It’s the last day before Christmas. Each year, the kids at church perform at our Christmas Eve service. And this year, Sondra (of In the Deep) has put together a wonderful kids program, with lots of special music. And I’m happy to have been a part of it.

I’ve been trying to spend more time on domestic accomplishments, like keeping house and helping out at church, and the holidays have given me an opportunity to do so. Over the past week, I’ve produced chord sheets for two songs that the kids will be covering, learned both of them (one on the keyboard, one on the bass), practiced with C the song we’ll be playing together, set out Christmas music for congregational singing tonight, and shuttled the kids to and from practice. What I found is that doing these things helps me feel better about myself.

So concurs a psychological study of happiness during the holidays:

One of my daughters today was approaching tears, when I almost blew up at her. I didn’t actually yell at her, I hope, but I felt my temperature and voice rising in unison.

She was upset, because we didn’t have an extra pool pass, so that she could go to the community pool party today, which our apartment complex throws for its residents each year. She’s an innovator, like her old man, so she quickly found a solution to her dilemma. She discovered that you don’t actually need a pool pass to get into the party—you only need a pass if you actually want to swim; and you can probably get around that rule, too, because it’s the end of the season. And so she went to the party with her friend and her friend’s mother.

But before that happened, for a few seconds there, she was standing in front of me, with that desperate, pouty, life-is-falling-apart face that feels like a wood rasp rubbing through my heart. And that made me sad and upset, not because we thought she couldn’t go, but because she so desperately wanted to go.