The Other Christmas Letter

Last night, I finished writing my annual Christmas letter. I have to be honest and say that I am on the fence about Christmas letters. I want to give family and friends an update on our lives, but Christmas letters always come out so predictable. I tried to make it interesting and concise but it ended up following the standard form “this is where we went, what we did, and what the kids are doing.” Pete and I have extended family spread out across the country. Years go by between visits with many of them. The Christmas letter seems like the last bastion of contact. I would love to go out for coffee with the people on our Christmas card list. Over a cup of coffee you can talk about life in all its warts and glory. But what you talk about over coffee is not what you are supposed to write in a Christmas letter. You don’t vent and ramble and gush over your crazy yet spectacular kids in a Christmas letter. You’re supposed to follow that old predictable format. After reading over this year’s letter, I started thinking, “what if I wrote the things I talk about over coffee?” What if I wrote another kind of Christmas letter? A letter that told about who my family is instead of what we do. I might write …

Dear cherished family and friends,
This year Sarah has become obsessed with horses. She loves to play with her toy horses and when she gets bored with them, she substitutes her little sister. We have asked her to stop referring to the stairs as “the barn” and told her it’s not nice to tie her sister to the banister. She does it anyways. Sarah started taking riding lessons this fall. It is obvious that she was born to be a rider. She is amazing. At five, she is more confident, strong and brave than I have ever been. I wear sunglasses to her lesson, because the wonder of who this little girl is becoming makes me cry.
Emily is now two years old. We are working on potty training. She understands that poop goes in the potty, which seems like progress. Unfortunately she hands us poop from her diaper to put into the potty – so really not much progress is being made here. We are currently seeking any potty training suggestions, so please send them our way. In September she started preschool. She goes one morning a week. This has turned out to be my favorite day of the week. Not because I get to drop her off, (although that’s not bad) but because I get to pick her up. Each week when the teachers open the door, Emily is waiting, scanning the crowd of mommies, looking for me. When she sees me, she jumps up and down screaming, “That’s MY mommy! That’s MY mommy!” as if she thinks she has won the mommy lottery. In that moment, my heart jumps up and down, and in my head I am screaming “That’s MY little girl,” because I know that I’ve won the little girl lottery.
Amid temper tantrums, sleepless nights and poop -my cup overflows and I pray yours does too.
Love Wendy

Alas, this year’s Christmas letter is already printed and ready to go, but next year, I think I’ll write about our life in all its warts and glory. I’ll write about what happened in our hearts instead of what happened on our calendar. Next year, I’ll write this other kind of Christmas letter.

To all Official Holidaymakers …

Last January, I heard a great segment on NPR from a mother who labeled herself as her family's "Official Holidaymaker." I love that title. I totally get it. I am our family's Holidaymaker. It is my job to make sure the holidays happen – at least in the completely commercial sense. I send out over 100 Christmas cards, buy, wrap and mail the gifts, decorate our home, bake the cookies everyone loves and host assorted holiday parties. I empathized with the woman on NPR, when she said that on Christmas afternoon, she collapsed onto the couch grateful that it was over. I have been there. I have had those holiday seasons when I am most grateful that it is just over. Isn't that sad?

I remember the Christmas that our youngest was about 8 weeks old. She had cried (actually screamed) most of her waking moments, I was struggling with recovering from a second c-section and I was exhausted from trying to create the "perfect Christmas". On New Years Eve, I walked into the grocery store and almost ended up on the 10 o'clock news. The stockers were putting out Valentines. I nearly went crazy. Okay, to be perfectly honest, I did go a little crazy. I marched over to the teenager stocker and went off. There was no need to put up Valentines! It was New Year's Eve! Couldn't we just celebrate New Years for a few days before preparing for the next holiday! When you are screaming at a grocery store employee about the evils of commercialism at 9 pm on New Years Eve, this would be a big sign that your holidays have gone dreadfully wrong.

Since that Christmas, I have tried to find a balance between what "has to be done," and doing what brings me joy. For me, the first step is marking a day on the calendar when all the "have to do" things are finished. From that day forward, I will only do the things I enjoy. This year the date is December 13^th. By the 13^th I will have mailed out the cards and gifts, given out gifts to the kids various teachers and packed for our Christmas trip. Whatever does not get done by that date, just won't get done this year. That will leave me 12 days of Christmas to actually enjoy. I will make a ginger bread house with the kids, build a fire and play Scrabble with Pete, and knit a special gift (I can't say who it is for!)

I hope this year to wear my badge of Official Holidaymaker with pride and joy, not exhaustion and grumpiness. The Holidaymaker deserves to have a holiday too. So to all you Holidaymakers out there – I challenge you to mark a day on your calendar when you too will sit back and start enjoying the holidays.

Simple Thanksgiving crafts …

We woke up this morning to 4 inches of fresh snow. What a beautiful sight it was, made even more lovely by the fact that we had no where to go today. After an extended Indian summer, the snow really makes it feel like the holidays are upon us. The girls and I have spent the morning at the kitchen table making thanksgiving crafts. Each Thanksgiving since the girls (now ages 2 and 5) were born, we have made handprint turkeys and Indian headbands. These two simple crafts announce to us that Thanksgiving is here. The girls end up wearing their headbands all day on Thanksgiving and then I put them into their memory boxes with the previous years' ones. It is a wonderful thing to pull out all their little turkeys and headbands, each one so much bigger than the last. We line them up and measure the girls' hands against last year's turkey. They try to put on last year's head band. Their growth amazes them nearly as much as it does their dad and me.

Here are the directions (although I know you must remember these from your own school days!). If you are hosting Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, put out the materials on a table for your little guests. They might just get busy enough to give the adults time to catch up and finish the meal preparations.

 

Handprint Turkeys:

Materials:

Brown construction paper

3-4 other colors of construction paper

Glue stick

Decorations – crayons, stickers, feathers, googley eyes etc

Directions:

1. Trace your child's hand with their fingers spread out wide on the brown paper. Cut out.
   
2. Cut feathers out of the other colors of construction paper
   
3. Decorate the turkey and feathers
   
4. Glue feathers to the back side of each of the four fingers. Do not glue feathers to the front side of the fingers, that way you can fully see the size of the hand.
   
5. Draw the profile of a turkey face on the thumb.
   
6. Write the child's name, age and date on the back.
   

 

Indian Headbands:

Materials:

Construction paper in 3-4 colors

Glue Stick

Decorations – stickers, crayons, feathers etc.

 

Directions:

1. Cut a piece of construction paper into 2 inch wide strips – cutting the paper length wise.
   
2. Cut feathers out of multiple colors of construction paper.
   
3. Decorate the feathers and strips.
   
4. Glue two strips of paper together to make a headband around your child's head.
   
5. Glue feathers (real and paper ones) onto the headband.

Challenge yourself for a good cause ….

I received an e-mail last night from Marlene about a great new site called www.freerice.com. You can earn rice to be donated through the UN World Food Program by playing a vocabulary quiz game. The site started on Oct 7^th of this year and so far has donated 2,840,667,010 grains of rice. According to the site, 25,000 people die everyday due to hunger related issues. So as we get ready to stuff ourselves silly Thursday, take a few minutes to test your vocabulary skills and feed those in need.

There are 50 levels of the game. I got to level 37 – let me know how you do!

I have the privilege of having several orthodox Jewish friends. Their families observe the Sabbath in a very traditional manner. From sundown Friday thru sundown Saturday, they keep a sacred Sabbath, without work of any kind. I often find myself thinking about my friend Naomi on Friday evenings. I imagine her getting ready for her Shabbat dinner. The house is cleaned. Dinner is prepared. The smell of freshly baked bread fills the house. Her week has been long, much like mine, but the work of her week is done. The Sabbath has come. She will gather her family around the table, light the Shabbat candles, and begin Sabbath. A real, biblical 24-hour-break Sabbath. No housework, no cooking, no laundry for 24 hours. I have to admit, as I imagine it, I am green with envy. But then I wonder why I'm envious. Does the Christian faith not call me to have a Sabbath too? Am I not supposed to set a day aside to rest? I imagine myself as a Jewish mother, lighting the Shabbat candles. I would let the candlelight wash over me and I would exhale. Do you know the exhale I am talking about? That big exhale which would let go of the tension, frustration and unfinished work of my week. In that moment, I would begin to breathe, and after the Sabbath, I would be renewed to start another week.

This Sunday, I am coordinating a bake sale at our church from 7:30 to 12:30. Somewhere in the middle of that I will sneak out and attend one of the services. At 4:00 our bible study is coming over for study and dinner (which means I will spend from about 2:00 to 4:00 cleaning the house and making dinner). I volunteered to do these things. I actually want to do them. But when I think about my "Sabbath" day, I have to say I am a bit sad. Where are my Shabbat candles? Where is my chance to exhale? If I am honest with myself, Naomi's house is probably not perfectly clean, there are dirty clothes in the hamper and her temple's women's ministry needs to do a fundraiser too. Her life is no different than mine she is just making a different choice. I too can choose to stop and accept God's gift of the Sabbath.

As we start the weekend I would like to wish you Shabbat Shalom. May you have a peaceful Sabbath and give yourself a little space and time to exhale and be renewed.

I would love to hear your suggestions and comments on how your family keeps the Sabbath.

 

 

 

 

Operation Christmas Child

This week is National Collection Week for Operation Christmas Child (OCC). If you are not familiar with this project, OCC delivers shoeboxes full of Christmas gifts to needy children around the world. Volunteers are asked to fill a shoebox (or a shoebox size plastic tub) with small items such as crayons, balls, toothbrushes, soap, hard candies, small books – you get the idea. The shoeboxes are collected at drop off points around the country and then shipped to their recipients. The first few years that I heard of this program I thought, "What can fit in a shoebox?" It seemed like such a paltry giving project. Last year my daughter's preschool promoted the program, so we participated for the first time. I was amazed at what can fit in a shoe box. I actually had to go back to the store to get some more items to fill up the box. Being a visual and concrete giving project, our 4 year old really seemed to understand the value of what we were doing. Unlike giving money to a charity, this was her shoebox , filled with things she likes, going to another little girl out there in the world.

Today we filled this year's shoebox. Again, I was amazed at what fit in there.

Here is a list of what we packed:

• One pair of pj's
  
• One set of 24 crayons
  
• Two small notebooks
  
• One paperback picture book
  
• 8 small cans of play dough
  
• A rubber bouncy ball
  
• Two hand held party favor type games
  
• 6 small stuffed animals
  
• 2 bars of soap
  
• A yo yo
  
• Assorted lollipops and hard candy
  

Isn't that amazing! While we were packing the box my daughter and I had a great conversation about what size box we would need to fit all her Christmas (or birthday) gift into. We talked about how much we have compared to other families. We also talked about how happy the little girl will feel when she gets her box. It was a great.

If you would like to participate in Operation Christmas Child go to their website and find a drop off location near you. Here is the site – www.samaritanspurse.org. There are complete instructions on how to pack your shoebox.

‘Tis the wrong holiday …

I have come to accept Halloween candy being sold in August and the shopping mall being decorated for Christmas in October, but I just can't accept people lighting up their houses on the first of November! A house down the street from mine had their Christmas lights glowing this week. I was so surprised, I nearly crashed my car as I drove by. Of course my 5 year old said, "Mommy we need to put up our lights too!" This is the problem with people decorating 8 weeks before Christmas, the rest of us think we are behind. Can't we have a few weeks between Halloween and Christmas to celebrate Thanksgiving? I think the fact that the Christmas season now seems to start the day after Halloween, with us skipping right over Thanksgiving, is such a sad thing. It is rather telling though isn't it? Our kids go right from Halloween where perfect strangers dole out candy by the fistful to writing lists of all the new toys they want for Christmas. What happened to Thanksgiving? You know where we take time and are THANKFUL. We need thanksgiving. Our kids need it. Our country needs it. We live in a place and time of so much wealth and comfort and freedom. We need every one of the 22 days that fall between Halloween and Thanksgiving this year to celebrate giving thanks. After the turkey is gone and the pies have been eaten, then we can head outside and string up enough lights to make Clark Griswald jealous. Until then - wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving.