I Burnt the Toffee

I Burnt the Toffee

Way back when Noel and I were just dating (Five whole years, people!), we went Christmas shopping together for the first time. It was a fairly awful experience and I’m pretty sure the only reason anyone forgave us for our lame and thoughtless gifts was because we got engaged days before Christmas and everyone was so sickened by our twitterpation happy for us. Since then we’ve greatly improved our holiday planning and I think we may have even shed the title “Worst Gift Givers Ever.”

This year we’re celebrating Christmas on our turf and I’ve been generally very excited about the responsibilities and possibilities this holds. The control freak in me was ready for this year to be the perfect mix of holiday cheer and spiritual reflection. Through obsessive micromanagement of Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Remember the Milk it was all going to happen.

This morning I was hard at work on some of today’s tasks: wrapping gifts to mail to family and cooking toffee while listening to Christmas music. Well, my kid pilfered 6 or 7 decadent Idle Isle Nutballs (Imagine a rich, creamy nougat dipped in chocolate and rolled in roasted almonds.), wiped his chocolate smeared face all over my pants, spilled red glitter all over the floor, and then fell off a chair while trying to reach the tupperware of peanut butter cups. As I waddled around (pregnant, remember?) with the wailing boy on my hip searching for his binky, I was feeling less than sympathetic. Once he quieted down,  I set him on the floor to play with his cars and meticulously burnt a batch of toffee. Frustrated, I left the toffee monstrosity on the stove and began to clean up the disaster formerly known as my kitchen.

Hours later, after putting the boy down for a nap I returned to the toffee. I scraped it into the garbage and then crossed it off my to-do list because Christmas isn’t about toffee or being Super-Holiday-Woman.  Christmas is about family, putting others first,  and celebrating the birth of our Savior, and often the best way to do that is to ignore the to-do list and abandon well-laid plans. So, today, I’m glad I burnt the toffee.

4 thoughts on “I Burnt the Toffee

  1. You know those great “one liners” that would make good chapter titles in our book of life? It sounds like “I burnt the toffee” would be a great one for you. 😉 Great lesson. And I love the reality post.

  2. When I first read the title to your post, I read, “I burnt the Coffee” and I wondered why you were making coffee anyway. Another look clarified my error. I like your post and its message.

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