A golden birthday, emergency chocolate, and video backgrounds (7 Quick Takes)

~1~

It’s not every day that you turn 11 on the 11^th, and we’ve been looking forward to our younger son’s birthday for…well…maybe 364 days or so. I wasn’t sure how much our social birthday boy would enjoy a birthday of remote schooling from home, but I figured we would relax the household rules if we could find any that are still in place.

The birthday boy started his day unwrapping a few gifts wrapped in gold paper, watching The Mandalorian with his brother, and eating Mexican rice for breakfast in bed.

Lunch was from his favorite Japanese restaurant and dinner was Chick-fil-A. It was a decadent day—but opulence goes with a Golden Birthday, and there’s something about a Friday birthday that warrants an extra dose of celebration.

His godmother arrived on the porch with gifts and a card covered in gold chocolate coins, and one of his classmates who lives in the neighborhood dropped off a homemade card with a Starburst taped inside.

~2~

Now we have the whole weekend to keep the celebration going and start easing into the Christmas festivities, whatever those look like this year. We had a new battery installed in our car, and we are going to try again to go on a fishing expedition.

~3~

We have been celebrating all week because Monday was the 11^th anniversary of the day we met our older son in China. We don’t celebrate our sons’ “Gotcha Days” with gifts, but we treat them as special days. We tell them the stories of meeting them, pray in a special way for their birth families and those who cared for them and helped bring us together as a family. Then dinner is the Gotcha Day honoree’s pick.

The memories always come flooding back for me. I am in awe of how our stories are interwoven. How am I so blessed that I get to be the mother to these incredible individuals who were born on the other side of the world?

God really does write the best stories.

~4~

My father stopped by the other day to drop off a birthday card, and he brought a paper bag marked, “Emergency chocolate.”

How did he know just what I needed?

“Those are for you,” he said to me through the storm door.

~5~

We tend to do our Christmas decorating gradually, and this year we’re definitely easing into the season. My husband and sons strung the outside lights, and we have the tree up, but the ornaments aren’t hung yet.

Maybe that will happen this weekend. Maybe it won’t. We have plenty of time and no plans to entertain.

We reorganized our living room furniture to make room for the tree, and we all love the new arrangement. The couch is now facing the TV, which might feel like an obvious choice if you haven’t seen the space. But it really does work well.

~6~

In the midst of our living room reorganization, I realized we just didn’t have room for our fifth grader’s desk if we were going to have a Christmas tree.

So, we moved it into our bedroom and made him a special space. I used his desk for a work meeting the other day and marveled that we hadn’t considered putting the desk there originally. But, of course, the idea was to have the finches in the background.

Video backgrounds are so important—important enough that I cleaned off my dresser and arranged everything carefully for the first time in years.

~7~

Last week I was on Cardinal Dolan’s SiriusXM radio show, and there was also a video version for The Catholic Channel. I have done audio interviews a few times, and I always get nervous, but the idea of doing a video version was a little scary.

Finding a quiet corner of our house can be tricky, especially with our pet finches. So, I decided to use my husband’s desk in the basement, where he has Christmas lights strung across the ceiling. You can see the interview here if you skip ahead to minute 27.

I can still hardly believe that I was interviewed by Cardinal Dolan. It just goes to show that you never know what will happen when you write a poem about sauerkraut. Someone who works for the Cardinal’s show saw my poem, reached out, booked me for a show before Thanksgiving, and rescheduled me for the first week of Advent. It feels like an Advent miracle.

Read more quick takes on Kelly’s blog, This Ain’t the Lyceum, and have a wonderful weekend.

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