At Our Holiday House

Seasonal celebrations and a first birthday party at the cottage.

There is still turkey in the freezer at our holiday house. We made two birds, roasted in bags, in the hot cottage oven on Thanksgiving day. The kids piled on our big couch in the living room and played video games, watched Christmas movies, and passed our baby back and forth on waiting laps. We turned the front porch heaters on and set tables and chairs out for dinner, a view of the falling snow outside. My husband dared some of our nephews to do a cold plunge in the mountains of white, a few of them running through our yard and dunking themselves in a small tub for an icy minute.

The pantry was cluttered, the fridge was a mess, and there were piles of muddy shoes on each floor. At one point, we stacked leftovers into the freezing mudroom and stuck coolers of drinks outside in the snowbanks. The baby squealed in delight at each of her cousins stopping by her highchair every morning, her little hands reaching and reaching for those family faces. Our home was full of bright.

There are still lingering coughs and stuffy noses at our holiday house. After the beautiful blur of family Thanksgiving, sickness swept through the cottage in force. The baby catching her very first cold, and upon confirmation at an urgent care visit, her first double ear infection. I was also very sick with a sore throat and congestion, and would lay by the fireplace, doing my best to survive, as I watched Eden play with her books. I put on countless Christmas movies to pass our days: Elf, The Snowman, The Family Stone. When the worst of it all had passed, there was about a week until Christmas.

We made merry all the same. I trimmed the cottage in ways that I could, hastily ordered a few last minute gifts to put under the tree, and arranged a little outing for our family of three that would usher in some joy and magic. Christmas Eve found Dan and I eating a small fancy dinner and wrapping our daughter’s gifts to A Muppet Christmas Carol. Her shrieks of happiness the next day to wrapping paper and presents and fun, new things are a film strip tucked away in our memories forever.

There were stars and crepe paper hanging from the ceiling at our holiday house. Our nieces and nephews and sister-in-law helped me hang the decorations, blow up the balloons, and frost the cake for Eden Premal’s first birthday party. Her gifts were carefully chosen; her little party outfit picked out weeks and weeks before.

I woke up with her in the morning when the sky was still dark and pressed my face into hers, remembering the day I brought her into the world a year ago. Her face brightened immediately when I took her down our old wooden stairs, seeing all of the decorations that were set up just for her, our birthday girl.

The snow started falling that day just like it did when she was born, and the cottage was filled to the brim with kids and grandparents and family. There were deli sandwiches and lavender cupcakes and party games and the baby grinned so wide when we all began singing; her first birthday here at our holiday house.

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