom-shaking and bouncy-squatting during a stretch of upbeat Steel Drum Band songs, much to everyone's candy-fueled delight.

Marta continuously asked, "Where's my car?" in a sad, sleepy voice, and let me know about a thousand times that it was well past her bedtime by bonking her forehead against mine and pressing it there, breathing slowly as if she might just fall asleep that way.

Whenever she's overtired it leads to a restless night's sleep, and she was up from about 1:21 a.m. (you know, roughly) until around 6 a.m. Therefore she's not napping now, and has instead discovered that she can reach the light switch to the little hallway in her room from her crib. On, off, on, off, "THERE! I DID IT! I'M WAKING UP!"

I need nights like last night, I think, because so often I get caught up in the ridiculous snow and cold (which I could say sianara to forever and ever amen) and swear to move downstate or down-continent all winter long. But gathering as a community is so warming and festive, with friends around every corner with their children and dogs and hats and mittens and runny noses, that I feel I couldn't leave Petoskey if I tried.