Peas on Earth

One of my favourite things about decorating our home for the holidays is reliving fond memories of Christmas seasons past. Within each Christmas storage box I unpack is a treasure trove of special ornaments, CDs, and sweet little crafts handmade by the boys over the years, all of which remind me of people and stories I love. This week, when I came across the red berries I use for our dining room table centrepiece, I burst into laughter remembering a Will moment from last December. It's a cheerful little holiday tale I think is worth sharing.

Will has lots of priorities and important things to do in a day; eating is not one of them. After spending most of the family dinner time talking, singing, or asking questions most nights, he is often the very last one at the table. He sits and eventually works slowly away at his full plate of food while the rest of us clean up and are too occupied to pay much attention to him. One evening last December, we were living out this exact scenario, and Matt, Noah and I had already left the kitchen. Will was unusually quiet and we figured he had finally got down to the business of eating. When he decided he had had enough dinner, I glanced at his plate and noticed that surprisingly, he had eaten a very respectable amount of peas. I smiled at him, sent him off to play, and thought nothing more about it.

The next day I was working on a project at the dining room table when something strange caught my eye. There, in the midst of all the red berries in the table centrepiece, was a small but conspicuous green berry. Curious, I investigated further and discovered several clusters of the hard, shrivelled little green orbs. It suddenly dawned on me what had become of Will's peas the previous evening. It wasn't like he had just thrown spoonfuls of peas into the branches, either, hoping that they would never be noticed; he had actually taken the time to painstakingly thread each pea onto a wire in true Martha Stewart-esque fashion. I'm sure not even Martha ever thought of using peas as a festive decorating embellishment!


I wanted to have a serious talk with Will about what he had done with his peas, but I simply couldn't keep a straight face. (I also secretly admired his ingenuity in the absence of any dog he could feed his vegetables to.) Will was a little sheepish when I made him fess up, and I felt more than a little foolish for believing that he had actually eaten his peas. But it was Christmastime, and it was darn funny, and the story is now one we will remember and chuckle about every time the holiday season rolls around.

For all of you reading this, I hope this month is full of moments of laughter and joy shared with loved ones. Happy December!