Celebration

Birthdays are a beautiful thing. All ya’ll know how much I gabbed about my own, but a few more special ones are occurring even now. It seems that once my birthday hits, everything snowballs. From now through Spring, it’s shopping season for this 41’derful mommy and the economy will be mightily assisted by the Schneider Buying Spree.

More important than the presents themselves, however, is the presence of people.

On Julie’s birthday, the Jules Clan and the Denises got together. (Take a look at Denise's Celebrating Julie blog to see her tribute and a fun video.) At dinner we talked about, guess what? Birth stories. It was a conversation for baby showers but that night, it was dinner conversation. There is much to be celebrated in the birth of a child and we talked about the miraculous and painful. The main topic, Julie, however, was the special guest of the evening. It was obvious how thankful Denise and I were to Julie for having a birthday. A reason to celebrate! Thanks Julie - for being born!

A day before, we had our own quiet family celebration for Jillian, who turned 8 this year. Over the course of the week, presents had been arriving for Jilly in the mail. I had to apologize on her birthday because amazon.com had not come through. All the presents I bought and had planned on her brothers buying from me were going to be overdue. My little girl, who ought to be rather gift focused at her age said, “It’s okay mommy. When presents are early and late it just means I get to celebrate even longer!” Even last night, at Julie’s house she said, “I just feel like I’ve had the best week ever!” Even for my 8 year old, it’s not about presents. It’s all about presence.

The presence of people. The presence of God. The presence of celebration. The presence of rejoicing. The presence of thankfulness. Birth. Days to celebrate and days to remember. Cake. Candles. Song. Celebration. Blessings.