Christmas Is Coming

Maybe it started with the candy strings: strips of green felt with twenty-four pieces of candy tied on with red yarn.  Beginning December first, my sister and brothers and I untied a candy cane or red gumdrop or Hershey Kiss every night after dinner, as we counted down the days to Christmas. Or maybe it was the way my mom read one chapter of The Adventures of Santa Claus every night in December and helped us memorize Luke 2, verse by verse.  Or maybe it was her approach to decorating for Christmas--every day while we were at school, she would choose one thing from the big cardboard Christmas box to put up while we were at school; we'd come home to find the manger scene on the coffee table, a cardboard Santa face on the fridge, jingle bells on the door, or the lantern candle in the middle of the dining room table.  Whatever the reason, for as long as I can remember, I have liked the anticipation of Christmas as much as or maybe even more than Christmas Day itself.  When I was a kid, I pored over the Sears Wish Book during the long, slow early days of December, carefully circling the toys I wanted most.  Like most kids, I had trouble sleeping on Christmas eve and loved those pre-dawn hours of Christmas morning before it all began.  I shivered in anticipation as I peeked down the hallway and spied my lumpy red knee sock pinned to the fireplace screen in the shadowy darkness.  When I grew up and had kids of my own, December days were anything but long and slow.  It seemed as though every minute was crammed full of shopping and baking, teaching and grading, piano classes and church play practices, concerts and ball games.  Instead of counting down the days to Christmas, I was racing the clock trying to finish everything in time. By the time my kids reached the jingle bells on the ends of their candy strings, I was usually out of breath and low on energy.  But even amidst all the hustle and bustle, a little refrain played over and over in my head: Christmas is coming, Christmas is coming! And every year Christmas eve would cast its spell on me--I'd be just as caught up in the wonder and magic of it as I'd been when I was ten. It felt like the whole world was holding its breath, waiting, anticipating, hoping.  When my kids left for college one by one, the pace started to slow down a bit.  Suddenly, I found myself counting down the days again.  This year, it'll be December 22nd before all their cars pile up in the driveway.  Only on the 24th will all three kids be sleeping in their old beds upstairs.  I'll be the last one up, filling stockings and setting the table for Christmas brunch.  As I'm turning off the Christmas lights, I'll pause for a moment before our manger scene, lit from behind by a single electric candle, and once again I'll feel the magic of Christmas, the promise of what is to come, the thrill of hope.

Almost Done

My husband Steve is almost done with his radiation treatments.  I asked him last night if he wanted to do something to celebrate after his last treatment.  He wasn't sure.  The main thing he wants is to get back to normal.  About three weeks ago, he started having nerve spasms, an unusual and very painful side effect from the radiation.  He can't drive and has had to take a medical leave from teaching.  We're hoping and praying the radiation will have done its job and destroyed all the cancer cells by the time his treatments end, and we're trusting that the nerve spasms will subside completely as his body settles down.  As the end approaches, I've been thinking about how good and bad is so often wrapped up together.  This has been hard, for sure, but even on the worst days, we have been reminded of our many blessings.  First of all, there hasn't been one snowy drive to Jamestown during the past two months; those of you from the area know for this time of year, that in itself is a small miracle and a big answer to prayer.  Second, Steve and I have been loved and cared for during these past several months in ways that brings tears to my eyes as I write.  There have been calls and texts and facebook messages from friends and family members (our dear moms, brothers and sisters, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, even nephews and nieces). We've gotten encouraging words in grocery stores, hallways, classrooms, and living rooms.  We've received cards and notes from church folks, from colleagues, and from old friends.  An Edible Arrangement appeared mysteriously on our front porch one dark night; books and candy and gift cards for music and food came in the mail on days we needed them the most.  Our own sweet kids have called more, come home more, and checked in more often than usual.  It has meant more to us than all of you will probably ever know.  Finally, I think going through this has drawn Steve and me together in ways we couldn't have imagined otherwise.  All of this makes me think of the Bible verse about how God can take something bad and use it for good.  This alone is celebration enough, but if Steve's up for it on Tuesday, we might go out for dinner, too!

Three to go!

Sick Kids

It's never easy when your kids are sick.  You feel so helpless when you see their hot, red faces and bright, feverish eyes.  You sleep on the floor of their rooms in case they need you in the night.  You spend hours in the doctor's waiting room.  You pick up prescriptions, then try to coax your sick child into actually swallowing the medicine.  You buy popsicles and ice cream for sore throats, 7-up and saltines for shaky stomachs.  Then you fret and pray and wait for them to get well.  When they were babies, I thought it would be easier when they could talk and tell me what was wrong.  But somehow, it never seemed to get any easier.  When they were older, being sick meant they were falling behind in school, missing games and meets and concerts and auditions they'd been looking forward to, and there was nothing I could do but take care of them and wait for them to get better.  Two of my three kids got sick the first week they were away at college, and I quickly discovered that taking care of sick kids is much easier than not being able to take care of them.  This week one of my grown-up kids is sick, very sick, and once again I am feeling helpless.  I check in by phone.  I google symptoms.  I offer advice and sympathy.  But mostly, I fret and pray and wait for him to get well.  As I wait, I realize something: it's always going to be this way.  No matter how old my kids get, when they are sick, I will worry.   How do I know? All this fall while Steve has been undergoing radiation treatments, his 90-year-old mom has been doing exactly what I'm doing: calling and worrying and waiting for her boy to get well.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Four of the original six ornaments we got as wedding gifts

When Steve and I got ready to decorate our first little Christmas tree in our first little apartment thirty years ago, we had six sweet ornaments we had gotten as wedding gifts, as well as a few stray ornaments Steve had snagged from his parents' collection.  Our tree was pretty sparse for the first few years of our marriage.  But a year or two after our second son was born, I started a tradition of buying each of the kids a Christmas ornament each year.  The idea was that when they eventually left home, they would have more than six ornaments to decorate their first tree.  In the meantime, their ornaments filled in the spaces on our family Christmas tree.  As their collections grew, so did the size of our tree.  Steve and I accumulated more ornaments of our own over the years, too, but but most of the decorations on our tree are from the kids' collections.  Every year, they each put up their own ornaments first, fighting over prime tree space.  A few years ago as our kids were getting older and closer to having their own trees, I discovered a flaw in my plan:  I had grown attached to the ornaments I bought for the kids--each one reminds me of the child I bought it for and the year I found it.  And I've gotten quite used to having them on our tree year after year.   Last night on the way home from Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania, we were making plans to chop down our Christmas tree this weekend, since the three kids won't all be home again until the weekend before Christmas.  My oldest child, Ben, has an apartment with room for a tree this year, so as we were talking about decorating our family tree, Ben casually mentioned that he would be needing to take his box of ornaments to his own house this year.   I know he's right.  I know it's time.  I know that was the plan all along.  But it's going to be very strange not to see his ornaments nestled in among the others on our tree this year.  And how long will it be before all the kids' ornaments have disappeared from our tree?  At least we still have Rocking Horse,  Christmas Broom, Thimblehead, and Sleeping Mouse!

Some of my favorites from Ben's collection

 

Grading . . .

I'm buried in student papers for the time being, so blog is on a hiatus while the blogger attends to her day job.  I'll be back when I can see daylight again . . .

Bath Time

Bath time used to mean bath toys, Johnson's Baby Shampoo, and sweet-smelling, pajama-clad toddlers afterwards.  These days it means a hot bubble bath, a good book and a calmer, cheered-up, pajama-clad me afterwards.  I think I'll always miss the former, but I like having time for the latter.  I guess that's what I'm beginning to understand about this whole emptying-of-the-nest stage I'm in: losing some things means gaining others.  I don't know why it took me so long to realize this--the same principle is at work throughout life.  When you move from childhood to adulthood, you lose the simple, carefree days of having someone take care of you, but you gain independence and the freedom to make your own decisions.  If you decide to marry, you give up some of your autonomy but you gain a lifetime of companionship.  If you end up having kids, much of the relaxing couple time you had with your husband or wife disappears, but in its place you get warm, rich, rambunctious family time.  And, as I found out recently, if your husband is diagnosed with cancer, you give up your sense of well-being (at least temporarily), but you gain a deeper understanding of how very much he means to you, a fresh realization of how lost you'd be without him, and a new appreciation for every ordinary and extraordinary day you get to spend together.  I don't know why it took a bubble bath to help me grasp this, but now I see there really is a season for everything and a time for every purpose under heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

Knit One, Purl Two

When I was six years old, my dad was in graduate school at Ball State University.  We lived in one of the small university apartments right near campus.  The single-story apartments were arranged in rows of four and were filled with married students and their families as well as Ball State faculty and staff, so we had lots of neighbors right nearby.  Our two-bedroom apartment was small for our family of six, so we kids spent a lot of time outside.  One night after dinner as it was starting to get dark, my parents couldn't find me--I wasn't on the playground in the grassy center of the rows of apartments, I wasn't at one of my friends' apartments, I wasn't behind our little apartment playing dolls--I wasn't anywhere.  My parents were in full panic mode by the time I came walking calmly down the sidewalk toward home.  Although I don't remember, I imagine they were caught in that odd mixture of relief that I was safe and frustration that I'd worried them.  According to my mom, when they asked me where I'd been, I replied in a small, bewildered voice, "At my knitting lesson . . . "  One of the women who lived in the next row of apartments had apparently offered to teach me to knit, and I took her up on it.  I don't remember exactly how it came about or why my parents didn't know that I was taking "knitting lessons," but I still have my first-ever piece of knitting--a long, uneven variegated green rectangle.  Several years later, a Sunday school teacher in Pennsylvania picked up where my first knitting teacher had left off, and I've been knitting ever since.  At first all I made were scarves, but then early in our marriage, I made an afghan for our little apartment, then a complicated sweater vest for Steve that ended up being too small.  That disappointment discouraged me for a while, but when my kids came along, I started knitting again--they wore lots of homemade sweaters in their early years but then one by one outgrew the homemade sweater look.  Still, over the years, I've kept my hand in--a Christmas stocking here, a scarf there, tiny baby sweaters as gifts, a batch of comfort dolls, and most recently, a couple of pairs of boot toppers my daughter saw on Pinterest.  I don't know what drew me to knitting at such a young age, but I guess there are things each of us seeks out on our own, things we can't learn at home or from our parents--and maybe it's that blend of things handed down and things acquired along the way that makes each generation unique and interesting.