Feat of the Epiphany

 A few years ago, the lights went out in my laundry room and in the pantry.   We put in new bulbs, checked the fuses and tried several unsuccessful work arounds --battery operated and motion sensor lights.  Nothing worked. Not really.  We grew used to hitting the flashlight on our phones when we'd need to search for herb de provence or needed to find the fabric softener.  

This past week, the repairman we asked to help with some tile work, fixed both lights.  

My children and I remain in the dark on this matter.  We walk in like we've always walked in, searching the shadows for the couscous or the bounce dryer sheets, and someone (who will feel quite superior in the moment), will say, "You know, the light switch works." and flick it accordingly with all the smugness they can muster.  However, everyone's been caught groping through the darkness in either the landry room or pantry closet, so everyone's been the smug and the mugged by smugness at least twice.    

None of us remember.  None of us even remember we were the ones who did the mocking last time.  Lost in the moment when we've decided to move along the wash or hunt for the hot chocolate mix, we've now resorted to explaining why we didn't turn on the lights.  The following may or may not have been used by any or all of those of us who use those two rooms on a regular basis and do not flick the switch. 

10) Batman defense: I can see in the dark. 

9) Starwars defense:I don't need to see what I'm doing, I am one with the force and the force is one with me...

8) Saving the earth by saving energy. --this would work if any other lights in the house were turned off ever...

7) Just hadn't made it over to the light switch yet.  --this is mine, I'll get to it..no one buys my stalling thoough.  

6)  Preserving the light switch. It's been so long since we've had one, we're having attachment issues with the mechanism.  

5) Can't find the light switch --because it's dark and it's been so long, we don't remember where it is in the room.   

4) I turned it on, someone else turned it off just to mess with me.    I'd believe this if any of us ever remembered in the first place. 

3) The lightbulbs burnt out.  One of my older sons attempted this one, and I went to get the ladder, resulting in the Reagan policy, "Trust but verify." 

2) I have my cell phone --old habits die hard.   

1) I remembered after I walked in,but knew someone else would take care of it.  (It kind of deflates the smug factor if you bank on others taking care of the task for you) --not sure if it's true, fairly sure it isn't.   

There is hope for change. Today, I found the closet with the light left on...

Silent Night with Blinking Lights*

Before I was married, I was unaware of the theological differences between my husband and me on the acceptability of blinking versus steady Christmas lights.  I'd grown up with referring to such things as nervous lights, lights that couldn't commit, and liked color but wanted steadiness, taseful color that would show a touch of professionalism that my life otherwise lacked.

He loved lots of lights and blinking displays. He wanted it fun for the kids.    Renting a place in our early marriage delayed my discovery of this seasonal difference of opinion. So when we bought our first home a few years later and icicle lights were all the rage, I happily imagined our home in the soft glow of white dripping lights for the holidays.

"Let's decorate! You do the inside, we'll do the out." he proposed.  And we were off to the races. Half an hour later, he came in for the keys.  "We need more." he explained. 

I suggested that I’d make cookies and hot chocolate for everyone. They were a happy and willing army to “deck the halls.” Equally blissful, I put on my red Christmas apron and cut some slice in bake sugar cookies and made cocoa. I sighed in happiness at the prospect of this Christmas memory in the making.

Then, I looked outside.

There was a string of blue connected to a fluttering string of red and gold that meandered through the lower part of a tree and then wrapped a trunk and draped in artful bows, green, yellow and orange. A second tree was wrapped in white with a red, white and blue trailer that rippled on and off. Lit candy canes were propped in the ground, some at a 30 or 75 degree angles, some two feet apart, others, two inches.

“Isn’t this great?” My oldest son beamed. “I got to use the ladder.”
Sublimation is good for the soul. Seeing the real light of Christmas in the flashing lights in my children’s eyes, I surrendered my vanity to the blinking chaos that engulfed my yard. I figured, “They’re only young once.” I can get my pretty picture some other time.

The next year, I still wanted my vision of a white light Christmas. So I started putting out the lights myself, making a sacrifice and enduring icy cold but not snow inducing weather. Having covered all of the leafless bushes with nets of white, I left them on to surprise my husband. “Good honey, you started the lights.” He said when he came home.

“Is it time to decorate the house Dad?” my oldest daughter asked while the other ones went scrambling for mittens and coats. Within the hour, the house was festooned with hanging globes and stars, a rope of lights that bridged two trees and a separate tree with lights draped around the outer branches that blinked in three separate patterns. I served the Christmas cookies and thought, “Maybe next year.”

The third year, our neighbor across the street upped the ante by placing large lit trees and moving deer on his yard the day after Thanksgiving. He wrapped his trees and lined his driveway in a dazzlingly colorful if inelegant display. Now thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that this was how to celebrate Christmas, my kids tripped the entire yard with lights. The candy canes were back. A blinking rope snaked around the mail box. The 30 foot pine was no obstacle. The kids tied the end of a strand of lights to a stick and their 6’2’’ hero dad climbed up the 18 foot ladder and heaved the stick over the top repeatedly. For the next four weeks, the two houses engaged in a silent happy Christmas war, adding additional blinking somethings to top whatever the other family had done until December 24th. Having lost once again, I handed out the cookies and fretted. This was becoming a tradition.

Then we moved.

Our new home had an HOA policy, where all the “holiday” displays must be tasteful. Every house had the soft glow of unobtrusive lights I’d wanted. The kids dutifully put out the sweet white lights. Their dad took the colored ones and artfully draped three trees in the back. We handed out cookies and looked at all the quiet but lovely decorations. It was pretty. But the lights in their eyes weren’t quite right.

I put out the uneven blinking candy canes around the white Christmas lighted tree, and whoops of joy shattered the silent night. I’d been converted. Now it was Christmas.

*Originally run in Island Park News in December of 2008

Dear Liza, Dear Liza

When did my life become one big round robin of "There's a Hole in My Bucket?"

We moved into our home two and a half years ago. One of the things we loved was the master bathroom. It's posh. It felt like part of a hotel suite with the large double sinks, deep tub, dusty cocoa brushed walls with gold trim and a leaf stencil design. What we especially appreciated was the watercloset with its own door. Sure it felt a bit claustrophobic, but it was miles ahead of our prior master bathroom of avocado green with black formica trim and a ill concieved large window to the outside just before the shower door. No shade. No drapes.

As I said, we loved the new master bath with the private bathroom until three months into our move. The bulb in the overhead fan burnt out. This was a problem because our new home was 1000 times swankier than our prior house. The fan seemed like a sealed unit, such that prying made us fearful we would break something.

We couldn't open the fan to change the bulb. For a month or so, we remained in the dark. Then, we tried those battery operated tap lights. They lasted a week. I tried leaving a flashlight in the room. One or two drops and the flashlight became a broken plastic hollow tube for storing batteries.

Humanity can get used to anything if harrassed or distracted enough. We learned to lock the outside door and leave a sliver of light. Weeks passed into months. Occasionally, we'd get out the step ladder and poke a bit at the fan, but to no avail. Eventually, we forgot about the idea of a working lightbulb in the bathroom. Years past.

Now there is a family friend, a jack of all trades that I asked if he could maybe come and do a few of the odd jobs around our house. I mentioned this one in particular. He dropped by while most of us were at mass on Sunday. My son let him in, but neglected to tell us he visited. So for four weeks, we did not know that he had opened the fan and taken out the bulb. When he finally asked if we had purchased new bulbs for him to put in, I backtracked to the son who simply said, "Oh yeah. The bulb was burnt out so I left it on a tray in the laundry room over the dryer."

Racing to the laundry room, there was the bulb. A bulb unlike any other light bulb I have ever seen. It was also broken and fearing a child getting cut, I threw it out.

Naturally when it came time to shop for the replacement, I couldn't remember "exactly" what type of bulb it was, just that it was long, had a square pin bottom and looked like two long fingers.  My description did not endear me to the Home Depot sales rep.  Despite having fifty thousand types of bulbs including the kind you plant in the ground, they didn't have mine. 

There are errands that require you to set your teeth and run until you get it done.  So despite the rain, despite leaving my kids in aftercare perilously close to the time when one must pick up, despite having to schelp to three different stores, I Scarlett O'hara vowed with God as my witness, not to go in the dark any longer.  And I did fix it.  We did get the bulb.  It is now installed in our master bathroom.

But human nature is habitual. 
I keep forgetting to flip the switch on.  

Are You Ready for Christmas?

“Are you ready for Christmas?” gets bantered around a lot these days. In past years, most people answered this question by rattling off a list of what they’ve bought, needed to buy, had done or planned to do.

But this year, I’ve heard people lamenting that they don’t quite have a grasp on Christmas yet. They don’t feel ready. They don’t feel prepared. The world feels too dark, too out of control, too angry, too political and divisive, difficult. Overwhelmed by the mere prospect of trying to be ready to celebrate such a festive day, it seems too exhausting to deck the halls and trim the tree or send out cards and hold a feast. Who has the money? Who has the time? It’s just too much hassle over so much tinsel.

However, it is precisely when we feel the grip of the world’s darkness, that we need the joy of this sacred time. It is now when things are hard economically, physically and emotionally, that we must act as luminaries to others, encouraging everyone to prepare even as we ourselves do not quite feel ready. We are called to try whether we are shepherds or kings, soldiers or innkeepers, to recognize our own unwillingness to make room for Jesus in our lives.

None of us are ready or worthy to receive Christ; no one gave His family a place to stay, no one had a perfect home for Him prepared, except for Mary. Thus it is that the Church in its wisdom has given us these four weeks of Advent so we can be about the business of preparing our souls through scrutiny, through prayer, through the sacraments, to rediscover a sense of awe of God.

We can take comfort in knowing that preparing for the pleasure of the presents and the family and the feast is not necessarily selfish or greedy; that our outward actions reveal something of our hearts to the world. Our gifts, our meals, our decorations are all the little things we are called to do with great love. Further, God who knows and loves our whole hearts, will turn whatever we do towards Him to turn us towards Him. So deck the halls. Prepare the way. Enjoy this blessed waiting time and be ready and eager for Christmas. But remember:

The trees were not decorated.
The gifts were not wrapped.
There was no feast prepared.
There was no room ready.
There were unexpected and expected guests.
There was music.
There was light.
There was peace
and there was Christ.

The first Christmas was not ready for the reason of Christmas.

So, rejoice in your unreadiness, for it is why Christmas is at all.

How To Completely Stress Out This Christmas

How to Completely Stress Out This Christmas…

November 29, 2007: We just had Thanksgiving! I’m not in the Christmas spirit yet. Procrastinate. As the song goes, there are twelve days, I’ve still got time. Week one passes, and I pat myself on the back for breaking out the lights and putting up three Christmas displays.

December 8, 2007: Felt Virtuous. Bought Christmas Cards today! However, I also was wanting to be frugal so I only bought two boxes. Our Christmas card list easily tops four boxes…oh well, I’ll get them later. Looking at the cards that have already come in, impulsively, I decide I want a picture this year. Assemble everyone. We can’t find good Christmas pj’s because I haven’t hit the mall for fear it would hit back. Oldest is in Dad’s robe, middle one is wearing pink, youngest is hidden in a Christmas blanket because she spit up before we finished setting up. Say Cheese. Three year old son doesn’t look so good. Six shots into the Christmas shoot, he throws up.

Decide we’ll finish the roll with the season and get them developed then, but two weeks pass and we keep forgetting to bring the camera.

December 15, 2007: Panic sets in, impulsively surf the net and ring up a tidy sum online. Feeling subsides although there is still a lot to do, and I only got a few things….

December 18, 2007: Husband’s panic attack takes place, credit card is warm to the touch.

December 20, 2007: Still have not sent card one. We haven’t taken pictures at the Christmas Concert, Christmas Party or the Cub Scouts’ Christmas award ceremony. Couldn’t find the camera. In a random search for a box of diaper wipes, I find the camera under a National’s baseball cap, under the bed. There are still fifteen shots left. In desperation, I grab the thing and shoot random shots of everyone to finish the 36 exposure film. Take the next day for double prints. Every shot has werewolf eyes on someone, except the one where my son is turning a funny shade of green.

December 21, 2007: Go to Christmas program for end of school. Missed first half because of triple diaper change in the car. Very bad. Make it to wave at kindergartener, so I’m thinking “That counts!” until my oldest daughter gives a bracing hug and says, “Did you see me?” “I made it.” I say with a smile. She reads through it and slumps away. “I stink.” I think. She is now happily chattering with friends. “Maybe not.” I think hopefully. She gives me a “I forgive you but you’re in the doghouse look.” I’ll make it up to her when we go shopping for teacher gifts that afternoon.

My toddler is trying to drink the Mississippi’s worth of water out of the fountain. As I remove her from the fountain, she fights, she screams, she drops. She hurts her hand. Bad. I take her to the school nurse.

“It’s either a sprain or a broken wrist.” She explains.
Four hours at the emergency room later, I joyfully call my husband and fork over the $75 co pay for an emergency visit, “It’s only a sprain.” We get home, it’s eight o’clock, they haven’t done homework, they haven’t eaten. We finally get the last one to bed and realize…

The Kids get out of school tomorrow and I don’t have teacher gifts! Husband obliges by producing chocolates originally intended for me. Feeling deep resentment. Not in the right mood, can’t wrap the boxes that have come, going to bed.

December 22, 2007: What do you mean we're hosting Christmas Dinner? No one briefed me on this…Call Crisis Cleaners and beg to get on the schedule…eat chocolate preallocated for teacher gifts out of stress. Swing through the Starbucks to purchase gift cards for six teachers. They only have five. Decide the one I know the least will get a different certificate. Guilt manages to nag me into stopping at a second Starbucks and getting a better bigger gift certificate for her.

December 23, 2007: I have the cards. I have the stamps. I have the pictures. I never bought the second two sets. Just as that starts to melt me down, something else does. What’s Christmas without an appliance breakdown? The Dryer is on fire. I call 911. I throw the three diaper sets in jackets and lock them in the car in their car seats. The Fire department comes and declares the infernal contraption dead. Appliance man can come in January. Using a different man would invalidate Home Warranty plan. Too stressed to write cards. We’re doing Epiphany Cards this year. Husband agrees and produces Christmas wine, also originally intended for me. There won’t be much under the tree…he starts to explain. “Yes there will, I’m getting a new Dryer.” We drink the wine. "We’ll wrap things up tomorrow night."

December 25, 5:30 a.m. Time for bed.

Merry Christmas!