December 31, 2005
Your New Year’s Resolutions
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1) Get a pet hedgehog
2) Eat less lard
3) Travel to Brazil
4) Study witchcraft
5) Get in shape with stripping classes
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Ok, so that’s not gonna happen. No way am I getting a hedgehog…aren’t they prickly like a porcupine? Here’s at least a partial list of my real resolutions:
1. Diet. As in eating healthier and less of it.
2. Give up caffeine (I’ve got the shakes and a headache just thinking about it).
3. Exercise. Walking and yoga top the list.
4. Find a church.
5. Get my real estate license.
6. Fight less with Daughter.
Well, I’m off to figure out what to take to a party tonight. Shrimp? Hawaiian kielbasa? Hanky Pankies? Peach Cobbler?
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
December 30, 2005
Well, it’s Friday. The next to last day of 2005. Only three more days of vacation (boo!). This week has flown, but it’s been pretty good….except for the 2 times Hubby just had to go to work for a couple of hours. The man is such a workaholic. It drives me nuts…..and worse, it really gets to the kids.
We’ve visited friends and family and eaten way too much. One bunch of friends got us playing the country music version of one of those DVD trivia games. That was fun and dang, if country-music-hating Son didn’t answer more questions than red-necked Daughter. And get them right.
Yesterday we went to the mall for Son to exchange a couple of things that didn’t fit. He came home with gift cards because he didn’t want to stand in the lines again. Daughter used Christmas money to buy much coveted slippers that look like giant pink sneakers and a Fox racing t-shirt. I bought a new calendar (50% off), a new journal and a bottom of the bargain barrel yoga cd.
The cinema is right behind the mall, so we decided to see “Fun with Dick and Jane.” It was pretty good. The “special thanks” at the end (I won’t tell anything in case you see it) were hilarious. My only complaint was with the theater. We paid matinee admission prices but still it was $21 for 4 tickets. Add to that the $23 it cost for 2 large popcorns and 4 medium drinks. That’s $44 for the 4 of us to see a movie. Had we gone at night it would have added another $12-$15 to the admission cost. I’m not a cheapskate and this isn’t a rant about movie prices. It is a rant about service, value and standards of cleanliness. When I’m paying that much for my family to enjoy a movie that I could wait 2 months and rent at the video store for $2, is it too much to expect a clean bathroom? Not even clean, I’d have settled for something less than disgusting where my shoes didn’t have to be pried loose from the floor. I was so scarred by the experience that I couldn’t cook last night so we picked up pizza and rented a couple movies on the way home. The Bad News Bears was funny…just maybe not for the younger crowd. The new version has a lot of cussing and sexual humor.
Today is a work day. Putting up rods for the curtains my mom made Daughter, hauling stuff to the dump, hauling our old sofa and chair over the mountain to it’s new home with Hubby’s sister and maybe, just maybe starting on packing up the Christmas decorations. I normally do that on New Year’s Day, but this year we will be taking Son back to school and I go back to work the 2nd. If I don’t do it now, it will sit for another week…or 2.
December 28, 2005
I know this is a little late being that Christmas is now over and all, but I just got around to reading the Christmas Day edition of the newspaper. Still, I found it interesting and thought I’d share it today in lieu of thinking up anything clever myself.
Christmas Long Has Been About Contrasts
by William McKenzie, editorial columnist for The Dallas Morning News
“Let’s just get this out of the way at the top: Christmas has pagan roots.
All those Christmas trees we bring home have no connection to Matthew or Luke. Same with Yule logs and old Saint Nick, which trace to Old World pagan traditions. The Puritans were so appalled at the season’s rites they didn’t even celebrate Christmas.
You may have heard this before, so excuse me for bringing it up again. But this fact keeps eluding those in contemporary America who see secularism’s attack on Christmas as something akin to a broadside on the very doctrines of the faith.
I’m talking here about the likes of the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Fox News Channel talkers Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson. They’re wrought up about liberals and other fellow travelers taking the “Christ out of Christmas.” They even went after President Bush for his Christ-less “holiday card.”
I understand their point. We shouldn’t ignore the spiritual reason for the season. But they seem to forget the season is not all about purity on Earth. Instead, if offers a wonderful metaphor for Christian living. If you look closely, Christmas is about the sacred and the secular living alongside each other.
Go back to the original stories. We have the babe whom the world so rejects that his parents can’t even find a place to sleep. What more do we need to conk us on the head? Can’t we realize that Christmas has always been about the contrast between the Christ child and the world around him?
When I was a teenager, my brother had a Simon and Garfunkel 8-track tape that wonderfully summed up this duality. I loved to listen to its quiet rendition of “Silent Night,” foiled against accounts about Vietnam, racial strife and the rest of the day’s bad news. Talk about a contrast between sacred and secular.
It remains with us today. Some of us are ready again to kneel at the altar, sing wonderful hymns and weep once more at the mystery of the season. All the while, the sins of the day won’t leave us alone. We have man killing man in the streets, neighbors lusting after each other’s goods and husbands and wives betraying each other.
How can it be?
I bet that’s what drives the crusaders for Christmas wacky. And it will keep making them crazy until they realize that Christmas’ duality is no accident. It is an informative part of the Christian struggle, which is all about living out one’s faith amid a sinful world.
To be fair to the Falwells, O’Reillys and Gibsons, many Christians have missed this point over time, and not just about Christmas. They have wanted their faith to triumph over the larger culture.
The triumphalists, as they are known theologically, want to save society so they, in turn, can save individuals from destruction. The problem is, no amount of society-saving will radically change humans because, well, sin stains us all. And it will until Christ comes again.
At least that’s what Christian theology teaches. So it beats me how today’s triumphalists think they can save us from ruin if they just put Christ back in Christmas or get rid of abortion clinics or get everyone praying in schools.
They’re repeating the mistake liberal church folk made back in the 1930s. Some thought they could pass this New Deal program and that one and, presto, mankind would emerge into a new state of being.
Unfortunately, there’s this little thing called sin.
I’ve always liked those believers who simply want to engage the culture. They’re every bit as worried as the triumphalists about, say, filth on television. But they don’t possess the same instinct to create some new kingdom on Earth.
They live instead with the sense of doing right in a sinful world. Their mission may be simply loving their neighbor as they love God and themselves. It may be acting as a steward of our planet. Or it may be showing compassion for the least among us.
They have a healthier appreciation of our fallen world and seek to change it, not triumph over it.”
Thoughts?
December 27, 2005
I sat here typing until midnight last night to fill you all in on our fabulous Christmas, thus far, only to find today that it never showed up on my blog. Grrr. It’s also not filed anywhere in the nether regions of the blog that only I (and my trusted techie Rachel) have access to. Grrr. I have to start over. GRRR! Trouble is, I don’t feel like typing out a whole long description of the past few days, so here’s a greatly condensed version.
House got cleaned.
Cookies got baked.
Shopping got finished.
Presents got wrapped.
Brothers, sisters and cousins were seen.
Hugs and Merry Christmases all around,
While the sun beat down
Making us shed winter clothes.
Stockings were hung.
Santa down the chiminey came.
Too many presents left under the tree.
Were we this good?
Grandparents arrived,
Bearing gifts like the wise men three.
A feast was consumed.
All groaned, stuffed to the gills.
Belly up on the sectional
(My Christmas present from the Hubster)
The afternoon passed
As we watched Schwartz succumb to the ‘triple dog dare.’
Favorite presents abound.
A television and DVD player for Daughter,
A slick cordless, fingerprint-recognizing keyboard for Son,
Tools and a Lazy-Boy ‘throne’ for Hubby.
Aside from the sectional
(Have I mentioned it before?)
Under the tree for me were
Bo Bice’s new CD, Garth’s boxed set and a vintage Jack Lambert jersey.
Now with Hubby on vacation
‘Till after the New Year
We’re chillin’ and relaxin’
And enjoying what’s left of the year.
December 23, 2005
Ladies and gentlemen, the crush is on. In 27 minutes there will be only 2 days left until Christmas. Hubby and I just got home from doing the last of our shopping, but tomorrow I must take Baby Girl out to finish hers. I must also finish the cleaning and wrapping. Hubby and Son will be driving to the other side of Pittsburgh to pick up my present….a new sectional for the living room. Hubby wanted it to be here for Christmas so we had to fore go delivery.
I don’t anticipate being on line again until after Christmas so to all of you I wish,
THE MERRIEST OF CHRISTMASES SPENT WITH THOSE YOU LOVE AND HOLD DEAR!
December 20, 2005
‘A Strange Way to Save the World’
~by 4Him
I’m sure he must have been surprised
At where this road had taken him
‘Cause never in a million lives
Would he have dreamed of Bethlehem
And standing at the manger
He saw with his own eyes
The message from the angel come to life
And Joseph said…
Why me, I’m just a simple man of trade
Why Him with all the rulers in the world
Why here inside this stable filled with hay
Why her, she’s just an ordinary girl
Now I’m not one to second-guess
What angels have to say
But this is such a strange way to save the world
To think of how it could have been
If Jesus had come as He deserved
There would have been no Bethlehem
No lowly shepherds at His birth
But Joseph knew the reason love had to reach so far
And as he held the Savior in his arms
He must have thought…
Why me, I’m just a simple man of trade
Why Him with all the rulers in the world
Why here inside this stable filled with hay
Why her, she’s just an ordinary girl
Now I’m not one to second-guess
What angels have to say
But this is such a strange way to save the world
Now I’m not one to second-guess
What angels have to say
But this is such a strange way to save the world
Such a strange way to save the world
Such a strange way
A strange way to save the world
This quiz is floating around and I thought it looked kind of fun. Go ahead and do it yourself if you want to, just let me know.
1. Hot chocolate or apple cider? Definitely hot chocolate.
2. Turkey or ham? Gotta be ham for Christmas.
3. Do you get a fake or real-you-cut-it-yourself tree? Fake, but it looks very realistic and I burn pine scented candles. I just got tired of cleaning up pine needles till June.
4. Decorations on the outside of your house? Just wreaths on the windows and doors this year.
5. Snowball fights or sleddin’? Neither. There’s a nice cozy fire or a warm, sandy beach calling my name.
6. Do you enjoy downtown shopping? I don’t know. I haven’t done it since I was a kid.
7. Favorite Christmas song? ‘I Celebrate the Day’ by Relient K.
8. How do you feel about Christmas movies? I confess to a not-so-secret addiction to them. In addition to a whole box full that I own, I watch all the specials on television, too.
9. When is it too early to start listening to Christmas music? Before Thanksgiving.
10. Stockings before or after presents? Before. Keeps the kiddos busy long enough for Dad and I to grab a cuppa and try to wake up.
11. Carolers…do you or do you not watch and listen to them? We’ve never had carolers here.
12. Go to someone else’s house or they come to yours? We don’t go anywhere on Christmas Day. One thing I got from my dad is that kids should be home on Christmas. You never know who might end up here, though.
13. Do you read the Christmas Story? If so, when? We’ve always been so involved in the church that we didn’t really read the story at home since we heard it so many times anyway. This is the first Christmas we don’t have a church so I’m going to try to incorporate it into our celebrations at home. Probably on Christmas Eve.
14. What do you do after presents and dinner? Nap, play games, watch movies, conversation.
15. What is your favorite holiday smell? Pine. We had real trees when I was a kid and ‘Santa’ always brought them after I’d gone to bed on Christmas Eve. I would know Santa had come when I woke up Christmas morning and smelled pine.
16. Ice skating or walking around the mall? I guess I’d have to choose the mall because at least I can’t (as easily) break my ankle there.
17. Do you open a present or presents on Christmas Eve or wait till Christmas Day? We always wait.
18. Favorite Christmas memory? My parents coming to stay with us for our son’s first Christmas and all of us working together to make the stuffing the night before. Even my dad. It was the best stuffing ever.
19. Favorite part of winter? The end.
20. Ever been kissed under mistletoe? Yep. I usually have some hanging in the house.
December 19, 2005
After spending the last two days baking batch after batch of cookies, shopping for the Christmas ham (and all the trimmings), wrapping presents and bopping around the house singing every Christmas carol, hymn and song known to man loudly (and badly)….I have finally found my Christmas spirit!
In honor of the season and my newly acquired festiveness I thought I’d share the lyrics from one of the most beautiful Christmas songs ever. I get goosebumps everytime I hear it. So, here it is, I Celebrate the Day by Relient K. Find it on their Deck the Halls, Bruise Your Hands CD.
“I Celebrate The Day”
And with this Christmas wish is missed
The point I could convey
If only I could find the words to say to let You know how much You’ve touched my life
Because here is where You’re finding me, in the exact same place as New Year’s eve
And from a lack of my persistency
We’re less than half as close as I want to be
And the first time
That You opened Your eyes did You realize that You would be my Savior
And the first breath that left Your lips
Did You know that it would change this world forever
And so this Christmas I’ll compare the things I felt in prior years
To what this midnight made so clear
That You have come to meet me here
To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me
In the hope that what You did
That you were born so I might live
To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me
And I, I celebrate the day
That You were born to die
So I could one day pray for You to save my life
December 17, 2005
Christmas: 9,000,000 Me: 0
Time to make a fourth quarter comeback and even the score.
I will be baking cookies all day today…and probably tomorrow, too.
This is what I get for being a procrastinator.
December 16, 2005
I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas newsletters.
I hate writing them, though sometimes I do. It’s always a struggle to decide what to include, what will be of interest to family and friends, what will cause their eyes to glaze over like a Krispy Kreme donut. What spin should I put on an event? Can I mention that? Will telling it upset anyone? How much is enough? How much is too much? It drives me nuts! Eventually, though, I manage to crank out a pretty good letter if I do say so myself. Printed out in festive red and green they go into the Christmas cards of those chosen ones who rate a homoginized summary of the last year of our family’s life. I was late getting our cards out this year (as in I mailed them yesterday) so I didn’t write a letter. Do you suppose everyone who opens a card from us will be dreadfully disappointed?
On the other side of things are the newsletters we receive from far-flung and seldom seen friends and relatives. For the most part I do like to get these. It’s nice to see pictures of children you’ve never met, see how much they resemble the parents you remember from younger days and read about their accomplishments. Nice, too, to hear what the parents have been up to during the past year. There is one glaring exception to my enjoyment of these letters. There is one letter that arrives each Christmas tucked inside an expensive, embossed card. It comes from my childhood best friend. We were like sisters when we were younger. She was my maid of honor. Now, to be honest, there is nothing wrong with her letters. The problem lies in me. The green-eyed monster that normally slumbers undisturbed in my heart jolts awake with the arrival of this letter each Christmas. My friend is one of those people. One of those beautiful, blessed, golden people that the sun always shines on. Her life has always seemed charmed. She has always been tall, blonde, incredibly gorgeous, smart, funny and very sweet. You know her kind. They are the cheerleaders, student council presidents, homecoming and prom queens. I’m not with out my own gifts but as a curvy, brunette of average height, with more than a smattering of freckles I always felt like the unglamorous, ugly stepsister next to her. So it isn’t that I begrudge her anything, it’s just that her life makes me feel like mine is lacking some how. This year alone her letter contained the following:
1. Husband is now a V.P. of marketing for a major pharmaceutical company and travels internationally.
2. Inspite of high pressure career, husband makes time for family in the form of several vacations a year.
3. Her Human Resources consulting business is going gangbusters.
4. She leads a group at church, started a bible study group in her neighborhood and leads the neighborhood women’s association.
5. They bought a second home on a lake and are looking at boats.
6. As mentioned, they went on several vacations….all near water.
7. Youngest daughter who has a disease, which can be life-threatening, has responded to treatment and is a whiz kid at 3.
8. All 4 children are beautiful, extremely talented, athletically gifted and involved in activities up to the eyeballs, which they fit in between accepting acclaim and awards.
Do you see what I mean? I don’t wish my friend had a crappy life or anything. She really is a beautiful person in all the ways that count, but every year when I get her letter I can’t help but feel like the ugly stepsister again. Hubby says not to let it bother me, to remember that most people make their Christmas letters sound better than their lives really are. Maybe, but not this friend. She is the real deal, so beautiful and nice it hurts and I feel even crappier for feeling the way I do.
