Countdown...

I don't like the word 'countdown.' It causes my heart to pound with anxiety, as if I'm going to be very late for something. I've never cared to hear the 10-9-8- etc of the space crafts at lift off, and I feel the same way about the New Year's Eve ball drop. They just bother me...I don't know why, but they do.

When digital clocks took the place of the ones with hands and numbers on a circle, children began to announce the time precisely as each second passed. It made me want to run from the room, tear at my hair and scream. Now, Hallmark has created a countdown ornament, which documents days, hours, minutes and seconds. Excited children who have this gadget on their tree will be running to parents minute by minute exclaiming how little time is left before Santa arrives. Oh joy! (Who, in their right mind, would even consider hanging a thing like that where kids could see it?!) I'm fine with the Advent calendar to open with children, one little box for each day. Yes, it's a countdown, but somehow it's much gentler.

I'm right on schedule for Christmas... on MY schedule, even if I don't measure up to the ideas of those doing the countdown. I've got my lists, my gifts, my organization according to MY plan.
I won't be late for the holiday festivities, I promise. Please stop, Mr. TV Reporter, reminding me of how many days I have left to do thus and so. You may call me a Countdown Curmudgeon if you like, but I will just click you off, so that I don't have to hear it!

Now, since the time is growing shorter, I need to hustle my bustle.....

Shopping in December

There was a time in my life when I loved to shop. I'd hop in the car and direct it toward Riverhead where I'd spend all day wandering through the stores, whether I bought anything or not. But those were the days when I had more energy.

These days, however, my enthusiasm leaves much room for improvement, especially in December. I just don't have the ability to stand or walk for long periods of time. I try to plan my trips so that I don't need to wander around to find what I need. That way, I don't have to stay out longer than necessary. The crowded stores make this short trip much longer the closer we get to Christmas. While I love hearing the Christmas music and seeing the wonder in the little ones eyes as their parents wheel them in carts through the decorated aisles, I'd much prefer to be at home during the month of December.

Gift buying is, for me, a special event. I like to place my hands on the item, feel the fabric, hold it up to check for size, check the quality. You can't do that when you shop on-line, and so the alternative is to physically go to the stores. I enjoy choosing the special gift for the special person, and all year-long I have my eye peeled for the perfect present for each one on my list. By October, I'm usually finished and will begin the wrapping. That keeps me from the stores in the busiest season, and I have the serenity of knowing I've only to sit in front of my cd player and make beautiful packages and do the 'at home' preparations of baking, cleaning, decorating and Christmas cards.

No one will ever have reason to call me organized, but most years, I have this one in the bag.

The Best Laid Plans...

You really never know how things will turn out, no matter how much planning you do. This weekend was a real example of that.

My daughter arrived on Friday, later than she'd hoped, with the two little grand-imps. Her delay was due to having to stop at a mechanic when some warning lights appeared on her cars. After some antifreeze in the radiator, she was good to go, and she made the trip without incident.

We had great plans for the two days together. Saturday we would be ready right after breakfast to shop with the little ones for a gift for their Daddy. Then we'd come home for lunch and bake and decorated some cut out cookies together .

Things didn't go quite the way we'd hoped. First of all, we lazed around too long in the morning, getting out around ten-thirty. We'd gone approximately two miles, when the warning lights showed up on the dash again. I suggested we swing over to our friend and mechanic's shop to see if he could hook the computer up and locate the problem. We were lucky to find Terry there, and the computer reading was 'coolant system.' He suggested we leave the car and he'd get it fixed by the end of the day. That required driving back to our house, unloading kids and car seats into my van, and driving back to Terry's place, which is what we did.

We then drove over to Anderson for the stop at the bank and shopping. By that time, the girls were telling us that they were starving, so we had a bite of lunch before moving on to the store for the gifts. We'd added a few other stops along the way, in order that we both might finish up our nagging little chores. By the time we got home, it was close to dinner time. So...no cookies.

We'd hoped to go to church on Sunday together. But one of the children had gone to bed the night before with a 'really bad headache' and coughing. I'd gotten up that morning with a deep, dry cough that sounded like a vicious dog's bark. We stayed home. We probably could have baked our cookies, but the little ones were happily perched in front of some Christmas cartoons, and my daughter and Mike and I sat around the table making menus for our holiday week. We made a slight change in one pre-planned item, which caused a bit of 'difficulty' for another member of the family who would be the contributor. That, of course, upset me, as the hostess.
I always thought that when you were invited for a dinner at someone else's house, you ate what was offered without complaint. Maybe things are different these days. I guess the bottom line is, no matter how you try, you can't please everyone.

Anyway, plans are made. Plans get messed up. As the mother of five, I learned early to be flexible enough to go with the flow. It seems that nothing ever goes as planned....

I've started....the decorating, I mean. I couldn't hold out another minute, so I talked Mike into pulling the boxes of ornaments, garlands and stuff from the shed into the sun room. Yesterday I rifled through some of them and decided how to do things.

The artificial evergreen garland is hung on the stair rail, decked with a red poinsetta, after careful measurement for placement of the flowers. The large wreath is hung on the wall between the windows, over the fireplace. A new choir of angels lines the mantle and I can nearly hear them singing the Hallelujah Chorus. Deep red poinsettas and verigated holly with crimson berries stand in a large crock nearby.....and a basket of the same graces the dining room table on the gold tablecloth.

It's not much....but it's still early.. Today the youngest of my grandchildren and their Mom will travel with me to pick up the last gift I need. We grown up little girls will divide the wee ones, and each sister will buy the other one a gift, after choosing something for their Daddy. Then we'll come home, and begin the fun and gooey mess of making cut out cookies.

I love preparing for Christmas! I think I am as much like a child about the anticipation as any little person there is. I love the 'magic' of it all, but above all that, I love the special wonder of the first and real Christmas. Imagine the preparation then! Every angel knew there was a special night about to arrive. The mother of Jesus knew that He could arrive at any time, and like any young mother-to-be, might have had thoughts for her preparing for her baby. Joseph, must have been a little apprehensive, knowing he had to take his wife on a long journey so close to her due date. Were any of them really prepared to welcome the King of Heaven?

As I rummage through the boxes of decorations that add to my festivities, as I spend these days before the celebration of Christmas, the most important preparation I can make, is the readying of my heart to honor my Savior in each moment of my life. All the glitter and the gold are fun, like at any birthday party, but let us remember whose birthday it is and celebrate Him!

"Prepare ye the way of the Lord."

More Children's Funnies...

Yesterday I wrote about some of the funny things kids say, in complete innocence. Someone left a comment on my earlier blog about my daughter, which I'd never heard. Apparently, my Amy noticed that a friend was nursing her baby. This woman shared that my little one stopped running around and asked, "Are you feeding that baby with your arm?"

Amy was one of my funniest children. From the time she could talk until well into grade school, she would innocently say the most comical things. One day, while we were, together, preparing a small vegetable patch, she asked me what kind of seeds we had. I told her we'd plant squash and string beans and carrots. She looked over the top of her glasses and with great excitement asked, "Do we have any chicken seeds?"

Another time we stood in line behind a lovely,young black woman with a crying infant. Amy told the woman, "I think he's hungry." The lady agreed. Then Amy asked her " Does your baby drink chocolate milk?" Fortunately, the woman took no offense to my preschooler's question, but smiled at her and responded that he drank just 'regular' milk.

I think children are the most funny during those early years. They are curious beyond all measure and innocent in their constant thinking. They ask a million questions all day long and they are processing everything they see and hear. They make sense of things as best they can with their limited years of learning. I just love that age!

When my friend's daughter went to kindergarten, her mother heard her story of a little boy who held little girls hostage in the coat room. When Mom asked Tammy why he was locking the girls in the closet, the little girl answered, "So he could kiss them!" My friend said, "Oh my! He's a playboy, isn't he?" Tammy answered, "No, Mommy...he's real !! "

Sometimes there's much wisdom in the words of children. One Sunday morning while Dad was driving my cousins, and I to Sunday School, my father wondered if Town Pond was frozen over for skating. We took a ride past the pond, and Dad thought it looked safe. My cousin piped up without a thought, "Well, you can't judge a brook by it's cover!"

It's important to listen to these little people. You never know what you'll learn!

I knew it! It's not going to happen, not before Christmas, anyway. What was I thinking?! The idea of getting the living room painted and rearranged between Thanksgiving and Christmas decorating was an absurd thought.

It's fine...really. There's so much to do in these few weeks before the celebration of Christmas with family and friends. We've got all of the usual pre-nativity activities to accomplish and old and new events to attend. Who needs to add more to the list?

You know how it goes with painting. It's not just the few days that it takes to cut in, roll and clean up the mess. When you have nice, freshly-painted walls, everything else begins to look a little shabby. I have plans, already, to change the window treatments, and have bought the fabric to do them. They're not yet made, and I'd like to do that before the room color is changed, so that they're ready to put up when the paint dries. We'd like to get some mouldings for the ceiling and windows too, and wouldn't it make sense to put that up after the room is painted? No, maybe, it should go up first. Either way, it should be in our possession, not sitting in the lumberyard racks. With all of that done, the furniture will want refreshing. My mother tells me that it's not 'that hard' to upholster a chair, or even to make a slip cover. I love our furniture, and would rather recover it than buy new things. So... where does all that fit into the time schedule? It certainly doesn't fit into the packed-full time this month!

I trust that the living room walls will still be standing when the tree needles are being vacuumed up and the Rubbermaid containers are back in the shed. (After last night's storm, it does give pause to wonder if my last statement is true.) When the new year descends, I'll make a list of what needs to be done, trying to prioritize the projects, so that when the living room is recolored, the other 'little things' can be brought in and the whole room will be renewed.

Maybe this is why so few projects are ever finished.... they take on their own personality, growing as they do. Siiiiigh....

Kids...What They Say...

You never know what a child is going to come out with next. They seem to have way of thinking and a way of using words that make us smile, with no intention of doing so.

When she was two, she walked in while we were having dinner. It was a simple meal, loose chopped meat, potatoes, some vegetables. After checking out the fare, she looked quizically at me and asked, "Grammie, why you eatin' cat food?" On a cold day in the same winter she laid down on the floor and began waving her arms up and down and moving her legs in and out. I asked if she was making snow angels. She answered, 'No...RUG angels."

When she was a six years old, I was waiting in the bathroom while she took a shower. When she was finished, she wrapped the clear shower curtain around her little body, and said, "Look! I'm laminated!"

One of my daughters, upon hearing the band play a familiar song in the Christmas parade piped up, "Mommy! they're playing "'Oh Don't Let Us Ignore Him." Another of those I've had the pleasure of rearing was curious, at the age of 7, to know whether God had a wife. Her sister, who had nearly three years on her, thus a bit of wisdom, answered her. " God doesn't have time for a wife."

Looking back to the days before I had my own little ones, I was a Sunday School teacher of three year olds. To this day I remember the answer I was given from one young man. I'd finished the lesson of the first family God created, Adam and Eve and their children. As was my habit, I asked a few questions following the teaching, just to see how much was retained. I said, "who can tell me who the first family was?" Robert answered, "The Addams Family!"

Recently my youngest granddaughter lost her first tooth. She thought she was pretty special, as she'd pulled it out herself, and was an equal to her older sister, still wearing smiles with missing teeth. Soon after, her second tooth was loose. Big sister had just lost one too. Not to be outdone, Abigail remarked, "I believe my tooth will come out on Tooth's Day!"

Where would we be without these sweet, smile-bringing beings in our lives? What a serious place the world would be without the wit and wisdom of little people! Thank the Lord that He gave them to us,...precious and special day-brighteners as they are!