Christmas Eve

It's silly to sit up til midnight as though it were New Year's Eve, as though this foggy, polluted inversion of a sky would part to yield up the Star and what's left of last night's full moon (on the breast of the new-fallen snow). I found myself wishing last night had been Christmas Eve, so clear the sky and so bright. And wishing tonight that ten o'clock worship could have lasted straight through, in a darkened sanctuary with lit candles. Midnight mass somewhere -- I'm supposed to be able to conjure up the mass in my heart, but I still need the props I guess. So I'll settle for sitting here at the ol' confessional, in my bathrobe with the snowflakes and the snowmen on it, until ten more minutes have elapsed.
Father in heaven.
My son and husband are asleep. My husband and I got into a fight today, the first real one in a little while, about a point of parenting. I've been too impatient the past few days, for which it's been easy to find excuses, though no good reasons really. He in turn has been very sensitive and weepy, one of those moods where he seems to retain no memory of his words or his actions, only mine. This afternoon, when he used the fact that it's Christmas to indicate that I was being especially awful, I really snapped -- "All Christmas means to you is presents," I said, "and the two of us are supposed to spend the next 24 hours pretending to agree on something when we obviously don't, this parenting issue." What makes your Christmas so special? I found myself thinking. What makes it a sacred space in which your word is the law? Good attitude, I know.

It's midnight by my computer. "Silent night, Holy Night..." My son just made a small noise, in his bed, and it seemed kneeling there like a good time to reflect, and give thanks for many things, many people, especially my husband and son.

I wonder if Mary and Joseph had fights about the rearing of Jesus. I wonder if he carried a little grudge in his heart against his wife -- for all the manly prideful reasons a grudge might form. I wonder how long he waited before they conceived their next child, before he asserted his place as the husband. When the fight reached its peak, I went into the kitchen and cried, and prayed. I know I'm doing this wrong. I know I'm handling this the wrong way. I apologized later but it didn't do much good. He only apologizes to me rarely. The only way I can tell he feels guilty is by how disproportionately angry he gets over the issue. If it's really out of whack, that means he's not sure at all that he's right. He's angry and I'm unrelenting. Classic male/female bullshit.
Father in heaven, teach us to be still.
Teach us to do what's best for the child, together.