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A while back I posted about Extreme Makeover Home Edition coming to town. I went to watch filming on the final day and ended up finding a way to help.
I just thought I would let you know that this Sunday, January 3, 2010, is when that edition will be shown.
Catch it if you have the chance. Check your local listings.
This isn’t a commercial for the TV show as much as it is a commercial for finding ways to make a difference in the world.
It’s good to be home! I really enjoyed my Christmas in Smalltownville and I visit my mother about once a month when the weather is good for making the drive, but it felt good to pull into my own garage.
Goodnight got into her jammies right away even though it was late afternoon. But home is home and I don’t care. I sat down to knit. I had already finished the blue/green baby sweater and was well into a pink one.
It was kind of quiet after our fun holiday.
I asked Goodnight if she wanted to hear another tape of her mother. She said she was ready.
This one isn’t sad either.
Goodnight’s mother got her first job when she was nine years old. She talked on the radio for 90 seconds once a week. She told listeners about summer in the life of a nine-year-old.
It was all her doing. She wrote to the radio station and asked if they needed any help while one of the on-air guys was going to be away. What she didn’t realize was that he wasn’t really going anywhere. He did character voices and one of the characters was going to be ‘gone’ for the summer. Anyway, she wrote the letter and mailed it.
It was at a public radio station. She spelled ‘public’ wrong on the envelope and that was the only correction I asked her to make. If you think about it . . . . . you’ll figure out what she had spelled instead of public. If you don’t get it, think Christmas. Think NO-EL, then look at public again.
About two weeks later, the phone rang after she was already in bed. It was on of the guys on the radio asking to speak with her. She hadn’t fallen asleep yet, so she took the phone call. They made arrangements about her job and when he would call and do the phone interview recordings. She was to simply talk about something fun she did on summer vacation.
She started out rather shyly in the early interviews, but she found her groove after a few weeks.
What Goodnight heard on my tape was the recordings I made from the radio when her spot aired. Goodnight loved hearing her mother’s voice as a young child.
It was more time for laughter as my daughter talked about having a friend over to play and then getting into a little fight. The interviewer asked her if she and her friend had hit each other. My daughter said quietly, “Well . . . but only when we were fighting.”
Then there was a story about a bike trip we took to the lake. Goodnight’s mom went on about how tough the bike ride was, how hot it was, how tired she was, etc. Then the interviewer said, “But when you finally got to the lake you could go swimming.” My daughter said, “Well, no not really. When we got there they were dragging the lake so we had to sit on the sand.” He laughed out loud, stopped the tape, and started the interview over to avoid that ‘dragging the lake’ part.
(FYI – the child they thought had drowned had actually gone home without telling anyone.)
It was a very good thing that the interviews were pre-recorded so some judicious editing could take place.
I don’t know how many stories there are on that tape. She did it once a week for the summer, so that math is easy, but they loved it so much that they invited her back for some 4th grade updates. The last one was the day before Christmas.
The interviewer asked her to imagine that he was an alien from another planet and she was to describe to him how to celebrate Christmas. She told him the first thing he needed to do was get a job so he would have money to buy gifts. Then he asked her what he was supposed to eat. She said, “Well, if you spent all your money on gifts, then I guess you have to eat leftover turkey from Thanksgiving.”
I had to stop the tape until Goodnight and I stopped laughing at that one. I guess we must have had leftover turkey that year. Sigh!
Then Goodnight’s mother told the guy that he needed to send Christmas cards in a rocket back to his planet.
Goodnight’s mom loved math and science and hated spelling – just like Goodnight.
I don’t listen to the tape very often – haven’t in a long time. Her voice and her stories are in my heart. But Goodnight needs to know them too.
When my daughter passed away, I called the radio station and spoke to the guy who had done all the on-air interviews with her. He was still on the air. I told him when her funeral was in case he wanted to be there.
He came. And what he had done so quickly between the day I phoned him and the day of the funeral was to go into the station’s library, find the old interviews and burn a CD of them. It’s was a very touching gift to receive. I’ve always worried about the life of the cassette tape, and because of his kindness, I have the back-up.
Listening to the tapes has been good for Goodnight. This has been the most difficult year for her since her mother’s death. The tapes give her some history that she feels is lost. They give her laughter about her mother without guilt. They give her opportunities to ask questions that she wouldn’t know she wanted the answers to. And she gets to find out how much she is like her mother without her mother’s physical presence.
The stories of the postcards from a long ago trip to Chicago, making potato chips from scratch, catching caterpillars in a canning jar, collecting clam shells from the river all came alive again last night. Why not!!! We look back at this time of year, don’t we?
Today, though – a New Year’s Eve party at the community center swimming pool. They call it a flotation party because they get out all the blow-up stuff they own and allow it in the pool. Most of the time it’s not allowed because it’s a nightmare for the lifeguards to see under and around all the flotation devices.
But today . . . we are going to float in the New Year! Or at least splash it in!
HAPPY – I hope there is more ’happy’ for you than anything else.
NEW – We get to start afresh!
YEAR – 365 days to make the world a better place.
Well . . . Christmas in Smalltownville is nearly over.
For our last evening, I put together a slide show of the Christmas season 2009 photos that I have taken thus far. I’m old enough to remember the old-fashioned slide projector. You know the one: where it’s just as easy to get a photo up-side-down as it is right-side up. My dad used to hang a white bed sheet on the wall of our dining room and aim the projector in that direction. The pictures of the family looked larger than life. Remember? Well, I still love the notion of the family gathering around and enjoying memories together. That’s what Goodnight, Gram and Greatgram did.
I saved that slideshow on a flash drive, then at the same time I ran the slideshow in a loop from the flash, I put in a Christmas CD and we could listen to a lovely instrumental background while we watched the slidewshow. It was fun.
After that was over, I pulled out an old cassette tape that Goodnight’s mother had made for me when she was younger than Goodnight. She had received a little portable cassette player/recorder. I showed her how to use it and she went into her bedroom and sang into the recorder for quite some time. When she was finished, she came out of her room and gave me the tape.
She sang Christmas carols. She had to be about 7 or 8 years old. She sang as many songs as she could think of. She wasn’t reading the lyrics so it was all from memory.
Now before you think the was a sad moment for Goodnight, Greatgram and me . . . is wasn’t. It was touching, yes, but very, very funny.
When Goodnight’s mother didn’t know a word or the next phrase, she made stuff up and kept going. We laughed together as we listened. I’ve played it before, but not for Goodnight. She was willing to listen to it until this year.
Goodnight’s mother must have thought the three kings came from a place called Orient-ah, because that’s how she sang it. “We three kings, from Orinet-ah.” Makes sense, but we laughed so hard we had to replay it. . . . several times.
That one will be good for when I play “Bet I can Make You Pee” with Goodnight. (You thought I was a sweet gram, didn’t you?)
She sang some songs twice because she couldn’t remember she had sung them earlier on the tape, but the words were different the second time around.
Near the end of the tape it was easy to tell that she was getting tired. Not sleepy, but tired from the recording session. The last song is completely made up and it’s my favorite. Something about “We have to thank Joseph, too.”
It was a good way to end our ‘gray-cation.’
So . . . fa la la la lah, or hallelujah, or “We have to thank Joseph, too”, may you have a song of joy in your hearts, someone to sing them with, and memories enough to quiet the storms. Christmas in Smalltownville has come to a close. My red Chevro-sleigh is packed and I have to get on the road. Guess what? It’s snowing . . . . . . again.
I’m just wondering if that’s what Goodnight will call her Christmas holiday spent with her Gram and Greatgram. . . . a graycation? As my mother would say, “So be it.”
Mom and I are early birds. And boy do I mean early! Getting up for the day can happen any time between 3:30 a.m. and 6:00a.m. The early side of those for me and the later side for her, but nevertheless, it’s still early.
I wish I had taken a picture of it, but I didn’t even think of it until now. My mother left me a note on the toilet set cover the other night. She wanted me to check the time before I used the facilities because of the water softener schedule. She forgot to remind me before we called it a night, so she left me a note: “Please don’t use the toilet between 2:00 and 3:30. The water softener will run and I’m not exactly sure when it starts, but it will run for about 45 minutes.”
The next day, you know what Mom apologized for about the note? She apologized for not saying “hello” or something like that. How come I didn’t turn out more like her???? She’s so sweet.
Our early mornings have been for playing cards. Mom and I like to play Cribbage – other things too, but I try to keep her in Cribbage so she still has to do the math.
One of her stocking stuffers from Santa was a card holder that Santa picked up at a craft sale a while back. And actually, Santa bought one for his/her own stocking too. ;-]
They are WONDERFUL for holding a lot of cards, especially if one has arthritis in the hands. They probably aren’t necessary for Cribbage, because one only plays with four cards after discarding to the crib, but Canasta is another story entirely. I end up with a mitt full that’s no longer difficult to manage, thanks to the card holders.
Huh . . . . Goodnight didn’t get one in her stocking. Bummer!
So we’ve been playing a lot of cards and just chatting the early morning hours away. We don’t dare start the coffee perking until it’s close to the time Goodnight should get up, because the smell would wake her.
We play Scattergories too. Goodnight likes that game. But we never leave well enough alone with that game. We’ve made up our own Christmas categories to play with. We did that for Easter, too. Fun!
We’ve been doing a lot of bird watching. I haven’t blogged about this yet, but one of the reasons I married Officer Friendly was because he knew a lot about birds and I didn’t. It was a promise I made to myself as a child, to learn about birds when I got older. At the time, ‘got older’ was just a vague notion, but the promise wasn’t.
But back to the bird-watching. I had to keep banging the snow off Mom’s feeder while it snowed. The birds were ravenous!! She gets a fun mix of birds at her feeder, so we didn’t want them to be without seeds.
I took this shot through the window, so you can see the screen. Mom gets four pairs of cardinals and while I was watching, I spotted a young cardinal, too. So I called Mom for the show. Fun! Then I spotted a white-breasted nuthatch on one of the pines in the yard, but too far away to take a picture. I showed that one to Mom, too. I’m not sure she knew what that one was. And darned if there wasn’t a wee nuthatch, too!
I ran to the grocery store for some milk for Goodnight and in the checkout line in front of me was the electrician. He was quite a few years ahead of me in school, but he at least recognizes me when he sees me. I thanked him for always taking such good care of my mother when she needs something.
He just said, “She’s a good woman.”
I know that, but what’s important is that there are other people who will do right by her in her home. I’m grateful for the folks in Smalltownville who do right by the folks who raised them, taught them in school, taught them how to swim, sold them their bakery, delivered their mail, etc. Seniors need to feel safe and Smalltownville has been good to my mother.
So my hats off to Smalltownville for that!
Poor Goodnight! Her Greatgram and her Gram get up so early, that we find ourselves a little short of energy at the other end of the day. Great falls asleep in the chair and I struggle to stay awake until Goodnight heads to bed.
Although, last night, I must admit to a very late night of file management on my computer. I save EVERYTHING on a flash drive and virtually nothing on the hard drive. I’ve been taking a lot of pictures and I wanted to organize my files.
This lead to a pleasant techno-discovery. I’ll share in case you aren’t aware of it, but if I’m the LAST person on the planet to know this . . . be kind, ok?
I sorted Christmas 2009 photos into their own folder. And then some photos of Goodnight in 5th grade into another folder.
When I got everything sorted, I opened the Christmas 2009 folder and because it only held photos, I discovered I could run only those photos as a slide show and not ALL the photos I had on my flash drive. Huh!! Pretty cool. So, that’s what kept me up so late. I was sorting my photos into folders that would make sense for their own separate slideshows by folder.
Then I must admit to running the Christmas 2009 slideshow while I knit for a while. I knit an entire baby sweater yesterday, and am nearly done with another today.
The blue and white sweater is the piece I had on the lighted knitting needles when I took the picture! The baby sweater I’m working on now is navy blue and bright green.
I plan to knit like a crazy woman this week. The church I go to is collecting baby things on Sunday – in honor of the Feast of the Kings. So I want to get as much baby knitting done as possible to pack up for Sunday.
A Gray-cation for Goodnight with her Gram and Greatgram? Cards, Dominoes, Smalltownville? Maybe, but at least it’s people who love each other, speak respectfully to each other and are content to eat lunch with their winter boots on because we have to go back out and shovel some more later.
I feel like I spend more time IN my boots than out of them, but at least the snow has stopped and it’s just cold now. The shoveling is done for this Christmas storm and . . . . . I need to think about getting home.
I must admit, I love being at home with my mother for the holiday – snow and all.
We shoveled twice on Christmas Eve Day. The news kept saying there would be four waves to the storm. We knew we wouldn’t be able to shovel it all if we waited until the end. So we got to work on Thursday morning. Before I lifted the first shovel full, I stuck a 12-inch ruler in to see where we were at. I almost lost the ruler!
On Christmas Eve, my mother, Goodnight, and I went to church. It’s the church I attended as a child and later was the organist for nine years.
It looked like most churches this time of year, I suppose: families gathered together, Nativity scene someplace visible, poinsettias everywhere, lots of candles burning, children too excited to sit still, and Baby Jesus crying. Yup! Baby Jesus was crying.
We decided to go to the early service – more geared toward the children. And the young school children were waiting to act out part of Luke’s gospel. And they had a real infant for the Mother Mary to hold – and Baby Jesus was crying . . . but not for long.
A group of children took turns reading and at the appropriate times, the children dressed as Mary, Joseph, the angels, the shepherds, the Wise Men, the camel all took their places. One of the tykes reading couldn’t pronounce a word. He tried. “P . . . P. . . P . . . ” until finally the child behind him stepped up to help, whispered the word in his ear and then he could keep going. “Prophecy.” It was all very sweet.
Going to church in my home town is the best way to see folks that I might know. Some of my high school classmates are still in town. Glen’s daughter was at the service. Glen’s they guy who sang to me in the grocery store earlier in the day.
After the service, we made our way to the parking lot, where I promptly fell flat out on a splotch of ice. Wow! Those things still happen so quickly, don’t they? I must admit that hurt!!!
I limped to the car and we made it to my mother’s house. We crashed in the living room, played some quiet music and opened gifts.
My sister and I both loved that angel of Mom’s so much that we both have one too. I found mine at an antique store one year. I stumbled onto it by complete surprise. I was so thrilled. I hadn’t actually been looking for it, but I’m glad I found it. When I told my sister about it, she asked me to help her find one, too. So I did. That took a little more work. Mine didn’t come in the original box, but Mom had hers, so she told me the information on the box and I checked eBay. Yah. I did eBay. That’s the only time I bought anything on there. It came in good condition, but the one I had was better, so I sent mine to my sister and kept the one that wasn’t quite as nice. Shhhhh . . . don’t tell her.
The angel is plastic – just what they could afford when Mom and Dad were looking for something to top the tree, Mom said. But it’s actually kind of pretty and my sis and I were fond enough of the memory to want one, too. Darned if I didn’t run into one more angel at another antique store a couple of years later. I know where to go if I need anther one.
Mother’s Christmas Cactus bloomed on time!
Mom dressed up the table – even though it was just the three of us. I always tell her not to fuss, but truth be told, I fuss for her, too. It was lovely.
I already told you the stories we told at the table.
After the Christmas dinner dishes were washed, I took Goodnight for another walk around my home town.
The playground was COVERED with snow, but that didn’t stop Goodnight. She cleaned off the slide by going down it!
We hit Main Street again so I could take some photos. The snow plow always leaves a pile in the middle of the street and the pile runs the length of Main. It looks like a mountain to a kid. Goodnight walked the length while I took pictures.
My home town has a Czech heritage. They have gotten better at appreciating it. I worried about that because the folks who spoke Czech there were already getting old at the time I left for college. But they have a heritage center now and they are working to keep people educated about the history of the town. ‘Pokoj’ means ‘Peace’ as it’s used here. And ‘Radost’ means ‘Joy’.
When we got back to my mother’s house from our walk, Goodnight made a snowlady. The snowfall on Christmas Eve day was not sticky, but the snowfall on Christmas day was!
There was a lot more snow to shovel, so I got to it. Goodnight helped, but I took this photo during one of her breaks.
All the fresh air and hard work makes for great sleeping and early lights out . . . . sort of.
Ha! I came prepared. Now I am an adult, an old enough one at that, and I can go to bed when I want to and stay up as late as I want to, but I brought my lighted knitting needles so I can knit in virtual darkness and still get quite a bit accomplished. So while everyone else is sleeping, I’ve been knitting for a while.
These lighted needles are great. I take them with me to movie theaters and knit through the previews. I’m polite and turn them off during the feature. Plus . . . I take them in the car with me when I go to work because there are a few intersections that have very long red lights, so I knit. I remember one time I was the first car at the light and was having so much fun knitting that I forgot to watch the light. But, hey, thanks toall of you who honked me out of my knit-induced stupor!
I’ll show you what’s was on the needles when I finish it. ;-]
Promise not to cry . . . . . . .
I’ve been spending Christmas with my mother in my hometown. During our Christmas dinner, my mother asked Goodnight what her favorite Christmas memory was.
Goodnight said, “This Christmas. It’s the best!” (Bless that child again. She made my mother happy.)
Then I passed the turkey to my mother and asked her the same question, “Do you have a favorite Christmas memory, mother?”
She did. She told Goodnight and me about her family custom of not being able to see the Christmas tree until Christmas eve. The door would be closed to the room where the tree had only just been decorated. Then her father would open the doors and sing “Silent Night” in German, “Stille Nacht”. Her father was a shy man, but on Christmas eve he sang for his wife and children.
Then mother asked me if I had a favorite Christmas memory.
I do . . . Officer Friendly’s last Christmas.
OF was my hubby of only four years. It was a late second marriage for both of us and by the time this story takes place, Goodnight had already lost her mother and was living with us.
We were some trio! OF looked old enough to be my father, and everyone thought that Goodnight was my own child.
OF had been sick for a time. He had diabetes, a bad heart and knew that the males in his family didn’t live into their 70′s. By Christmas of 2005, OF had been in the hospital and then bed-bound because his kidneys were failing.
He slept some during the day, but mostly rested. Goodnight and I ate our meals in the bedroom with him, but on Christmas Day, OF told me he wanted to spend the day downstairs with us.
It was no small feat getting a 6’5″, woozy guy with a catheter in him down the stairs to the living room, but we did it. He watched TV while I puttered in the kitchen.
I had made a crown roast – yup! – with those paper things around each rib to boot. OF rolled his walker to the table and we enjoyed our dinner together.
After dinner, OF rolled his walker back to the living room and was going to catch up on his reading. He loved to read and Goodnight had spent her Christmas money on a book for him.
Goodnight had gotten a keyboard for Christmas from Santa, and she wanted to bang on it and make some noise. Who could blame her? The house was pretty quiet with a sick retired cop and a worried gram.
But I cleared the table and told her that I would set her keyboard up on the table and play Christmas carols if she sang with me. I told her that we’d have to sing quietly so OF could read and not become too tired. Goodnight agreed, and so we began to sing.
We took turns picking songs and we just sang.
Pretty soon . . . . . OF appeared at the table. He had put down his reading and rolled his walker to the table.
“Would you mind if I joined you?”
“Not at all dear. Were we too loud?”
“No. Would you mind if I sang with you?”
“Not at all, dear. What would you like to sing?”
I handed OF the book so he could choose a Christmas song.
That’s how it went for over an hour – the three of us: Officer Friendly, Goodnight, and me, singing Christmas carols at the dining room table with Goodnight’s little keyboard accompanying us. Silent Night, Angels We Have Heard On High, The First Noel, Away in a Manger . . . and on it went.
It was beautiful. He hadn’t been well enough to go to church for Christmas, and I decided that my place was to stay with him. The gift he gave me by singing with us at the table lives on in my heart.
OF died less than one month later, but the gaping hole at our table is softened somewhat by the echoes of the hymns he sang with us that year.
I asked you not to cry, but if you did, remember how this post began . . . my mother asked me for my FAVORITE Christmas memory. It’s my favorite for so many reasons, but like Goodnight’s snow angel to her dead mother, OF gave the gift of himself to us that Christmas. Thank you, dear!
I took Goodnight for a walk around my home town on Christmas Eve Day. When I was living there the population was 3280. Pretty small! Needless to say our walk wasn’t going to cover a lot of miles.
We started at one end of town where my mother’s house is and walked past the building where I went to high school. I showed Goodnight where her great-grandfather, my dad, taught chemistry. They will be tearing down that old wing this spring.
We walked past the cement place. I didn’t tell Goodnight that we always climbed the gravel pile on our way to school. Not a safe thing to do, but we didn’t know that at the time. Luckily, no one ever sank in so far that they couldn’t get out!
We walked past the place where the old train depot used to be. The train came through town at 12:00 noon every day. You could set your watch by it! I told her how the mail used to be caught on the fly.
When we got to main street, we walked to the bakery to buy two dozen Czechoslovakian buns. I’m not Czech, but I grew up with that culture, and seldom make a trip home without stopping at the bakery. The man who owned the bakery died last week. He was 90 years old and had worked in the bakery since high school. His widow wasn’t in the bakery on Christmas Eve day, but his employees were there selling the traditional buns. Goodnight loves to eat them as much as I do.
We past the flower shop – closed early for the holidays because so much snow had fallen that no flowers could be delivered.
When we got to the end of Main Street, we called Great-grandma (my mother) and asked her if she needed anything from the grocery store. She said no, but Goodnight and I went in anyway. It was a good place to warm up from our walk, before we took the last leg home.
Just inside the door of the store is a little area set with a few small tables and some chairs. That’s mostly where the old folks gather for their morning coffee. When I looked in the corner, I saw an old man that I knew.
“Glen?”
“Yup! That’s me!”
“Hi Glen! Merry Christmas. I’m Hank’s oldest girl. How are you?” I shook Glen’s hand.
“Boy do we miss Hank.” Glen’s face got quiet and he looked down.
“Yes, we miss him too. How’s your wife doing?”
Glen’s wife is still in the nursing home where my dad passed away. She’s been in the dementia unit since 1988. I sat down to chat with Glen and he told me that his wife never recovered from the loss of one of their children. Boy can I relate! It takes a firm decision everyday not to go there myself.
I asked Glen if he still sang in the church choir. He does. He was in the choir when I was the organist for nine years. He still has a beautiful voice. His daughter is my age and we were in school together from Kindergarten through high school.
After a long chat, it was time for me to go. I stood up, offered my hand to Glen and wished him a Merry Christmas. He said, “You too.” He continued to hold my hand and right then and there he sang to me in the grocery store.
He started softly, but soon his strong baritone voice got the better of him and he belted it out for anyone to hear. I sang with him – right there where the canned fruit was on sale. Goodnight thought it was a little weird, but she held her tongue (bless her). I thought it was absolutely perfect!!!
Glen is Irish, so the song he chose was no surprise to me.
| “May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of His hand.” |
Just perfect! 
I took a walk on my lunch break today. I went to the cathedral to see the outdoor Nativity. But I went inside first. They have a creche set up in there, too.
When I opened the first door, I could already hear the music. The organist was practicing for Christmas. It was lovely!!
At one time, I worked as a church organist, so I appreciate the time that one puts in before the big church holidays. But this was extraordinarily beautiful. But I don’t mean showy.
When organists practice, they often repeat or hold chords for a long time while they decide what stops/settings they want the pipes to sound like. This is what was going on when I made my lunchtime visit.
The organist was practicing ‘Silent Night’. It was so peaceful in the church and the notes were long and low – not the pedals, but the left hand chords. Ohhh! I could have stayed all afternoon to listen.
But . . . I didn’t. I really walked over there because I wanted to take some photos and see if I could put something together for my blog. Here’s what I came up with. The photos are all from my cathedral walk, (sorry about the chicken wire – they had to do that to protect the pieces from being vandalized) and the text is from Luke’s gospel.
And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth
to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David,
to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.
The angel of the Lord appeared to them
and the glory of the Lord shone around them,
and they were struck with great fear.
The angel said to them,
“Do not be afraid;
for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy
that will be for all the people.
For today in the city of David
a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.
And this will be a sign for you:
you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes
and lying in a manger.”
Merry Christmas!
Well, I’ve gotten down to the end of the Sister-quip Advent Calendar puzzles for my sister. I posted the remaining puzzles yesterday. My sis still only gets one per day via text message. But I wanted to catch up online before the holiday.
So here are the solutions to the puzzles that I posted yesterday.
December 21: Name that Tune.
“Oh Sister” by Bob Dylan
“Little Sister” by Elvis Presley
“Sister Christian” by Nightranger
December 22: From the hymn book
“He’s got you and me sister, in His hands.
He’s got the whole world in His hands.”
December 23: Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem Love’s Philosophy
No sister-flower would be forgiven if it disdain’d its brother.
December 24: Quote by Denzel Washington
When I was a child, I thought I saw and angel.
It had wings and kinda looked like my older* sister.
*I added the word ‘older’ for my lil sis’ puzzle ‘cuz I’m the older sister. Sorry Denzel.
December 25: The sister-quip scarf itself – has a quote from Charlie Brown by Charles Schultz.
Big sisters are the crab grass in the lawn of life!
I just thought I would share the result of my Christmas card-making attempt for this year. I brought it up in my blog last week when I was stuck with only a partial silhouette of Goodnight. But . . . . . I think it worked! What do you think?
I moved the silhouette to the left of the card, covered the straight edges of the shadow with ribbon and added a holiday scrapbooking sticker.
‘Twas fun, but frankly, knitting the table runner behind the cards in the photo is more my speed.
A RECIPE TO SHARE
When my husband passed away, I didn’t clean out his desk right away. There was too much else to do, and there wasn’t a pressing need.
When he was alive, I never touched his desk. I never snooped. I never used it. It was his dad’s and I know how things like that are for sons.
But when I finally got around to cleaning it up, I found some wonderful treasures – several recipes (which I thought was sweet, but he never showed them to me, so they never got made.)
Officer Friendly read Guidposts Daily Devotional. He had been doing that for years before I met him. I went through all of them and you know, there was a recipe in one of them. They put it close to Christmas in the devotional, for people who were into their holiday preparations.
What a wonderful idea! To have to hunt through scripture at this time of year! A scavenger hunt back through time.
I make the cake once a year. I never write down the ingredients because it forces me to go back to the Bible and look up all the verses each time.
And it’s a good cake!
Scripture Cake
(from Daily Guideposts, December 18, 1982)
1 Cup Judges 5:25 (last clause)
2 Cups Jeremiah 6:20 (sugar)
2 Cups I Samuel 30:12
1 Cup Numbers 17:8
1 Cup Judges 4:19 (last clause)
2 Cups Nahum 3:12 may be added if desired
2 Tablespoons I Samuel 14:25
Season to taste, II Chronicles 9:9
6 Jeremiah 17:11
Pinch of Leviticus 2:13
4 ½ Cups I Kings 4:22
2 Tablespoons Amos 4:5 (baking soda)
Follow Solomon’s prescription for making a good boy (Proverbs 23:14, first clause), and make a good cake. Bake in a tube pan in a moderate Lamentations 5:10 for approximately Matthew 27:9 minutes.
When thou hast eaten and thou art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God.
Deuteronomy 8:10
Memories . . .
The sweetest Christmas gift I’ve ever known
Wasn’t even meant for me.
It wasn’t bought. It wasn’t wrapped.
Nor waiting ’neath my tree.
But fondly still, I do recall
The place, the day, the tears,
When I observed a gift of love
To cherish all my years.
Goodnight and I were there alone -
One snowy Christmas Eve.
The flowers laid beside a grave,
She didn’t want to leave.
I really couldn’t blame her.
Her mother’s death a sting!
Goodnight said, “We can’t go yet.”
I haven’t given mom a thing!”
I said my prayers, then had to urge,
“Goodnight, it’s time to go.”
Right then and there she made her mom,
An angel in the snow.
It always makes me teary-eyed,
But gives my heart a lift.
Goodnight and Brodsky* got it right!
Don’t forget! You are the gift.
*Joseph Brodsky won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Beginning in 1962, he tried to write a poem every year for Christmas. The collection has been published under the title Nativity Poems. On January 1, 1965 he wrote one and the last line came to mind when Goodnight made her snow angel for her mother: “And suddenly you’ll realize that you yourself are the gift.”
