Normal

My least favorite day of the "holiday" season is December 26, the day after Christmas. It's not because Christmas is over - I don't experience any kind of post Christmas let down. It's the overwhelming feeling I get when I look at the mess my house has become. Because we have Christmas with my parents Christmas eve, our own Christmas on Christmas morning, Christmas with Jason's side of the family Christmas afternoon, and Christmas with my brother and his family Christmas day evening, we don't have any time in between the celebrations to put our gifts away. Sometimes they don't even make it out of the car before our next stop. This year we deposited all of the gifts in our dining room, creating quite a mess. Christmas decorations in our house that once added to the festivity of the season now seem out of place. Do I put the decorations away first and then tackle the new "stuff" we accumulated, or do I try to find room for the stuff amidst the decorations and then tackle the decorations? Do I organize one room at a time or do I unpack each box and put the stuff in its proper place? When are we going to put together all of the toys and other household items we received? Nothing comes preassembled anymore (and on a side note, it took us 30 minutes just to get the My Little Pony Magic Castle out of its box - why do they package things so tight?) It's hard to know where to begin.

I decided to tackle the project one room at a time - first take the Christmas decorations out of the room I was working in and then put the new stuff away. In order to put new clothes away, closets had to be reorganized to get rid of too small stuff to make way for the new. At times during the day I could feel my pulse racing and I was almost near tears, but little by little I whittled away at the piles, and I am down to the tree and ornaments and just a few odds and ends here and there.

Some people leave their Christmas decorations up until the new year; some leave their lights outside up year around. But for me, once the big day is over, I am ready to get back to normal. Our family thrives on normal. Some people love excitement in their lives, constant change, even drama, if necessary, but our family loves consistency. Some may call that boring, unadventurous, non-spontaneous, but it's how we are. When I run into friends or acquaintances that I haven't seen in awhile, and they ask "What's new," I rarely have anything to tell them. Since we've been married, we are both working at our same job, we've lived in the same house for the last six years, I'm driving the only car I've ever owned, we attend the same church we were married in, and most of our closest friends we have known since high school or college. A few months ago I posted on a topic I called "Robot," explaining our day to day (and minute to minute) routine that we follow. And while the post commented on stress and schedule, there is a certain comfort level to that. When major events happen, such as marriage or birth or death or change in job or a move, then a new normal is established, and you move on from there. I remember after the birth of both of the kids, I could not wait to get home. Fortunately each time we only had to spend one night in the hospital, and that was plenty long for me. I was ready to get home, get a routine established, and adjust to the new life that was beginning. When we moved, I couldn't wait to get all of the boxes unpacked, get things in their place, and then get used to the new surrounding. Our offices moved over the summer, and I went into work a couple of days just to get boxes unpacked and everything organized so when the first official day of work came, everything would be in its place. When we come home from vacation, Jason unloads the car, and as he is unloading I am getting the laundry started, putting things away, getting the house back to normal.

Everybody's normal is different. Maybe if we weren't so satisfied with our normal, we would be more likely to seek change. But I love our normal...even if it's abnormal.