Merry Christmas

This past weekend, we dressed up in costume, all eleven of us who were home, and journeyed to the movie theatre for the premier of the latest and possibly last installment of Starwars, The Rise of Skywalker.   Our sheer size of a group, ranging in age from eight to fifty-three, plus the assortment of characters, (both light and dark, old and new, comic and film canon), drew lots of smiles and stares and chuckles.   Occasionally, some of us who were less encumbered by our outfits, would forget, yes, we are in costume, and that made the ordinary acts of say, purchasing popcorn or escorting a child to the bathroom (it’s a long movie), all the more fun.  My children loved waving at the motorists as we drove home, and some asked if we could go to IHop or some place just because it would be fun. (We declined, but understood the desire).   The movie, the whole of it, was fun in part because the outfits, the outlandishness of it all, invited other people to also enjoy the experience more. 

Preparing for Christmas is like that as well.

A neighbor and friend of mine starts to trim the outside of her home the moment Thanksgiving ends.  Each weekend, new lights, new colors, new displays until we get to the fourth week of Advent, when her yard is a riot of joy, of whimsy and light.  One cannot drive by without a smile.   Even better, her home pushed some of us who get to the outside if it’s not too cold or wet or when we get to it, to “up our game,” and thus the whole block is awash with light, with reminders of the joy we’re about to both commemorate and celebrate and take with us for the rest of the year.  Her enthusiasm spread joy throughout the neighborhood, which in turn, made it multiply and grow outward, until the whole neighborhood outwardly shown with light, with enthusiasm, with something of joy.

We ought to know by now, joy is contagious. 

Beauty and enthusiasm are the hallmarks of joy, and they must be shared, that is part of the experience of joy.   Mary knew the joy of the incarnation, and shared God with the world through her yes, through her willingness to cooperate with God’s will, that we might know the Father’s love through the Son.   Joseph knew this joy too, and thus protected Mary and Jesus from those in the world who sought to destroy it.  They could not have, but still, joy must be preserved even as it must be shared.   We cannot manufacture it as a feeling, we can only hold it as we would a soap bubble, and yet it is more real than anything we could grasp.  

It is more real than we can bear, and so we receive the cause of all our joy, the source veiled in the Eucharist.  God knows our littleness cannot long endure, we do not yet know how to live in joy, to swim in mercy, to breathe in only, and breathe out only, the Holy Spirit to others.  Advent is an attempt to prepare for that ultimate joy, such that we can experience it more.   Christmas is that more-ness, and we’re to bring it to those around us in all of our everyday.  

The great beauty of this reality, is we can start today, to infuse all of our actions with that joy, with that anticipation of the greater joy, and it requires as always, only our assent, only our fiat to God.   Let us today, make each day going forward, a growing imitation of Mary’s annunciation. 

Come, let us bring the source of all Joy to the World to the World.   Merry Christmas!

Over at the Register Today

I've been busy (as I'm sure you are) with Christmas preparations and Christmas itself, but here's my latest at the Register.  I hope to get back in earnest with writing today...

Five Ways the Devil Tries to Rob You of Christmas Joy. (Or, Sherry took her kids out to look at lights and overheard how organized everyone else was for Christmas a week before, so what did she do? Write about it). 

One of Those...

We've all had them, and as a society, we refused to speak of them.  Hence, there are no television specials or songs which remind us of the gory details of those Christmases.

I speak of the years when everybody gets sick.

We've eaten dinner, opened presents, phoned the parents and maybe dug into some of the pile of sweets left in the stockings when somebody says, "My stomach hurts."  Everyone pauses.  We all know what this could mean, but we all lie.  "It's probably because you ate too much."  "Or been up since four."  "And we stayed up late last night, don't forget that."  There are reassurances all around.  It's nothing.  Absolutely nothing.   Until the child in question throws up.  

After the scramble to clean up the mess and scrub down the bathroom, everyone knows, it's a matter of time and still, we repeat the fib for it's ever failing comfort.   "That was exciting." "Hope that doesn't happen again."  The next soul whose stomach doesn't feel great, doesn't feel they should mention it, and suggests everyone should shower up and get to bed.  

By two in the morning, three more people are down.  Everyone left knows the drill. Scrub your hands, wipe down everything and don't eat.  Whatever you do, DON'T EAT.    Alas, we've already eaten.   Doom approaches.  

In the dawn's early light, the body count now stands at seven, leaving one parent, one college student and three of the four youngest.  Even worse, Mom is down.  The victims park themselves with pots and blankets in the middle room, occasionally moaning or begging for ginger ale.  The surviving members of the family wipe everything down with clorox and try to hold off one bathroom for the well people.    The teen volunteers to go to the store ostensibly for cleaning supplies, saltines and ginger ale.   We all know, it's to get away.

The phone rings thirty minutes later, the teen needs a rescue.  In the meantime, two more of the littles have diarrhea.   Aparently, the bug begins with throw up and ends with...well, dehydration and weight loss.  The parent leaves the surviving eleven year old with the phone to hold vigil over her moaning older and younger siblings  and semi-conscious mother, and drives to the grocery store to provide rescue to the trapped sick teen.

Mom begins to show signs of life. She's been spotted helping with the youngest who just threw up. However the effort costs her, and she naps for the rest of the evening.   On the bright side, the day after Christmas, the house has never gleamed so clean.

My mom calls to see how things are going.  My husband manages a "Fine" before handing the phone to one of the teens and going to lie down.   Everyone who visits continues in the same vein, lying that Christmas was great, everyone is having a wonderful time, until we get to the five year old, who hasn't learned what we don't discuss.  

Grandmother had planned to come for New Years.   I think she's flying to Florida instead.

The Light of Christmas

I have a friend I've made as a result of years of going to the same dry cleaner's.  She always greets me with a smile and a call out, even if I'm being served by someone else.  I've written of her mother, and her own unwavering faith.  Every once in a while, we have a conversation as I'm handing over my pile of laundry and the ordinariness of my day evaporates.  

"Merry Christmas," I said as I piled up the shirts.  My mind was full of the bills to pay, the pounds gained over the break, the work I needed to still get done for the evening.

"Merry Christmas!" she beamed, "You know, Christmas is a time for miracles.  Christmas time is a miracle."    I felt the beginning of an interruption in the dark chaos of my thoughts.

"Yes.  Yes it is."  Her eyes told me, she held a miracle she was bursting to share.
"For the past eight years, I've prayed."  She told me of how she's been begging for warmth in her marriage, but for years, they've not talked.  "Then on Christmas, I heard Jesus tell me, in my heart, "If you want me to work, you have to move."  and I got out of the way."  She smiled.  "I put my hand on my husband's hand."

"And it's better?" I asked.
"It's better. It's a miracle.  It started on Christmas.  It's a miracle.  You know, Jesus can take anyone, fix anything, anything we let Him!"
"The water is now wine." I smiled.  All my errands still loomed, but they didn't haunt, they couldn't in the face of her joy.

"Yes.  Exactly!  The water is now wine."

A line had cued up while we spoke.  "I'm so happy for you. Merry Christmas!"
"Happy New year!"

The Christmas star is shining at my dry cleaner's.  

Be Ready at All Times

Two visitors from a local chapter of a national church that makes home visits came by last week. The young women wanted to give me some encouraging words of scripture.

I said, "Sure."

One woman produced her bible. "These are from Saint James."
"Saint James?" I asked.

"Yes."
"Really? Because if you want encouragement from the New Testament, Saint James is really not your best choice."

"You read the bible?"  They smiled but looked surprised.
"Yes. As Saint Jerome says, "Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of God."

"Who is Saint Jerome?"  She asked.
Grateful I'd just recently read a piece on him, I answered.  "He's a doctor of the Church, born around 342 AD."
One of the ladies began to feel a bit nervous and backed away.
"What religion are you?" the other asked.  She seemed excited to have this conversation.

"Catholic.  Celebrating the 12 days of Christmas right now. Like the lights?" Three of my smaller ones came running by the door.  They were singing "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer." and holding dinosaurs, sheep from the Nativity scene and My Little Ponies.

She smiled. The other one took the opportunity."We don't celebrate Christmas..." but her friend jumped in,  "Can I ask you?  I've always wanted to know what the 12 days were."

"Oh.  That's a either French or English carol, depending upon who you ask, and some say it's a means of secretly passing along the catechism of Catholicism from a time when it was illegal in places like England to be Catholic.  There's dispute about it, and I'm not super up to speed.  I know the partridge in the pear tree is Christ on the Cross. But we do celebrate Christmas from December 25th through the feast of the Epiphany." I wished I could give her more, but I didn't know enough to answer.

She nodded.  "Cool." and as an afterthought asked, "Would you like to read some of the writings about our Church?" holding out a pamphlet.

"No thanks. I write that kind of stuff myself, for a Catholic publication."  She asked for my name and as they left, she admired the Christmas decorations.

I'm thinking, if she leaves their church, they'll take our address off the list for places to visit.

Growing Our Christmas

It started with what I thought was a rather flippant post on Facebook.  

I know liturgically, we have four weeks of Advent, but I think next year, to help myself get a handle on Christmas, I'm going to pretend it's like Lent and circle November 15, so I think...40 days to prepare and make ready. At least then, maybe I won't get to two weeks from Christmas and think, I'm still so very not not not ready. Or at the very least, I'll have longer to be ...not ready.

But it struck a nerve.  

This should be a time of blessed waiting, but very often, it is a time of frantic anxiety, with too many projects, too much work, too much needing to be done, not done, too many things to buy that cost too much.  It is easy to have the peace and joy of anticipating Christmas drowned by the tinsel and clang of "Martha Stewarting" or Saint Marthaing our preparations.   

Knowing I'm not the only one who suffers from this I haven't done enough, there's so much to do I can't start, I'm writing today to invite whoever has not really begun to look up from the sheep and look at the star to stop.  Put on some good Christmas music and put out one decoration today. Then take way one bag of stuff or things to give to charity or get rid off.  You will feel more of Christmas.

Then, tomorrow, do it again.  Bit by bit, day by day, Christmas will draw nearer, to your heart as well as the actual event.  

What will people remember of Christmas, what you gave willingly. These are the gifts that touch the heart.  So prepare, but let yourself recognize the why of this preparation, and anticipate how what you do today, will cultivate Joy to be given full flower come Christmas day.  

Merry Christmas!

I will still post to Small Success Thursday but this is a week for being present, and that means I'll be creating memories rather than recording them.  Thus this blog will return January 1st, 2014.

Carols. Luminaries, cookies, letters, phone calls, beauty, the gift you didn't ask for but your heart wanted, everyone asleep, everyone waking, everyone knowing in that moment, this is Christmas, the ever further opening of our hearts. This is Christmas, the idea that we could be loved forever being not just possible but absolutely true breaking out over all the world.   Wishing all of you the very best Christmas, with many blessings and miracles, surprises and moments of joy that could only be imagined by an Infinitely loving God.  
Merry Christmas!  See you in 2014!

7 Quick Takes Friday

1.  Today, I'm going to a Christmas play.  I've spent the morning in the car.  No really.  Here was my morning:    7:30 a.m.  Get kids into car.
                 7:45 a.m.  Go back in to get kid not yet in car.  Leave driveway.
                 7:47 a.m.  At the light, child discovers he is missing a paper that is due first period.  Return home                  to get paper.
                 7:55  Leave home again.
                 8:05  Drop off five at school five minutes late, feel momentarily victorious.
                 8:20  Get back home to discover bus waiting.  Get sixth child on bus.
                 8:22  Get text that child at high school needs papers by 9:30 or the world is doomed.  Recognize second child needs papers at the same place or no eligibility for scholarships is possible.  
                 9:00  Get to high school, unpack remaining very tolerant toddler and drop off paper.
                 9:10  Get phone call that child I dropped off at the bus is at the nurse's office and would I please come pick up.  
                 9:25 The post office is en route so I decide to do that errand first (with one toddler, not two).  Errand is a bust as the post office needs my oldest son's signature to deliver.
                 Drive to school irritated.  Pick up son who looks surprisingly spry and happy and healthy.  Arrival time?  10:05.  Get phone call from first school.  An older child there is also not feeling well and wants to come home.      
                 Drive to school with two toddlers.  She comes out and gets in the car.
                 It is 11:00.  
                 Get home and feed people lunch.   Sit down, answer emails.  Purchase two presents on Amazon.          
My six year old is an angel in the Christmas play today at 1:30.  Last night her father picked up new shoes for her so she would look finished for the big event.  She has a red Christmas dress and black shoes.  She looks like a Christmas princess.  She feels it.  I've earned that smile, so at 1:00, I'm reloading the car with the toddlers to go see the play.  

This is my Christmas for the day.

2.  Two of my children are running in the 5 mile Baltimore Celtic Solstice tomorrow.  So I'll be taking them to Baltimore at 5:30 so they can run with their Aunt and Uncle.  I'll get to see one of my nephew's and some of my nieces, babysit while they run, and two or three others may tag along for the fun of it.   It should be neat.

3.  Today, I will get back my laptop.  It has been a long hiatus, exactly one month.  When I called Wednesday night, they said they've been calling me, but I'm a stay-at-home mom.  I'm the one who answers the phone when it rings.  I've heard nothing until I called them.  

4.  Promotion of a book is difficult.  So I'm trying to be proactive, to talk about it when the subject comes up, and to ask others to invite people to read it.  I've also learned how to sign a kindle book or any e-book really, and I put a button up on my blog right next to the cover shot of the book so if you click it, it will tell me you want a signature.  I've signed my first e-book and that felt like a little victory.   I'm also appealing for reviews to one place that reviews a week, and researching what if any publicity I want to do and how.  

5.  Every year, the college my son attends offers a care package for exams.  This is the first year I've done it, mostly because before now I always thought, we only live an hour away, I can bring stuff to him.  But I recognized, if I don't do it right then, it won't happen, so this year, I made it happen by being proactive.  He called, very pleased to get the care package he didn't expect because it had never happened before.  

6.   Brilliant Christmas Idea for the day.  Someone should sell LED luminaries.  I'd buy them.  I love the tradition, but keeping the flames lit can be difficult.  I admit, I prefer real fire with it's warmer glow and naturally compelling light, but I also want to not babysit the beauty.  

7.  I've been going to adoration, this week, I've had the opportunity to attend.  The experience is more than I can explain in a blurb on a blog post, except to say I understood, "Make the church beautiful." and knew it didn't mean painting the walls (although I'd love them to be a warmer cream than the white) and gold or red or gold and red (I love gold and red), rather than the grey surrounding the windows, and stain glass pictures of Saint Martin and the saints, rather than pastel diagonal panes, but the domestic church, my part of the body of Christ where I'm responsible and have been commissioned.   So last night I asked to finish the details on the shoes and this afternoon, one of my sons needs a haircut.  I know this is a fixing of the internal and external, but we'll work on both as we go.   It's how Saint Francis did it, so I figure, it's not wrong.  
               

Holding onto Christmas

Keeping Christmas is not easy.  It is plagued by our endless ability to be distracted by tooth aches and bills, piles of paper and boxes from the early morning feast of giving and the need to go to the grocery store and do all the ordinary things of fallen living.

Yesterday, it was a fight to keep Christmas when the play dough had been opened and merged and decimated in the living room and thus become one with the floor.  The cardboard train had already been tackled, wrestled to the ground and declared DOA.   There were moments when the clutter of life threatened to crowd out the room in the inn, like when all the drawers were open and cascading out with clothing, or when two children created a three foot wide puddle on the carpet using newly acquired buckets to form a brigade from the bathroom sink.  

The temptation to lose Christmas lingered beneath the bad homily of the Children's Christmas eve mass that included a reading of the Three Bears and the story of Peter Rabbit as indicative of how important stories were. 

Below the slush that caked the driveway and needed three children to clear it and in the pile of dishes that included paint water and thus had stained the sink and several dishes an unattractive purple, the world prince lurked to snatch away and devour joy.   Broken toys already and a newly colored wall, all these opportunities for the teeth of the world to bite at the essence of what Christmas is.  But all the world can do is bite away at what Christmas is not, some sort of Martha Stewart perfection, or a zen like state of being indifferent to the trials and toils of the world, it can reveal all our messy broken indulgent neediness, but all that biting illustrates, is our desperate need for the great gift of Christ's birth.

The common phrase now is "Christmas is the greatest story" ever told.  It was used in the fairy tale homily to tie in the children's literature to the children's mass.   I've never liked that description of Christmas, because it implies a "the end." to the event.  While Christmas took place for the first time at some point (5 BC I believe Pope Benedict XVI indicated), it is ongoing.  Christ is ever seeking to be welcomed into our hearts, ever seeking room in the inn.  It will not change the existence of bills or speeding tickets, dental appointments or dust bunnies with bonus piles of ribbons and tape galore, it will merely allow us to endure all these things.  

If we hold the promise of Christ to be true, there is no end to this Christmas love story, to this constant gift.  There is no last Christmas present to unwrap before returning to ordinary time, we cannot exhaust His love, nor can we cease needing it desperately.  

So Merry Christmas! Joy to the World!  Peace on Earth to Men of Good Will! Celebrate this third day of Christmas not be getting back to work or the ordinary, but by holding on to that mysterious reality of the Holy Family in the stable, not letting the world crowd back over the place in the heart we are to keep for Christ, and knowing that if we do even the slightest bit of cooperation on this point; God will make that space for Him ever bigger.  

The Course of Doing

This weekend, I had the rare opportunity to take four children skating.  They had never been.  I anticipated having to hold up two or three while they clogged around maybe 5 times before someone asked for hot chocolate.  

I was wrong.

Before I finished lacing the second child's shoes, the first was gone on the ice. She'd never skated in her life but fearless and oddly skillful, she launched out alone.   I didn't see her except as a whiz of pink and smiles for the next hour and a half. The instructor had to lead her off the rink for the Zamboni to make its run. 

The second, a more nervous child, went out, fell smack on his head and required ice to the back of his head to go back on the ice. We then learned helmets were free. Once he got the protective head gear on his noggin, he too was off to the races.  It was the equivalent of Dumbo's magic feather. 

The third had roller skated often. I told her it was almost the same.  She too, launched and while I heard (she catalogued her falls) about her spills, before we left the rink she lobbied for lessons, skates, return trips every weekend, you name it.  Visions of gold medals danced in her head.  

Then came the fourth little skater. She was the youngest to attempt this feat of the feet.  I hadn't planned to bring her, as I worried I wouldn't be able to teach her or give ample time to anyone. But she overheard and asked, "Can I come Mom?" Something about her brown eyes, sweet smile and absolute soft voice makes it impossible for me to ever put my foot down.  She asks. I have to say yes even if the practical animal in me says, "What, are you mad woman?"

She loved loved loved it.  We walked around the rink at least 17 times.  My legs and back were crushed but she never wanted to leave.  Maybe being number 8 of 10, this was one on one like she almost never gets. Maybe she just loved skating, maybe it was being part of the "big kid crowd," after all, kindergartners hanging with the 5th, 3rd and 1st Grader felt pretty glamorous.  She wasn't lumped with the babies and she could do this...with Mom acting as a rail guard.  

It was admittedly dull for a time, dodging falling skaters, waiting with the five year old clinging to me while people took photos, my legs ached and the skates were heavy.  Part of me wanted to get a lap or two in myself, to feel that rush of gliding I'd once upon a time known, but  but her eyes still sparkled with every moment, she wasn't bored clinging to the side and me, she didn't want to stop so we didn't.   My speed remained somewhere between dial up and a slug on the ice.  But somewhere in that swirl of ice and skating, I felt a different tug of the sense of time, that this was fragile sacred time, Advent time.   Blessed time seized from the every day.  Her eyes shined.  We stayed until her feet and mine ached.

You can tell me "Sherry, you just took them skating."  but walking back to the parking lot, with nary a complaint, and a not really meant solid chorus of "Can we get pizza? Can we get McDonald's" followed by much more heart felt "That was the coolest thing I've ever done in my entire life!" and "When can we go again?" confirmed it. 

And I know what they're getting under the Christmas tree now...and me too.

Fighting the Elimination of Substance

Maybe the pre-Advent Christmas Pop Culture sugar rush of 24-7 secular treacle and tinsel just got to me. The non Christmas Holiday specials on television coupled with the non Christmas carols on the radio culminated in a feeling of supreme dullness. Granted it was Disney but these stories which lack genuine conflict, risk, sacrifice and depth of feeling,  not to mention actual history, and these songs which overdose on sentiment without context or actual company felt like so much bad fruit cake.  

Then it occurred to me what all of these shows that sung about friendship and reunion without the trials or actual feelings that form bonds or make renewing such bonds significant, and all these radio tunes that chirped along merrily about winter, lacked...substance.  Personally, I get why there are bands dedicated to Summer --but there isn't a snowy month equivalent of the Beach Boys because snow and ice don't generate that kind of "let's party joy." Winter...like fall, isn't something that by itself, lacking the actual occasion of Christmas, generates a call to song.   I was tired of holiday trees and winter festivals and love songs about how cold it was outside. I'd had enough. 

My kids howled when the tv was turned off, even worse, I changed the codes.  I also put on the boring "classical music" which oddly enough, only the teenager really objected to...hah!

I declared it shall be, a drive towards a less secular Christmas for most of Advent and even worse (horrors), took away the plug to the wi-fi.  While initial protests were mutinous, without recourse (I hid the plug and the remote) the house quieted down. 

Two children went upstairs to play. My daughter did the dinner dishes.  We gave baths and read Christmas stories and said prayers.   Yes there were still skirmishes.    "Mommmmm, he said I'm a rat boy!" and "Mommmm, she's in my room!"  and the like and yes there were still long repeated commands of, "It's bed time. No more talking." and the obligatory patrol to turn off all lights and take away flash lights.   We made cookies. Some of us even visited and laughed.   It wasn't perfect, but it was closer than what had been a means of killing time and losing it. 

I know this is a battle that will go on and there will be weak nights, but I know not giving in beats letting them consume the constant flickering of content/calorie free "holiday" food put out there by all the networks.  We got out the classic films, we've got out the Christmas books (we have scads).  Taking back Christmas will take real carols, walks in the actual cold, prayer and a fire in the hearth to build a fire in their hearts.  

Christmas is about Christ. We all know this, but the world keeps trying to somehow have all the trappings of Christmas without the reason. It isn't a war on Christmas, it never was, it is what it has always been; since the first Christmas when Herod ordered the soldiers out to kill the innocents, a war on Christ, a war on God, a war on love and the fruits of love, be it children or family or hearth or home or peace.

What should be a feast of love has become a feast of abundance and overkill. It is hard to talk of such things and not sound the grinch ...because Christmas is, even if Herod orders the soldiers and Christmas is, even if Black Friday results in fights and fines and people confusing preparing for the feast with getting flat screens and Wii U's and ten thousand other gadgets that mean no one has to share and no one has to play with anyone else. Christmas somehow breaks through despite our best efforts to muddle, muck, confuse and ignore its existence, because love is like water, it seeps in through every hole, it permeates everything, and it is necessary for our continued existence and the only source of actual happiness.

Advent, the time of blessed waiting is upon us, advance a bit towards Christmas every day, by doing something for others, so as to grow closer to Christ.  
 
Have a blessed Advent. 

A Little Early Christmas

My daughter is 7.  Her brain runs down rabbit holes of thought so quickly, keeping her the age she is remains a constant challenge. 

This morning upon finding a dollar under her pillow, she starts. "Mom, Did God create fairies?"  Before I can answer and believe me, I'm stalling, hoping for inspiration, my other daughter (5) responds.  "Of course God made the fairies. Some of them have wings and some of them don't."she answers authoritatively.  She is satisfied with her sister's explanation.  

"Is there such a thing as Pixie dust?" she asks.
"That's an invention of Disney." I smile.

"Yeah, I thought so."  She packs her dollar in her purse, along with three quarters so she can buy  donuts. 

At mass, she turns to me during a song, "Is Rudolph real? Is Santa real? Some kids in my class say he isn't." She's in first grade. I'm not ready to burst any child's imagination, nor do I want this conversation in mass.  I don't want her joy removed for the sake of truth she cannot yet digest.   So I whisper, "Christmas is real. Jesus is real. He was born in the stable to Mary, with the angels singing, and the three kings bringing gifts.  All of that is real. Saint Nicholas is real. He was a generous man and a saint who brought people to know Christ, who made Christmas something that we celebrate with gifts and joy and wonderfulness every year." and give her a hug. She nods her head.

"But deer don't fly." she says. "And they don't have red noses."
"That's the song and a cartoon." I answer. "Regular deer have regular noses."
"That makes sense." she agrees. 

She is satisfied, but I know the question will pop up again.  So I fret.  Will the sparkle in her eyes be snuffed prematurely by those around her?  While I've never fed them the myth of Santa Claus, it has become known, if only through the Night Before Christmas and all the stories and films that inundate the season. 

The readings for today are not the Widow giving of her need, even though those are scheduled. We are celebrating the feast of our patron Saint, Saint Martin.  She hears the story of the soldier giving half of his cloak to the beggar and the dream of Christ saying, "Look what Martin has given me."  as he holds the half given to the poor freezing man. 

When it is time for the collection, she reaches into her purse.  I'm shocked to see the newly acquired dollar being placed in the basket with nary a moment of thought.  She has a generous heart.  She has a generous spirit.  I think back to every food drive and how she wants to bring ten cans each day.  She holds the true spirit of the season yet to come in her heart.  The widow's mite is in her heart too. 

"Can we have donuts after mass?" she asks when she realizes she's given away what she planned to spend.

"Sure."
"Will there always be donuts after mass?" she asks.

"There will always be something good on Sunday." I answer. 
Taking my dollar and running to stand in line, she says, "I hope it always has frosting and sprinkles."

Me too. 

Kid Christmas Rules, tips and observations

10) Any time after 4:00 a.m. is late for getting up for Christmas but Mom and Dad refuse to move until 5:30 so it's best to just wait.  

9) Parents should understand that any present that requires assembly/craft time or quality time must be opened and played with today.  Otherwise, it doesn't count. Ditto for books unless you read them to us.

8) You may consider clothing a great thing to find under the tree Mom, and we may need it.  Just don't expect us to get really psyched about such things.

7) Fudge, pie and Busche Noel make for a great Christmas breakfast.

6) Expect a toy coma to hit around 2 pm. It is then we will count up our Christmas loot, admire our gift cards and ask, "When can we go shopping?"

5) Food Network worthy feasts for Christmas day dinner are ill advised.  Remember, we raved over instant mashed potatoes and Pillsbury crescent rolls. 

4) No matter how much food you bought, there will be a need to run to the store. After all, we can't make ice cream with the new ice cream maker if we don't have heavy cream...(see rule 9).

3) Some assembly required should be done outside our eyesight.  It ruins the mystique of the My Little Pony Tent Club House if an adult and 12 year old are having a vigorous discussion about how the thing assembles and one is saying...."But I READ the directions" while the other is explaining the top has to have three assembly points and this one has four.  

2)  Ignore what we said back in #8. Can I wear my new tutu with the new t-shirt and sparkly socks? Today? Tonight for bed? Tomorrow? Forever?

1)  Thanks for not shoeing the Lego Sponge Bob Square Pants Crabby Patty Restaurant off the table even if it did mean we didn't use a table cloth for dinner.  The fullness of Christmas is in our eyes and hearts long before we ever get it in our heads, thanks for playing along and being patient about the whole business.

Merry Christmas!

Small Success Thursday

I know, it's 9:30 and this wasn't up yet. 

I could blame it on Christmas, but my preparations thus far are far behind where they need to be.  It's just, somehow, when the kids are home, it's harder to launch the morning.  Paul still has school through tomorrow, and it's really cramping my day.  Top that with my daughter's birthday tomorrow and it's swamp city. 

But folks, today is Thursday and thus we celebrate the week even as we wait for Christmas. 

This week, I'm blessed by answered prayers, and by the grace of getting to be in a small way, an answer to a heart's desire.  When we get the impulse during this time, to do something more, we should listen.  It could be a wish in the child like heart of an adult that has gone unvoiced to the world, but which the Holy Spirit directs to a listening soul to enact.  Ask and ye shall receive, that is part of Christmas and the grace of this season.  Even ask for the absurd, for the little (bourbon balls) and the great (health).  I believe this with all my heart.  

Towards that end, I am behind on my daily rosary (by the whole of the Glorious yesterday and two decades from Tuesday and all of today's).   So I've got some quality time I've got to address.  Today I have a stress test where I'll be stuck on a tread mill or sitting in a Dr.'s office so it will happen.  But you will be in those prayers, and all that you ask for, all that your hearts ache for, all that seems impossible but is so needed.   God knows, but ask anyway.  

Ask! Mirror your children in their fierceness of asking,  mirror their great hope and recognize that your love for them and generosity with them, imitates God's with us in all things.   Ask because it is a way of preparing your heart, ask for the grace of seeing the star, of recognizing Christ in the stable, and if necessary, for the unexpected generosity of the three kings and let the peace of that night settle on your heart despite the very very very very very very long list of what needs to be done.  

It will happen.  Christ comes to us.  This is the all of Christmas.  Our hearts will be full.  
To all of you, Merry Christmas!

Oh...and this week, I made bourbon balls for my parents and mailed them, had a big prayer answered and realized I need to get ready for Christmas and I'm not.

I also recognized that this past semester has been brutal on my brain, body and psyche with the multiple schools and constant driving and I didn't know or allow myself to notice it until I stopped at which point, exhaustion set in.

Worked on decluttering. Exercised but it's still only once a week. Bleah.

Also recognized I'm a bit burned out from everything,so I'm going to let this blog take a week off, to let my brain rest and return fresh and ready to go, January 1st. Love to you all.

Reflections on What Must have Been

Imagine having to pack up for a business trip as demanded by your government a week before your wife is due.  The only mode of transportation is either one's feet or a mule.  The travel is over harsh terrain, bitter cold in the night, searing heat in the day, it is dusty, it is long, it is fatiguing and the reason is beyond one's control.  Arriving, there is no place to stay, no kind faces, no room at any of the inns.  Necessity creates a place for the birth. 

What made that first Christmas perfect was not the preparations or the setting, but the internal preparations and personal responses of those entrusted with first greeting Christ. Joseph taking them, searching, not allowing the slammed doors to prevent him from seeking for a place. One must wonder if he simply finally asked God, to give them a place, and that prayer allowed the last inn keeper to crack open his heart enough to bring them to the stable.

Having a child in a stable, surrounded by straw, by beasts, even if pain free, was not easy.  Mary had to trust completely that even this was part of God's plan.  She was obedient, she was sin free, but this was the result of her free will submission to enduring the harsh of this fallen world without allowing that harshness to savage her spirit or dominate her mind.  It must have been remarkable, to know someone so willingly generous of spirit and kind of heart. 

The three kings had been anticipating the birth of the King for months.  Like those who shop all year round for the perfect gifts and thus have the very things to give all they've loved, the three magi were planners, rewarded with finding the Christ Child because they still in the end, trusted enough to leave behind their kingdoms and follow the star.  

My family is probably (alright, definitely), more shepherd like.  Christmas came upon them as a surprise and no matter how long Advent is, the last week comes to me and mine as a shock.  They weren't ready in the classic sense, they hadn't prepared or even dared to hope for such a sight that evening, they were just going about the business, the hard business of living day to day.  But when Christmas beckoned, they too abandoned even their sheep, even the little they had and came as is, with open hearts to the stable.   They got to sing with the angels, they got to see the Christ child and the holy family and the kings.  Like the last workers to show up at the vineyard, they got paid in full, the same as the Kings.   No matter how disorganized we are leading up to Christmas, we still get to mass, we still get there in the end and it still somehow makes all that was, all that is, and all that will be, better, whole, holy.

Leading up to December 25th, it is easy to sometimes forget this as we paint pastoral versions of this first day, that first night, the whole Incarnation is a real flesh and blood Jesus, with all the messiness of this fallen world. It was probably stressful.  It was probably rushed. It was hardly ideal.  It was messy.  It involved hassle and frustration and not knowing and wonder, awe, joy and bliss when God's plan was fully rendered, fully known in that first Silent night.  

So Merry Christmas to all of you in this week before Christmas, may you give things that tickle others hearts, prepare your own hearth and home to receive Him, and find the joy that comes from knowing that God gave all for each of us in becoming man, that we may one day rest in His presence and sing full throated with the angels with our whole hearts. 

Why I Need a Time Machine

Some day I'm going to go into retail.  I will make millions.  The store I open will be hailed as a landmark creation that addresses the crucial needs of shoppers everywhere.  I will sell clothing in the season for which it is intended.

Yesterday I went shopping for Christmas dresses. 
As my mother observed, "This should have been done in October."
 That's when I was hunting for costumes and candy.
 "July."  she answered. 
"I was looking for swimsuits." "You should have started in April."
"But who wants to look in April, you've just come off of Winter and have all that cold season fat.  If you wait until June, you might have shed a few pounds..."

Mom recognized lunacy in it's organic form and remained silent on this point.  She's considerate of my delusions that way.

But it got me to thinking...there must be other procrastinators out there, last minute people who don't want to hunt and peck through the Internet and then pay 50 plus dollars extra for the privilege of having it shipped to their own home.  People who make the plane just before the door closes, who hit the snooze button more than once, who time things to the wire and often are so in this season, they aren't thinking of the next.  People who want to get today's stuff for....today. 

What would it's slogan be....The Procrastinator's Paradise....If you Forgot it...We got it!

The store would be open late for hassled parents who upon tucking their munchkins in bed were told, "Oh yeah, tomorrow I need a luminary kit, candy canes for the whole class and a Christmas sweater." 
It would be open early for those speed round shoppers who ran out of anything remotely edible that they could present as a reasonable facsimile of a lunch.   (The cupboard looked like an episode of Chopped without the stuff one would actually want to eat).   Yes.  It would make other people's lives easier. 

However, that dream is going to have to wait...at least until I find four Christmas dresses, a luminary kit, and whatever else I forgot to get that is necessary for right now.   It might take until next Halloween though. 

Christmas Regulations

It began with a question meant to while away the time driving from home to mass. “Hey kids! The grandparents in Texas want to give a family gift. Any suggestions?”

“A Dog!”
“A Fish!”
“A kitten!”

Sensing a trend I did not favor, I explained. “Rule number one: We shall add no living things to our family this Christmas.”

“What about a tree?”

“Nice try. But trees need to be planted at a different season, so while it’s a good idea, no. Let’s try again.”

“A Car!”
“A Boat!”
"A Tree House like they have on Phineas and Ferb."

“Okay, rule number two: This is out of range. Think less expensive.”
“Candy!”

Me: That's a bit on the low side for a family gift.
“Donut maker!”
“Deep Fryer!”

Hearing loud protests from those who do not like donuts and those who do not like fried anything and wanting to quell the appliance litany that was starting to coalesce...blender...ice cream maker...pizza oven...my kids watch too much Food Network... “Okay, rule number three…we probably don’t need a food related gift.”

“Hamster?”
“Again, remember I said no living things.”

“So the rule is the range is somewhere between Candy and a Boat, and nothing that breathes and nothing you eat.” My oldest son summarized it for the younger ones. I still thought the bell curve was a bit large.

“Skateboard Park!”
“Helicopter!”
“Pool!”

Yep. Too large. “Mmmmm. We need to add one more rule. You know how I said no living things? Well, we also want nothing that turns living things dead. Plus I think they were outside the stated range which I will modify, it must be smaller than a go-cart.”

“You keep adding rules.” My daughter pouted.

“Well it's a gift. And I think intent and results matter. I don't think your grandparents want to give things that can cause death.”

“We didn’t say guns.”
“Or knives.”
“Or Bear traps.”

Me: “That’s good because you’re not getting guns or knives or bear traps. Did you want guns or knives or bear traps?”

“No.”
“Not particularly.”
“The bear trap might have been cool.”

Me: “How do you even know about bear traps?”

“Civil War Series and the History Chanel”
“Little House in the Big Woods.”
“Wyle E. Coyote.”

“Okay. Nothing living. Nothing dead. Nothing that makes the living dead.”

“So no zombies.”

“Well, they’re not exactly keeping with the spirit of the season and we said a family gift.”

“We could get a family of zombies.”
“Cool. And if they got out of hand, the bear trap would come in handy.”
“Or the boat for a quick get away.”

Me: Okay, last rule because we’re almost to the parking lot. It must be in some way possible, fun, affordable, safe, not living and for the whole family. How about a basketball hoop?

I see grins in the rear view mirror as I park. "I think Mom planned that."
That's giving me way way way too much credit...but I'll take it.

Flunking Christmas

I'm not proud of it but there it sits like a lump of coal. 

And even worse, this isn't the first time it has happened.  Despite the 24-7 Christmas carols, the Advent wreath, the daily mail that includes well wishes and beautiful scenes both divine and worldly of this time of year, somehow I get to December 24th and say...."Aren't there a few more days before I have to get everything organized?" 

The answer is always "No." and a breathless run through the big box store of your choice doesn't cut it.   Because such actions, while capable of filling the house with stuff, reveal little except impulsive thought and even more impulsive purchases.  It's not that I don't make lists.  It's the execution of the thing that always ends up falling short.  I see things and think...no...I'll wait...it's not quite...and then I never seen another closer to the mark thing and the thing I return to get that turned out to be the very object I wanted to get, has long since gone.   My husband is the usual victim of these good intention phantom purchases; he is remarkably tolerant of my perpetual poor shopping skills but there have been others on the receiving end of Charlie Brown Christmases; where "I got a rock." might be close to the truth.        

This year, I tried to get him a few things.  I wanted to buy three chairs for our table, (could not find) a hedge trimmer, (sold out) a majong set (forgot) and a new winter coat for him (didn't have his size).  I'd also hoped to get the snow blower fixed but that didn't happen, have some gravel put in the pit where I created a monster divot from our 12 passenger van (never made it back to the store), and an extra bookshelf for our bedroom to help declutter (got distracted, bought other things for other people).   Ultimately, I managed to get him season three of the Big Bang Show and a peanut butter chocolate tree and these were on the fly as I had to sneak them by my husband who was with me at the time of purchase.  The gifts were stored in the car as we planned to sneak in gifts after they'd gone to bed.  Alas, that was a fatal delay.

For December 25th, my beloved only got the DVD's because of a mouse.  At some point, a rodent snuck into our car, found the candy and ate a quarter of it.  In the bag was a very pleased and stuffed creature stirring.  After we trapped said Suburban mousewife, I took out the bar revealing a quarter of it having been eaten.  He quietly deadpanned, "It's okay.  I don't want my Christmas present." But I felt thwarted.                                                    

So this year, 2011, I vow will be different.  I keep trying to be more attentive to detail, but get bogged down as the details mount; even the convenience of the Internet and fed ex hasn't been able to compensate for my disorganization thus far...so I've enlisted my children's assistance.  Each of them have been given a month to nag me.  I must acquire something thoughtful each calendar month which will be stored until December so that their father won't be reduced to a book originally ordered for someone else (another failed Christmas), or mouse eaten treats. 

While the youngers won't be much help in this matter, others have volunteered to take up the slack and help this slacker shopper make good.  With God as my witness, he will never be presentless again. 

If it works, I may have them take over nagging me about birthdays too. 

I Got the One Week to Christmas Blues....

This elf has been thrice thwarted.   I've made a list.  I put it on my computer on a spread sheet.  My computer died Friday.  It is under warranty but will be away at Santa's workshop for the next two weeks.   I made a second list, I wrote it on paper using an old fashioned writing utensil called a pen.  I left the list in the car.  The car decided Saturday to pay its respects to the car equivalent of Santa's workshop and won't be back until Tuesday at the earliest.   When I did go to the store, I discovered one of my children had helpfully brought in my purse into the house and somehow taken out my wallet, ergo I had no means to purchase anything the one time I actually made it out to look.   0 for 3, I may be busted back down to AA for this Christmas season. 

Now, it is up to my brain to remember all those good thoughts I had on one of the two lists, and to eventually figure out how to take care of those lists. 

It is times like these I am glad to be Catholic, because I can do that whole 12 days of Christmas thing legitimately.   It's not that I procrastinated or was overwhelmed or anything.  I was celebrating the season "properly."  Yeah that's what I'm doing.  Right.  My kids won't buy it either.  

My big issue is what.  I look in the stores and catalogues waiting for lightning to strike; but so far, nothing has caught me up with its whimsy where I'm imagining the kiddos opening it and feeling that rush of delight at having an unspoken wish granted. 

It may be that the problem is unique to having 9 children.   Within the confines of these walls, having had kids in the home since 93, we have amassed a rather extensive collection of toys for both girls and boys.   I'd wager we have almost every conceivable toy already somewhere in the house.  They may be scattered, they may be broken, they may be the wrong color, size or model but we own them somehow. 

Take art supplies: if you collected all the markers in this house, you'ld have six boxes full though many of them would consist solely of black, a muddy yellow, green and orange, because blue, purple and red are the favorites for use and get dried out most often.  Likewise if you collected all the crayons, at least three of those big boxes that came with the sharpener would be filled; again with a heavy show of force by gray, white, black, green and orange.  I could make the same case for hot wheels, knights, barbies (at least 75 strong, all undressed). 

Supplemental purchases we've done.  I've bought clothing for Barbies. One year I even spent two nights of my life welding those too tight shirts and skirts to the ladies.   Within five minutes of the discovery, the girls had returned all Barbies and their friends to the au naturale state.  Legos don't add to the existing pile, they become new piles.  Sometimes, more is just too much.  I've been threading as much as possible, but it feels self defeating to then go shopping to create moreness.  

I want them to have whimsy, I want to feel it too.   But all this defense in depth of toys means Christmas consists of figuring out what each child wants that we can manage that we don't already in some capacity have such that giving it would be redundant and anti-climactic.   Some of my offspring have discerned this dilemia and come up with helpful suggestions via their wish lists.  The proposed items are creative, thoughtful, meaningful, clever, unique and guaranteed to not be in any way, replications of what has been received before. 

But I have informed them and Santa that we are not in the market for either a pony or a dog.

So this elf is flunking elf school; and worse than that, on Wednesday, they all get to go to the dentist.

The Deeper Why of Our Hearts

Sometimes I read things and my heart aches that the Internet does not allow for a greater connection with strangers who unknowingly or otherwise speak out their hearts.  Today, I read two articles, one of which discussed the loss that phantom parents discover when at 44, they are told that they cannot bear children and the biological window no longer exists; and that the pill which kept them "safe" now has left them with a stack of accomplishments that do not include the title "Mom." Then I read a piece by Rachel Campos Duffy on Parent Dish about what she wished she had said when Barbara Walters interviewed her on THE VIEW and asked "Did you ever think, 'I wish I had a career and I didn't have six kids?"  It was a loaded question.

Now the Texan in me flared a bit and I recalled a friend who said back when I was a teacher, "My parents had too many kids." about her family.  Admittedly, I was a zealous and undiplomatic 24 year old and went for the jugular, "Which sibling do you think shouldn't have been born?  Because that's what you are saying SHOULD have happened."  She was shocked and then stammered, "I mean, it was hard."  I agreed, it sounded difficult and this was back before I had any, but the answer stuck for her and for me. She suddenly held the thought of her whole family in a different light.   20 years later, her face and that moment remain sketched in my head and came back right with that question.   I didn't know the deeper WHY I was articulating about my own life; indeed I would have been terrified if I had known, I only knew what I knew, she loved her brothers and sisters more than anything, she just wanted more because she wasn't feeling very special that day.


So now I have my own reversion of what I wish I'd said then but lacked in tact or wisdom or experience; because it was rough.  I wince at it today.   What you think you KNOW at 20, is not what you MIGHT think at 30 or 40 or whatever age, and none of it may be what your heart actually knows.  What you feel about your past, about your present, about your parents, about your future, is not stone. We do not always understand the deeper WHYs of our lives.

To exist is to think that you have an understanding of how you will always be, but we also know from simply the process of life, that our lives can change, can turn, can be transformed in an instant, via tragedy, love, an epiphany, inspiration, a teacher, a friend, a need that we see that must be met. For the shepherds; there was this star in the sky.  For the Kings, they had been following the heavens and so saw it, but the journey there was more than they expected; and the vision not to return to Herod and willingness to trust that vision after seeing the Christ Child, must have been an act of real courage; to rely not on charts and maps and books and knowledge, but the deeper whys of their hearts. 

It's a hard lesson to accept, whether 20 or 44 or 60 or 80, we cannot know what we do not know; and we cannot know what we have not glimpsed or experienced. Personally, I find I must relearn it on a daily basis, but my children are good educators on that point!   They are always asking Why and they are always teaching me Why.

We only know what we have learned, what we want and what we feel; and that learning is ongoing. Our wants change more often than we suspect or are willing to admit, and our feelings are more transitory than we imagine; what makes us steady is our understanding of those feelings, of those wants and the WHY behind them; and the ethics/morals/scruples that reign them in and allow our selves to be fixed like stars in the heaven, that reveal to others who we really are.  Our deeper hearts GET the WHY of ourselves, even if the surface areas of our brains and hearts do not. Most of us are in that town of Bethlehem living our lives with our doors shut, not knowing that in a manger if we just looked outside, is the Christ child waiting to be adored.

Like the woman asked by Barbara about the road she didn't take, do I ever wish I got the degree?  Do I wish it were done?  Not at the expense of even one less seat at the table.  The Deeper Whys of these people require greater focus and attention than any Ph.D.  I have some degrees and you know what I do with them?  I dust them.   The insides of those snug homes that didn't host the Holy family needed dusting too; but the stable like Mary's heart, remained open. 

The lesson of true permanence in life, is love.   Everything else gathers dust; the accomplishment is made, the case is closed, the book ends, the race is finished; but relationships like memories and stories resonate over generations. Thus I repeat stories and phrases and vignettes told to me that my grand parents lived or told. I remember truths that have been shared and retaught and retaught and retaught for each generation, so that the faith life becomes deeper than the marrow of one's bones; across centuries and generations and the blindness of any one individual within the process of coping with being. The shepherds told their wives, the kings told their court and family; and the story of that first Christmas is remembered and celebrated and relived every year.  The memories generated each year will be to someone as clear as the moment they were created; just like the conversation.  No dusting necessary. 
 
Love changes life, people change our lives, relationship cannot help but alter our perceptions and understandings and worldview. The trick I hope the women who mourn what they do not have or that discover what they have is less than they wanted even though they KNEW at the time, is to start today being willing to be altered by others; to allow the deeper WHYS of themselves to be explored. Whether we get to the manger by coming in from tending sheep or years of scanning and tracking the stars is largely irrelevant; the important thing is to look out, see the star, hear the angels singing and go out of our snug homes, our safe places, our controlled worlds, and allow the Holy Family to transform everything.  
 
Happy Third week of Advent!