The presents are piled under the tree, but I'm beginning to wonder if it should look more like this. Since we will be with the Voth family for Christmas Day, we decided to celebrate a couple of days early. But this morning we woke up to an all out verbal war, and things like, "I'm never gonna talk to you AGAIN!" and "you are the MEANEST person!" were being thrown around. There was no peace or joy in the house. Now after the discipline, it's hard to know how to transition toward harmony & a mood of celebration.
I realize each phase of childhood has its joys and challenges; our family apparently is in the midst of the "sibling rivalry" phase. Now I know how we brought my poor mom to tears on a few occasions. We could be downright mean to one another. But we had our moments of caring and affection too, when we lived at peace with each other & even managed to work together on occasion. So I'm doing my best to deal with things calmly, when my true inclination is to lose my mind and start bagging up the gifts with a declaration of "if you kids don't start getting along there won't be ANY Christmas this year!" Something tells me that wouldn't help to restore peace & joy.
1 comment:
My kids have been unusually good these last couple days...not to say we haven't had our share of days like this. The anticipation of Christmas can be so hard sometimes.
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