Seventeen years ago today I pledged to spend a lifetime with my sweetheart... my best friend... my 'crush'... my destiny...
(I can't even say that without remembering George McFly, adoringly declaring to his crush, Lorraine, "I'm your density"!)
Amid the craziness of the day, one of my sweet daughters brought us a gift and card she had made. This is what it said:
Dear Mom and Dad,
Happy Anniversary!
I hope it is a great one!
17 years of generosity,
17 years of admiration,
17 years of fighting,
17 years of hanging up the phone in fury,
17 years of love.
I love you!
Song of Soloman 2:2 "Like a lily among thorns is my darling among maidens."
I'm glad to see that she has a realistic picture of love... has a realistic portrait of faithfulness...has a security born from knowing that her parents really did mean the "until death us do part" part... has a common shared experience that demonstrates that difficulties-dealt-with don't mean death to a marriage, but actually strengthen it... that "fighting" - having a disagreement and then working through it all with honesty and grace and forgiveness and mutual forbearance and respect - is a sign of a healthy marriage...
We went to a "communication for couples" seminar a couple of weeks ago. One of the things we heard - and truly believe - is the message that, "Absence of conflict is not the sign of a healthy marriage. Working through conflict is the sign of a healthy marriage."
And I would go so far as to say that it is the sign of a healthy anything... a healthy friendship, a healthy family, a healthy church, a healthy individual....
So, here's to 17 years of love, indeed.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Little Bells and Morning Pillows
I am increasingly becoming aware of what probably should have been a self-evident fact long before I reached 42 years of age, and that is this: that whatever I just listened to, or experienced, or dwelt on before I go to bed for the evening, will remain on my mind, making its mark - for good or ill - even as I drift off to sleep.
"Sleep is a time when the brain rehearses recently-learned material," says James D. Walsh, Ph.D., director of St. Luke's Hospital's Sleep Medicine and Research Center.*
So, with that in mind, we are going to try to listen to and review our Scripture memory verses and catechism memory songs just before going to sleep at night. I recently read somewhere (though I can't remember where) that your brain will repeat/rehearse the last thing it heard before going to sleep something like 3-5 times, even after you have actually fallen asleep. Imagine!
In that same vein, I also just became aware of some free, non-copyrighted, public domain children's devotional books available online. They are materials written by hymn-writer Frances Ridley Havergal. She was a 19th century English religious poet and hymn writer.
Little Pillows, or Good-night Thoughts for the Little Ones, is a classic collection of one-month's worth of brief bedtime devotions for children. Author Carol Brandt tells us that, "In Little Pillows Frances' intent was to give children biblical truth to think about as they went to sleep. Each truth was to be like a little pillow - something comforting and supportive to rest upon during the night. She teaches through vivid word pictures that bring everyday images to a child's mind, thus linking the spiritual to the child's world. This is child evangelism as it should be: plain, simple, truthful, without manipulation or deceit."
There is a companion volume of morning devotions called Morning Bells. At the beginning of this second book, also written "with Aunt Fanny's love" for her nieces Sybil and Helena, Frances herself wrote: "But in the morning we want something to arouse us, and to help us to go brightly and bravely through the day. So here are "Morning Bells" to waken up your little hearts, and to remind them that we must not only rest in Jesus, but walk in Him. If the motto of Little Pillows might be 'Come to Jesus,' the motto of Morning Bells might be 'Follow Jesus.'"
You are free to copy them, print them, or share them in any ways you like as long as you do not do so for any profit or material gain. Should you prefer it, they are also available for purchase through many online distributors, including this one.
"Sleep is a time when the brain rehearses recently-learned material," says James D. Walsh, Ph.D., director of St. Luke's Hospital's Sleep Medicine and Research Center.*
So, with that in mind, we are going to try to listen to and review our Scripture memory verses and catechism memory songs just before going to sleep at night. I recently read somewhere (though I can't remember where) that your brain will repeat/rehearse the last thing it heard before going to sleep something like 3-5 times, even after you have actually fallen asleep. Imagine!
In that same vein, I also just became aware of some free, non-copyrighted, public domain children's devotional books available online. They are materials written by hymn-writer Frances Ridley Havergal. She was a 19th century English religious poet and hymn writer.
Little Pillows, or Good-night Thoughts for the Little Ones, is a classic collection of one-month's worth of brief bedtime devotions for children. Author Carol Brandt tells us that, "In Little Pillows Frances' intent was to give children biblical truth to think about as they went to sleep. Each truth was to be like a little pillow - something comforting and supportive to rest upon during the night. She teaches through vivid word pictures that bring everyday images to a child's mind, thus linking the spiritual to the child's world. This is child evangelism as it should be: plain, simple, truthful, without manipulation or deceit."
There is a companion volume of morning devotions called Morning Bells. At the beginning of this second book, also written "with Aunt Fanny's love" for her nieces Sybil and Helena, Frances herself wrote: "But in the morning we want something to arouse us, and to help us to go brightly and bravely through the day. So here are "Morning Bells" to waken up your little hearts, and to remind them that we must not only rest in Jesus, but walk in Him. If the motto of Little Pillows might be 'Come to Jesus,' the motto of Morning Bells might be 'Follow Jesus.'"
You are free to copy them, print them, or share them in any ways you like as long as you do not do so for any profit or material gain. Should you prefer it, they are also available for purchase through many online distributors, including this one.
* See complete article about sleep's improving memory and learning.
Ink-on-Laundry, Logs-in-Eyes, and Other Unwanted Stuff
Upon the removal of a load of clothes from the dryer a few mornings ago, I discovered that there was ink all over many of the items from a pen that had been left in the pocket of one of my family members when he placed his pants in the laundry basket.
Let's skip the discussion about whether this was primarily a failure of said individual who owns the pocket (and the pen), or a failure of the chief laundress in the home who does his laundry. I am mindful of two things which lead me to do so.
The first is something I remember from Dead Right - a short educational film with a clever-pun title which they showed back in my 1980's junior high health class - which made the noteworthy point that you could be "right" and still be "dead." (In the case of said educational film, it was by stepping out in front of a moving car while insisting on your prerogative to be in the pedestrian crosswalk.)
The second reason I skip the "blame discussion" is that I am learning - slowly and painfully and incompletely and probably far too late in life - that it is equally as dangerous as stepping out into the crosswalk in front of a moving car, to consider one's self "more right" than another... any other... in this case, the "offender" who left the pen in his pocket.
So, philosophical musings regarding "rightness" and "blame" mercifully laid aside, the fact remains that I was still the one handling the resultant ink mess.
Following is a detailed discussion of how I treated each of the three items that were worth trying to get the ink out of. (By this I mean that they were not sleep clothes or undergarments, which I decided not to try to treat due to the sheer number of items affected.)
All three of these items are now completely clean and clear of ink.
I soaked all of them over two nights in a solution of warm water and OxiClean. (I put a couple of scoops in a sinkful of water, so this was a pretty strong solution.) One of the stains I also doused with Goo Gone before soaking it in the OxiClean. Another I treated with hairspray before soaking it. The third (the least-stained one) I simply put in the OxiClean solution with the other two.
All three, washed today in warm water with the other light-colored clothes, are completely ink-free.
I remember once, years ago, trying to help a bachelor friend who had called me with a query about how to launder an antique quilt (made by his grandmother) which he had accidentally stained with ink. This was pre-Internet days (yes, I'm that old), and I looked in a book I owned entitled How to Clean Practically Anything. (This is a terribly useless book, by the way, not even worth the $.01 you can get it for on Amazon.) The hairspray they suggested using as a stain-remover for ink was terribly ineffective, and my friend grieved both the loss of his grandmother's quilt and the failure of his homemaker-type friend to help him.
Now, twenty years too late for my friend's quilt, I've found something that works to remove ink. I have put the information out there for any of you who may ever need it for some unfortunate laundry disaster in your own home.
Oh, and by the way, if the "unfortunate laundry disaster" you encounter should involve fresh strawberry stains (think strawberry picking with a two-year-old who is eating more than she's putting in her bucket), you can get them out in a jiffy by pouring boiling (yes, boiling) water through the garment from the backside of the stain. I first tried this tip from my friend Cheri with great skepticism, as I had erroneously heard years earlier that hot water would "set any stain." It has not failed once over the past fifteen years of strawberry picking-and-eating.
I have yet to try the laundry tip my friend Gloria sent me (mostly because I can't find a store near me that sells the nifty spray bottle she mentioned she'd bought), but I'm always happy to hear of - and to pass on - things that worked.
Happy laundering!
Let's skip the discussion about whether this was primarily a failure of said individual who owns the pocket (and the pen), or a failure of the chief laundress in the home who does his laundry. I am mindful of two things which lead me to do so.
The first is something I remember from Dead Right - a short educational film with a clever-pun title which they showed back in my 1980's junior high health class - which made the noteworthy point that you could be "right" and still be "dead." (In the case of said educational film, it was by stepping out in front of a moving car while insisting on your prerogative to be in the pedestrian crosswalk.)
The second reason I skip the "blame discussion" is that I am learning - slowly and painfully and incompletely and probably far too late in life - that it is equally as dangerous as stepping out into the crosswalk in front of a moving car, to consider one's self "more right" than another... any other... in this case, the "offender" who left the pen in his pocket.
So, philosophical musings regarding "rightness" and "blame" mercifully laid aside, the fact remains that I was still the one handling the resultant ink mess.
Following is a detailed discussion of how I treated each of the three items that were worth trying to get the ink out of. (By this I mean that they were not sleep clothes or undergarments, which I decided not to try to treat due to the sheer number of items affected.)
All three of these items are now completely clean and clear of ink.
I soaked all of them over two nights in a solution of warm water and OxiClean. (I put a couple of scoops in a sinkful of water, so this was a pretty strong solution.) One of the stains I also doused with Goo Gone before soaking it in the OxiClean. Another I treated with hairspray before soaking it. The third (the least-stained one) I simply put in the OxiClean solution with the other two.
All three, washed today in warm water with the other light-colored clothes, are completely ink-free.
I remember once, years ago, trying to help a bachelor friend who had called me with a query about how to launder an antique quilt (made by his grandmother) which he had accidentally stained with ink. This was pre-Internet days (yes, I'm that old), and I looked in a book I owned entitled How to Clean Practically Anything. (This is a terribly useless book, by the way, not even worth the $.01 you can get it for on Amazon.) The hairspray they suggested using as a stain-remover for ink was terribly ineffective, and my friend grieved both the loss of his grandmother's quilt and the failure of his homemaker-type friend to help him.
Now, twenty years too late for my friend's quilt, I've found something that works to remove ink. I have put the information out there for any of you who may ever need it for some unfortunate laundry disaster in your own home.
Oh, and by the way, if the "unfortunate laundry disaster" you encounter should involve fresh strawberry stains (think strawberry picking with a two-year-old who is eating more than she's putting in her bucket), you can get them out in a jiffy by pouring boiling (yes, boiling) water through the garment from the backside of the stain. I first tried this tip from my friend Cheri with great skepticism, as I had erroneously heard years earlier that hot water would "set any stain." It has not failed once over the past fifteen years of strawberry picking-and-eating.
I have yet to try the laundry tip my friend Gloria sent me (mostly because I can't find a store near me that sells the nifty spray bottle she mentioned she'd bought), but I'm always happy to hear of - and to pass on - things that worked.
Happy laundering!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
"Hoping and assuredly believing..."
Among the various and sundry undergraduate and graduate studies I have enjoyed or endured, there was an entire semester class on the person and the works of William Shakespeare taken at the College of William and Mary.
Never once was there even the suggestion that Shakespeare might have been a Christian. Common references in his works to Roman Catholic or Protestant ideas (such as purgatory, heaven, and hell) were dismissed as a writer's patronizing nods to the prevailing cultural sentiments of his day.
Bearing in mind that - just as people say all sorts of spiritual things about their loved one's faith (relatively imperceptible during life but now declared decisively upon their death), people also often adapt all sorts of spiritual perceptions of themselves when their thoughts turn to the impending reality of their own deaths - I offer the following surprising declaration from William Shakespeare in his last will and testament:
"I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing, through only the merits of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting."
- William Shakespeare, (1564-1616)
Never once was there even the suggestion that Shakespeare might have been a Christian. Common references in his works to Roman Catholic or Protestant ideas (such as purgatory, heaven, and hell) were dismissed as a writer's patronizing nods to the prevailing cultural sentiments of his day.
Bearing in mind that - just as people say all sorts of spiritual things about their loved one's faith (relatively imperceptible during life but now declared decisively upon their death), people also often adapt all sorts of spiritual perceptions of themselves when their thoughts turn to the impending reality of their own deaths - I offer the following surprising declaration from William Shakespeare in his last will and testament:
"I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing, through only the merits of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting."
- William Shakespeare, (1564-1616)
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Sharing Recipes
Today, in response to the fact that there were two recipes which folks were asking me for, and one recipe which I was wanting to get from my sister, I created a new Blog. If you are interested in yummy food, you might want to check it out. Let me know if you ever want to join the community of recipe-posters. It is certainly easier than repeatedly sharing those more-popular, most-requested recipes individually!
Nods to Johanna's small group, which has a similar site of its own and from whom I shamelessly swiped the idea.
Happy cooking!
Nods to Johanna's small group, which has a similar site of its own and from whom I shamelessly swiped the idea.
Happy cooking!
Monday, March 16, 2009
Out, damn'd spot!*
I got an email from a friend today that I just have to share. In case you, like me, did not know this thing...
Laurie,
This made me think of your avocado story. [She's referring to this.] It made me wonder if other people know this. Did you know you can get just about anything out with hydrogen peroxide? I bought the little spray bottle of it that they sell next to the huge bottles and I keep it filled and near the laundry basket. I just spray any spots with it before it goes in the basket. (I also add a little to the load via the bleach dispenser.) Anyway, grape juice, vegetable oil, grass, blood, it all comes out. I don't even rub.
Hooray for friends who share stuff!!
* "Out, damn'd spot," is a quote from Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Laurie,
This made me think of your avocado story. [She's referring to this.] It made me wonder if other people know this. Did you know you can get just about anything out with hydrogen peroxide? I bought the little spray bottle of it that they sell next to the huge bottles and I keep it filled and near the laundry basket. I just spray any spots with it before it goes in the basket. (I also add a little to the load via the bleach dispenser.) Anyway, grape juice, vegetable oil, grass, blood, it all comes out. I don't even rub.
Hooray for friends who share stuff!!
* "Out, damn'd spot," is a quote from Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Let me remember this...
"It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.
Some parents go further. They become so blinded by adoration that they manage to convince themselves their child has qualities of genius.
Well, there is nothing very wrong with all this. It's the way of the world. It is only when the parents begin telling us about the brilliance of their own revolting offspring, that we start shouting, 'Bring us a basin! We're going to be sick!'"
- wise observations from Roald Dahl, Matilda (New York: Penguin Books, 1988).
Some parents go further. They become so blinded by adoration that they manage to convince themselves their child has qualities of genius.
Well, there is nothing very wrong with all this. It's the way of the world. It is only when the parents begin telling us about the brilliance of their own revolting offspring, that we start shouting, 'Bring us a basin! We're going to be sick!'"
- wise observations from Roald Dahl, Matilda (New York: Penguin Books, 1988).
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Laughing Out Loud
No time for any serious musing, pondering, or processing. I'm still just trying to unbury myself since our return from Minneapolis. There is much to consider and decide, but not until we can walk through the house and the laundry is done and the students' papers are graded and the photos are uploaded and the meals are planned and the birthday gifts are bought and, and, and...
However, there's always time for silliness that made me laugh out loud. It is rare to come by things that make tears stream down my face and my tummy hurt with laughter. Even if it was just that I am punchy with lack of sleep, these were hilarious to me.
However, there's always time for silliness that made me laugh out loud. It is rare to come by things that make tears stream down my face and my tummy hurt with laughter. Even if it was just that I am punchy with lack of sleep, these were hilarious to me.
Monday, February 9, 2009
"The Fierce Urgency of Pork"
I just read an interesting piece by Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post entitled "The Fierce Urgency of Pork." If the new "economic stimulus package," and all the shameless-insertion-of-shameful-extraneous-spending contained therein, doesn't infuriate you, I don't know what will. The inconsistency? The hypocrisy? The idiocy?
Whatever you think of the author (most liberals will dismiss him as a conservative wacko, while many conservatives will find him a bit too liberal for their liking), the points he makes regarding the President's newest actions are well-taken. Here it is, in his own words:
"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe."
-- President Obama, Feb. 4.
(Read the rest of the article here.)
Whatever you think of the author (most liberals will dismiss him as a conservative wacko, while many conservatives will find him a bit too liberal for their liking), the points he makes regarding the President's newest actions are well-taken. Here it is, in his own words:
"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe."
-- President Obama, Feb. 4.
Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.
And so much for the promise to banish the money-changers and influence-peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn't what's illegal, but what's legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.
He'd been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he's not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don't get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.
At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal's private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he'd come to Washington to upend.
And yet more damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.
It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections...(Read the rest of the article here.)
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Having a "Case Number"
So, here's what I did about it...
It will accomplish nothing but make me feel better, I'm sure, so I'm not one of those "good people who do nothing" from the Edmund Burke quotation. ("All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.")
February 4, 2009
To whom it may concern:
I am disappointed and angry about the sexually-explicit commercials that aired during the Super Bowl.
We were hosting a family-friendly Super Bowl party in our home, and a roomful of children and adults were shocked and embarrassed to see the scantily-clad women you chose to air during this broadcast.
There is enough raunchy stuff on TV. Please keep it away from the eyes and minds of young children enjoying "the biggest football game of the year" with their parents.
Dear Consumer,
It will accomplish nothing but make me feel better, I'm sure, so I'm not one of those "good people who do nothing" from the Edmund Burke quotation. ("All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.")
February 4, 2009
To whom it may concern:
I am disappointed and angry about the sexually-explicit commercials that aired during the Super Bowl.
We were hosting a family-friendly Super Bowl party in our home, and a roomful of children and adults were shocked and embarrassed to see the scantily-clad women you chose to air during this broadcast.
There is enough raunchy stuff on TV. Please keep it away from the eyes and minds of young children enjoying "the biggest football game of the year" with their parents.
Dear Consumer,
Thank you for contacting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This is an automated message to confirm that we have received your correspondence. We will review your information to determine how we can best serve you.
If you need to send additional information, you may reply back with this email, leaving the case number in the subject line, or contact us at our toll free phone number 1-888-Call-FCC (1-888-225-5322) and reference the case number.
The Federal Communications Commission
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
"... the rotting corpse of Christianity ..."
Why I'm Homeschooling, Reason #286:
"I am convinced that the battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being...
The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and new -- the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent with the promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of 'love thy neighbor' will finally be achieved."
- Humanist author John J. Dunphy, from "A Religion for a New Age, The New Faith of Humanism and Teachers" in The Humanist magazine, Jan-Feb 1983 (Vol. 43, No. 1)
"I am convinced that the battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being...
The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and new -- the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent with the promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of 'love thy neighbor' will finally be achieved."
- Humanist author John J. Dunphy, from "A Religion for a New Age, The New Faith of Humanism and Teachers" in The Humanist magazine, Jan-Feb 1983 (Vol. 43, No. 1)
Monday, February 2, 2009
Weary
"Laura loves her little family,
And she's the kind of woman who loves them with her life.
But sometimes in the evening,
When the world rests on her shoulders
With four walls closing in,
She'll close her eyes..."
From "Saved by Love" by Amy Grant
(on the 1988 album Lead Me On)
And she's the kind of woman who loves them with her life.
But sometimes in the evening,
When the world rests on her shoulders
With four walls closing in,
She'll close her eyes..."
From "Saved by Love" by Amy Grant
(on the 1988 album Lead Me On)
Keeping the Clicker Close!
Well, it is certainly interesting to me that this prolife commercial was deemed inappropriate for airing during the Super Bowl we watched last night, while all the half-naked women parading around were deemed just fine.
It sure made for an interesting family-centered Super Bowl party...
It sure made for an interesting family-centered Super Bowl party...
Friday, January 16, 2009
Who knew?!
Apparently, January 16 - today - is "Religious Freedom Day." Who has ever even heard of this commemorative holiday, let alone acknowledged it in some way?
I can't really figure out for certain when it started, or how regularly or long it has been going on, but it has been many years now, it seems... at least since the enactment of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993. (Had you heard of this, either, I ask you?!)
Religious Freedom Day is generally acknowledged as an honoring and commemoration of the passage of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, since January 16 is the anniversary of its passage in 1786.
At any rate, here is this year's official White House proclamation by George W. Bush.
Hmmm... it is news to me, but I'm happy to have discovered it.
I can't really figure out for certain when it started, or how regularly or long it has been going on, but it has been many years now, it seems... at least since the enactment of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993. (Had you heard of this, either, I ask you?!)
Religious Freedom Day is generally acknowledged as an honoring and commemoration of the passage of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, since January 16 is the anniversary of its passage in 1786.
At any rate, here is this year's official White House proclamation by George W. Bush.
Hmmm... it is news to me, but I'm happy to have discovered it.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Goodbye, "Generous One"
Currently, I am in NC with my husband's family.
We had thought that yesterday would be a celebration of my birthday with our small little nuclear family on the shores of North Carolina. Instead, it has become a larger gathering of extended family to commemorate a different life.
On January 9, 2009, iivo's dear, sweet, 98-year old grandmother slipped quietly from this earth into eternity. For ten years now we have commemorated her life on her birthday, since my daughter OG was born the same day as her "Helde," and we have celebrated their birthdays together these last ten years. Now we will forever also commemorate her life on my birthday, since the Lord chose to take her home on the same day I was born.
Nearly 99 years ago, He created her inmost being and knit her together in her mother's womb. Her frame was not hidden from Him when she was made in the secret place. When she was woven together, His eyes saw her unformed body. We praise Him that she was fearfully and wonderfully made, and we praise Him that all the days ordained for her were written in His book before one of them came to be (comforting thoughts from Psalm 139).
We also praise Him for her amazing life... and the testimony she gave to His constant protection and mercy toward her. It is hard to let her go, and we miss her sweet, feisty presence immensely. She was a fighter. She was strong-willed and stubborn. And she was one of the dearest people on the planet to me.
Selfishly, one of the things I'll miss most about dear, dear Helde is the fact that she, more than any other person in my life, could make me feel beautiful. Every time I saw her, she told me how very beautiful I am. (I'm not, really.) She told me how remarkably lovely my body is. (It isn't, really!) I can still hear her broken English, "How you have four children?! Really?! I can't believe it. Your body is not that. What you doing keep your body so nice with four children?"
I hear this voice in my head and it makes me smile even as I cry. Somebody famous somewhere once said that her favorite emotion was "laughter through tears." (I don't know if Dolly Parton's character in Steel Magnolias was the first or not, but she's the one I remember.)
Remembering Helde is filled with "laughter through tears." I miss her. The house just isn't the same without her quietly appearing in the doorway; the table just isn't the same without her proudly sitting at one end.
She was in amazingly good health, and not even in that "especially for 98" sort of way. She was more zippy and fast and active and fun than many fifty-somethings I know.
I'm so grateful that my children got to know her as well as they did. Who, in these days of late marriages and birth control, gets to know their great-grandparents well?!
We will miss you, dear Helde!*
*Vana ema, helde, lahke is a line from an Estonian folk song about grandmothers, translated Grandmother (literally 'old mother'), generous, kind. She became known as "Helde" early on, dubbed such by her very young grandchildren who were learning the song. She remained "generous" to her dying day, even as she was a "vana, vana ema" to my children. I hope I live to be an "old, old mother" to some great-grandchildren, and that they love me even half as much as my children loved Helde.
Farewell, dear elderly friend. Your marks are indelibly over our lives. OG's birthday will forever remind us of you. EL's name is what it is because you bore that middle name. Your voice makes me smile every time I listen to the message I have saved on the answering machine at home. I will miss you more than words can say, and I rejoice that I believe we will see each other again one day.
"A message only! Here is Helde. Nobody at home? Okay. Then I send you a message. Bye."
We had thought that yesterday would be a celebration of my birthday with our small little nuclear family on the shores of North Carolina. Instead, it has become a larger gathering of extended family to commemorate a different life.
On January 9, 2009, iivo's dear, sweet, 98-year old grandmother slipped quietly from this earth into eternity. For ten years now we have commemorated her life on her birthday, since my daughter OG was born the same day as her "Helde," and we have celebrated their birthdays together these last ten years. Now we will forever also commemorate her life on my birthday, since the Lord chose to take her home on the same day I was born.
Nearly 99 years ago, He created her inmost being and knit her together in her mother's womb. Her frame was not hidden from Him when she was made in the secret place. When she was woven together, His eyes saw her unformed body. We praise Him that she was fearfully and wonderfully made, and we praise Him that all the days ordained for her were written in His book before one of them came to be (comforting thoughts from Psalm 139).
We also praise Him for her amazing life... and the testimony she gave to His constant protection and mercy toward her. It is hard to let her go, and we miss her sweet, feisty presence immensely. She was a fighter. She was strong-willed and stubborn. And she was one of the dearest people on the planet to me.
Selfishly, one of the things I'll miss most about dear, dear Helde is the fact that she, more than any other person in my life, could make me feel beautiful. Every time I saw her, she told me how very beautiful I am. (I'm not, really.) She told me how remarkably lovely my body is. (It isn't, really!) I can still hear her broken English, "How you have four children?! Really?! I can't believe it. Your body is not that. What you doing keep your body so nice with four children?"
I hear this voice in my head and it makes me smile even as I cry. Somebody famous somewhere once said that her favorite emotion was "laughter through tears." (I don't know if Dolly Parton's character in Steel Magnolias was the first or not, but she's the one I remember.)Remembering Helde is filled with "laughter through tears." I miss her. The house just isn't the same without her quietly appearing in the doorway; the table just isn't the same without her proudly sitting at one end.
She was in amazingly good health, and not even in that "especially for 98" sort of way. She was more zippy and fast and active and fun than many fifty-somethings I know.I'm so grateful that my children got to know her as well as they did. Who, in these days of late marriages and birth control, gets to know their great-grandparents well?!
We will miss you, dear Helde!*
*Vana ema, helde, lahke is a line from an Estonian folk song about grandmothers, translated Grandmother (literally 'old mother'), generous, kind. She became known as "Helde" early on, dubbed such by her very young grandchildren who were learning the song. She remained "generous" to her dying day, even as she was a "vana, vana ema" to my children. I hope I live to be an "old, old mother" to some great-grandchildren, and that they love me even half as much as my children loved Helde.
Farewell, dear elderly friend. Your marks are indelibly over our lives. OG's birthday will forever remind us of you. EL's name is what it is because you bore that middle name. Your voice makes me smile every time I listen to the message I have saved on the answering machine at home. I will miss you more than words can say, and I rejoice that I believe we will see each other again one day.
"A message only! Here is Helde. Nobody at home? Okay. Then I send you a message. Bye."
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Thoughts Regarding Movies-from-books...
... or perhaps they would better be dubbed Books-made-into-movies, to highlight their proper origin.
I'm not sure what I want to say, exactly, but I do have lots of thoughts milling about in my brain regarding this particular genre of movie.
First (and this goes without saying), you can't capture everything great about a book in a movie. You just can't. This is understood, and so there is an attempt to capture the heart and essence of a story - and somehow present it to the world - in this other form called a movie.
The problem is that, once you've seen the movie, the original "pictures" formed in your brain when your first read or heard the book are replaced. This has happened to me over the past few years with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series, Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, Rowling's Harry Potter Series, and even the Series of Unfortunate Events. Never again will Lucy (or Hermione or Aragorn or Violet or so many others) look like they did when they came to life off the page in my mind.
And now, the list is expanded to include Despereaux Tilling. You see, my daughter EL received a "reward" of movie gift cards from the orthodontist for finally kicking the thumb sucking habit*, and with it we went to see the movie The Tale of Despereaux.
Let me first tell you that this book was one of the books-on-tape we listened to recently on a trip as a family. Let me also tell you that, on New Year's Eve, a friend of mine asked my daughter EL - who was running through the room at the time - if she had "seen Despereaux yet." She replied "yes" and was gone. I turned to my friend and said, "No, we haven't seen it, but we did recently listen to the book on tape." I smiled inside to realize that my eight-year-old daughter had, in fact, "seen Despereaux" as she formed images of him in her mind while listening.
And today I am a little sad to know that yesterday, as she watched the screen, those images were replaced. Her images were likely different from those formed in the minds of each of her siblings, but like the images formed in my mind as I had listened, they were all wiped away in one fell swoop. Now Miggory Sow looks like that. The queen. The king. Roscuro.
The movie is very little like the book. Characters are changed... eliminated... re-crafted. The story is significantly altered. Much was lost in the translation, I must acknowledge, and I miss the guys from the real story. But alas, they are gone. I can't find "my" images of them in my brain even if I try.
So, sure, it is a cute movie. It isn't, however, the real Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread. And now that millions of American kids are seeing the movie, they may never really get to know the real story. And even if they do eventually hear the real story, they will read it with someone's else's images in their minds from the beginning.
Some part of me finds that just a little bit sad.
I remember reading aloud one night - years ago - to my own children and some visiting friends who were staying with us while their parents were out of town. One of the girls, probably five or six at the time, was listening intently when one of her younger siblings got up and absent-mindedly walked through her field of vision and stopped.
"Hey, get out of the way! I can't see the story!" she cried. She wasn't quite sure how the "movie in her brain" was forming, but it had to be linked somehow to those words coming from my mouth...
Here's to the glorious experience of "movies in the brain" when we read a really good book. May some of them, at least, remain unspoiled by the big screen!
A NOTE ABOUT THUMB-SUCKING:
* The breaking of EL's thumb-sucking habit is due entirely to the orthodontist's discovery of an amazing and wonderful product called Mavala Stop. If you have a similar problem plaguing one of your little ones, I highly recommend that you try using it, and at the earliest possible age.
I'm not sure what I want to say, exactly, but I do have lots of thoughts milling about in my brain regarding this particular genre of movie.
First (and this goes without saying), you can't capture everything great about a book in a movie. You just can't. This is understood, and so there is an attempt to capture the heart and essence of a story - and somehow present it to the world - in this other form called a movie.
The problem is that, once you've seen the movie, the original "pictures" formed in your brain when your first read or heard the book are replaced. This has happened to me over the past few years with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series, Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, Rowling's Harry Potter Series, and even the Series of Unfortunate Events. Never again will Lucy (or Hermione or Aragorn or Violet or so many others) look like they did when they came to life off the page in my mind.
And now, the list is expanded to include Despereaux Tilling. You see, my daughter EL received a "reward" of movie gift cards from the orthodontist for finally kicking the thumb sucking habit*, and with it we went to see the movie The Tale of Despereaux.
Let me first tell you that this book was one of the books-on-tape we listened to recently on a trip as a family. Let me also tell you that, on New Year's Eve, a friend of mine asked my daughter EL - who was running through the room at the time - if she had "seen Despereaux yet." She replied "yes" and was gone. I turned to my friend and said, "No, we haven't seen it, but we did recently listen to the book on tape." I smiled inside to realize that my eight-year-old daughter had, in fact, "seen Despereaux" as she formed images of him in her mind while listening.
And today I am a little sad to know that yesterday, as she watched the screen, those images were replaced. Her images were likely different from those formed in the minds of each of her siblings, but like the images formed in my mind as I had listened, they were all wiped away in one fell swoop. Now Miggory Sow looks like that. The queen. The king. Roscuro.
The movie is very little like the book. Characters are changed... eliminated... re-crafted. The story is significantly altered. Much was lost in the translation, I must acknowledge, and I miss the guys from the real story. But alas, they are gone. I can't find "my" images of them in my brain even if I try.
So, sure, it is a cute movie. It isn't, however, the real Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread. And now that millions of American kids are seeing the movie, they may never really get to know the real story. And even if they do eventually hear the real story, they will read it with someone's else's images in their minds from the beginning.
Some part of me finds that just a little bit sad.
I remember reading aloud one night - years ago - to my own children and some visiting friends who were staying with us while their parents were out of town. One of the girls, probably five or six at the time, was listening intently when one of her younger siblings got up and absent-mindedly walked through her field of vision and stopped.
"Hey, get out of the way! I can't see the story!" she cried. She wasn't quite sure how the "movie in her brain" was forming, but it had to be linked somehow to those words coming from my mouth...
Here's to the glorious experience of "movies in the brain" when we read a really good book. May some of them, at least, remain unspoiled by the big screen!
A NOTE ABOUT THUMB-SUCKING:
* The breaking of EL's thumb-sucking habit is due entirely to the orthodontist's discovery of an amazing and wonderful product called Mavala Stop. If you have a similar problem plaguing one of your little ones, I highly recommend that you try using it, and at the earliest possible age.
Friday, January 2, 2009
AFTER-Christmas Cards
Our family is terrible about Christmas cards! Last year, we wrote a Christmas letter and even had the photo cards printed, but we never mailed them! They were "late," and so I sent out an email version to those whose email addresses we had, but then I never sent out the real hard copy. They sat in a red basket under my desk all year. That is really rather pathetic, isn't it?
This year, the letter is written, the photo cards printed, the envelopes stuffed, and the stamps on... but they are still sitting in my den on January 2. They're not all addressed, and we haven't gotten around to getting them in the mail. Life is full with homeschooling, and then gets even fuller (and busier) during the holiday season; Christmas cards are one of those things that seems to get left undone around here until after New Year's. I need to just think of them as New Year's cards and be done with the guilt.
Of course, it doesn't help that my mother and my sister take turns from year to year being the first (and second) Christmas card to arrive in the mailbox!
I guess I'll just have to distinguish myself by being the last card to arrive in your mailbox...
This year, the letter is written, the photo cards printed, the envelopes stuffed, and the stamps on... but they are still sitting in my den on January 2. They're not all addressed, and we haven't gotten around to getting them in the mail. Life is full with homeschooling, and then gets even fuller (and busier) during the holiday season; Christmas cards are one of those things that seems to get left undone around here until after New Year's. I need to just think of them as New Year's cards and be done with the guilt.
Of course, it doesn't help that my mother and my sister take turns from year to year being the first (and second) Christmas card to arrive in the mailbox!
I guess I'll just have to distinguish myself by being the last card to arrive in your mailbox...
Sunday, December 28, 2008
"ilus on maa, mida armastan..."
Yesterday afternoon I watched the most incredible movie I've seen in a long time. I've mentioned it in a previous post, but had yet to see it.
It is an important film in its own right. But it was especially poignant for me as I watched The Singing Revolution with my husband's family. They lived through many of the historical events depicted in the moving documentary about the history of the various Estonian occupations before, during, and after World War II.
It was a little surreal to explain to my children that the events they were seeing depicted onscreen, really happened to the great-grandmother and grandmother who were in the room watching with them.
"You know, Helde (as their 98-year-old great-grandmother is known) was grabbed and loaded onto one of those trains, but she jumped off once it was moving and escaped."
"Helde and Emi (their 70-year old grandmother) and Onu Toivo (her older brother) took food out to those guys (the "forest brother" revolutionaries living in hiding in the forest). One time Helde was caught by a soldier, in the forest, with food for them in her hands. She told him she was feeding their family's cows or something, and - miraculously - he let her go."
"Helde and Emi and Toivo escaped, but their dad had to stay back and fight. They didn't know if they'd ever see each other again."
"As they were leaving their house in secret, Toivo grabbed a few photographs from the drawer, and Helde turned over the china cabinet, shattering everything. She determined that, if the Soviets were going to invade and occupy her home, they weren't going to eat on her dishes!"
"See?! That's why Daddy's family felt that it was so important for those who escaped to keep the language alive in their children. That's why Daddy knows Estonian."
The history is rich, the stories remarkable. And it was a privilege and blessing beyond words to watch the film together with those who had lived through it.
From one of the traditional Estonian songs featured in the film:
"Ilus, ilus, ilus on maa." ("Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful is the land.")
"Ilus on maa, mida armastan." ("Beautiful is the land that I love.")
It is an important film in its own right. But it was especially poignant for me as I watched The Singing Revolution with my husband's family. They lived through many of the historical events depicted in the moving documentary about the history of the various Estonian occupations before, during, and after World War II.
It was a little surreal to explain to my children that the events they were seeing depicted onscreen, really happened to the great-grandmother and grandmother who were in the room watching with them.
"You know, Helde (as their 98-year-old great-grandmother is known) was grabbed and loaded onto one of those trains, but she jumped off once it was moving and escaped."
"Helde and Emi (their 70-year old grandmother) and Onu Toivo (her older brother) took food out to those guys (the "forest brother" revolutionaries living in hiding in the forest). One time Helde was caught by a soldier, in the forest, with food for them in her hands. She told him she was feeding their family's cows or something, and - miraculously - he let her go."
"Helde and Emi and Toivo escaped, but their dad had to stay back and fight. They didn't know if they'd ever see each other again."
"As they were leaving their house in secret, Toivo grabbed a few photographs from the drawer, and Helde turned over the china cabinet, shattering everything. She determined that, if the Soviets were going to invade and occupy her home, they weren't going to eat on her dishes!"
"See?! That's why Daddy's family felt that it was so important for those who escaped to keep the language alive in their children. That's why Daddy knows Estonian."
The history is rich, the stories remarkable. And it was a privilege and blessing beyond words to watch the film together with those who had lived through it.
From one of the traditional Estonian songs featured in the film:
"Ilus, ilus, ilus on maa." ("Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful is the land.")
"Ilus on maa, mida armastan." ("Beautiful is the land that I love.")
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Celebrating Christmas
As we move into Christmas Eve, the excitement around our household is growing. Many of our family's "Christmas traditions" have already come to pass, and many are yet to come in the next few days.
At the meeting of our worship team during our weekly practice last week, the "icebreaker" question was to share your favorite family tradition in celebrating Christmas. It was interesting to watch people decide which "life stage" to answer about... whether to answer about the traditions they remembered from their own childhood, or the ones they implement now with their own children, or the ones they used to implement when their children were still at home. Generally, the effect was that you got "the best of the best," as they had to choose a favorite from among all of those experienced during any life stage.
My own children were in the room, participating in the meeting, so we got to hear firsthand their perspective on some of the favorite traditions we're practicing now. What I discovered is that "it's working." We have long desired to capitalize on our children's love of holidays and special occasions and celebrations, and to use them to underscore the special significance of certain spiritual truths. We've always wanted Christmas to be more about Jesus than Santa. We've wanted them to be firmly grounded in truth. We've wanted them to be more excited about giving than receiving. And we've wanted to avoid the materialistic spending frenzy that is typical of Christmas in America.
Yeah, right. Pretty tall order. But we've done our best, and it seems to be mostly working. Here are some of the things we do toward that end... all of them are not "spiritual," and some of them have just "come about on their own" without any planning or thought or purpose to it. Some of them are just silly and fun, while some of them are deeply significant. Some we hold lightly; some we simply must do.
We'd love to hear about what you do, too, because we usually end up incorporating new ideas each year... and some of the strangest ones stick!
So, although I'm pretty sure nobody else is as excited to read all about our family's Christmas traditions as I am to write them all down, here they are, in no particular order:
* We usually stay away from anything Christmas-y until after Thanksgiving, in order to give that holiday its own import and focus. On Thanksgiving day, after all the feasting, we always watch "It's a Wonderful Life." It is just a great movie that underscores what's really important and what really isn't... and my husband is pretty much George Bailey.
* By far our most important and significant tradition is doing our "advent banner" beginning on December 1. iivo and I created this banner (from the book Family Celebrations - Meeting Christ in Your Holidays and Special Occasions by Ann Hibbard) when I was pregnant with EV, and we've been going through these family devotions during advent ever since. We made a banner with a large flannel Christmas tree, and each "ornament" (with its symbolic felt emblem) is velcroed onto the tree by a child after the advent meditation has been completed each evening. This keeps our focus clearly on the spiritual dimensions and implications of the advent season. Our regular family devotions are replaced with this advent banner during this time. [Note from the future, in 2013: These devotions are perfect for little ones, and a little "babyish" for older ones, but we walk through them every year anyway. We've added an advent "road the the manger" candle tradition--compliments of Ann Voskamp's son who crafted it himself, with profits going to missions. We printed the pictures and made the "ornaments" for her advent tree devotional several years ago, and we usually do some of that, too, when we can. We reprise the "thankfulness tree" from Thanksgiving, and we do these things when we can. Sometimes, now that they're older, we'll do three or four days' worth of felt banner devotions at a time, and other nights we won't do it at all. Whatever works to keep all the relevant advent scriptures before our eyes and minds throughout the month.]
* We also have collected quite a set of Christmas books over the years, so our evening "family read-aloud" is also disbanded during this time, and we read a Christmas story together each night. These range from the explanatory (Santa, Are You For Real?) to the symbolically spiritual (this year's acquistion - The Tale of Three Trees) to the silly and fun (A Wish for Wings that Work - an Opus Christmas Story). We have enough by now to last us throughout the Christmas season. The red-white-and-green basket of books comes out with the Christmas decorations and sits out all month, by the couch; the kids tend to pick up and read the books on their own throughout the month as well.
* However soon as is practical after Thanksgiving, we head together as a family to get our Christmas tree. Though there is a lovely(?) artificial tree in our attic even as I type, over the past few years we have developed the habit of heading to our local Taylor's for a "real" tree, which as of this 2008 writing can be had for only $14.99. Somehow it has come to be tradition that after we choose our tree and strap it to the van, we head across the street to have lunch at the Tijuana Flat's restaurant that is there. There is nothing Christmas-y about it, but it is pretty expensive for our whole family to go there, so we usually only do it this one time during the year. It has become part of the Christmas traditions purely by accident. [NFF 2013: The "must have a real tree" thing has continued, through several price hikes at Taylor's over the years and then the eventual abandonment of them entirely after this tree fiasco. Also, the super-close Tijuana Flats closed down, so we now head across town to the other one, though it is nowhere near the purchasing place of the Christmas tree anymore!]
* We usually end up putting only the lights on the tree at this point, and then "do the ornament thing" about a week later. While the lights go up, we tend to gravitate toward a favorite Christmas CD called It's Christmas Time (with carols and fun Christmas songs sung by Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and Frank Sinatra). (NOTE: This CD got lost sometime around 2012, and I have been grieving the loss of it ever since. It is a lot like an 8-track we listened to while putting up the tree when I was a little girl, and I miss it!)
* After the lights are on the tree, the girls usually grab the other Christmas decorations from the attic and scatter them about the house, while iivo and PT put some Christmas lights outside, on the house and bushes.
* We have a variety of nativity sets, and they go up in different rooms of the house... right down to the little clear glass ones EL bought at the Dollar Tree for her sister OG and her brother PT one year when she was very little, "so they can have one of their own like EV." (Said "nativity of her own" for EV came from her Sunday school teacher when she was a pre-schooler, and is a little nativity set of black figures. She still puts it up in her room every year.)
* iivo's birthday falls in the middle of the "Christmas season," so there is usually a break somewhere in here one weekend to celebrate him and his birth.
* "Doing the ornament thing" is an experience around our house, and is usually reserved for a weekend of its own after iivo's birthday weekend. (We're still homeschooling during these weeks of early December, so weekends are all we have!) Each ornament is brought out and - since many of them have significant memories attached to them - discussed as it is put on the tree. My mother and I have been buying a different Christmas tree ornament for each of my children every Christmas since they were born, so that they'll have a set of ornaments to take with them to their own homes when they leave ours. They each pull a few of their own ornaments out of the special boxes we bought them, smiling and remembering and deciding where to place each one. It is usually best if I stay out of this process as much as possible. (See here for more about this!)
* When we put ornaments on the tree, we listen to A Charlie Brown Christmas by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. This is relatively calm and mostly instrumental, which helps during the frenzy. So does egg nog, by the way, so that's become typical during the hanging of the ornaments.
* Though we own a lot of Christmas albums, and have put them all into a Christmas playlist on the ipods, a few favorites tend to come out and stay front and center around our house in December. These include the two already mentioned, James Taylor's James Taylor at Christmas, Christmas Portrait by the Carpenters, and A Christmas Together by John Denver and the Muppets. A couple of local radio stations play Christmas music all season, and it tends to irritate some of us and thrill others of us. So there is usually some listening to "I'm gettin' nuttin' for Christmas" or "Feed the World" or "Santa Baby" type songs... and the commensurate "radio wars" that go on when one member of the family doesn't want to hear "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime" for the eight-hundredth time, while one other member of the family has every radio station in the house tuned to this station - and turned on!
* Our children do not have "Christmas wish lists," and we tend to only buy each of them one big present. This item is something we think they would enjoy having, not something they've asked for. (I think both our homeschooling and our not watching television help in this regard, because there aren't nearly as many "have to have this" items in a kid's mind when he isn't in the peer-conformity world of school or watching TV commercials tell him how much he needs a specific thing.) They never ask for particular things they want, as we've never fostered an environment that caters to that. They do have grandparents, however, who will sometimes ask if there are any particular wishes; occasionally one surfaces, but not usually.
* What they do love (and I mean love) is the practice we have of going out shopping - one child at a time, with me - to buy a specific gift for each of their siblings. (I talked about this in my last post.) They plan out and think about what they might like to buy each other for weeks and months before Christmas, and head out once we finish homeschooling with either with a very specific plan in mind, or with an open mind combined with a pretty good knowledge of the sibling, and we shop. This is both exhausting and exhilarating to me. Truth be told, I love it, too! There is something thrilling about seeing your children genuinely more excited about the gifts they're giving than the ones they're receiving.
* Christmas Eve, for us, traditionally involves a series of Christmas Eve church services. There is a children's service at my parents' church up the road that starts at 4:00 and involves story-telling and craft-making and a "birthday cake" for Jesus. My parents pick up and take the little ones to that, while the older ones and we adults get ready for our church's service. iivo is the worship leader, and at least some of the rest of us are usually involved in the music in some way, too. That service is typically at 5:30. My father brings the little girls after the children's service is over, and then attends that 5:30 service with us. My mother is usually doing some last minute rehearsing at her church for the 7:00 service there. Once our service is over, we try to limit the intake of Christmas cookies by our children, then head up the road to that service to see Nanny sing in the choir and ring the handbells. By the time this service is over, we are all "sung out" and starving, and we head up the road to the local Chinese restaurant and share a variety of dishes "family style." Afterward we head back to my parents' house for more Christmas cookies and hot apple cider, and to open stockings.
* [If iivo's family is visiting from out of town, this pattern tends to look a little different. We only attend our Christmas Eve service, and afterward we eat a meal highlighting a blending of traditional Estonian and Swiss foods. This would typically be a pork roast, sauerkraut and red cabbage (very Swiss-German!), rosolje (Estonian "purple potato salad" containing pickles and beets and - if you're lucky - skipping the herring), sai (an Estonian Christmas bread made with raisins), and verivorst (Estonian Christmas sausage) if my mother-in-law has cooked and brought some. The Eesti folk eat this - and iivo loves it - but the rest of us tend to pass on the blood sausage. If my in-laws are here, we'll stay home and open our own stockings on Christmas Eve.]
* Either way, once the kids are in bed, we go around and swipe all the baby Jesus figures from each nativity set and carefully wrap them together in one package. We wrap this package very plain and dull and place it under the tree. (This becomes "the first gift of Christmas" in the morning, and we highlight the fact that Jesus - the greatest gift ever given - arrived here without fanfare or recognizable earthly glory.)
* On Christmas morning, I get up early and put in the dough for the traditional cinnamon rolls that are our Christmas breakfast. Afterward, we crawl back into bed and "sleep in" as late as the first child. This child - however big or small - crawls into bed with us and waits for brother or sisters to awaken and join us. Once three of the four are up, we decide it is time for the final child to get up, and all head in together to rouse the sleepyhead.
*We get up and get going in the morning with the final installment of the advent banner. This is meant to be the Christmas Eve lesson, but we wisely skip this since we're already attending two church services that night. This lesson is on the wise men, and segues nicely into the first gift of Christmas. We open this (the baby Jesus figures wrapped the night before) and the children go put each baby Jesus back with the corresponding nativity set. This was more naturally "fun" when they were little, but it has become part of what we do, so even these older children love to walk through this process.
* After this, we head into the kitchen, fashion the dough into cinnamon rolls, and get them going in the oven. While we wait for them to bake, we open our stockings.
* For breakfast, we have cinnamon rolls and either sausage or hard-boiled eggs for protein so no one "melts down." After we eat this, the kids are finally able to head in and distribute their gifts to their siblings. They are fairly about to burst with anticipation by this point, but they take turns and go one at a time. One child "plays Santa" first, and gives her gifts to her siblings one at a time. Said sibling opens the gift and we all enjoy seeing what was given and received. This process takes a while, since there are twelve gifts (three each) that have been purchased by the children for each other. It always strikes me every year how fun it is to "know" and "be known," as these gifts perfectly reflect their knowledge of each other and what each other likes and might enjoy receiving.
* After this, we take a break to read a Christmas storybook, then give the children the presents we have bought for them. iivo and I don't buy each other any gifts (his birthday is in early December and mine is in early January), but instead buy one "big thing" we feel the family needs or would enjoy. This can range from the immensely practical and needed to the totally frivolous and decidedly un-needed. Everybody usually knows about what this gift might be, as there's been some discussion about it throughout the preceding months. It is revealed at some point over the course of the morning.
* After all this, my parents head back home, we shower and get ready, and then we all re-convene at their house for a holiday meal mid-afternoon. The menu varies every year, but is usually some variation of turkey or ham, with each of us contributing different side dishes to go with it. When we gather at their house, we eat the feast, and then open the gifts from them.
* Over the course of the month, we tend to watch a Christmas movie or two. These vary from year to year, and have included such favorites as Miracle on 34th Street, Elf, The Santa Clause, Samantha (An American Girl Tale for Christmas), Prancer, and The Polar Express. We also usually try to fit in a viewing or two from among the favorite childhood television specials we always watched when they (and we!) were little: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph, or Nestor, the Long-Eared Donkey (my personal favorite since I was a girl).
* We have watched The Nativity Story every year since we went to see it in the theater with my sister and her family, who were visiting, the year it came out, but we have yet to figure out a "regular" time to do it, so the tradition is simply that we must do so some time over the course of the season.
* If iivo's family hasn't come to visit us, there is usually some holiday travel involved after Christmas to go see them. This may be the weekend after Christmas, or over New Year's, but sometime over the course of the break we try to get to see them, too.
* Although the Christmas decorations disappear from my mother's house as quickly as the local radio station playing Christmas songs reverts back to its usual love-song format, we tend to leave the decorations up through all of the "twelve days of Christmas." We're just not quite ready to see them go by December 26th, and so we leave them up until a weekend falling somewhere around January 5.
* Unfortunately, it is usually not until this stage of things that I get around to doing our Christmas cards! We are terrible about Christmas cards!! (See here for more on this!)
"The aroma of our homes is created by the liturgy of our lives. The liturgy of our lives, simply put, is what happens when we deliberately think through what we do and why... There is liturgy in all of our lives. We all have family traditions that in many ways tell the stories of our homes and what we value."
- Steve Murphy, publisher of Homeschooling Today magazine
What is it we value at Christmas time? First and foremost, we value the Savior. We long to keep Him first and foremost in our minds as we walk through the season that follows Thanksgiving and incorporates New Year's. What began as a celebration of the incarnation - God made man and delivered to us as a baby - has become deliberately secularized in American culture. It has become more about Santa and getting stuff than about Jesus and giving stuff. It has become more about "happy holidays" than "Merry Christmas." It has become a spending frenzy that breaks many families' budgets and creates many spoiled, ungrateful, never-quite-happy-enough children. We work hard to reverse that focus in our home. Jesus is squarely the central focus for us.
We also value the fun and the feasting and the break from the routine that this season offers. It is a chance to break out of the daily grind and to reflect on what is important to us in new, fresh ways. We value our immediate family, and love remembering them with special little tokens of affection. We value our extended family, and treasure the chance to visit with them in whatever ways work out each year. We value the special friends we have, and enjoy spending time with whichever ones He's given us to be particularly close to in each of the various seasons of our lives.
Even talking about it all has made me nostalgic and anticipatory. We will walk through many of these traditions tonight and tomorrow and over the next few days. I really can't wait!
At the meeting of our worship team during our weekly practice last week, the "icebreaker" question was to share your favorite family tradition in celebrating Christmas. It was interesting to watch people decide which "life stage" to answer about... whether to answer about the traditions they remembered from their own childhood, or the ones they implement now with their own children, or the ones they used to implement when their children were still at home. Generally, the effect was that you got "the best of the best," as they had to choose a favorite from among all of those experienced during any life stage.
My own children were in the room, participating in the meeting, so we got to hear firsthand their perspective on some of the favorite traditions we're practicing now. What I discovered is that "it's working." We have long desired to capitalize on our children's love of holidays and special occasions and celebrations, and to use them to underscore the special significance of certain spiritual truths. We've always wanted Christmas to be more about Jesus than Santa. We've wanted them to be firmly grounded in truth. We've wanted them to be more excited about giving than receiving. And we've wanted to avoid the materialistic spending frenzy that is typical of Christmas in America.
Yeah, right. Pretty tall order. But we've done our best, and it seems to be mostly working. Here are some of the things we do toward that end... all of them are not "spiritual," and some of them have just "come about on their own" without any planning or thought or purpose to it. Some of them are just silly and fun, while some of them are deeply significant. Some we hold lightly; some we simply must do.
We'd love to hear about what you do, too, because we usually end up incorporating new ideas each year... and some of the strangest ones stick!
So, although I'm pretty sure nobody else is as excited to read all about our family's Christmas traditions as I am to write them all down, here they are, in no particular order:
* We usually stay away from anything Christmas-y until after Thanksgiving, in order to give that holiday its own import and focus. On Thanksgiving day, after all the feasting, we always watch "It's a Wonderful Life." It is just a great movie that underscores what's really important and what really isn't... and my husband is pretty much George Bailey.
* By far our most important and significant tradition is doing our "advent banner" beginning on December 1. iivo and I created this banner (from the book Family Celebrations - Meeting Christ in Your Holidays and Special Occasions by Ann Hibbard) when I was pregnant with EV, and we've been going through these family devotions during advent ever since. We made a banner with a large flannel Christmas tree, and each "ornament" (with its symbolic felt emblem) is velcroed onto the tree by a child after the advent meditation has been completed each evening. This keeps our focus clearly on the spiritual dimensions and implications of the advent season. Our regular family devotions are replaced with this advent banner during this time. [Note from the future, in 2013: These devotions are perfect for little ones, and a little "babyish" for older ones, but we walk through them every year anyway. We've added an advent "road the the manger" candle tradition--compliments of Ann Voskamp's son who crafted it himself, with profits going to missions. We printed the pictures and made the "ornaments" for her advent tree devotional several years ago, and we usually do some of that, too, when we can. We reprise the "thankfulness tree" from Thanksgiving, and we do these things when we can. Sometimes, now that they're older, we'll do three or four days' worth of felt banner devotions at a time, and other nights we won't do it at all. Whatever works to keep all the relevant advent scriptures before our eyes and minds throughout the month.]
* We also have collected quite a set of Christmas books over the years, so our evening "family read-aloud" is also disbanded during this time, and we read a Christmas story together each night. These range from the explanatory (Santa, Are You For Real?) to the symbolically spiritual (this year's acquistion - The Tale of Three Trees) to the silly and fun (A Wish for Wings that Work - an Opus Christmas Story). We have enough by now to last us throughout the Christmas season. The red-white-and-green basket of books comes out with the Christmas decorations and sits out all month, by the couch; the kids tend to pick up and read the books on their own throughout the month as well.
* However soon as is practical after Thanksgiving, we head together as a family to get our Christmas tree. Though there is a lovely(?) artificial tree in our attic even as I type, over the past few years we have developed the habit of heading to our local Taylor's for a "real" tree, which as of this 2008 writing can be had for only $14.99. Somehow it has come to be tradition that after we choose our tree and strap it to the van, we head across the street to have lunch at the Tijuana Flat's restaurant that is there. There is nothing Christmas-y about it, but it is pretty expensive for our whole family to go there, so we usually only do it this one time during the year. It has become part of the Christmas traditions purely by accident. [NFF 2013: The "must have a real tree" thing has continued, through several price hikes at Taylor's over the years and then the eventual abandonment of them entirely after this tree fiasco. Also, the super-close Tijuana Flats closed down, so we now head across town to the other one, though it is nowhere near the purchasing place of the Christmas tree anymore!]
* We usually end up putting only the lights on the tree at this point, and then "do the ornament thing" about a week later. While the lights go up, we tend to gravitate toward a favorite Christmas CD called It's Christmas Time (with carols and fun Christmas songs sung by Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and Frank Sinatra). (NOTE: This CD got lost sometime around 2012, and I have been grieving the loss of it ever since. It is a lot like an 8-track we listened to while putting up the tree when I was a little girl, and I miss it!)
* After the lights are on the tree, the girls usually grab the other Christmas decorations from the attic and scatter them about the house, while iivo and PT put some Christmas lights outside, on the house and bushes.
* We have a variety of nativity sets, and they go up in different rooms of the house... right down to the little clear glass ones EL bought at the Dollar Tree for her sister OG and her brother PT one year when she was very little, "so they can have one of their own like EV." (Said "nativity of her own" for EV came from her Sunday school teacher when she was a pre-schooler, and is a little nativity set of black figures. She still puts it up in her room every year.)
* iivo's birthday falls in the middle of the "Christmas season," so there is usually a break somewhere in here one weekend to celebrate him and his birth.
* "Doing the ornament thing" is an experience around our house, and is usually reserved for a weekend of its own after iivo's birthday weekend. (We're still homeschooling during these weeks of early December, so weekends are all we have!) Each ornament is brought out and - since many of them have significant memories attached to them - discussed as it is put on the tree. My mother and I have been buying a different Christmas tree ornament for each of my children every Christmas since they were born, so that they'll have a set of ornaments to take with them to their own homes when they leave ours. They each pull a few of their own ornaments out of the special boxes we bought them, smiling and remembering and deciding where to place each one. It is usually best if I stay out of this process as much as possible. (See here for more about this!)
* When we put ornaments on the tree, we listen to A Charlie Brown Christmas by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. This is relatively calm and mostly instrumental, which helps during the frenzy. So does egg nog, by the way, so that's become typical during the hanging of the ornaments.
* Though we own a lot of Christmas albums, and have put them all into a Christmas playlist on the ipods, a few favorites tend to come out and stay front and center around our house in December. These include the two already mentioned, James Taylor's James Taylor at Christmas, Christmas Portrait by the Carpenters, and A Christmas Together by John Denver and the Muppets. A couple of local radio stations play Christmas music all season, and it tends to irritate some of us and thrill others of us. So there is usually some listening to "I'm gettin' nuttin' for Christmas" or "Feed the World" or "Santa Baby" type songs... and the commensurate "radio wars" that go on when one member of the family doesn't want to hear "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime" for the eight-hundredth time, while one other member of the family has every radio station in the house tuned to this station - and turned on!
* Our children do not have "Christmas wish lists," and we tend to only buy each of them one big present. This item is something we think they would enjoy having, not something they've asked for. (I think both our homeschooling and our not watching television help in this regard, because there aren't nearly as many "have to have this" items in a kid's mind when he isn't in the peer-conformity world of school or watching TV commercials tell him how much he needs a specific thing.) They never ask for particular things they want, as we've never fostered an environment that caters to that. They do have grandparents, however, who will sometimes ask if there are any particular wishes; occasionally one surfaces, but not usually.
* What they do love (and I mean love) is the practice we have of going out shopping - one child at a time, with me - to buy a specific gift for each of their siblings. (I talked about this in my last post.) They plan out and think about what they might like to buy each other for weeks and months before Christmas, and head out once we finish homeschooling with either with a very specific plan in mind, or with an open mind combined with a pretty good knowledge of the sibling, and we shop. This is both exhausting and exhilarating to me. Truth be told, I love it, too! There is something thrilling about seeing your children genuinely more excited about the gifts they're giving than the ones they're receiving.
* Christmas Eve, for us, traditionally involves a series of Christmas Eve church services. There is a children's service at my parents' church up the road that starts at 4:00 and involves story-telling and craft-making and a "birthday cake" for Jesus. My parents pick up and take the little ones to that, while the older ones and we adults get ready for our church's service. iivo is the worship leader, and at least some of the rest of us are usually involved in the music in some way, too. That service is typically at 5:30. My father brings the little girls after the children's service is over, and then attends that 5:30 service with us. My mother is usually doing some last minute rehearsing at her church for the 7:00 service there. Once our service is over, we try to limit the intake of Christmas cookies by our children, then head up the road to that service to see Nanny sing in the choir and ring the handbells. By the time this service is over, we are all "sung out" and starving, and we head up the road to the local Chinese restaurant and share a variety of dishes "family style." Afterward we head back to my parents' house for more Christmas cookies and hot apple cider, and to open stockings.
* [If iivo's family is visiting from out of town, this pattern tends to look a little different. We only attend our Christmas Eve service, and afterward we eat a meal highlighting a blending of traditional Estonian and Swiss foods. This would typically be a pork roast, sauerkraut and red cabbage (very Swiss-German!), rosolje (Estonian "purple potato salad" containing pickles and beets and - if you're lucky - skipping the herring), sai (an Estonian Christmas bread made with raisins), and verivorst (Estonian Christmas sausage) if my mother-in-law has cooked and brought some. The Eesti folk eat this - and iivo loves it - but the rest of us tend to pass on the blood sausage. If my in-laws are here, we'll stay home and open our own stockings on Christmas Eve.]
* Either way, once the kids are in bed, we go around and swipe all the baby Jesus figures from each nativity set and carefully wrap them together in one package. We wrap this package very plain and dull and place it under the tree. (This becomes "the first gift of Christmas" in the morning, and we highlight the fact that Jesus - the greatest gift ever given - arrived here without fanfare or recognizable earthly glory.)
* On Christmas morning, I get up early and put in the dough for the traditional cinnamon rolls that are our Christmas breakfast. Afterward, we crawl back into bed and "sleep in" as late as the first child. This child - however big or small - crawls into bed with us and waits for brother or sisters to awaken and join us. Once three of the four are up, we decide it is time for the final child to get up, and all head in together to rouse the sleepyhead.
*We get up and get going in the morning with the final installment of the advent banner. This is meant to be the Christmas Eve lesson, but we wisely skip this since we're already attending two church services that night. This lesson is on the wise men, and segues nicely into the first gift of Christmas. We open this (the baby Jesus figures wrapped the night before) and the children go put each baby Jesus back with the corresponding nativity set. This was more naturally "fun" when they were little, but it has become part of what we do, so even these older children love to walk through this process.
* After this, we head into the kitchen, fashion the dough into cinnamon rolls, and get them going in the oven. While we wait for them to bake, we open our stockings.
* For breakfast, we have cinnamon rolls and either sausage or hard-boiled eggs for protein so no one "melts down." After we eat this, the kids are finally able to head in and distribute their gifts to their siblings. They are fairly about to burst with anticipation by this point, but they take turns and go one at a time. One child "plays Santa" first, and gives her gifts to her siblings one at a time. Said sibling opens the gift and we all enjoy seeing what was given and received. This process takes a while, since there are twelve gifts (three each) that have been purchased by the children for each other. It always strikes me every year how fun it is to "know" and "be known," as these gifts perfectly reflect their knowledge of each other and what each other likes and might enjoy receiving.
* After this, we take a break to read a Christmas storybook, then give the children the presents we have bought for them. iivo and I don't buy each other any gifts (his birthday is in early December and mine is in early January), but instead buy one "big thing" we feel the family needs or would enjoy. This can range from the immensely practical and needed to the totally frivolous and decidedly un-needed. Everybody usually knows about what this gift might be, as there's been some discussion about it throughout the preceding months. It is revealed at some point over the course of the morning.
* After all this, my parents head back home, we shower and get ready, and then we all re-convene at their house for a holiday meal mid-afternoon. The menu varies every year, but is usually some variation of turkey or ham, with each of us contributing different side dishes to go with it. When we gather at their house, we eat the feast, and then open the gifts from them.
* Over the course of the month, we tend to watch a Christmas movie or two. These vary from year to year, and have included such favorites as Miracle on 34th Street, Elf, The Santa Clause, Samantha (An American Girl Tale for Christmas), Prancer, and The Polar Express. We also usually try to fit in a viewing or two from among the favorite childhood television specials we always watched when they (and we!) were little: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph, or Nestor, the Long-Eared Donkey (my personal favorite since I was a girl).
* We have watched The Nativity Story every year since we went to see it in the theater with my sister and her family, who were visiting, the year it came out, but we have yet to figure out a "regular" time to do it, so the tradition is simply that we must do so some time over the course of the season.
* If iivo's family hasn't come to visit us, there is usually some holiday travel involved after Christmas to go see them. This may be the weekend after Christmas, or over New Year's, but sometime over the course of the break we try to get to see them, too.
* Although the Christmas decorations disappear from my mother's house as quickly as the local radio station playing Christmas songs reverts back to its usual love-song format, we tend to leave the decorations up through all of the "twelve days of Christmas." We're just not quite ready to see them go by December 26th, and so we leave them up until a weekend falling somewhere around January 5.
* Unfortunately, it is usually not until this stage of things that I get around to doing our Christmas cards! We are terrible about Christmas cards!! (See here for more on this!)
"The aroma of our homes is created by the liturgy of our lives. The liturgy of our lives, simply put, is what happens when we deliberately think through what we do and why... There is liturgy in all of our lives. We all have family traditions that in many ways tell the stories of our homes and what we value."
- Steve Murphy, publisher of Homeschooling Today magazine
What is it we value at Christmas time? First and foremost, we value the Savior. We long to keep Him first and foremost in our minds as we walk through the season that follows Thanksgiving and incorporates New Year's. What began as a celebration of the incarnation - God made man and delivered to us as a baby - has become deliberately secularized in American culture. It has become more about Santa and getting stuff than about Jesus and giving stuff. It has become more about "happy holidays" than "Merry Christmas." It has become a spending frenzy that breaks many families' budgets and creates many spoiled, ungrateful, never-quite-happy-enough children. We work hard to reverse that focus in our home. Jesus is squarely the central focus for us.
We also value the fun and the feasting and the break from the routine that this season offers. It is a chance to break out of the daily grind and to reflect on what is important to us in new, fresh ways. We value our immediate family, and love remembering them with special little tokens of affection. We value our extended family, and treasure the chance to visit with them in whatever ways work out each year. We value the special friends we have, and enjoy spending time with whichever ones He's given us to be particularly close to in each of the various seasons of our lives.
Even talking about it all has made me nostalgic and anticipatory. We will walk through many of these traditions tonight and tomorrow and over the next few days. I really can't wait!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Barbie Church
With the Christmas break from homeschooling in full swing, my little girls are enjoying the secret and rare pleasure of some fantasy play together.
Homeschool days are busy and scholarly and productive in a way that crowds out the opportunity for hours of "fake believe," but vacation days provide many such opportunities. Sometimes it is creating whole worlds of buildings with our extensive Duplo collection, then populating it with either Polly Pocket people or PlayMobil guys. (They happen to be the right size to live in Duplo World, you know.)
Other days it is Barbie World, which has grown significantly over the years with the addition of brunettes, men, toddlers and babies. We have it all: interracial marriage, twins, modified-by-special-request-to-be-more-modest clothing, and a set of ten or so Barbie-sized wicker chairs my mother gave them one year.
Last evening I trudged to my room at way too late an hour, to find what I can only assume to be "Barbie Church" waiting for me all over my bedroom floor. Check it out:
Homeschool days are busy and scholarly and productive in a way that crowds out the opportunity for hours of "fake believe," but vacation days provide many such opportunities. Sometimes it is creating whole worlds of buildings with our extensive Duplo collection, then populating it with either Polly Pocket people or PlayMobil guys. (They happen to be the right size to live in Duplo World, you know.)
Other days it is Barbie World, which has grown significantly over the years with the addition of brunettes, men, toddlers and babies. We have it all: interracial marriage, twins, modified-by-special-request-to-be-more-modest clothing, and a set of ten or so Barbie-sized wicker chairs my mother gave them one year.
Last evening I trudged to my room at way too late an hour, to find what I can only assume to be "Barbie Church" waiting for me all over my bedroom floor. Check it out:
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