On the Door

Noel’s Christmas – Monday, December 13th

“On the Door”

Noel sat in the middle of the living room couch, sandwiched in by rolls of Christmas paper on her left and the gifts to be wrapped on her right. Turning on the Wallnick Channel, she watched some cheesy, romantic Christmas movie as she began to wrap the presents. This was not going to be a quick task as Noel always overdid it with Christmas presents. And now, she had presents to wrap for both her family and as his family … as well as their individual friends and mutual friends. Luckily, she never tired of doing Yuletide things. On occasions, she would become winded, but she never stopped. And she never stopped enjoying it.

This was a day when Nick had to go in to the office for work. The overload he had been struggling to keep up with was beginning to subside and they were finally starting to see the light.

Wrapping the gifts took Noel most of the morning to get done. And the sense of accomplishment broadened her shoulders as she started putting them all under the tree. As she had been wrapping them, she had a checklist with everyone’s name on it. When she wrapped someone’s presents, she crossed their name off the list. Upon second look, Noel noticed that there were a few relatives she hadn’t gotten any presents for.

At lunch, she wrote out a list of gifts she still needed to get – knowing that there was limited time left until Christmas and that Nick’s schedule may not allow them too many opportunities to go shopping again. She decided to rule out the possibility of online shopping as there was no guarantee that the presents would arrive with time left to wrap and deliver them. And she also worried that she would order the wrong sizes or colors. And then there was always the possibility that she would be sent the wrong item altogether.

Online was convenient, yes. But it also had a lot more chances to get things wrong. Noel decided to play it safe and shop in person for these gifts.

But when was that going to happen?

Sitting on the living room rug and looking at the Christmas tree, now with a full underlayer of Christmas presents, she smiled happily. Yes, there was still more to do. But enjoying the moment was also important. Grabbing her phone, she waddled her crinkly tush back to the kitchen entryway. Picking out the wedgie in the back of her diaper, she then took several pictures of the tree and presents.

She remembered back a few days to the night of picture she had with Nick, still amazed that she was brave enough to have gone through with it.

Then she got an idea. A most wonderful idea! A most wonderful, terrific, fantastic idea! (Pardon the Grinch reference. 😉)

Sprinting back to her nursery, she got her crayons. Sprinting over into her Daddy’s home office, she got a piece of paper from the printer. Then she sprinted back into the living room and took a seat behind the coffee table.

The only thing better than photo shoot pictures were hand-drawn pictures.

And with baby feelings pouring out of her, she picked up a green crayon – using her non-dominant hand and drawing the Christmas tree with presents underneath. It was a very simple crayon drawing, absent of all details. It was perfect.

She went into the kitchen and hung it on the refrigerator, then returning to draw more pictures of the things she and her Daddy had done that month already. Every few minutes, she looked over at the fridge and smiled, hoping her Daddy would have the same reaction when he got home from work and saw the new garnishment of the fridge, hanging on the door.

Continue on to Tuesday, December 14th