...in a nutshell...

 There are, as I'm reminded daily, many challenges unique to raising children 17 years apart, particularly when their specific needs are often in conflict with one another.  I find myself torn in two, more often than not, trying to determine which calamity-in-the-works takes priority in the moment.  One son needs my firm guidance and reassuring support.  The other needs energetic response and creativity.  My moments of failure have been frequent and epic, but in the last little while, I've found myself growing into this season of motherhood a bit more gracefully.
A moment's pause...a hand held up in acknowledgement...a cycle of deep breaths in and out...and the shift from one mode to another is becoming streamlined.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

This family is the miracle I thought had already passed me by.

(Though, I'd gladly accept a few extra hours to take the edge off of my ever-growing sleep deficit!)

Now perhaps it's just the holiday-magic at play...and I'm fine with that. 
I needed it this year more than ever before.
The sharing of traditions that I first created for my eldest, while in the throes of single-motherhood, is somehow...restorative.

I've only touched on it in fits and starts here on the blog, but both being an adoptee and having had a marriage that didn't 'succeed' (which meant our family was broken) really motivated me to try to create family traditions.  I was bound and determined to give my eldest son a feeling of family history...fill him so chock-full of our own created customs that he'd never feel the lack of a father or siblings, or of extended family.

I worked hard at it.  Channeling my natural creativity into making celebrations of everyday moments and staying up late setting up treasure hunts and writing lunchnote poems. 
I worked hard at it for years.  And then, high school arrived on scene, and I felt a sense of ending.
Bittersweet.  My traditions no longer needed. His, still to come.
 

And then came Henri.  Not a fresh start, but a natural continuation.  (What a strange way to define a child...ha!)  And family tradition suddenly so much more meaningful as it grew to include Henri and my partner.

Family traditions that I had created out of desperation, while enduring some of my worst moments, now bringing me back to my core...bringing out the best in me.

Relaxing. Reminding.

Restoring.

~~~

All this above, long-winded and rambling as ever, to get to this below...

~~~

One of our favorite holiday traditions has gotten a bit of a remix, since Henri was born.

Crèche in a Walnut

For most of Johannes' school years, he could count on the re-emergence of this little ornament bright and early, on December 1st.  Finding it, wherever I had tucked it away, was the trick...and the treat, a cookie for breakfast on a special holiday plate, made for a frantic hunt every morning.

And years and years of my ever-upping the ante...

trying in vain to find places to hide it... 

that would challenge him...

and chew up enough time...

for me to get breakfast on the table!

Come Henri's first Christmas season, I was running on fumes and the last thing I wanted to add to my plate was baking cookies for that plate. Ha!  So, I sternly talked myself into "outsourcing"...and the result was a win on all fronts.  Instead of fresh-baked cookies, both boys could look forward to their pick of a Lindt Lindor Truffle, from the special bowl, if one or the other (or the darling duo) happened to come across the Crèche in a Walnut in their daily path of destruction. 

Last year I made a bit more a production out of it with a defined time to hunt.

 

This year, I'm taking advantage of my insomniac-schedule and hiding it in the dark...leaving the all-day window for whoever finds it first.  Henri, having spent every day looking for "Chickaletta for Chocaletta"...

(same premise, different stowaway) 

...since last December, is giving Johannes a run for his...chocolate!

Maybe someday, I'll bring it back down to its humble beginnings and prep the cookie batter for early morning baking again, but for now, this one's a win in my book.

And theirs!