Building Memories

Here's the Christmas-card-worthy version of gingerbread house building. 

 

And here's how it was behind the scenes! (Don't worry. No one but Brooke will eat her gingerbread house!)

Somehow, they didn't turn out quite like the cover on the box. However, we were building memories - not picture-perfect cottages.

My logic for purchasing that particular brand was the advertised "link and lock" building feature. Any help with construction is a bonus, so Mommy and Daddy helped put them together the first night to give the "mortar" plenty of time to set up. Then our interior (well ... more accurately, exterior) decorators completed the project the next morning.

While there were some candies in the box, we supplemented with sugar snowflakes I purchased separately, along with Jill's stash of sprinkles and a few packages of Halloween treats.

Sometimes, you have to hold your mouth just right to get everything in place.

They may not have been ready for their closeup when it comes to perfectly-appointed snow drips and strategically-placed candies to entice buyers on a store shelf. 

 

But that's what made them special, don't you think?

 

Perfection is overrated (or so I hear).

 = 

Kinley was ready for a close-up of each side of her creation. (She had the same request after last year's build.)

I've been watching the Holiday Gingerbread competition on Food Network this month. I don't think we're quite ready for that. But the girls were happy. And that made this Grandma happy.

 

House construction wasn't our only building project.

 

Kinley and Brooke also made several Christmas ornaments. Their tree got some additional bling and I brought some home for mine, too.

Kudos to Hobby Lobby kits! We put together ornaments and stockings. The girls will share the extras with their cousins when they come for Christmas.

 

We also made a couple of gifts for their mommy and daddy. But we can't be giving any previews of those. Secrets are part of Christmas, you know! (We'll see whether Brooke can keep from sharing before Christmas morning.)

 

The day ended with Frozen Junior, a musical at Topeka Civic Theater.

It was the perfect length for young audience members, even though Kinley did say they left out some key elements of the movie version. And I got a scene-by-scene synopsis of Frozen 2 on the way back to their house. Eric says I won't have to see the actual movie.

As they used to say in the newspaper society columns, "A good time was had by all" (including their parents who got away for the day for Christmas shopping and time with friends).

Splicing Life Together

Life's just a perpetual piecing together

 of broken bits.

Author Edith Wharton

The spliced electric fence caught my eye as we were building fence.

I thought about how that fence could be a metaphor for living life. Things break. Relationships break. But we build fences between people. We splice together relationships. We find a way to fuse the old and the new.

As Randy and I worked on the fencing project, he talked about doing the job with his dad. Those miles of wire we have stored on spools are reused until they are too rusty to splice. So for several years after Melvin's death, Randy would come across splices in the electric fence wire that had been put together by his dad. Melvin had his own way to twist the wire together that made his style distinct from Randy's handiwork. As a left-handed helper, I have my own signature style, too.

 

Those splices in the fence represent a place that was broken. But when the wire is wound together in splicing, it can create something stronger than the original version.

We seem to find those connections that bind us together - whether it's family or church family or friends. At church, I typically sit near a family with three elementary-aged kids. Our prayer hymn this past Sunday was "Jesus Loves Me."

From a couple of rows behind, I heard the crystal-clear voice of a little singer belting out every word. And I again thought about the things that tie us together.

Photos from a church Christmas program back in the 1990s

That little singer's Mommy was in my Joyful Noise choir with my kids at church years ago, and I taught her those same words. Now she's teaching those words to her own kids and other children at church. More years ago than I like to admit, when I was a little girl, my own mom led the group singing in the basement of the Byers United Methodist Church. Her mama had taught her the words years before. And the legacy winds its way backwards and forwards, connecting us all.

A poster on the wall in the Byers UMC nursery

Sanctuary, Byers UMC, Photo taken June 2011

The same sense of connection strikes me every week as I hear those children recite The Lord's Prayer, word for word, just like Christ followers for generation after generation.
Sunday afternoon, as I decorated the Christmas tree, the connections felt more secure than some of the ornament hangers.

The oldest ornament on my tree is one my Grandma Leonard made when I was a little girl. This little choir boy has lost his hanger thread and he seems to have a permanent crick in his neck, but I always nestle him among the branches in a prominent place so I can see him and remember my grandparents.

I have more ornaments than space to hang them these days. But I made room for another special little angel, too. My late mother-in-law made it one year. The little angel might be having a bad hair day, but she's still beautiful to me. Even though Marie never had the opportunity to meet her great-granddaughters, Kinley and Brooke will sit under a tree decorated with some ornaments hand-fashioned with her crafty skills long ago and look at wonder at the nativity set she made in a long-ago ceramics class.

My house doesn't look like the ones on HGTV. And that's OK. I'd rather have the memories than perfectly matched holiday finery. It's these little bits and pieces that help us to splice together the memories of holidays past and strengthen these present days - kind of like links in a paper chain wrapped around a Christmas tree.

This interconnection in life has been a recurrent theme in my world in the past few weeks. Just yesterday, these words were in the epilogue of a book I'd been enjoying: 

There is a river that runs through time and universe, vast and inexplicable, a flow of spirit that is at the heart of all existence, and every molecule of our being is part of it. And what is God but the whole of that river?

From This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

It's those things that splice our lives together ... and make us strong for our journey.

P.S.: I recommend the book. I also recommend Krueger's Ordinary Grace.

Lessons from a Christmas Tree

I saw this cute graphic on my friend, Linda's, Facebook page. I think those are all good things to remember during this busy holiday season. But I've learned some additional lessons from my Christmas tree this year, too.

In the olden days, we'd chop down a tree from a St. John tree farm. I loved the whole process.

Christmas 1990

We'd wander the trails at the tree farm and do a Goldilocks search for one that was "just right."

The smell of pine would permeate the crisp, winter day.

Christmas 1995

The tree farm folks would shake and wrap the tree while we went inside the store to drink hot spiced cider and crack open a few peanuts. Putting up the tree in the living room was the prelude to Christmas and all its sights and smells.

Christmas 1990

OK, so maybe I'm waxing nostalgic and forgetting the pine sap, the prickly needles all over the carpet and the spilled water. Just this morning on the news, I heard that live trees can bring an infestation of aphids into the house. We had enough aphids in our milo fields, thank you very much! And maybe I've forgotten squeezing two kids into the center seat belt of the pickup for our 25-mile excursion to the Christmas tree farm.

By the time the kids got into high school, I was the only one who still cherished the tradition. So, now we have a pre-lit tree. Let me clarify. It's supposed to be pre-lit. But this year, only about a third of the lights came on when we plugged it in.

"Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!" was not Randy's first thought. Some traditions never change. These days his only job is to help schlep the plastic tubs of decorations up from downstairs and get the tree set up. This year, he had to add lighting back into his holiday schedule. He added two more strings to the tree and we called it good.

I think some additional lights flickered out after we did the light positioning - or so it appears when I examine the photos I took.  They seem congregated around the middle, kind of like Santa's jolly belly.

It was not the only light fatality. The evergreen swag I use over the grandfather clock also didn't light. Another extra strand of lights fixed that problem.

I can't even find my miniature Christmas tree. Did it quit working last year and I tossed it? Did I think I'd remember to replace it before this holiday season? Well, if that's what I thought, I clearly was mistaken.

I think I need to actually read one of the books that I use to decorate my mantle, "Why Christmas Trees Aren't Perfect." It was given to the kids by our minister and dear friend, Cheryl, long ago.

No Christmas trees aren't perfect. Neither are Christmas decorations (unless they are on those fancy schmantzy HGTV shows).

But you know what? The Savior of the world was cradled in a smelly manger. So if my Christmas tree lights aren't placed with algebraic precision, I think it's going to be OK.

As I pull the ornaments from the boxes, it's a trip down memory lane. The elf my Grandma Leonard made when I was a little girl lost its hanger long ago, so I nestle it in the tree branches.

One of my newer ornaments was made by our former pastor Amy, who used stain glass to resemble the ceiling panels at our church.

My favorites are the photo ornaments which capture moments in time.

Other decorations remind me of my crafty mother-in-law. Marie added to our Santa collection year after year.
But Marie didn't ignore the true message of Christmas with her creations either. I have her quilted nativity scene on the piano.

How can we, in the midst of our culture's conspicuous consumption and demand for perfection, turn our focus on the Child who was born into poverty as a sign of hope and salvation for a broken world? While it may seem the world demands perfection, the Gospel message demands nothing from us. Rather, God invites us to gather around the manger just as we are: unfinished lists, burnt pies and all. No matter our imperfections, great or small, God invites us to peek into the manger and gaze at the real Christmas message: That Christ came for us all to be a beacon of hope for the hopeless and to bring peace.

Rev. Amy Slater, 

Stafford UMC newsletter, Christmas 2012

 So, yes, I am still learning from my less-than-perfect Christmas tree this year.

Ho! Ho! No! No! No!

A Christmas Story

By Kinley Marie

Give me a tiny Mickey Mouse hat for my head.

 

Give me a tiny horn to toot.

Make me fluff the Christmas tree. (I'll hold my mouth just so!)

Make me examine old Christmas tree ornaments from my Mommy's and Daddy's past.

I'll hang the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse ornament that Grandma and Grandpa brought me (after I carry it around awhile).

 

Yes, I'll even stand on my leg to work, even though it's in a cast. 

I'll supervise the parents' decorating efforts while I rest my leg and check email on Mommy's phone. 

But do not make me go see that big guy in the red suit and the beard. Ho, Ho, NO, NO, NO!

Last year, Mommy & Daddy made me sit on that guy's lap.

This year, they said I could decide for myself. (I heard my Mommy tell my Grandma that I didn't need anymore trauma when my leg is already in a cast.)

And I decided, "No, no, NO!" (even though Santa probably would have liked my Christmas sock and my jingle bell. He probably would have liked my cast, too, now that I've switched to pink. It's just a lighter shade of red, you know, which the Big Guy seems to like.)

Santa seems to be popular. There was a line to see him at the mall. I graciously decided that someone else could take my place.

This year, I think I'll just stick to a Christmas portrait with Mommy and Daddy.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Until next time,
Kinley Marie