nurturing hope, creativity, family
My cards this year are simple, but they’re done.
They’re late, but they’re in the mail. Honestly, it’s a small miracle that I made them at all. I know they really don’t matter in the long run, but they matter to me and I’m grateful for that answered prayer. I’m also grateful for my sister, brother-in-law and my sister-in-law who helped insert pictures, stuff envelopes and stamp them.
Merry Christmas to you.
With love, Jennifer
Many of my favorite Christmas memories are related to Christmas trees. I suppose every family has something special they do for Christmas; our parents gave us the gift of unparalleled Christmas trees.
At some point in time I “adopted” a special ornament. I don’t remember what it was about this particular ornament that attracted me so much. Perhaps it was the color; perhaps its fragility made me want to preserve it. Whatever the reason, I vividly remember searching anxiously through the Christmas decorations each year to find one particular ornament. I then hung it on the tree in a special place, usually high up so none of my younger brothers and sisters would be able to touch it. As time passed I came up with protective wrapping for this ornament, and placed it in a certain place in the box when it was time to pack things away after the holiday.
Somehow I still have this ornament. As I was unpacking decorations this year I saw the container I put it in all those years ago and decided to show it to my children. I gathered them around me and told them the story of how I cared for this ornament year after year after year.
I must have told the story well, for their eyes were wide with anticipation when I finally reached into the can to pull the ornament out.
There it sat in the palm of my hand, a hollowed out egg that must be over 25 years old at this point. It’s blue color is unfaded after many years, but the egg is slowly crumbling.
I’m guessing what appealed to me about this egg was the obvious time required to produce it. From the hollowing of an egg to the dye to the little bell hanging inside, I must have been attracted by it’s miniature proportions. Holding it in my hand a few weeks ago I couldn’t help but think that the little girl sitting inside wasn’t all that cute.
I looked up at the faces of my children. They were terribly disappointed, as if I’d finally gone crazy. My eight year old said, in an unimpressed voice, “You took care of that ?”
Well, that was the end of show and tell for the day, but it was certainly the beginning of some laughter. I had to agree with her. In fact, her words reminded me of a comment my Mom made years ago along the same lines. What was once such a treasure to me is clearly now rather ugly, but it represents a special memory for me. It’s a part of my childhood, and now it’s also a part of my motherhood thanks to the brutal honesty of my children and the laughter that followed.
Perspective. Funny how it changes things as we grow up!
Do you have quirky Christmas memories too?
Hopeful Homemaker
On Saturday I attended the wedding of a dear friend’s daughter, and in a quiet moment I spoke with this friend’s parents. I wanted to pause and let them know how much I love their daughter, to thank them for being such wonderful parents. Her mother’s response to me was this: “Do you see what I would have missed out on if I hadn’t had my seventh baby?”
My friend is the youngest of seven children (who’s now had seven children of her own). I couldn’t help musing a bit over the beautiful sermon offered in that wise question. As I did this, my thoughts turned to my own seventh baby and how her life has blessed mine this month.
My little daughter has been the mainspring of the Christmas spirit in our home. Pure and innocent, vivacious and precocious, she has touched my heart deeply as a parade of wondrous thoughts and feelings have escaped her lips. She has wept on my lap at a lost little lamb in one Christmas story, reassured the family countless times that the Grinch “toodn’t top trismas” no matter how he tried and acted out the Christmas story with dolls and toys hundreds of times.
Early each December in my community a small group of people devote a cold night to erecting a stable and sitting outdoors for a few hours in a live nativity scene. We have often driven past and enjoyed the beauty of this display. This year as I was on my way home, knowing it was taking place, I called my husband and told everyone to be ready to jump in the car when I pulled in. We did so, and drove to the location. We pulled off to the side of the road so our little ones could get a good look and understand what we were witnessing.
The city closes the road in one direction for the event, and a block away Santa waits to greet families. We proceeded with the plan and laughed with joy as our sweet daughter marveled at Santa and his red sleigh. Tears pricked at my eyes as she thanked him for her candy cane. We drove away and she promptly insisted that we needed to “go back.”
We drove around again for another look at the Nativity. She wasn’t satisfied.
We drove home, let the family out of the car, bundled her up in the stroller and walked over. We saw Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus.
We saw wise men.
There were shepherds.
And angels.
She wasn’t satisfied.
Gratefully, many of these people were our friends. They invited her to pet the donkey.
Then they let her sit with the angels.
Standing there in the cold, I saluted these young people who spend one night each December sitting in the bitter cold to share, in a unique way, their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I felt thankful that they would share a bit of the magic with a two year old girl whose imagination couldn’t get enough.
Cold but happy, we headed home after she had said “Merry Christmas” to all of them. I hope I never forget how angelic those two words sounded, coming from her tender heart. Yet still she wasn’t satisfied. She wanted to go back. She wanted to be an angel. I told her that perhaps she’ll get to do it with them when she’s bigger and she replied, “But I’m already bigger!”
It was December 4th. We went to the basement and hauled out the box of Christmas costumes. She put on the angel one. And then she went and knelt by our little manger.
Before long, her big brother wandered in with a Joseph costume on, followed by another sister dressed as Mary. They just knelt there, looking at our little baby Jesus doll.
I thought of the words of the Savior when he visited the Nephites. He said, “Behold your little ones.” I thought of a Christmas ten years ago when my own newborn son was placed in a rough wood box as my two toddlers, dressed as Mary and Joseph, knelt beside it. Behold your little ones. Here I am, all these years later, still learning from chubby hands and faces as they reverently treasure a baby Jesus of their own. I watched my Christmas angel and wondered why it is that we keep those costumes in the box until Christmas Eve. She was right. They should be out all month long.
For three weeks now the angel costume has traveled around the house, dropped in random places where she takes it off until she picks it up again. The tinsel angel halo sits on my desk as I type this. I am thankful beyond words for a little girl who has made a stable of my home this Christmas season, for her pure little heart that has literally worshiped at the side of the manger, for the tears I’ve wiped away as she wept over a lost little lamb.
I’ve made cookies, provided stories, hung lights and wreaths and garlands. She has made it Christmas all month long, reminding me to pause near the manger as well. Three years ago her birth was all I wanted for Christmas. This year she is my Christmas angel.
Do you see what I would have missed out on if I hadn’t had my seventh baby?
Jennifer