Come In & Sit a Spell

Santa Claus is a lucky guy. He gets an invitation to peek into living rooms all over the world. And he doesn't even have to knock.

(I brought this Santa home when we cleaned out my Grandma Leonard's house.
We had the same one at home, too.)

'Tis the season to glimpse holiday cheer through picture window frames. Christmas trees are lit. Ornaments dangle from branches like fancy earrings. Stockings are hung by the chimney with care.

On excursions to look at Christmas lights, we see little glimpses of family celebrations through curtains flung open and lights twinkling a welcome through the darkness. But wouldn't it be fun to see more than just the little tidbit captured in the picture window?

So, come on into my living room.

No, our stockings don't match. I made Randy & my stockings. The kids and their Grandma Marie made theirs, the ones with red and white stripes and Christmas trees. Eric has the snowman and this is the debut for Smalls' Santa stocking. It has a sonogram photo in the frame. Next year, it will be a real photo!

I like sitting in the living room with only the Christmas lights shining. If I take off my glasses, I get the starburst affect without any fancy photo manipulations. It's about the only time that poor vision is pretty.

Some people are white light kind of people. I'm a multi-colored girl myself. It goes with the eclectic mix of ornaments and decorations, things collected over a lifetime.

I know I wouldn't win any decorating awards. But the smattering of memories truly does "make the season bright" as The Christmas Song says.

My mother-in-law Marie stitched this little sampler that sits on my piano during the holidays. It's a good reminder when I get a little caught up in the quest for holiday perfection. Hmmm ... maybe that's not the most important thing, especially when it leads to frazzled nerves and aching back.

Marie was Mrs. Claus. Almost every year, she came up with a new Santa to share. Looking around the living room is like having a visit with her, even though it's been 15 years since she died.

Jill had her version of this old-fashioned Santa by the front door of her house. (Marie made the one by the fireplace in the stocking photo, too.) She didn't make the one below, though I got it at a Fritzemeier Christmas grab bag exchange long ago.

The Christmas tree ornaments are a mishmash, too. My folks gave each of the grandkids a new ornament each year from birth through high school. Jill's now hang on her own tree. Brent's are still scattered among the branches of our tree. Some of my ornaments tell the tell of trips we've taken, including new ones this year from Idaho, Yellowstone, South Carolina and Georgia.

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.

There's a mix of the secular and the sacred.

Is it perfect? Nope. But it's ours.

So welcome to the celebration. And may your homes be filled with joy, laughter and peace this Christmas season and always! Merry Christmas to you and yours!

A Mountain or a Mole Hill?

Maybe if I'd taken off my glasses, I could have pretended I was still in the mountains.

After all there was a mountain - of sorts - at the corner south of our house and matching "foothills" catty-cornered across the section.

There were a few obstacles to this fantasy:

• I certainly didn't need a long-sleeved shirt on my morning trek.
• The "mountain" was surrounded by wheat stubble and not green valleys.
• The mountains mysteriously disappeared in a single afternoon.

It wasn't so mysterious. My short-lived fantasy was crushed as finely as the limestone the co-op spread on our farm fields. My homespun mountains were there only until the co-op had time to apply agricultural lime to the last field that needed it.

Much as I miss the cool of the mountains - both literally and figuratively - I am never sorry to come back home.

We may not have the mountains, but you can't beat the sunrise on the County Line.

Home sweet home!

Home Sweet Home

October 25, 2010


For travel to be delightful, one must have a good place to leave and return to.

Frederick B. Wilcox

We saw lots of beautiful places on our trip through the Nebraska sandhills and meandering through the Black Hills and Badlands of South Dakota, with a brief foray into Wyoming.

I know I've been like pesky Aunt Gertrude, showing you photo after photo of a trip you didn't get to take. Thanks for sticking with me. (And, in my defense, I didn't show you all 437!)

But, even after 1,800 miles of scenery and memories, there is no more beautiful place than my little piece of the Stafford/Reno County line.

The sunrise the day after we returned proved it. This image is straight out of the camera - no extra filters, no enhanced colors. This is just how the sky looked that morning.

So, as beautiful as all those places were, there's just nothing like a Kansas sunrise.

And there's nothing like my house, all dressed up for the fall holidays.

Ah .... Home Sweet Home.