Golden Sessions

I bounced home on Thursday night, because I had just asked my chief of staff for the next day off, and he had graciously said yes. After the week I’d had, this very nearly renewed my faith in the existence of humanity on the Hill. It’s always fun to ride the Metro home when you know you won’t be on it for the next few days.
And this is what happened next:
Six people around a table, eating dinner by candlelight, philosophizing, and laughing. While cleaning up, I exuberantly suggest calling the all-Christmas station to request Christmas Eve in Washington because it seems so perfect. Everyone agrees it would be nice, but no one wants to talk to Delilah and I can’t really blame them. So I finish the dishes instead.
Then: covering the table in wax paper and scattering the canvas with little snowmen, Christmas trees, snowflakes, gingerbread men, bowls of brightly coloured frosting, and plastic knives. Twelve pairs of hands soon decorated with the sweet stuff nearly as much as the cookies.
“Look at this one!”
“Oh, no, I touched the detail. This is totally messed up.”
“I’ll eat it.”
“Stop eating! These are for the party.”
“It’s not like we don’t have 38 dozen of them already…”
Many hands make light work of even multiple dozens of sugar cookies, so we retire to the couch and vicinity for the annual viewing of A Muppet Christmas Carol, with all its associated laughter and tears. (Mostly Ashley giggling in anticipation of the latter.) It is a late night, because no one has to get up at any particular time and there is much to discuss.
Fresh sunshine pours through the windows the next morning. I endeavor to beat the rush to the kitchen and shuffle down in my pajamas to get my sugar and spice espresso cookies underway. I am soon joined by Allis, who faithfully puts the dishes away (because she remembers where they all go). Sarah follows, and shortly the whole house smells like coffee. That wakes up the remainder of the household, and soon the day is swept into well-paced activity: cleaning, baking, shopping, decorating.
As night falls, we light the tree, as well as apple candles nestled between limes and cranberries. The house begins to smell of mulled cider. Cloves and cinnamon and citrus. We force Peter to play photographer as the five of us girls – everyone who has ever lived in the townhouse – congregate around the tree. As arms go around one another, we all realize: this sort of thing only happens once. And we’re taking it for all its worth.
Guests arrive not long after; scores of them. (A moment to thank all forty-eight of you who were our guests. We were thrilled to have you here!) The house fills with laughter and music. The music of laughter. It was lovely; everything I’d hoped, and more, but of course went way too fast.
After sleeping in the next morning, we feast on French toast, strawberries, eggs, and sausage. And we have Christmas. Well, the non-family version. We put on music, sit by the tree in our pajamas and exchange presents. “Oohs” and “aahs” circulate around the room as we take turns opening. Probably the funniest comment comes from Ashley, clearly jealous of Sarah’s international travel throughout this year as revealed in her presents for all of us: “I don’t like having Christmas with you, Sarah.”
But we all know better.
Pretty soon, Allis is wrapped in a long-awaited afghan and a scarf from Scotland; Sarah in a new sage green down comforter; Ashley and I are sharing a blanket on the couch; Emily is getting more coffee. Basically, we don’t want to go anywhere. And the weather isn’t encouraging: it is cold. Really cold. Three-layers-plus-hat-scarf-and-gloves cold.
Yes, that’s what it took to get me outside when we finally motivated ourselves to go out for the walk up Brookside Drive to the park. We pass houses decked out for Christmas and sing carols until our lungs are too cold to function on pitch. The crisp smell of burning wood carries on the frigid air. We stop to take a picture or two as we walk.
And amid the laughter I think: why can’t this last forever?
But I know the answer before the question even came to my mind. If this was the norm, if this was everyday, it would be an event unmarked by gratitude, as unnoticed as breathing or daily bread to the unobservant liver of life. I would not know the fullness I felt at the moment, because I wouldn’t know what I was missing.
And because life is this way: we never have all the people we love in one place at one time. Even this weekend, there were some missing in our number. But life also consists of these golden sessions. You look forward to them, savor them, remember them. They can be a piece of what gets you through that burdensome project, that late night, that season of loneliness. They are gems scattered in our path along the way.
And this year, it was a Christmas gift indeed.

Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company. Especially when the whole group is together, each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others. Those are the golden sessions... when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk... who could have deserved it? ~ C.S. Lewis