Un-Grinching and Embracing Christmas

I'm one of those people that likes to start Christmas the minute the turkey is eaten on Thanksgiving. I like my tree up, my nativity set out, the decorations glittering and all of that. But this year was a little tough to do that because we've all gone down for the count with a nasty virus. When one of us feels a tiny bit better, we drag ourselves out of wherever we're burrowing and scavenge food for the others. Then we burrow again. Our only decoration up so far is the Christmas wreath on the front door because that only took five seconds. So it's been that kind of week.


But last night, I finally got to experience my first taste of Christmas when I pulled this out to read again:

It took me a few minutes to read, even going slowly, but I love the message so much. It's a hopeful, gentle but firm reminder of how every part of the Christmas season, even the crazy baking/shopping/party parts of the season, can serve as symbols of Christ if we let them. This will be our Family Home Evening lesson tonight before we work as a family to put up our Christmas swag and sparkle, so that we can discuss what each symbol means as we wrangle it into place to enjoy for the next month.


After you read it the first time, you must go back through and simply absorb Jana's paintings. They are rich and simple and beautiful. My two favorites are here

and here:

Neither of them are straightforward Christmas pictures, but they make my spirit happy. So does this one:

It's a simple, powerful book and a new part of my permanent Christmas tradition. If you would like to make it part of yours, simply leave a comment on this post and you'll be entered to win this for yourself. I'll pick a winner on Friday. It makes a wonderful stocking stuffer for family members or a gift for someone you visit teach. You can purchase additional copies here.


As a side note, the story of how Jana made these paintings is wonderful. I love Christmas miracles, even when they happen in July. Charrette (a/k/a Jana Winters Parkin) tells the story here of what it took to get this book into our grubby little hands, and I love it. I love the message of hope and faith and perserverance, and how God steps in after everything we can do.


Have a wonderful Christmas, everyone. I hope you find signs of Christ every day this season.

Stupid Mean Girl

I am turning into a mean girl and I hate it so much.


I'm not even going to go into detail so I can protect the identity of the innocent, but . . .


Can you think of someone who currently (or has in the past) gets on your last nerve? And I mean the very last one, the one that when it snaps, will take the firewalls that keep all your worst instincts in check. That one.


There is now someone in my social circle who is this for me, a last-nerve-getter-on-er. It makes me nuts and I try, I really do, to be patient and sympathetic and understanding. I MEAN it. I do. I've gotten as far as figuring out that part of what bugs me about her, MOST of what bugs me about her, is that I see most of my worst traits amplified in her. Except she doesn't have any, ahem, witchiness about her (which I do, in spades). She's just needy. And annoying. And that's all the detail I'm going to give.


Anyway, I find myself doing passive-aggressive mean girl crap. Like for example, she and another girl were walking side by side, both wearing their jeans tucked into their boots. So I say to the one but not the other, "I like your boots." And I did like the pair I complimented and not the other but it's mean not to compliment both. I should have kept my mouth shut.


But then I had to twist the knife a little so I said, "I can't wear my jeans tucked into my boots because I have wide hips. I look like a triangle. It's not cute." Which is totally true, both that I don't do it and why I don't do it. But guess what? This girl has wide hips, not just in my opinion but as a FACTUAL TRUTH, and I said it as she was standing right there with her jeans tucked into her boots. On purpose.


Because I suck.


I hate when I see girls do this to each other. I'm fully aware that I'm doing it AND I CAN'T STOP.


I hate me a little bit right now. Sort of a medium bit, actually.


I have been praying hard for a change of heart. And it always seems to work until I see her again and then I just want to smack her. 


I am definitely not the only person that she bugs, but my friends are nice people and overlook her flaws. The group of "popular" women who orbit near us do not necessarily pull their punches like this. I don't want to be like them. I want to be kind. I usually have much better control over my behavior.


But she's making me crazy.


So I guess I'll just pray some more that I can quit being awful.


And don't tell me I'm not a bad person. In this specific respect, I AM. You can say you relate or that it's normal, but I don't want anyone trying to make me feel better about acting this way because it's NOT OKAY. And I don't want any credit for recognizing that fact, either.


I just want to find a grain of niceness and compassion and water it until it grows.


But son of a biscuit, she makes it HARD.

More or less

First, let's start with I have three kids, including two in diapers. This automatically makes a regulation day feel like I've misplaced eight hours somewhere, kind of like I regularly misplace my glasses, cell phone, and car keys. Maybe I wipe away extra minutes with every diaper change, or somehow roll up an hour or two inside one of the gifts I sacrifice to the God of the Diaper Pail. I don't know why I would offer him anything as precious as time since he does his job poorly. His Genie skills are lame.


But because I sometimes I live intentionally (and that's heavy on the SOMEtimes), I realize my attention is going to be divided multiple ways during the day, and I work harder to squeeze more juice out of each minute. I am not a real touchy-feely squishy emotion-having type of mom, but I realized that I blinked and missed Grant's infancy, and I don't want to do that again. Even though love multiplies with each kid, time divides, and I have less time to give Eden than I did Grant. So I take the cupful of minutes I do get and I make it count more. I hug and snuggle and sometimes letter dinner go unmade because she wants holding. And soon she won't. 


Less time, but so much more love. 


Fair trade.

This is a modified version of the comment I left to win a phone in this blog giveaway.

I know where I'm spending the evening . . .

Yesterday was one of those days, crazy and fun, but mostly crazy.

I took the kids to an outdoor concert, came home and spent the afternoon writing (and possibly playing a little Scrabble on Facebook). I rushed James to the airport at five so he could catch a flight to his dad's for the weekend, then sat beside him and read furiously, hoping to finish Persuasion before book club at 8. I interrupted myself to take a phone call to discuss the road show themes that had just come in (congratulations (?!) are in order: I'm a playwright now. Ha.) and we had to claim ours first, plus give them our top three song choices on a theme we'd known about for approximately two minutes. Then I read some more, James's flight took off, and I rushed to the furniture store to pick up the chaise we ordered. 

You have my permission to love it, cuz I do!

On the way home from there, I got another call from the road show director that we would be getting our second choice for a theme and as we hammered out more song options, I walked in the front door to discover a heaping pile of Grant's puke scented bedding, clearly dropped over the stair railing by a husband so wiped he was crashed out on our bed with the lights blazing while he snored the snore of the exhausted. I scooped up the puke sheets and threw them in the washer, made it to book club an hour late, and sat on the floor in a daze for the rest of the night, rousing myself occasionally to make stupid jokes.

It was one of those days.

Know what?

I love my life.

Seeing red

All right. Holiday season is sneaking up on us. That means it's time for my yearly public service announcement and a plea for help from you religious art makers. Artists? Reverence-corrupters. Yes, THAT'S the term I was looking for.


Here's my PSA. Do not wear a red shirt to Target from now until February 1. I have made this mistake two years in a row and I'm telling you, don't do it. It will turn a perfectly normal tri-weekly trip into an exercise in futility and frustration. 


"I don't work here." 
"Nope, I still don't work here." 
"Ma'am, I just told you I don't--you know what? The Nano Bugs are on aisle X-47, between the carpet cleaners and the family planning aids. All the way over THERE. Yes, that's right, on the other side of the store. Buh-bye . . ."


Second, please, if you or someone you know (and I'm sure I have a large-ish following in this category of people) paint pictures of prophets like the ones that appear in books toddlers might look at in sacrament meeting, please do not DO NOT put white-bearded prophets in red robes. The fight over whether its Santa or Moses is unsettling, especially when I have to say, "Yes, that's Santa building an ark to take the stuffed animals to all the little kids" because the sacrament water tray is coming down the row and the toddler is not going to be quiet until he hears you confirm what he KNOWS to be true.


Thanks for your help.

Why you rock

You guys, I LOVE YOU!


I love that you're still dropping into comment and say hello even though I haven't been able to get around to your blogs nearly as much as usual this week. That's for two reasons: NaNoWriMo and a big talk I had to give on Wednesday that's done now.


But it makes me feel so good that you're not demanding I be 100% reciprocal and that I can have a loony tunes week now and then and you guys will still be my friends. Ahhhh, loooooooove! Yay, you! And you and you and you!


However, I'll have the teensiest bit more time to bounce around your blogs this weekend so I hope to get all caught up on the fabulous, ridiculous, sublime and wacky happenings out there in Blogland. Wheeeee!


Couple of things, everyone. First, if you're doing NaNoWriMo, tell me your screen name and I'll add you as a friend. I gots to create some more accountability for myself. Second, if you want to add me, I'm under Melanie_J. 


Next, my friend Crash is trying to win herself a job as the Good Mood Blogger for Sam-E and she needs votes. I would like for her to win the job because 


1) I like Crash
2) She's got way more sass than the other folks competing


but MOST importantly, I want her to be able to prove to her kids that GOAL-SETTING WORKS! Yay, for teaching kids.


Anyway, you can win cool stuff in the giveaway she's doing if you FOLLOW THIS LINK. And just so you know, when you click to vote for her, you just push one button. You don't have to enter your name or your email or sign up for anything. Nothing. You just click VOTE. So go do it, okay? I'm voting for Crash every day because I'm hoping that it makes up for the fact that for the first time ever, I didn't make it out to vote on Tuesday due to the mortal fear of Grant inadvertently sabotaging all the voting machines while he engaged in a Wild Rumpus.


Next you can win a copy of a cookbook I already own and love, Comfortably Yum, by hopping over to visit Kimberly at Temporary? Insanity.


I know I'm forgetting about some stuff and if I think of it, I'll come back and add it, but for right now, I've got some blog reading to do. Hooray!

Dying laughing

I shouldn't have laughed. But I did. And I'm sure old ladies in the chapel were judging me. And I'm sure a smaller handful of old ladies was trying not to laugh, too.


But you guys . . . it was funny, even if Kenny couldn't fall asleep that night out of embarrassment because the scene kept playing behind his eyelids.


The choir performed on Sunday and Kenny's lovely tenor voice is much needed. Baby Eden decided she had to nurse at the tail end of the passing of the sacrament, so I hightailed it to the mother's lounge to oblige. The plan was to feed her enough so that she would be satisfied when I hustled back to the chapel to sit with the boys while Kenny went up during the choir number. See? I had it all planned nice and tidy.


Cue the second youth speaker who was both underprepared and highly nervous. He finished a few minutes faster than I expected (it's the first Sunday I've been in this ward where we had time left at the end of the program) and suddenly I'm popping a surprised baby off of my boob and jetting for the chapel, my shirt not even buttoned (I had a tank underneath: no one's eyeballes were seared in the making of this tragicomic moment). I made it through the doors in time for the choir to sing the first note and looked to the back pew, sure that James was sitting with Grant. But...


The pew was empty. I stood in the doorway looking panicked until a friend on the far side of the chapel waved at me and then pointed up at the stand. I looked, and then looked a little harder, and there was Grant, gleefully winding himself around Kenny's legs, darting in and out and all around him. Kenny, I could tell, was distressed. Grant was in heaven. James was missing and I didn't have the first clue where he was.


I hesitated, unsure what to do. I could hand the baby off to someone and grab Grant, but that would make a huge scene. Maybe he would be fine . . .


Oh, nope.


Grant is becoming more and more distracting, cackling with mischievous glee and Kenny's about to lose it. He's reaching down and grabbing Grant, who yanks his arm away and dances out of reach. Kenny finally steps out of the choir long enough to seat Grant in an empty chair and then returns to sing. At this point, I catch Grant's eye and crook my finger. COME HERE.


Grant slides out of his chair and makes his way down a riser or two. Whew. We're going to be okay . . .


But that's when he makes a break for it and veers to the left, and then I see it: his ultimate destination, his own Holy Grail.


He's heading for the microphone.


It all happened so fast. I shove my baby at the lady sitting nearest where I'm standing although I have no idea who she is. I start for the podium where Grant is proceeding to drag the step over so he'll be tall enough to yell into it. The bishopric is staring on, befuddled. Grant does it! He's got the step pulled up and climbed on top! He's got the microphone pulled down! Kenny has just figured out where he went and there's no way either of us is making it in time! 


I am laughing so hard I'm crying and I can't stop, which is not helping Grant to take me seriously.


Luckily, one of the counselors, who is new to the bishopric but very seasoned as a father after four young boys, cuts the mike off before Grant's happy holler can carry past the first three rows.


At this point, Kenny reaches him, and I retreat to take the baby back from a really bewildered lady whose hair is now wrapped in a tiny but freakishly strong fist. Kenny, trying to minimize any further distractions, has made it off the stand and to the front pew and is sitting with Grant. Except Grant yells, "I GO SING WITH DADDY!"


The congregation's heads are swiveling from me at the back of the door to Kenny at the front. We're both on the verge of tears. Me, from more laughter, him . . . not so much. Kenny hops up with Grant and flees through the side exit. I slip out and race to the other side of the building to find and comfort my husband, but I'm pretty useless due to the laughter and all.


So that was Sunday. I blame James. If he wouldn't have had a stomachache, we would totally have made it through the thirty-second lapse in parental coverage unscathed...


James, of course, accepts no blame. He's only mad he missed the show.