Waiting

In the monastery we talked about the feast day devil, you know, that growing irritation inside you as you struggle to get everything set up and decorated, and the food done and everything in place and perfect? Instead of making the feast day happy, the devil (just ourselves, of course) made us grouchy and cranky, spoiling things for ourselves and maybe others if we snapped at them.

The feast day devil is not confined to monasteries, I have learned. As we have tried to get ready for the arrival of guests, clean the house, plan meals, shop and shop and shop and still discovering one more reason to go out to Walmart, and it is snowing and snowing and snowing, and will this interfere with travel plans, and when will people get here and ... You get the picture. The cats are all wired up because furniture has been rearranged, including that most important item -- their food dish, which has to be set up where they can reach it but Buddy the Dog cannot. Then there is that white tree with the colored lights and all the boxes that is blocking the front hall where they want to run right this minute. Even the mice seem to be stirring quite a bit in the walls, or else the house is settling in for the winter.

In the monastery with Fr. Anthony, we always tried to have everything done in preparation for Christmas by two days before -- so that we could spend Christmas Eve more reflectively, waiting for the darkened chapel to be lit with candles as we began Midnight Mass. That was a good custom that made celebrating more relaxed and less frustrating.

Right now it is 9:00 A.M., snow is falling -- we are only due to get an inch or so, and it is a balmy 28 degrees! -- and we are waiting. We have begun what I hope is the last Walmart list of the day -- naturally, the coffee maker decided to go bonkers the day we expect a houseful of guests. At least all my gifts are wrapped, the carpet in my room is vacuumed and my bathroom clean enough for visitors to use.

Maybe I'll get an hour of quiet before it is all over. Things do seem to be quieting down -- if only the mouse fiddling on the roof would stop!