Saying Goodbye to the Holidays

New Year's Day is, for me, kind of a bummer.  It marks the official end of the holiday season and, at the same time, the official beginning of the coming year's work season.  Meh.

In a smaller, less significant way, it's brings to mind the last day of summer, before school starts the next day.  Lots of happy memories but a nagging feeling I didn't enjoy it enough while it was here.  And now it's gone.  Forever.

To cheer myself up today, I spent some time thinking about the fun I had over the holidays.  The memories that were made.  I'd like to capture some of them here, in no particular order.

• Playing hide-and-seek with Jude and J.P., while I carried Joe, at Santa's Tree's in 12South after we picked out our Christmas tree.
• Decorating what was maybe our best Christmas tree yet, with J.P. really, really into pulling the ornaments out of the box and hanging them on the tree.
• Our inaugural, impromptu Christmas tree dance party (and several more).  We turned off all the lights except those on the Christmas tree and, while I held Joe and played "DJ" with my iPhone, Spotify and the Jawbone, Jude and J.P. danced together in front of the Christmas tree.  J.P. laughed joyously, spontaneously (the best kind of laughter in my book).
• My law firm's Christmas party/dinner at Urban Grub in 12South.  I hosted it, as I normally do, and I was pleased everyone enjoyed themselves at a restaurant they had never visited.
• Taking J.P. to his first Vanderbilt basketball game with my mom, my sister and my sister's son, Matthew.  As I watched J.P. watch the game, I smiled to myself and realized things had really come full circle.  I never missed a Vanderbilt home basketball game as a child and, later, a teenager, attending virtually all of them with my mother.  She and I bonded over Vanderbilt basketball and some of my fondest memories from my childhood are attending the games with her.  
• Sneaking in a few, "Indian Summer-ish" afternoon weekend walks with Joe to Bongo Java.  Really unusual for December.
• Elf on the Shelf, which J.P. was way into.  Jude and I got a kick out of watching him look for him each morning.
• Christmas morning w/J.P. and Joe.  Santa was good to both of them.
• Christmas Eve service at St. Patrick, where I watched J.P. carry the baby Jesus down the aisle in front of Father David Perkin as part of the procession.  As I watched him, I felt an overwhelming sense of pride.
• This year's version of my "manly pickles," appropriately entitled "the nuclear option."
• A last supper at ChaChah with my law partners, Mark and Chas.  Last supper, in the sense that ChaChah's closed New Year's Eve.  This summer, I stopped in often for a glass of wine on my nightly strolls with Joe.  I sat at the bar and read on my Kindle while Joe slept in the stroller beside me.
• J.P. discovering my baseball cards, boxes and boxes of them in the closet in his room.  I got one of the boxes down and smiled as he sorted through the baseball cards inside it.  Having a son to share my baseball cards with one day was a dream of mine.
• Tonight, as Jude fed Joe and I read the newspaper after dinner, J.P. got a towel, washrag and pajamas and took a shower all by himself, a first.  More proof that sometimes it's the small things that mean the most.
• Watching Jude and J.P. build the Lego Fire Station that Santa Claus brought him.  It's for ages 5 - 12 and initially Jude thought it would be too complicated for him.  Turns out, it wasn't too complicated for him (with her assistance), after her jigsaw puzzle instinct kicked in.  It was actually a pretty involved project, but J.P. totally enjoyed assembling the fire trucks and buildings with Jude.  
• Carefully placing the Lego Fire Station (and trucks) in a shoe box and driving up to the fire station on 12th Avenue, just up from our house.  J.P. and I walked inside, saw Chief Fletcher and some of the guys and showed them the completed project.  They loved it and he loved showing it to them. 
• Watching "This is 40," the new Judd Apatow movie, with Jude.  Okay, that's not really an "enjoyable" memory, per se, given that our viewing of the movie was marked by nervous laughter and uncomfortable silences.  If the movie was called "This is 46," I would sue Judd Apatow for royalties, since the similarities to our life (and family) was uncanny.  It was like I was  watching my life unfold on the big screen.  And that was kind of funny, actually.

Well, that about wraps it up.  Good times and good memories.