Christmas is coming...

It's that time of year again. Christmas. I've seen it coming for a couple of months thanks to advertisers. For many years, Christmas has become less and less of a favorite holiday of mine. Crisis after crisis during the holidays ruined the holidays for me several years back and the overdone consumerism of our society beat into the ground what little glimmer of joy I still retained about this time of year. Usually I just try to smile and go through the motions to try to make the people around me feel more comfortable.

This year I surprised myself by actually being in the mood to sing a few Christmas songs just for the fun of it. Maybe it has been a long enough time since I was last roped in to perform at a Christmas musical that I actually cared about the music again.

I've been in the mood to bake treats (not much time for it mind you). That has always been a favorite part of the holidays for me. Food employs our senses and brings back memories of former times. Each family has some special food they like to celebrate with and many are saved to be used only on special days. I don't have many specially reserved foods like this, but just the fun of having special treats brings happy memories back to me.

The presents have been a bit of a love/hate thing for me. I like getting presents just as much as the next person. I like giving a present to someone else with their happy surprise being the only reward. I hate gifts prompted by obligation, yet I realize that their are good reasons for such gift giving.

My family is highly non-conformist when it comes to Santa. "We don't do Santa." Those simple words have stopped some conversations in their tracks. I don't try to ban Santa from our home. I don't try to hide the story of Santa from my children. I just treat Santa as a story, just like the other stories we read in books. I would prefer that my children learn the story of the birth of Jesus as "the" Christmas story. I would prefer that my children learn the story of Saint Nicholas (the real person) as an example of a faithful christian who put his faith into practice by being generous to those in need. The modern day Santa is a fairytale that can be used to teach generosity, but is just as likely to teach lessons you don't want your kids to learn as anything else.

Tim and I don't really have many Christmas traditions. We usually buy each other gifts without keeping them secret, because we can't stand to keep such happy things a secret from each other. We spend Christmas with one side of the family and Thanksgiving with the other (switching back and forth to give equal time). We like food and family to be part of the holidays with lots of visiting time. We frame little pictures of the kids to put on our Christmas tree every year to accompany our ornaments. We open presents Christmas Eve, or Christmas day, or a week later if that is when the gathering happens.

This year the Power family Christmas has been moved from it's traditional location to be shared by us and Rick and Wendy. The family was good enough to not insist we travel with wee little ones. As a result our two households are hosting. Now neither one of us has to handle the whole of Christmas, but it dawned on me that my preferred traditions may not always mesh with the preferred traditions of others. So with that in mind... I hope my family will be flexible this year. I'm not providing a fairytale Christmas, but hopefully it can be a fun one even so. For those of you non-family readers, I would like to remind you that Christmas is not always a happy time of year for everyone. Please handle people with care.

Observations from a week off from school

We have just finished our final holiday week of the school year. The end of the school year is approaching fast. Typically in these final few weeks of school the actual work tapers off as we end some subjects before others. We have two more weeks of math, three more of grammar, and so on. As some topics drop out, I can lengthen the lessons for the remaining subjects and speed up their completion. So sometime in the next six weeks, formal lessons will be replaced with a more relaxed schedule that is more typical in our holiday weeks.

During the school year we take a week long holiday about every six weeks with a two week break at Christmas. This helps us keep our sanity knowing that a break is not too far distant. For mommy these breaks give me a chance to catch up on long term chores (like clutter management, or toy retirement) or schedule otherwise difficult to fit in shopping trips. For the kids it is a chance to play an extra video game, work on that craft project, read a book for fun, do some coloring book time, and play outside more (weather permitting). Mommy gets to just enjoy some down time, too. After a week break, a return to the usual schedule is refreshing. Much more than a week and the kids start to show signs that they need more schedule "boundaries" to feel comfortable again. I think the week off helps clear my brain too. It helps me have time to reflect on our progress, plans for the future, what works, what needs to improve and just who are these kids of mine.

So here are a few random observations from a week off from school.

• The Pillowfight Fairy likes piano enough to play it for fun when she doesn't have to.
• The Fairy and the Adrenaline Junkie like to play games together.
• The Adrenaline Junkie and the Happy Boy have the same energy levels and a similar interest in running all over the place.
• The Fairy has made substantial progress in her needlework craft to the point that it is now entirely her own. She can usually thread the needle, she can start her thread and end it properly and she can follow the pattern of stitches to completion. Mommy is only needed if some unforseen disaster occurs.
• The Junkie reads and spells better than she realizes. She assumes that she can't read things or spell them, but when prompted is pleasantly surprised that she can after all. She just doesn't like going to all that work when there is an easier way (such as ask someone else to do it).
• The Junkie has no perspective. Specifically she doesn't understand why Mommy can't teach her how to make a video game during her brother's naptime or drop her off at her grandparents' house (2 hour drive) whenever she feels like it. She has grand plans of inviting everyone we've ever met to our house for a party. She suggested we make a child sized wooden train and railroad in our backyard. Then this has to compete for space with the life-size castle she is planning to make out of cardboard. She is very eager to wash dishes and clean house except that she can't reach the sink properly and she doesn't have the patience to do the job as instructed. (I remember my own attempts at dishwashing at her age and do not wish to recreate the mess and the work needed to straighten it out again.)
• The Fairy and the Happy Boy can actually play together sometimes and enjoy themselves. I've noticed how the two younger kids play well together. But, the oldest kid tended to want to do her own things when not doing school work, or to play with her sister. But this week I actually saw her initiating a game of catch with the Happy Boy that gave them both some fun. It was good to see them get along so well.
• All three kids are actors. They will all re-enact any favorite scene at a moments notice. They will "quote" videos with each other during lunch (each taking turns saying a particular character's lines). Even the three year old does this.
• When the Junkie gets an idea into her head it is hard to get her to let go of it. She is tremendously stubborn. She doesn't take no for an answer and she gets in trouble for being overly persistent.
• The Junkie is normally very unfocused in her manner of living. She flits from one thing to the next on average every five minutes. She forgets what she is doing and makes mistakes because she is distracted or overly playful.
• The two previous observations seem to be contradictory, but I suspect that they are simply two facets of her personality. As she gets older, I suspect the stubborn persistence will give her drive and focus to do the things that are important to her. The unfocused, distactableness in her personality is a combination of her love of fun and an untrained mind. Fun and humor are often a result of the spontaneous action or word. This can be nutured and encouraged to result is a well-developed sense of humor. However, some of the lack of focus is purely, lack of training or discipline (not discipline defined as punishment, but discipline defined as planned growth toward a goal). I see a great deal of potential in this little bundle of energy and contradictions that are my daughter. She will be a challenge to train. May God give me the wisdom I need for this little girl.
• The Happy Boy is firmly in his routine is good phase. If the day goes along his normal routine (even if everybody else's routines are off), he is content and cooperative. If his routine is off, he is argumentative, grumpy and quick on the tantrums.
• The Happy Boy likes to snack. I don't generally allow my kids to have snacks, because it usually ruins their appetites for the regular meals. But if a kid has eaten his/her last meal well and is hungry early, I might allow a snack (growth spurts usually do it). But the Happy Boy seems to be like this all the time. He likes a big breakfast, snacks, and smaller meals the rest of the day. It makes me wonder what the teen years will be like.

Those are pretty random thoughts. But I like to mull them over in stray moments. Eventually, I may come up with educational goals, house rules, or wise precepts based on these disjointed ideas. Like a cook does with a recipe, I like to let my thoughts simmer on the back burner, so to speak, for a long time. From time to time I stir or add a little seasoning. Then I taste to see if it is ready serve yet. Eventually these little morsels add up to something useful and perhaps helpful to someone else.

Reflections on Christmas

It has been quite a while since I posted on this blog. Homeschooling has been pretty routine, so that didn't seem like a noteworthy topic. I have discovered that my allowing for only one week off school for the Christmas holiday was not very realistic. First of all, I need time to prepare for Christmas even if we keep it simple like we did this year. Secondly, The Pillowfight Fairy can't concentrate on school work if she hasn't had a chance to play with all of her new toys yet. So we are taking a second week off to help satisfy the kids and to allow the parents some time to get life back to normal.

For those of you who follow my husband's blog, you know that we received some unwelcome news that our expected baby is not the healthy baby we had hoped for. She has many defects that will probably take her life fairly early. This is not the kind of news one likes to get at anytime, let alone Christmas. But after the initial shock and sadness, we are finding ourselves managing fairly well.

Christmas is usually one of our most stress-filled holidays. I have to consciously limit my Christmas activities or I make myself sick. Added to that, we frequently have one or more of us involved with a Christmas program of some kind (practices are not easy to juggle when there are young children). Then there has been a death or other family struggle/tragedy in most of the holiday seasons for the last 15 years. On top of that is the "who do we spend which holiday with" family politics. Don't get me wrong. I love my family and I am quite fond of my in-laws. I like spending time with them. But it is not easy to pack up the family for a visit on particular pre-determined date, especially in winter. And somehow, kids are never on the same schedule as the adults, which adds to the general stress. Then there is the fact that all three of our kids have birthdays plus Christmas in the space of about three months and we are inundated with new stuff, requiring sorting, storing, rearranging, and the discarding of old things.

With all of that, somehow this has managed to be one of our better Christmases in years. The family Christmas celebration was just across town for us this year, so we didn't have the travel stress. None of us were in a Christmas program this year, though we did attend a couple as audience members. We did keep our Christmas simple. I didn't have a lot of time to prepare ahead, being busy teaching up until the week of Christmas. Then I had extra doctor's appointments and big issues on my mind regarding our baby. Somehow, anything other than simple would have been way out of place this year. I did have a cold, but it was going away by Christmas instead of just coming on.

All this makes me reflect on what would be an ideal Christmas in my opinion. My ideal Christmas would involve:

• Spending time with immediate family doing simple things that we don't usually get to do.
• Not being concerned about other people's expectations of gift giving and simply giving gifts as prompted by our hearts and perhaps doing more gift giving to those in need rather than people who have everything they need.
• Remembering that Jesus is what the celebration is all about.
• Treating the people around us better than we usually treat them and perhaps better than they deserve.
• Move the focus off of what we want, and put the focus on what God wants and what others need.
• Maybe we could sing and dance more, too.
• As much as we treasure particular things, we should never let them stand in the way of the lives and relationships we need to treasure more.
  

Somehow when issues of life and death are on your mind, most of the stuff that goes on around Christmas is so trivial it is ridiculous. But without those big life and death issues weighing on the mind, those trivial things start to take over. Although the unpleasant things of life are in fact unpleasant, they do help us keep in perspective what is important.

Third in a series

I'll try to make this short, since I'm already up too late.

Today's topic is "Why are we so dissatisfied with everyday life that we feel the need to do special things as a nearly everyday thing". In reading my Dad's memoirs and remembering stories my Mom told of her growing up years, they had a whole lot of everyday life without the special stuff. When they did have special times, such as holidays or special trips, they were much simpler than we would make them. On holidays, they would have a nice meal. This consisted of a little more than what was served everyday with maybe a special dessert that was only made for that holiday. If it was an occasion where presents were given, they would have received only one or two gifts. Eating out was a picnic, a potluck, or a meal at another person's house. A meal in a restaurant was rare. Special foods that were savored, were ordinary foods that you only got when they were in season.

I find that I am tempted to try to make too many special things in my life. Some of it may come from our advertising culture that tries to make you think that you aren't satisfied with what you have. But, I think some of it is from my own inner child wanting to do the special stuff for my benefit. Christmas is a good example. How many family traditions did you have growing up? Didn't your spouse have some traditions they want to pass on to your family? Have you heard of family and friends doing things that sounded to you as a good idea? Before you know it you are drowning in an avalanche of special things to do for Christmas. After all, if every day is special, it doesn't really stand out against the experiences of every day life. I find myself doing something "for the kids" that is really all about me. They might enjoy it, but I can't keep doing special things all the time. I have to somehow get the message across that it is special and no we aren't going to do it every single day.

I have a recent example from my life. I have fond memories of baking special things at Christmas. So, in my mind, I would like to repeat this for my children. But, since I'm going to be doing something special, why not go all out and pick something new that I've never done before. I decided to do popcorn balls and a Gingerbread house. I should have known better. Christmas is my craziest time of year. I need a simple quiet time, not more activity. Well, this year was a little bit crazier than most and the popcorn balls and the gingerbread house didn't get done. Looking back I was quite disappointed about that. Then one day at the grocery store I noticed all of the Valentine's day candy showing up in the store. I had an idea! Who says a gingerbread house is only for Christmas time? We can do one for Valentine's Day!

It took about a week of interruptions and delays, but we finally completed the gingerbread house today


The girls did enjoy the process. They helped me do the gingerbread recipe. The Pillowfight Fairy helped me roll out and cut the dough. They watched me make the icing glue. They both helped me decorate it with candies. I'm very happy about how it turned out. I must say, anyone who has put one of these things together can be considered a wiser gingerbread architect than when they first started. As much as the kids liked doing this, it was still Mommy's project. I didn't want to let other people interfere with my vision. Although, I did ask advice from my husband since he had worked with a group of people to build a gingerbread castle once. I finally had my special Christmas baking experience that turned out to be a belated Valentine's Day experience when it was all said and done.

How does this tie in with where I started? Well, I was trying to graft on a tradition into my family so that we would have one more special thing to remember. Even though we don't really need anything more added to the other special things we were doing. There is nothing wrong with special things or events. I am even a little proud of the fact that I adapted this bit of confection to a different holiday than is traditional. However, I am newly keen to the idea that this takes a ridiculous amount of work. Nearly every special thing or event in our lives takes extra work. This was true for my parents in their family's growing up and it is true of my family today. They didn't have a lot of special things or events in their lives. There was a whole lot of sameness from day to day. I think that they tried to give my brothers and I more than they had growing up. In turn I am trying to do even more for my kids.

I hope my kids remember some of the special things that we do. I hope they remember that their Mom would try something new from time to time. But, I don't want them to think that a day without something special is a substandard day. I think I want to be picky about the special things that we do. I don't want to get too elaborate or we won't be able to afford the special things in time, effort or money. I don't want them to be too frequent or we might think that they are necessary to our lives and can't be done without. But, I don't want to go to the opposite extreme. I don't want to make our special family times ordinary.

I guess it all comes down to priorities. When celebrating a birthday, what do we want to remember as special? The event or the person? When celebrating Christmas do we emphasize gifts, the nativity, music, or family? What will be the special part for us? When we choose a field trip, do we plan carefully to match exactly what we are studying in school or do we take the opportunities as they arise? We probably need a little of both. It is possible that we can fill our lives with so much that none of it makes an impression anymore.

By the way, my parents revel in doing special things now. They enjoy tremendously giving their grandkids an overflowing generous measure of special treatment. They travel all over the country in an RV and enjoy doing things they never got to do earlier. I think they treasure those memories of special times when they were young, but they know that those simpler times were simple out of necessity. What will I treasure as I look back? What will my kids treasure? I don't know. I hope I will treasure some of the simple things as special along with some of the more elaborate things.

Holiday suggestion, reminder, or whatever...

First I would like to apologize to my apparently small readership for not giving you more posts to read. My excuse is that I got my husband interested in blogging and he has taken to it like a fish to water. He is such a prolific blogger that it is hard for me to get computer time. So instead of waiting until evening after the kids are in bed (and when he also wants to blog), I'm giving up my afternoon nap. So on to my current subject...

It startled me yesterday to realize that Thanksgiving is only three weeks away. I didn't always understand the fact that the holidays are hard for some people. There are many people who do not have the ideal perfect christmas memories that remind them that the world is a wonderful place, people are a delight and precious magical moments are always just around the corner. For some people, the world has been a hard and difficult place, people have been especially nasty to them in one way or another, and difficult or painful memories jump out at them from around every corner.

I didn't really start to realize this until I was a young adult. I remember reading the Ann Landers column in the newspaper where she would bring up this idea every holiday season. After all, she was in the business of giving advice to people with troubles of many kinds. My own family experiences had been not perfect but mostly loving and happy. I had trouble realizing what other people were going through. Then when I was in my twenties my family had several years in a row where trouble came year after year around the holiday time. Nearly all of my grandparents became ill or died in the season starting just before Thanksgiving and going until just after New Year's. One year my Dad was in the hospital during Thanksgiving after barely surviving a car accident. When these things were going on with our family, we kept finding that many of our friends and acquaintances were going through problems if not similar, at least as stressful. I began to see how easy it was to be fine one minute and then have someone say something perfectly innocently that either brought up depression or anger.

Since there are so many great expectations for the holidays with gatherings of friends and family, there are frequently many failed expectations. Those in themselves can set a person off, who doesn't even realize that they are in a precarious emotional state. I have found that there have been times when I was surprised by situations that I should have avoided. One example of this was attending a Sunday ladies class where the topic was death, the week when my miscarried child's due date came. I had thought that I had already dealt with my loss and my grief had subsided some. I didn't realize that the wound was still fresh and it hurt almost as badly as when it first happened. It would have been better for me to spend the class time helping in the nursery if I had realized ahead of time.

So my suggestion/reminder/whatever you want to call it is to resist the temptation to expect other people to fulfill your holiday dreams and wishes. Take the time to treat the people around you (family, friends, co-workers, perfect strangers) with care, respect, courtesy, and patience. If you encounter people who are obviously having a difficult moment, a bad day, or a bad attitude, take the effort of extending them some grace in their troubled moment. It is too easy to take the path of snapping back or responding in anger yourself and the troubled feelings spread and grow. If we all took the time to restore a relationship, discard a grudge, free others of our expectations, and treat strangers with kindness, our lives would be better for it and so would the people we encounter. Give it a thought. It just might make the difference in your holiday season and in somebody else's too.