Christmas on the inside. It’s a phrase I’ve used to console Sophie this month about all the broken, on-the-fritz, undone and un-decorative aspects of life at the Burk Motel lately. For starters, the siding has hung off the front of the house in big, bald patches all fall, unfinished after a siding company botched the job this past summer. August 21, to be exact, when desperation eclipsed common sense in letting Company #1 remove the 30-year-old panels of faux stucco that were held to our house by little more than paint. Since then, it’s been an unwanted journey into contract law and sub-contractor woes (with a painful stress on the word “sub”). Deck the halls with rolls of Tyvek. That lovely Williamsburg look is overrated, anyway.

What drove Sophie over the edge was coming home one day to find a Hanover County school bus parked in our driveway. It needed cleaning, explained Father Bus Driver Bill, as some poor kid threw up on the morning run. So instead  of putting up lights and outdoor decorations with the Joneses, Bill is cleaning biohazard out of a school bus. Life does demand a diverse skill set, I find. Said bus wouldn’t be quite the eyesore if there were siding on our poor house (keeping in mind we really DO live in a nice neighborhood here!!) or if parked at its enormous feet weren’t TWO go-karts (the one that works and the one that doesn’t, both of which occupy a space in our garage the size of–oh…say, a MINIVAN) and the lawn tractor which died this fall right before the “last leaf job,” which is the must-do day Bill holds to before he will hang a single bulb. Guess what? No last leaf day.

So I tell Sophie we are celebrating Christmas on the INSIDE this year. As a friend said to me, the manger wasn’t decorated either. If I really buy into that peace and goodwill stuff, it doesn’t matter one bit which of our three vehicles is in the shop today or what setting I use on the clothes dryer which quit a few days ago: “moderately damp” or “why bother?” I know she’s sad because our white van is so dirty. Harry the Dirty Dog dirty. I would happily take it to the car wash, but they won’t touch a vehicle with bungee cords attaching the front bumper. Too many trips over the cement curb at the pool has worn away the bolts underneath. Since we triage our emergencies around here, Bill located a couple of $978 bungee cords in the garage and took care of the “repair”–for free!

In the enclosed photo, taken on the way up Mt. Washington by cog railway this past summer, though we are standing, we are all at a 45-degree angle. Makes you feel strange, like you are moving but not getting anywhere, and like so much of your energy is used just to stay vertical. Kind of like me the week before Christmas. So here we are, being hauled–against my will and at an astronomical ticket price–up the highest peak in North America by 100-year-old technology to endure the strongest winds ever clocked on the planet. THAT is a fitting analogy for life these days. (I think the first version of this letter may have been a  little more upbeat, but no lie–last week the computer crashed and ate my fully-written Christmas letter. I kid you not. I am not making this stuff up!)

On top of the damage and disaster, we have that glistening sugar frosting layer of deadlines that really are fit to unglue us. And I’m not talking about the last days of standard shipping at Amazon. Or even free-shipping day. I’m talking about a day of free-living, a day where nothing is due, no one is waiting, nothing is breaking, where expectation ceases and desists for a single, sweet, manger-like moment.

Ellie met the largest deadline of her career this fall when she (for my birthday, one day early!!) hit “submit” on the George Mason University common app and just this past Friday got in. Busted computers, dead clothes dryers, defunct lawn mowers, limping vehicles, naked house fronts, plus all the usual projects, papers, exams and wind of expectation that screams through here at 235 miles an hour, this little simmering time of waiting was NOT something she and I could take well in stride. It mattered so much to her, and so it mattered to me. It is the only school she has wanted to visit, apply to, and attend. Come to find out, they feel the same way. She got into their Honors College and will be studying psychology and behavioral science in prep for detective work. For her 18th birthday and her graduation next June, I am taking her to France, where the family I lived with 32 years ago is still at the same address and waiting for us. Sophie has decided she, too, wants a piece of the travel action and so will have a nice new suitcase under the tree. Once the flights drop to three digits I will book and the three of us will make Le Tour de la France.

Along with wrapping and baking, our Christmas prep this year includes a trip to the passport office, as Sophie is headed for the Dominican Republic at Spring Break to assist in installing filters in well pumps and teaching Bible school class (diverse skill set, remember…?) She is well-suited to mission work, I think. Speaking of suit, she’s in the pool again this year with the high school swim team. Having discovered one overly-busy Friday afternoon this past Easter that she was acutely anemic, she was admitted to VCU pediatric ER and transfused while anxious mom, dad, and Tucker the therapy dog-on-call looked on. Now she swims like she’s part bionic, burning up the lanes and shaving 20 seconds, 30 seconds–whole minutes off her time. Show me the way, Sophie girl. Perhaps I should get a blood transfusion. I could do with some time drops around here.

William, our 11-year-old, has certainly gotten the memo on speed. He rarely walks anywhere, nor does he sit. His vehicle of choice? A Murray Kilowatt 212 cc 6 hp go-kart which Bill produced off Craig’s List. Complete with its sister version that doesn’t run but is happy to exist on our property for the purpose of parts. These “parts,” in the shape of a go-kart, are actually quite large and plentiful, so putting a car in the garage has become a sore point. But look to the good, that’s what this season is all about. Look to the good. He’s going 28 mph through our back woods! Look: He has a helmet on. He’s tearing up the grass! Look: Less to mow. He’s burning up gasoline! Look: he knows what a throttle does and how to clean a carburetor. He’ll come in the house and go thunking up/down the stairs in mud-caked boots! Hmmmmm… Makes the dog look good? Christmas on the inside, I tell myself. Just not inside the garage.

And bus driver Bill? Bucket in one-hand, Bible in the other, he puts in a very, very full day. If I get up real early in the morning the coffee he makes us before he leaves will still be warm in the pot. He weathers well.

Today after some pretty wintry temps, the temperatures have soared to 60 degrees The guys from Company #2 are here painting the newly-sided house. Too bad we are going to have to spend Ellie’s college tuition to pay them. Or swim to France. But they are nice. I have discovered that having the gutters painted is even more of a boost than cleaning them. Perhaps these men, they hang lights…? Was I surprised when the head guy shook my hand and told me his name? No, I was not. “Angelos.” Ah, yes…of course. Angeles. I knew that. I had forgotten to look.

So there you go, Sophie girl. Christmas on the inside AND on the outside. God bless your hearth, home, and house siding this year.

With best wishes for a blessed and happy Christmas,

From all the Burks