There's a scene in the Muppet's Christmas Carol when Scrooge (Michael Caine) leaves the office on Christmas Eve, bound for his home and his ghostly encounters. Left behind is his clerk, Bob Cratchett - Kermit, and the other clerks - rats. And the narrator says, "And with their employer gone they began that most pleasant of activities - the celebration of Christmas." They then proceed to put things in order - book on the shelves, closing the blinds, and sweeping. All while singing the song about "One more sleep 'til Christmas."
I'm re-reading a book I love this time of year, "An Irish Country Christmas" by Alice Taylor. It is charming in her relaying of getting ready for Christmas many years ago in a small Irish village. One chapter is about the Christmas goose. How they care for the mama and papa geese all year and the little goslings are raised and fattened for Christmas. She goes into great detail of the seven geese they needed for Christmas, as gifts and special meals. The butchering by her mother and then each child having to pluck all the feathers from the, still warm, geese. How she manages to make this interesting and not disgusting is unfathomable, but she does. And it's all in preparation for Christmas.
Today my list is long and I have a choice - to see these chores and errands as necessary work, OR they can be the beginning of that most pleasant of activities - the celebration of Christmas. When we make a separation in our lives, and our childrens' lives, that says work is not part of the celebration we make a mistake. Don't let your children's Christmas work only be writing out their list for Santa. Let them in on the secret - the preparation is part of the celebration. We are short-changing our children, and ourselves, when we loose that knowledge.
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Gift Giving is . . .
Saw a recent letter in a newspaper advice column from a woman whose family was mad at her. They were mad because she wouldn't provide them a list of gift ideas for herself. She said that folks just going and buying things you write down on a list, isn't what gift giving is about. And if they couldn't think of her and find some little something they thought she might like, then they didn't know her well enough to be buying a gift for her anyway.
That rings true to me. But it takes time and effort and a winnowing of the list to only include people we want to buy things for.
A few years ago my sibling and parents all realized we were just exchanging restaurant gift cards. Examined, that practice seemed silly. So we stopped. The kids still got a gift of money or a gift card, but for the adults, spending time together seemed better.
As our kids get older, the experience of being together is more the gift to me than the ones wrapped under the tree. A dinner out. An outing. Our one son and his fiancee don't exchange gifts, they come up with something they both want to do and then that is their gift to each other. This year they spent a day at Stone Mountain Christmas.
There are so many ways we can express our feelings for each other, but it's powerful to buy into the suggestions set before us by others. I want to be honest to myself and buy gifts because that's how I want to show love to someone. To be intentional, not just do what I've always done, or feel I should do.
Life, and the Christmas season, is too short to not pay attention.
That rings true to me. But it takes time and effort and a winnowing of the list to only include people we want to buy things for.
A few years ago my sibling and parents all realized we were just exchanging restaurant gift cards. Examined, that practice seemed silly. So we stopped. The kids still got a gift of money or a gift card, but for the adults, spending time together seemed better.
As our kids get older, the experience of being together is more the gift to me than the ones wrapped under the tree. A dinner out. An outing. Our one son and his fiancee don't exchange gifts, they come up with something they both want to do and then that is their gift to each other. This year they spent a day at Stone Mountain Christmas.
There are so many ways we can express our feelings for each other, but it's powerful to buy into the suggestions set before us by others. I want to be honest to myself and buy gifts because that's how I want to show love to someone. To be intentional, not just do what I've always done, or feel I should do.
Life, and the Christmas season, is too short to not pay attention.
Friday, December 11, 2009
I LOVE Christmas Letters (and I'll fight you over it!)
Today is the day. As soon as I'm done with this, I'm writing my Christmas Letter. Seriously, was there any doubt in your mind that I'm one of those? That's why working at the newspaper worked so well for me - I want to know everything and then I want everyone I know to know. It's a gift.
And for all the complaints out there - I love getting Christmas letters. This morning I got a card from a friend in Illinois who always does a letter. I got out my glasses, turned on the lamp, and opened her card in great anticipation of hearing about their lives - and there was no letter. I'm still reeling in disappointment. Now that family falls in to the category of people who have the same names as last year (that's all the info I got) and want to just say "Hi". I love those people, but I want to know how things are going. I really do - when I ask, "How are you?" it's honestly a question looking for an answer.
I tried one year to not do a letter, but I found myself writing long messages in EVERY card. Do you know how long that takes? (and how hard it is to write in long-hand anymore?)
We've never lived near family and we've made wonderful friends everywhere we lived. Some of the folks on our list, we've not seen in over twenty years. Much of the staying connected has happened through Christmas letters.
Making connections is work, maintaining them is even more work - and not always appreciated. I wonder if I pay enough attention to the folks in my life that work to keep connections going? Wonder if they feel like giving up because no one notices? Maybe today I'll remember to notice and say, "Thanks".
After I get my letter written.
And for all the complaints out there - I love getting Christmas letters. This morning I got a card from a friend in Illinois who always does a letter. I got out my glasses, turned on the lamp, and opened her card in great anticipation of hearing about their lives - and there was no letter. I'm still reeling in disappointment. Now that family falls in to the category of people who have the same names as last year (that's all the info I got) and want to just say "Hi". I love those people, but I want to know how things are going. I really do - when I ask, "How are you?" it's honestly a question looking for an answer.
I tried one year to not do a letter, but I found myself writing long messages in EVERY card. Do you know how long that takes? (and how hard it is to write in long-hand anymore?)
We've never lived near family and we've made wonderful friends everywhere we lived. Some of the folks on our list, we've not seen in over twenty years. Much of the staying connected has happened through Christmas letters.
Making connections is work, maintaining them is even more work - and not always appreciated. I wonder if I pay enough attention to the folks in my life that work to keep connections going? Wonder if they feel like giving up because no one notices? Maybe today I'll remember to notice and say, "Thanks".
After I get my letter written.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Scrooge and Denial (not the river)
"You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"
Can you imagine how Dickens chuckled when he wrote that line? You don't have to be a writer to know the feeling of having plucked the exactly perfect thing from the universe. I can just see Dickens reading the line over and over to himself. Maybe then reciting it to his wife or one of his children. I know I love repeating the line, "More of gravy than of grave about you," and I didn't write it.
Old Ebenezer Scrooge explains his seeing the ghost of his partner, Jacob Marley, as a bit of indigestion. Scrooge is so set in this world and so lacking in imagination that something wrong in his stomach is the only possible explanation. "More of gravy than of grave about you." I love that (say it out loud and see if it doesn't come out with an English accent and in a lower octave than you regularly speak.)
We are in the season of Wonder, but most times we're not nearly as creative in explaining away the unexplainable as Mr. Dickens. "I'm just so tired." "We've done that so many times." "It's too much trouble." "Do you know how awful the traffic will be?" "I hate crowds." "I'm just so tired." "It's too cold." "No spare change, today."
As an author, Mr. Dickens, had a place to take his readers and so he couldn't allow Scrooge to persuade the ghosts to leave him alone. But I've often wondered why Jacob Marley didn't get visited and told to change his ways before he died?
But maybe he did.
Maybe we all do. Maybe we're all given chances to reach across our indigestion, tiredness, boredom, cynicism and hold Wonder in our hands. But we dismiss it and struggle on.
We struggle on, wondering all the time why God doesn't answer our prayers.
Can you imagine how Dickens chuckled when he wrote that line? You don't have to be a writer to know the feeling of having plucked the exactly perfect thing from the universe. I can just see Dickens reading the line over and over to himself. Maybe then reciting it to his wife or one of his children. I know I love repeating the line, "More of gravy than of grave about you," and I didn't write it.
Old Ebenezer Scrooge explains his seeing the ghost of his partner, Jacob Marley, as a bit of indigestion. Scrooge is so set in this world and so lacking in imagination that something wrong in his stomach is the only possible explanation. "More of gravy than of grave about you." I love that (say it out loud and see if it doesn't come out with an English accent and in a lower octave than you regularly speak.)
We are in the season of Wonder, but most times we're not nearly as creative in explaining away the unexplainable as Mr. Dickens. "I'm just so tired." "We've done that so many times." "It's too much trouble." "Do you know how awful the traffic will be?" "I hate crowds." "I'm just so tired." "It's too cold." "No spare change, today."
As an author, Mr. Dickens, had a place to take his readers and so he couldn't allow Scrooge to persuade the ghosts to leave him alone. But I've often wondered why Jacob Marley didn't get visited and told to change his ways before he died?
But maybe he did.
Maybe we all do. Maybe we're all given chances to reach across our indigestion, tiredness, boredom, cynicism and hold Wonder in our hands. But we dismiss it and struggle on.
We struggle on, wondering all the time why God doesn't answer our prayers.
Friday, November 13, 2009
When SHOULD Christmas Start?
Christmas has a great PR agent.
My friends on facebook cover the whole range. One has three of her families five Christmas trees up. Some are itching to start the season, but being held back by others who are pleading for them to wait. The local Christian Radio station was giving away concert tickets in October, but to win you had to send in a picture of you standing beside your nativity scene already on your lawn. I thought that was clever. In the mall, Christmas music was playing a week ago. We're waiting until after Thanksgiving to put our tree up, but just barely.
Some "bah humbug" the whole commercialization of Christmas. I don't. I honestly think God could teach marketing at a university.
As a culture we race to celebrate the birth of God's son. The arrival of the Savior. We long for it. We can't wait. We push the starting date earlier and earlier. And this dishonors God how? Some say many people don't celebrate the "real" reason for the holiday. I don't believe God thinks like that. He knows we're flawed, selfish people. He knows what lurks in our deepest parts - you honestly think he's surprised when we turn Christmas into something all about us? Naw, I think he knows why we long for Christmas, expand it, and wallow in it.
God is an infamous rule breaker - when we are the ones making the rules. I think God and the angels probably scour the earth to see the first sign of Christmas each year and then they have a party.
For as long as we desire Christmas, we desire to touch God - whether we know it or not.
My friends on facebook cover the whole range. One has three of her families five Christmas trees up. Some are itching to start the season, but being held back by others who are pleading for them to wait. The local Christian Radio station was giving away concert tickets in October, but to win you had to send in a picture of you standing beside your nativity scene already on your lawn. I thought that was clever. In the mall, Christmas music was playing a week ago. We're waiting until after Thanksgiving to put our tree up, but just barely.
Some "bah humbug" the whole commercialization of Christmas. I don't. I honestly think God could teach marketing at a university.
As a culture we race to celebrate the birth of God's son. The arrival of the Savior. We long for it. We can't wait. We push the starting date earlier and earlier. And this dishonors God how? Some say many people don't celebrate the "real" reason for the holiday. I don't believe God thinks like that. He knows we're flawed, selfish people. He knows what lurks in our deepest parts - you honestly think he's surprised when we turn Christmas into something all about us? Naw, I think he knows why we long for Christmas, expand it, and wallow in it.
God is an infamous rule breaker - when we are the ones making the rules. I think God and the angels probably scour the earth to see the first sign of Christmas each year and then they have a party.
For as long as we desire Christmas, we desire to touch God - whether we know it or not.
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