Starboy and Joy on Two Festivals of Light

The weekend of December 13, the third weekend of Advent, the weekend of Joy, was bordering on disaster in our household.  The dishwasher wouldn't drain and we took it apart and kept it apart as we kept trying to clear something. The van wouldn't start and we couldn't jump it with the Prius, so we were late to a birthday party.  The party was outside and it rained. We learned how easy it is to destroy a microwave just by pushing the wrong button.  Dianthus cut himself when he tried to saw open a pecan with a bread knife.  I cut myself moving the hot fried microwave.  I mixed a bunch of expensive saffron into the start of a dough-- at Dianthus's insistence we were making St. Lucia buns-- before I realized that the odd amount of yeast required (1.7 oz.) amounted to 7 packets of yeast and I had one.  On the day we were taking treats to church, the Mister went early to sing with the choir and the boys and I were late due to frosting issues due to caterpillars crawling in our mixer in the cupboard.  To top the weekend off, the Raiders beat the Broncos.
And it was a great and joyous weekend.
In the time since, I've thought about how to write this post.  I could portray the weekend as a comedy of errors in which so much went wrong that I had no choice but to laugh at the absurdity of it all, like this weekend back in 2011.

The Mister happened to have my Christmas saffron waiting?

I could portray it like the children's book Fortunately: "Unfortunately the van was dead, fortunately, we had another car; unfortunately, the Mister had choir practice on one side of town and the birthday party was on the other; fortunately, a good friend has a boutique near the church; unfortunately shopping made us late for . . "  "Fortunately, I knew something about the St. Lucia buns Dianthus wanted to bake. Unfortunately, they required more saffron than we had.  Fortunately, the Mister had ordered saffron for me for Christmas (! completely out of nowhere). Unfortunately, we had no clean dishes as we kept thinking that we could repair the dishwasher. . . "

But neither accurately describes the weekend.  It was an absolutely joy-filled weekend during which a bunch of things happened to go wrong.

I've spent time trying to ponder the weekend and why it felt so good.  I've come up some answers, and they are complete cliche.  They might also be right.

It was late at night following a complete change of recipe,
but it turns out I can still work dough 

The first is that, because I was caught up on my grading (it was the weekend between classes and finals), I did not bring any work home.  I was fearlessly living in the moment.  I had heard, multiple times through the advent season, to "be not afraid" and I was not.
I also chose to have a joyful weekend.  I rejoiced in that I still knew the "baby's bottom" feel of well-kneaded dough.  I was excited that Dianthus and Aster were arguing about who got to be the Star Boy and who was St. Lucia. I was charmed they wanted to celebrate Hanukkah.  So we lit the candles and we sang and we embraced the light.

Star Boy without his dunce cap

I know the darkness is real and so are the problems of the world.  It feels completely tone-deaf, as well as cliche, to say that one can just be joyful by not being afraid and embracing joy. But sometimes it works.  I'm afraid (here I go again with the fear) that's what I've got. Along with a fixed dishwasher, a new microwave, and two boys who are fighting to serve me sweet rolls in bed next December.

Our menorah, of sorts

Sometimes the snowman is looking the other way.

Keeping lighting candles.  Keep finding joy.