Because Christmas card photos are always such a stress-free experience, this year, we decided to involve two dogs with little to no home training in order to add an element of challenge for everyone. Getting five people to look pleasant at the same time is hard enough without inserting dogs into the situation, where squirrels are running everywhere. Mark Whiddon is a good and patient man. He has documented our 2019 existence, despite some of those pictured whining about forgetting to pack appropriately and some of those pictured being asleep just minutes before this picture was taken.

Carson left for college in August with one self-motivating goal, "Don't suck". I'm happy to report that he did not suck, this semester, and we are so proud of that. He also didn't change his sheets, but that's not something we'll address here in our holiday greeting. He's adjusted well and is loving the Bulldog life, which makes his parents happy. Blair had an awesome year in her sales job, which is perfectly suited to her personality. John Samuel will finish his master's degree in accounting in March, which he's done while working full time. They've found their people and their church in their new town and we've likely lost them to the Gulf Coast life for good, but we're glad they've found their place. Davis and I have settled into the empty nest thing. It's really not so bad, after all. If I elaborate any further, it may hurt the offsprings' feelings, so I'll just leave it at that. Ruby has recently taken up basket unweaving and seems to really have a knack for it. She's less enthusiastic about recent orders from the doctor to shed some pounds. She continues to dispel any hint of monotony around here.        

I just wanted to do a quick post to sign off for 2019. I don't know what it is about Christmas time, but I always tend to get sentimental and even a little misty-eyed about the people in my life, right about now. Maybe it's the soft glow of the Christmas lights that illuminates those corners of the heart. Maybe it's the impending turn of another year and the realization of how quickly life passes. Or, perhaps, it's just the higher than normal blood sugar and cholesterol levels. I really don't know, but, whatever the reason, this time of year, I'm most appreciative of the gift of people, most of all.

Those people most definitely include you. Each week, you make me so humbly grateful. Knowing there are millions of sites that a person could choose to visit on the internet and you use your valuable time to stop by here to see me. You'll never know how precious that is to my heart. Thank you so very much. You are a blessing to my life.

I'd like to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I can't wait to see what topics await us in 2020.

God bless you.

    

I remember the year Blair played Mary in the church Christmas play. I think she was about 5 years old and one of her "since birth" friends, Brock, had snagged the role of Joseph. Since the two actors were so close in real life, the chemistry between Mary and Joseph was sure to translate onto the stage and make the story of Jesus' birth just come alive. Their church friends were to surround them in the spotlight as angels, shepherds, wise men, and miscellaneous farm animals. The set was so adorable. It was going to be a precious reenactment of the nativity.
On the day of the performance, Blair was so excited that it was finally time to fully immerse herself in the role of Mary. All the preparation. The practice. The anticipation. It was time to apply her acting skills for the biggest role she'd ever play in children's churchdom. I mean, being cast as Mary is the church's equivalent to being crowned Miss America or something like that. There's just no greater honor, which can be bestowed and this was the moment for which she'd waited.

They took the stage. Mary sat beside the crude manger bed, which held a swaddled doll as Joseph stood behind her in his supportive way- both on and off the stage. The angels appeared as the narrator read and then entered the shepherds, which was followed by a song. During the song, I noticed that Mary was looking sad. Depressed, really. Then, perhaps, even a look of despair. I wish I had pictures that fully captured her progressive wilting. She'd started out gently leaning over the manger bed, but now she was practically sprawled out across the top of baby Jesus as her head sank lower and lower into the hay. Frankly, she looked like a really bad mother and I was certain that this was not biblical.

As Mary's mother, I sat in the audience trying to decide what was going on with her. Was she suffering from stage fright? Was this her interpretation of a woman, who'd just dismounted a donkey and given birth in a barn without the luxury of an epidural? Was she feeling like she was being upstaged by the angels with their sparkly halos? Was she bored with the scenes that didn't involve her? I didn't know. But, I knew something was going on with our usually animated and bubbly Blair. I remember leaning over to Davis and whispering, "What is wrong with her?!?"
Something was off. She was either giving the portrayal of poor Mary's difficult plight all that she had or she was just over the whole thing. Davis and I were probably the only two to think too much about Mary's peculiar postpartum solemnness and descent onto the manger, but this was a side of Jesus' mother that we'd never seen portrayed in stained glass or on the front of a Christmas card.

After the play was over, we went looking for our little Mary. I had to tell her how wonderfully she'd done in her role. That's what we, mamas, do, you know. We tell our children they did so, so good even when we know in our hearts that they really stunk it up. That's called good parenting. When we found her, I picked her up to kiss her and she was burning up with fever. I pressed my cheek against her forehead and she felt like an oven. The child was sick and apparently felt just awful which, explained her underwhelming performance as the mother of Christ. We discovered a fever of 103 when we got home and there she'd gone and exposed the entire town of Bethlehem to goodness knows what.

All the parents, that night, were seeing the same Christmas story we were, but everyone was zoomed in on their own little piece of it. I don't think anyone even really noticed Blair's particularly unhappy portrayal of the Christ child's mother. The angels' parents looked mainly at the angels and the shepherds' parents were concentrating primarily on them. The wise men's families were solely focused on their arrival from the East, but, from where we were watching, something about that Christmas play was off. There was something wrong and it was all we really noticed.

Maybe from where you are, something is off this Christmas. Eventually, we'll all have a turn at it. Death, sickness, divorce, life changes, separation. There are so many reasons why the celebration of Christmas can feel all wrong, some years. Sometimes, it can be hard to concentrate on the big picture of Christmas when there's something that's just not right from where we're watching the season unfold. I know a lot of people, who'll be having that kind of holiday, this time around. Something is wrong or someone is missing or something has changed and it can feel like we're the only ones, who really even notice. Everyone else is so focused in on the holiday celebration from their own vantage point that we can feel alone in mourning the loss of the way Christmas has always been for us.

There's so much celebrating of the season and talk of being jolly and of good cheer, but it's not always easy to feel those warm fuzzies that we're expected to experience. There's probably no other day of the year that's filled with more sentimental thought and fond memory as Christmas and, when our current situation doesn't match up with those beautiful recollections anymore, well, it's naturally hard to think about much else. 

I don't pretend to know the answers of how to get through those years. We'll all face them eventually if we haven't already. I just know that the reason He was born into this place, which is full of things that are "all wrong" is so that He could offer us hope and peace in those situations. What a mess we made of this world, but He was willing to come into it and live in it and die by its hands, so we could face those days when life seems unbearably sad and forever changed. He came so there would be more to come for those who'd trust Him. A place for eternity where nothing would ever be "off" again.

This year, if you're having a Christmas season that's not quite right in some way, my thoughts are with you and my prayers are for better Christmases ahead as things will get easier. And if life is good for you and everything about your Christmas celebration is shaping up to be like a Hallmark movie, just remember to stop and see the season through the eyes of someone else's circumstances and take time to be kind.

Talk soon.

  
           

I've been Christmas shopping since July. Really. I shop early in anticipation of this being my busy time. The presents have been wrapped since September and received their crowning bows, a couple of weeks ago. I keep a list of people and their corresponding gifts, which I've been marking through and checking off and fussing over for a while now.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, our friend, Mark, met us for a family photo shoot. With visions of a Christmas card, or more realistically now, a Christmas post, I decided we needed to tackle a picture of our 5 humans and 2 dogs as it had been a couple of years since our last official family pictorial documentation. You can imagine getting that many people and animals up and out the door- presentable and in the mood for smiling- was a stressor all by itself, which will require its own post at a future time.

Seems like I've been decorating Christmas trees and such since July, but, really, it's just been since the day after Halloween. Last week, in between working, I spread some Christmas cheer around my own house and, as of Saturday, I finally wrapped up the busiest span of time for the work I do. All the big boxes have now been checked. From here to Christmas, I'll see after the stores, but the worst of my busyness is behind me.

After going so hard for so long, I'd set aside Monday and Tuesday of this week to sit with a good friend, who'd had surgery. She'd just gotten home and settled in bed and I stretched out on her sofa trying to be as quiet as possible, so I wouldn't disturb her napping. I sat there and soaked up every drop of the quietness in her house. For the first time in a long, long while, there was no TV, no news, no music, no noise, no to-do list, no place to be, and no communication of any kind. She was in her room getting the physical rest she needed and I was on the sofa getting the mental rest I'd craved through all those weeks of deadlines and responsibilities and I have to say it was glorious.

Later that day, she decided to join me in the den for a change of scenery. We sat and just visited in the kind of quiet you'd expect in a place of recovery. In the glow of her Christmas lights and beautiful decorations, we recalled the simplicity of our childhood Christmases and their happy memories that still warm us to this day. She talked about her mother's simple decorations and their tradition of a Christmas Eve seafood meal. I remembered the dark green placemats my mother always put out and all the candy she'd make. Both of us had memories of Christmas Eve going on, what seemed like, forever in our childish anticipation of Santa. Compared to today's standards, we both recalled gifts being few, but how excited, appreciative, and taken away we were with each one. She remembered the Christmas she only wanted an Operation game and I thought I'd struck gold with a Life Saver Storybook from my grandparents. The holidays weren't near as flashy as they are today, but when our minds remember Christmas, those simpler ones seem to rise to the surface first. In the quiet we were enjoying together that afternoon, we looked back at a less complicated time and, for a moment, we were living it.

If you ask me about the moments in my life when I've felt closest to God, I'd say one of the times would be my late childhood. Around the fifth grade, I remember lying in my bed at night and crying. Not because of anything bad, but just overcome with thoughts about how Jesus loved me. And I could feel Him there in my little bedroom. It was before the noise of the teenager years rushed in and the pressures of adulthood elbowed their way through and before technology blared its loud horns and the responsibilities of parenthood filled up all the empty spaces. There was less noise then. Less to worry about. Less to distract a wandering mind. No, in that little bedroom with the yellow gingham bedspread and stuffed animals sitting around, God felt as near as the air I breathed. In that still, uncomplicated, simple place, I could hear Him.

Seems like we thrive on complicating life, these days. We have such high expectations and we have no one but ourselves to blame. We're continuously raising the bar and we cross the finish line of Christmas with our tongues hanging out and needing a holiday to recover from the holiday. It's a marathon of shopping and preparations and checklists. We think memories are made in big, loud flashes of celebration and success is measured by looking from side to side and love is sown in towering piles of gifts and friends are better by the dozens and Jesus can be found somewhere under the heap of it all. But, it seems to me that the most wonderful things in life grow best in still, peaceful simplicity. It's where rest is found. Where friendships form. Where appreciation takes root and where memories grow. And just like He came, in quiet simplicity, the voice of Jesus can still be heard there.

The very best things need so little to flourish.

Simply, a little peace and quiet.