The Least Favorite Task

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Not gonna lie...my least favorite, most dreaded task that must be performed on an annual basis is boxing up Christmas.

Denuding the tree, wrapping lights, boxing up the ornaments, squishing the tree back into the storage bins, sweeping up shed needles (even with an almost 30 year old fake tree...there are still shed needles...), cocooning the porcelain nativity...all the necessary stuff to transform the house back to its ordinary self.

Some years, I don't even want to get it out, set it up, hang it, drape it...because I don't want to have to take it all down in just a few weeks. Which always go by at the speed of light, usually without anyone outside of the family even seeing the festoonery.

But something occurred to me about the un-decorating task that I haven't really thought of before.

It's the UNdecorating, the reboxing and re-storing of all the Christmas trimmings that makes them special.  If they were up all year, why, we would soon get to a place where we didn't even see them anymore.  Getting them out is always a treat, preparing for the holiday.  It's something of a celebration of Christmases past to pull out the ornaments and decorations that we've accumulated over the years, or those that we've had since our first Christmas together...even some that are older, like my half-dozen faded and cracking small Shiney Brites that once hung on my grandma's tree.

But that celebration isn't what MAKES them special.  It's the fact that we do put them away when the holiday is over..the careful wrapping, boxing, packing and storing that keeps it all nice for the next season.  That is the honor that makes all of it set apart for something special.

It's...like the rest in a line of music, or the white space on a painting.  The contrast space that keeps everything from just running together into a dingy hodge podge. 

And, you know, that is the definition of Holy.  Set apart. Special.  Not ordinary.

Kind of an interesting line of thought that the thing I like doing the least is the very thing that imparts holiness to the decor of the season.

What if those tasks I dislike in general are also about imparting holiness?  Elevating something above the ordinary?

What if I set about them as if they were acts that impart honor instead of just drudgery that needs to be done?

What if I changed  my whole paradigm?

Could I really do it?  I mean, am I capable of that much shifting?

I don't know.  But maybe I should give it a try.

An Epic Christmas Present

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

My Sweet Babboo and I got married in 1980.  One of the wedding gifts we received was an antique-styled cookie tin.  Oh, it came from Penny's or Sears or some such place, but it was a great storage bin for home made cookies.

We didn't travel to Indiana for Christmas in 2000...that was one of those 'Christmas on a Sunday' (oy.  see note below) years that just made holiday travel tough... normally, there's a weekend on either side of the holiday for travel, but when Christmas falls on a Sunday it's just rough logistically.  So, with the extra time that year, we made an assortment of Christmas cookies...spritz cookies, rolled and cut and iced cookies...it was a big family project.

And, of course, those cookies went into the cookie tin.

Now, that was the year that we decided that, since we weren't going home, we could travel down to Jacksonville, Florida and attend Morning Star Ministries' New Years Conference...that ran from, oh, Friday night through Sunday night.  When we left town, we still had half a tin of cookies, so we took them with us to nosh on whilst we were down there.

The conference was awesome; a catalyst for us as a family, but when we got home, we realized we'd left the cookie tin and remaining cookies on the counter in the kitchenette of our hotel suite.

Bummer, man.

Sometime around Thanksgiving, the kids were all sitting around the table reminiscing about various things and that weekend came up.  And whenever that weekend comes up, whatever else we mention we always mourn a bit over the forgotten cookies.  I commented that I really missed that cookie tin...but, well, what's past is past, right?

Yesterday, we unwrapped our Christmas gifts.  One gift was 'saved for last'.  It was to me from The Artist...the 30 year old older son, and everyone else knew what it was.

Y'all.  He managed to find an identical cookie tin to the one we'd left behind 18  years ago.

Jaw on floor.

That may be the single most epic Christmas gift I've ever gotten.

That's a great start to the year...resurrection, restoration, however you want to look at it.

The boy did good.

ETA Note:  I totally misremembered that.  Christmas was on Monday that year; I think, in retrospect,  we just wanted to try 'Christmas at Home' instead of traveling.

Praise for It

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Today I woke up with a little ditty in my head that is on repeat...
If you want joy you must praise for it
If you want joy you must praise for it
If you want joy you must praise for it
The Joy of the Lord is my strength.

I pondered that as I drove The Actor back to the ministry center for the start of his second semester internship.  I've thought about it as I cancelled some plans for tomorrow evening due to continued illness in the house.  I've thought about it as I contemplated all the festive decor that is now due to be dismantled in the return to normalcy that follows the holidays.

Praise.

This is the season of praise.  Just because the day we commemorate the birth of Christ has passed we should not cease to honor His coming.  The calendar has changed, but He is the same. We are approaching Epiphany, commemorating the worship of the Magi...those foreigners who recognized the signs of His coming when His own scholars and scribes missed it.  And they worshiped, while the folks who ought to have been overjoyed scratched their heads and went back to their business.

So. 

Going into 2014, let me not be one who would shrug off any opportunity to praise and worship just to finish the business at hand...because praise brings His joy, which is my strength...

Christmas Past

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

This is a year of transition; I have been minimizing it as 'not that big of a change', but the truth is, as I am finally acknowledging, we have a major transition in the family and I think some of my holiday apathy is directly related to that change.

But as I reflected on that, I realized that the 'traditional Christmas' is something of a myth.

The first Christmas I remember was 1962.  I was 3 years old; my little sister was 1 1/2.    Mom didn't even put up a Christmas tree; our gifts were all on the round coffee table.  In fact, it was years before I realized that memory was actually Christmas.

I remember bits and pieces of the next few Christmases up until the year I was nine, when I figured out that Santa was a story and was mortified, as I had VEHEMENTLY defended Santa to my classmates.  A carelessly hidden gift that year was evidence I couldn't refute. Santa died to me that year.

Christmas magic came back the year I shopped for my siblings and found a perfect top for my sister.  I was in 8th grade when I discovered the joy of giving.

My freshman year of college I was away from home and suffering acutely from homesickness during the Advent season. It was a real joy to come home and see the tree, short and squatty, with GE Lighted Ice Snowball lights and strings of tinsel.  I spent a lot of time sitting in the living room just looking at it.

  (BTW, I wish I could find these lights in some kind of reproduction!  Hint, Hint, Christmas light manufacturers...)

The next year I was home but working full time and not around much; the following year My Future Sweet Baboo and I split Christmas  between our parents (literally; we drove the 3.5 hours from my folks to his on Christmas day; that was a split day any way you look at it) and the following year we instituted the holiday pilgrimage from Alabama to Indiana; 5 years later we actually missed the Hoosier Christmas and stayed home with our week old firstborn but the next year we added the first kid to the holiday pilgrimage and made the trek again, 2 years later we altered our gift giving (because it was STUPID to haul our kids' gifts to Indiana and back just so they could open them on Christmas day).   Through the years we actually stayed in Alabama for Christmas a couple of more times; missing family but enjoying a relaxing break.

I know this is lengthy, but it illustrates my point just a little...Christmas celebrations have always been evolving. There really is no 'Christmas as it used to be', there's only 'Christmas as it was for a few years back in the day'.

I believed in Santa for about 5 years.  That's all.  And I believed longer than most kids.   We had a  marvelous family caroling event for about the first 10  years or so we were married, then it got to be too difficult to coordinate w/far-flung families and their kids.  We actually had 'all ' the family only about 3 times during that period.  We bought gifts for everyone, then we drew names, now we're stuffing each other's stockings.

There are a few elements that have not changed from one Christmas to the next, but it's also true that each Christmas celebration has been unique.  Something has adapted to changes every year.

This year is no different.  We will adapt.  We are moving to a new stage; from kids to married kids to kids with kids to the new stage: inlaws who host kids.  The Parents. 

And, I'll be honest, this year I'm trying to find the things that don't change to give us the foundation for the big changes that have happened.

Because what we do this year will likely set the tone for the way our progeny will look back on Christmas when our grandkids are moving out and they are wishing for Christmas 'the way it used to be.'

Maybe I should hop over to ebay and buy those vintage snowball lights...nah...

Changing the Soundtrack

Posted by Lisa Laree on Beer Lahai Roi

For the most part, I love Christmas music.  I only listen to it between Thanksgiving and Epiphany, so it kind of stays special, but there are a few Christmas songs that just make me cringe.  As in, if the song comes on, I'll turn the radio off or walk out of the store.  Songs in that category include:

The Christmas Shoes
I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas
Happy Christmas

The Christmas Shoes is on that list because it's plot manipulation at its worst...sappy and unbelievable and I CAN'T STAND THAT SONG.

I Want a Hippopotamus is just unbelievably annoying.

However,  John Lennon's Happy Christmas is in a class by itself...a depressing Christmas song. A cynical Christmas song.  An everything-that-Christmas-should-never-be Christmas song.

But guess which song seems to be my silent personal soundtrack this holiday season; the refrain that plays over and over in the back of my head.

So this is Christmas...

I can't seem to hit the eject button.  Because this Christmas just doesn't feel...right.

I've tried a bit to figure out what's going on.  We are not following our typical Christmas pattern this year; we usually travel and visit with family; this year we're staying home.  We are down one young 'un in the house this year; the slow progression to the empty nest has kicked in.  We have a remodeling project that has resulted in a very untidy house and seriously cramped my decorating for the holidays style.  All of which I think is contributing to the refrain.

But, more than that, for some reason I have become hyper aware of the pain of folks around me.  The people that come for help to our church food distribution center; the pleas for help with gifts for children on the church communication cards that we enter each week; the images of emaciated children from Africa.  Orphans in Moldova, foster kids in Alabama...all with needs much greater than mine or any of my family's.  Shopping for gifts...even small ones...for folks who really don't need anything is getting harder each year.  Part of me really wants to take what we spend on family gifts and give it away.

And yet.  Christmas is a family bonding time, and there are those in the family whose love language is gifts.  To tell them they should not give or expect to receive gifts would be cruel.  And I have wonderful memories of both giving and receiving gifts that mean something...should that not be extended to my kids and (future possible) grandkids?

I am struggling to stay focused on the Miracle of Christmas, the Incarnation.  The decorations or lack thereof, the clean or cluttered house, the right or wrong choice of gifts, the Christmas eve service that is more trendy than traditional...none of that affects the Miracle one whit.

God looked at His creation and knew we would not be able to redeem ourselves, and so came to live amongst us and die as one of us so that we could be restored and live with Him.

THAT is Christmas.  Get out of my head, John Lennon.