Christmas Memories # 7

     This memory is pure nostalgia - a definite blast from my long ago past!  (David's probably relieved that I'm writing about my early childhood this time instead of his:)
     When I was very young, we'd always go to my grandparents house for Christmas and, like many children I suppose, to me their house was magical and somewhat mysterious. For one thing, we lived in the city and they lived in the country. For another they had rented a house on a farm so while they didn't have to take care of the cows, we kids saw them whenever we went out there.  They also had the standard barn with loft and we spent quite a bit of time playing out there - even getting trapped in the loft when the cows came home, literally, sooner than we expected.  Being from the city, none of us kids wanted to climb down and run the gauntlet of Bessie, Buttercup and so on... So my older siblings tried (without success) to convince me to do it, assuring me that I was so small the cows would never notice me and that all I had to do was go get grandma and she would come shoo the cows out of the barn.  I wouldn't budge so there we perched until grandma noticed that it was awfully quiet around the house and she figured out what had probably happened.
   Another thing that made my grandparent's house special was the fact that they had a huge old-fashioned fireplace and hearth in a high ceiling-ed, somewhat drafty house.  We kids used to bump each other from "hogging" the fire, standing first one way and then another in front of it as if we were human marshmallows roasting on an open fire.. ha!
   And then, of course, there was the basement which was dank, dark and scary. And the attic which could only be reached by lowering a ladder into the main hallway (right next to the big hall closet where Grandpa kept a huge "switch" that he threatened us with but never used). And of course, we spent hours playing in the attic where a kid could get splinters if they weren't careful where they sat =/ and the occasional Grand Daddy Long Legs spider could send us girls shrieking to the ladder for protection.  (We were always assured that the creatures were non-poisonous, perfectly harmless.  It wasn't until a few months ago that I learned they contain as much poison as a pit viper but are harmless simply because their mouths are too small to bite anyone with.  Obviously, this was back in the days before Bill Nye the Science Guy...)
   This farm house was the best place to spend Christmas, bar none, in my humble opinion.  My grandfather loved Christmas and a week or so  before the big day, he would go looking for the perfect tree - one that was huge and full at the base and that also  tapered to a height of at least six feet, preferably higher because he really preferred for it to touch the ceiling. And he always found one!  He loved multi-color lights - something that I inherited from him and even though I know white lights are more elegant,  today I still go for the more jumbled red, blue, green, and yellow effect just because... that was Christmas to me way back when.
    It was at his house where I used to stand on tiptoe to watch the "bubblers" magically produce their bubbles up and down their long red and green glass stems. And where I also learned that sometimes magical, beautiful things are meant to be enjoyed from afar:)  (Those bubblers  were hot to little, sticky fingers!)  And of course, since there were no LED's back then and Grandpa always had a live tree, we had to turn the bubblers off periodically to make sure they didn't set the tree on fire.
    And the gifts my grandparents gave were always special, none of the socks-and-underwear variety. We got toys!  The best they could afford!  But even the adult gifts were sometimes fascinating to us children. One such gift has come back to my mind over and over again.  To me, it was the most magical of all -even better than our toys (probably because I was forbidden to touch it...).
  Since we've gotten the internet,  I've periodically hunted for some hint of this wondrous invention but until tonight, I never could google in the right words to pull it up.  For those who can't remember the fifties - which I suppose is most of the American population.. :), the key phrase is Forest Fire Motion Lamp!  Grandpa had one of those and so did my parents - who gave what to whom I can't remember. But I do remember hanging onto the edge of a table at Grandpa's, watching flames on that cylinder table lamp move without going anywhere! While a bear forever stood on the brink of water that also moved ...without moving!  I'm not trying to be sacrilegious when I say that Moses couldn't have been any more in awe of the burning bush than I was of that burning forest fire!  There's no telling how long I watched that thing, wondering when the fire would reach the bear :)   (Don't worry; it never did!:)   Even to this day, I can hear my grandpa explaining that the forest animals were fleeing to the water to escape the fire, which  seemed pretty darn  smart  for a bunch of furry creatures because I never would  have thought of that!
   At any rate, below I've included a picture and video of the most wonderful lamp in the world...:)
   One other thing that my grandfather had was a book case that was about shoulder height.  On the top shelf he kept a series of diaries. Each night he would write about the day's events while I danced around a floor lamp near his chair.
    I don't have all of them - mostly I have his diaries from WWII and the years right after, several years before I was born.  It seems fitting to end this blog with some accounts of Christmases way past from his diaries.
    Dec. 25th 1941.   Sybil [my mom] went with group to sing Christmas carols at 4 a.m.  Went out to Walter and Jewel's [his sister and brother-in-law] for dinner.  Gave them a small present and left some for the Grovers.   Santa gave to Mother [my grandmother]: gloves, gown, hose, handkerchiefs, apron.  To Sybil: graphaphone record, necklace, theater coupon book, pajamas, shoes, hose.  To Gerald [my uncle]: shirt, tie, tie pin, record, tennis balls, socks.  To me:  shirt, 3 ties, handkerchief, diary.  Hongkong fell today.
    Dec. 21, 1945.   [Although the war was over, my uncle, Gerald,  was still overseas and my mom and dad were living  in Minott, N. Dakota waiting for dad to be sent  overseas].  Received letters from Gerald and Sybil.  He sent us 10.00 to buy Christmas presents for ourselves.  Gen. George Patton dies in Germany from injuries received in car wreck several days ago.  25% of school children in Little Rock down with flu according to the paper. Sybil called about 9:15 and we talked to both her and Richard. She said that she was homesick.
    Dec. 15, 1949.  [My sister, Ina Marie, was a year old].  Ina [my grandmother] spent day at Sybil's.  Telephone man came out, said that a pole had to be put in before they could install phone. Garland and Pearl out after supper, he finished the installation of their door chimes.  They were well-pleased with them.  Took Sybil and Ina Marie to the store where I bought a doll and a toy watch for the little girl.  She was tickled with Susie the 3rd or is it Susie the 4th?  Watch - no go...

 

Christmas Memories # 6

     Although there's really no chronological order or even method to the memories that I'm writing about, the next memory that comes to my mind did occur in 1998 (a year when I did NOT go back to the Methodist church for the candlelight service!).  That year our church was participating in Prison Fellowship's Angel Tree project, where you choose the name of a child whose parent is in prison and you buy a gift for the child. Then it's presented to the child as if it were from the mom or the dad who is incarcerated so that the child doesn't feel forgotten.
   As Christmas approached, we encouraged our son, David,  to use his piggy bank money to buy a gift for an Angel Tree child; Phil and I said we would buy the child some clothes.    Since David was going to be involved in this, we chose a card that had a 6-year-old boy's name on it. Then we busted out the piggy bank, literally, and went to Toys-R-Us.  The store had a very nice electronic firetruck that was marked down by 50% so the price was reasonable and within David's budget:)
   He really wanted to get that for the child so then all  we had to do was take it home, wrap it up, and deliver it to the child's address, which we did.  But when we got to the address on the card, we found that it was the grandmother's house, that the mom and child had moved to another state and that the info. on the card somehow was all wrong.  The child in question was a baby  - not a six-year-old boy!
   As we visited with the grandmother, I watched David to see how he would take this news but he seemed fine, just sat there looking happy.  I was surprised!   On the way back home, the "penny dropped" and I suddenly heard this shrill,  indignant voice from the back seat yell out, "You mean my Angel Tree boy is a... baby????"   I said, "Yes, but we'll find some other child who needs the fire truck..."  He apparently didn't hear me because he was pursuing his own thoughts.   The next thing that came from the back seat was the heated remark:  "I got ripped off!!!  That was all the money I had and I spent it on a baby???"
   We rode in silence for a bit while he continued to think things through and then he said, still just as mad as he could be, "How could the church do this to me????"
   It all ended well eventually:)  After he had calmed down,  we were able to explain to him that some boy would want the fire truck and his generous gift would not be wasted.  And as it turned out, we thought of someone in the neighborhood who needed a present that year and he was satisfied.
    A few days later, as bedtime was approaching, David asked if we could do something different besides the normal bedtime story.  He had a wooden fort in the backyard,  with an upper level that you could actually climb up into.  The year before, we had gone out into the fort and sung Christmas carols and he wanted to do that again, this time in place of the story time. It was early Dec. but the temperatures were in the sixties and seventies that week. It was raining which somehow made his suggestion seem irresistible.  So at 8 p.m., he put on his army jump suit and galoshes and then the two of us trooped out to the fort under an umbrella decorated with, as best I can recall,  Thomas the Tank characters. (Phil would do a lot of things with us but singing in the fort at night under an umbrella was not one of them!).  As we were climbing up to the "deck", David turned to me and said,  "Mom!  Let's sing so loud the neighbors can hear!!!"
    And we did!  We sang his favorite carol, "The First Noel" and then went on to others that he liked such as "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "We Three Kings..."  He sang with gusto.  (Something that he would not do the next year or the years after and certainly would not do now...)
    All my life I've heard that the best way to see Christmas is through the eyes of a child and I think there's a lot of truth to that.  However, I don't know that I interpret the "eyes of a child" phrase the way everyone else does.  I mean, I get the wide-eyed with wonder meaning of the phrase and yes, that is a huge part of Christmas.  But sometimes I think it's not only their wholehearted openness to whatever joys Christmas brings to them, but also their open-mouthed ability to lament whatever Christmas doesn't bring them that constitutes the real spirit of Christmas!
     To put it another way -  entering into the spirit of the season means experiencing both highs and lows, jumping for joy and singing with gusto as well as sitting among the ash heap, lamenting the promises that don't come true, the sacrificial gestures that don't pan out, the people who are missing..  I think we have the idea that the negative is, somehow,  not a part of the essence of Christmas  but honestly, I don't see how that can be right.

The first Christmas began with a poor woman giving birth to a sweet child..
     but  in a smelly stable....
     Angels filled the sky with song!!  But Herods plotted murder and mayhem...
        Foreign Kings paid homage to the baby!!! But tax collectors upped the ante.
           And miracle of miracles,  the God of the Heavens sent His only Son to live on earth!!
                 But He also sent Him to die on earth.. for you and for me....
   
  No wonder we sing and worship  and reach out to others!
              No wonder children wait with baited breath for Christmas to arrive!
                      No wonder we experience pageantry and majesty through movies, books, and plays.

    And no wonder we feel heartbroken on some December days.
                No wonder we struggle at times to keep our "Christmas" game faces on.
                          No wonder we lose it some days and just break down and cry.
                                         
 Every Christmas is like the first Christmas - a mixed emotional bag of highs and lows.  And that's the true Spirit of Christmas, I think. And, yes, you can see it best through the eyes of a child.

Christmas memories # 5

    As I was looking back through my Christmas Memories book that I write in each year, I saw that 1997 (the same Christmas  where I committed my faux pas at the midnight service!)  was a banner Christmas in many ways. In the journal for that Christmas under the heading, "New Traditions We started"  I wrote: We prayed God would show us how to celebrate the birth of His Son this year. I thought He would probably want us to spend more time in prayer and meditation  - a quiet Christmas.  But it was one of the most active Christmases we've ever had.  Phil and I felt led to not buy each other a gift and instead we gave some money to a friend who is having a hard time.  We also invited international college students who didn't have family in the states to celebrate with us in our home.  And we learned by "chance" on Christmas Eve about a Spanish family who was in need and we tried to reach out to them.
    Looking back, realistically, I figure Phil did buy me a present while I stuck to the "agreement" and didn't get him one... That's kind of how it goes around here.
   As for Christmas lunch, I do remember having internationals over - but somehow, I thought we had 30 instead of 13 as my journal indicated!  I know that we had people everywhere in our little house and it seems to me that David had sit on the library steps to eat.  I also remember using not only my ovens (microwave, convection, and gas stove) but also my neighbor's while I strategized  for the big dinner in a way that would have made Napoleon proud!
   In the midst of this, on Christmas Eve morning I went out to do some last minute shopping (have I mentioned that I am a procrastinator?) and while I was in a store in W. Little Rock, I ran into a friend from church who knew that we worked with internationals at that time.  She  said that she knew of a  sad situation - a high school student from Spain, a foreign exchange student actually,who had been living with an American host family in another state when he was suddenly diagnosed with a brain tumor.  His host father flew with the boy to  Children's Hospital but then the American "father" had to fly back home. The teen's parents were in route from Spain but wouldn't be able to get here until Christmas day.  To make matters worse, in Spain Christmas Eve is the big holiday - much more important than Christmas Day.  So my friend was wondering if I knew of someone who spoke Spanish and  who wouldn't mind visiting this teen that day.
    We both knew it would be a long-shot to find a Spanish-speaking person who could drop everything and make a run to the hospital.  The only person I could think of was our sweet friend from Honduras, Jenny,  and thankfully, she was able to re-arrange things so that she could go.
    I picked her up that afternoon and we went to Children's to meet a young man we'd never seen before at a time when both of us had schedules that were maxed to the nth degree.  We were nervous but when we entered his room, Jenny was great. She has a sweet voice and she just started speaking Spanish to him as if she'd known him all her life.  When she finished greeting him and explaining who we were, he responded calmly, "Actually, I speak English if you prefer."   (Later, when we were leaving the hospital, Jenny said, "Cathy, his English is better than mine!"  I told her, "Don't worry, his English is better than mine too!"  And it was! He had no trace of an accent and used British English!  :)
      I'm sure the teen was frightened - at least I would have been: in a foreign country, awaiting an uncertain diagnosis, with no family nearby.  But he didn't show it and over the next month while he underwent surgery and treatment, he still remained calm and basically did most of the translating between his mother and the doctors, since his mom spoke almost no English.
       I don't know if we helped the young man that day with our impromptu visit. But I think we both sensed the presence of the Lord in that sterile little room and later, we enjoyed getting to know the family - they were super sweet people who did extremely well under trying circumstances.
      I guess I've said all that to say this:  somehow, the briskets, the turkey, and the ham all got done in time for our meal the next day, although there were moments when I thought I was crazy to be running by the hospital on Christmas Eve to see a total stranger with so much yet to do! And times when I didn't think but knew that I was totally  insane to leave the house at 10:00 pm to get to a Christmas Eve service while the house was still a wreck and tons of company were coming the next day!  Yet, everything came off as planned:  lunch happened...   The food was good...  We had wall-to-wall people and the house resounded with laughter:)   (If you've ever had internationals in your house, you know what I mean..)  Plus,  it was the only Christmas where we ever celebrated after lunch by doing the limbo (the Mabelvale version:) - something I couldn't do now if my life depended on it, trust me!
    Truly Jesus is with us in the celebrations of life!
    And just as truly He was with us at Children's Hospital the day before.
    Jesus said, "If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also." (Jn.12:26).  From what I've read in the Bible, Jesus went to weddings and funerals, hung out with the well and the sick, and basically just did life while showing us the Father's love.  If you want to really experience the joy of Christmas, simply ask Him how He wants you to celebrate His birthday this year.  You may be amazed but you won't be sorry.

Christmas Memories # 4

     In 1997, we had a young man named "Timothy" living with us. He was from South Korea and attending college at UALR.  As Christmas approached, he and another international - a girl from Honduras named Jenny -wanted to attend a late night  Christmas Eve service as this was customary in their countries. Our church didn't have one but a small Methodist church nearby did.   So on the evening of the 24th, Timothy and I picked up Jenny and headed to the service  which started at 11 p.m.
   It was stunningly beautiful -with candles at the ends of every pew and poinsettias all across the front of the church, interspersed with yet more candles.  I loved everything about the service and when it came time to take communion, I felt comfortable doing that even though I wasn't a member of the church.
   As that part of the service started, an usher moved from pew to pew to indicate when the next row should stand.  As he moved from place to place, people filed up to the platform in a steady flow.  Most everyone went up but a few stayed in their seats.  When he got to our row, Timothy was on the end and Jenny was sitting next to him.  I was third in line.
   I asked Timothy if he was going up and he just looked at me and said, "No."
   I told him it was okay, the pastor had said it was open communion which meant everyone could participate.
    He looked a little stressed and repeated the one word, "No!"
    I still thought he didn't understand the English phrase "open communion"  because I knew he wanted to do communion. Finally I gave up and just told him  I was going to go.
    And I did.
    The pastor was very kind and when he got to me (we were all kneeling around an altar rail that formed a square), he asked me if he had served me. I said he hadn't; he did. And everything was fine.
    Until I got back in my seat, sat down, and then saw Timothy and Jenny  rise and go forward!  At that point, I realized that earlier, the usher had indicated with his hand to Timothy that we were to stay seated but I hadn't seen the hand signal!  Simply put, it hadn't been our turn yet - our row had been the cutoff point for the first group!    Timothy understood this but his English wasn't good enough for him to explain it to me.  So he just kept saying, "No!';  I totally misunderstood and went walking down the aisle after the pastor had already started serving communion, not realizing that I had messed up.
    Until I  returned to my seat and then, to my mortification, I saw the usher raise his hand and everyone on my row (except for me!) got up  and walked to the platform. And everyone behind me got up and walked forward as well... Which left, um,   me - sticking out like a sore thumb /=    It was one of those times when I just wanted to bond with the floor underneath my pew.  Seriously.
   Little did I know that would not be my last time to embarrass myself in that church:)  (Another day... another blog...)
   Thankfully, as we took Jenny back home, two things helped ease my discomfort.  First, we could all laugh about it! Sooooo thankful God invented laughter!  I don't think I could survive without it.
   And then my two young friends decided that we would sing Christmas carols in three languages on the way back to Jenny's house.   At first, I really didn't want to because I don't sing very well. But they convinced me to do it and I'm so glad that they did.  We chose a carol that all of us knew - Silent Night - and then watched the clock on the dash intently because Timothy insisted that we start singing precisely at midnight.  And that's what we did - at the stroke of twelve, Korean, Spanish, and English  words sans melody filled the car. It was wonderful - for the first time, I realized how Christmas transcends language, culture, time and space.   We continued to sing one song after another in our native languages until Jenny was safely home.  However,  for me it wasn't long enough....
  The Bible promises that someday there will be people from every tongue, tribe and nation in Heaven.  That Christmas Eve in 1997 was a foretaste of coming attractions - the best, as Corrie ten Boom would say - is truly yet to be!

Christmas memories # 3

     As I've already indicated in an earlier blog, our family went through some dark times. At the height of those times, there is a special memory that stands out and it was.. (you guessed it!).. at Christmas. Christmas Eve, to be exact.
    The memory I have, culminated in Christmas Eve but actually started seven months earlier in the summertime of my 11th year.  We lived in the country at that time and our nearest neighbor, an older woman named Nora Deckard, lived about 3/4ths of a mile from us.  Her tiny house was small with roof shingles for the outside walls but her yard was a floral paradise - this in spite of the fact that she had, as she put it,  a crippled arm.  Apparently when Mrs. Deckard was a young woman, her parents had a car accident and her arm was broken as a result. Her family  didn't believe in doctors so the arm was never set properly and she just lived with the results for the rest of her life. It didn't seem to bother her or slow her down any.
   One summer, when all heck frequently broke loose in our house,  my mom encouraged me to go down to Mrs. Nora's house on a regular basis and draw pictures of the different types of plants that she had. (I was convinced at that time that I would be a great artist someday. Didn't happen...)   Armed with a spiral bound note book containing lined paper as well as with  a box of colored pencils, I asked Mrs.  Nora if I could hang out there and sketch her flowers while she taught me about them.  (Only I don't think we used the expression "hang out" back then).
   It was a match made in Heaven.
   Several days a week, I went down to her house and sketched one of her flowering plants and then colored it while she talked to me about what the plant needed in order to thrive.  When I had each masterpiece finished :), she told me how to spell the name of the plant and I dutifully wrote the name down underneath the picture. The only problem was that after a few weeks, we ran out of plants.
   We didn't want to run out of plants!!!

    We looked for some other excuse to hang out together and hit on the perfect thing. She would teach me how to sew.  (Can't sew either...but none of this is Mrs. Nora's fault!)    The main thing she taught me was how to make an old-fashioned sun bonnet - she always wore one and had another one, freshly laundered, hanging on a nail by her back door.  I envied them and so,  with her considerable help, I made one for myself!
  Eventually school started and our visits became shorter and less frequent.  But we still hung out together when we could as autumn turned into pure-dee wintertime.  One "snow day" when we didn't have to go to school (joy!), I slogged  to her house and when she let me in, I was surprised to see that the covers on her bed were turned back. (Her bed was this huge  thing that would be an antique now and it dominated her living room since she didn't have a separate bedroom).  I knew that Mrs. Nora was always tidy and her house was always neat as a pin, her bed always made. She was bundled up and the room was frigid so I asked her what was going on. She told me that on really cold days she couldn't afford enough butane to heat up the house so  she bundled up and stayed in bed all day.
   This was  shocking to me and I immediately told her that  I was really sorry to hear that. As an active kid, I couldn't think of a worse fate.  She, however,  told me cheerfully that days like that didn't come often and were actually enjoyable for her because they gave her  more time to read her Bible.  The words sounded lame to me but as we talked, I became convinced she meant what she said and was just as happy bundled up in bed on a cold, snowy day as she was out working in the sun with her beloved flowers on a warm, sunny day.  In retrospect, I think she, like Paul, had learned the secret of being content regardless of her circumstances. (Phil 4:11)
   When I told my mom about this oddity in Mrs. Nora's life, mom suggested that we have Miss Nora over for Christmas Eve. At first the older lady didn't want to come, thinking that maybe I had cooked this scheme up myself and she would wind up intruding on our celebrations. But just as she had convinced me that she enjoyed being housebound on horribly cold days, I convinced her that we really, really wanted her to come to our house on Dec. 24th - which we really did.
   Again, this was during the years when my parents often either weren't speaking to each other or were arguing, back during the dark days when my dad became physically abusive and my mom attempted suicide. But somehow, things came together for us that Christmas,which I guess was a miracle in and of itself.  At any rate, we all sat in our tiny living room, drank hot chocolate around the tree and sang carols while my mom played the piano and my dad played the accordian.  We gave Mrs. Nora a gift and she cried because someone had remembered her at Christmas.
    I absolutely loved that night and I still do.  It was truly an oasis of Christmas joy in the bleak midwinter of our lives.

    Recently I googled the name, Nora Deckard and found, to my surprise,  a picture of her tombstone. I figured she had been long gone because she seemed ancient to me when I knew her back in the mid-sixties but I had no idea google would turn up anything on her, her life seemed so obscure.  
    And in point of fact, her life was obscure - so quietly hidden away that her tombstone had no death date on it.  The caption underneath the picture  said that  she died June 15, 1991 but then added that the date was unverified.
   At first, this  really upset me. But then I realized that she wouldn't mind.
   For one thing, she never seemed to mind any difficulties that came her way.
   For another,  I mean, surely when you are drinking hot chocolate in Heaven and singing carols, you don't have time to get upset over an incomplete tombstone.
   Now, 40 odd years later, I still remember Mrs. Nora and the joy she brought into my life.
   Looking forward to seeing her again someday.

Christmas memories #2

     Like tons of other people at Christmas, we try to help someone out, give a little extra, etc. in order to honor God and really enter into the spirit of the season.  Last year we did the Christmas shoe box thing which is always fun.  But somehow, even though we got the bar code for our shoe boxes, we never were able to learn where they went. So this year we decided to send our own shoe box gifts to three kids overseas that we help sponsor: two girls and a boy.
    Getting the stuff for the boxes was fun and not a problem.  We bought cheap things like underwear, socks, tooth brushes, tooth paste, crayons, and a  small coloring book for each.  In each box we put a toy as well. For the girls, it was a 10.00 Barbie. For the boy it was a 5.00 collection of Hot Wheels.
    I, of course, procrastinated on finding boxes and actually getting address labels and packaging the stuff.  So although we had the stuff to go in the boxes for a quite a while, I didn't actually get the boxes to the post office until early this week - and then I just barely made it before the post office closed.
   The postal clerk asked me if I wanted to mail the first package first class. I asked him how much that would be and it wasn't much.  So I told him to go ahead.  He did... Not only for that box, but for all three - one of which was going to Ghana!  So  when I looked up from filling out the overseas forms and saw the grand total, it sort of took my breath away.  Without thinking, I blurted out -the postage is more than what I paid for the stuff inside on that last box! He said he understood and then I asked when the packages would arrive. He assured me they would arrive within 7 to 9 days if I sent them first class.  We had worried that my procrastination might mean the kids would not get the gifts before Christmas, especially the little girl in Ghana. So I went ahead and bit the bullet and sent all three packages first class, understanding that it was my fault the postage cost so much.
   However, on the way home, I started kicking myself mentally, thinking, "Why did you do such a stupid thing?  Surely there was a better way to invest our money for the Lord. What is the deal here anyway? All that trouble and time and energy just to get some socks and a Barbie or some hot wheels to some children that we don't even know?"  I really thought that it would have been better if we had just sent some money to a mission organization or the American Bible Association or something.
   When Phil came home, he asked me if I had been able to mail the packages. He was really pleased that I had... and I was really pleased that he didn't ask me how much it cost to send them :(  I guess it was our own version of "don't ask, don't tell....":)
    I was also pleased that I could mark the packages off my list of things to do.
    Today I was surfing the net, wasting time actually, when I accidentally came across a picture of an old toy, one that I used to have.  That was all it took.  Immediately I was on the hunt for pictures of other toys that I used to have and that I hadn't thought of in years, many of which I got for Christmases in the late 50's and early 60's.  As I found some of my favorite dolls (and mourned the fact that I couldn't find pictures of all of them), intense memories came back to me.  I could almost feel the material of their dresses and I could remember holding the baby dolls,  talking to them and singing to them (and also leaving them out in the rain.  Don't try that with a talking doll from the sixties.  Chatty Kathy's few recorded phrases sounded like she'd been on a three-day binge after she got rained on....)
     Not only that, but along with the memories of the dolls themselves came memories of my hopes and dreams way back then as well as favorite places where I used to take my dolls and set up house (the well house at my grandparent's farm for the baby dolls -who, I am afraid,  lived on a steady diet of mud pies:(  The attic for my and my sister's Barbie dolls. )  And I could even remember which outfits my sister had for her Barbies and which I had for mine.. and how we often argued over who had better taste in clothes.  (She did, by the way! I realize that now, hands down!)  I also remember how my father struggled to fit together a cardboard, fold-up Barbie doll Dream House for me without tearing the thing up.  (He needn't have worried -  by the time I was through with it, the walls and the cardboard furniture were held together with clear tape and glue anyway. But til the very end, I thought it was the most perfect house in the world and often told my mom I wanted one just like it when I grew up... (And guess what!! Just kidding...)

    At any rate, I'm sure anyone who reads this is way ahead of me.  After literally reliving parts of my childhood - some of the best parts - simply by looking at dolls that I used to drag around by their fake hair or dress up in designer clothes - it suddenly dawned on me that's it's not a waste of money to send "just a toy" to a child in a third world country. Because you aren't sending just a Barbie or a Hot Wheels car, you are sending memories-in-the-making, helping to shape their dreams and aspirations, showing the love and generosity of Christ who once said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me." What better thing could you do to honor His birthday?

Christmas memories... :)

     I know this will come as a shock to everyone but... I was not a good child when I was little, truly!  My mother was very ill one year - I was about 4 at the time. And so I and my siblings lived with my grandparents for about a year.  I was the baby and the only one not going to school, so I basically got away with murder! And loved every minute of it.
     I sometimes say that going back and forth between my grandparents' house and my parents' house was like going back and forth between Bermuda and the triangle, with my grandparents' house being the island resort and my parents' house being the other...
     Thankfully, I was shy.  So I stayed out of trouble in school but at home it was quite the opposite!  I can remember throwing temper tantrums on the floor.. numerous times.  And I can remember hiding in the bushes on summer evenings while my sister called (in vain) for me to come in and do my share of the dishes.  I also recall appropriating my siblings' toys with no guilt whatsoever; my moral code at that time was simple:  their toys lasted longer than mine and so I needed them.  What I needed, I took.  I hadn't read Machiavelli back then but, clearly,  I had already grasped the main principles...
    Today I was thinking about Christmas memories and, not too surprisingly, the first thing that came to mind was me getting in trouble! For figuring out what my main present was, I guess I should add.   I must have been pretty young at the time but somehow I realized that if I kept pressing the tissue wrapping paper against the box and smoothing  it out as best I could, I would finally be able to decipher what the letters on the box were. I remember working diligently at this for several days, always being careful to do this when no one else was in the living room to see me.  Finally, I had figured out all the letters!!!   IF I had stopped there, I might have been alright.  But since I couldn't really read, I memorized the letters and then repeated them to my mom, demanding elucidation.
   Well, I got it!
   (By the way, as best I can recall, the word turned out to be Mattel, which didn't help me any at all....)
   Now, you'll be glad to know,  I behave better at Christmas and no longer cheat to find out what my gifts are ahead of time...  But even though I was a regular on the Bad Little Girls and Boys  list back then as opposed to the Good Boys and Girls list, I think I had one thing right. And that is that some gifts are meant to be wildly anticipated  - as in, dancing on your toes with breathless anticipation and doing whatever it takes to find out what is hidden inside just for you!!!
    And oddly enough, that's my wish for this Christmas... That I and all my loved ones, friends, etc will be dancing with breathless anticipation and joy as we focus once again on the fact that the God of the Heavens wrapped His only and greatly loved Son in skin and bones and sent Him millions of light years (?.. not sure how far Heaven is from earth but I figure it's along trip...) down to earth to become the One who would free us from the fear of death and give us light.
   Awesome!