He is in the kitchen cleaning because last night after the hundreds of cookies had been baked and frosted and packaged for the neighbors I climbed the stair and told him I didn't think I could clean those counters and those dishes one more time.  When he offered to clean again after breakfast this morning, I smiled and walked to the couch.

This is the month the kitchen is always busy.  The month I wish for two ovens and two dishwashers and two fridges and no matter how many eggs or sticks of butter I buy, I will have to go back again the next day for more.  The checkers know me by name.  I could shop blindfolded.  Last night I dreamed we ran out of fancy cheeses and there I was inside that store with the black cart racing down aisles.

I melted down a little after the cookie delivery, the impromptu dinner with our favorite neighbors, the rush into sweatpants.  We have been social every night for weeks it seems.  I have pulled out all of the favorite recipes.  We have sat down with all of our favorite people.  And still, there is so much more to come.  Then we will climb onto a plane and fly home to the rest of my loves and this introvert feels like a shell of a human.  I locked myself in my bathroom for a good thirty, sitting on the edge of the tub in precious silence.

I am having a hard time with this: this is the season my greatest relationship was born.  When that God baby came to us all and offered love and eternity, I was rescued.  And I have been walking with that God man ever since I can remember.  I have poured myself and withheld myself and revealed myself to Him and He has taught me more about relationship than anything or anyone ever will.  And so I love that this season is a season of gathering, I do.  But I don't want to miss the beauty of silent spaces.  I don't want to miss the wonder of what Christmas did for me those thousands of years ago and it is easy to take the best things in life and to drown in them.

And so I am here on the couch with Chesterton, finally.  And it is quiet.  My goal for the next hour: move my mind a little further towards understanding a Worthy God born simply to love and then die for the unworthy.