A Hobbit Christmas Part One

Every year my family and I choose a theme for our Christmas. Sometimes we go all out, decorating and choosing gifts around that theme. Other years we'll just get an ornament to commemorate that year. This year we are having a hobbit Christmas. I think this is about the most fun I've had preparing for Christmas. From what I know of hobbits, they are simple folk, they love to stay close to home, they eat a lot, and the live in holes in the ground.

Decorations
We decorated with more natural things this year. We have a real tree which we strung with strings of cranberries and cinnamon sticks. We put pine cones everywhere. We hung garlands everywhere and the whole house smells like cedar. On the table, we put a white candle surrounded by a wreath of cranberries and of course more pine cones. We had two special visitors this year. A miniature Gandalf and Bilbo stand in respectful admiration by the nativity. We also put swords and plastic dragon miniatures on all the remaining surfaces.

Gift Wrap
We purchased wrapping paper in rustic neutral colors and interspersed them with packages wrapped in brown paper. I made bows for the gifts out of an old book. Then I made gift tags by tea staining printing paper. I then get the paper into pieces and stained the edges very 70's style. After burning, I rinsed each piece so that we wouldn't get ash on the gifts. Once they dried, I wrote a hobbit quote on each one in my best hobbit handwriting. Each member of the family took a which-lord-of-the-ring-character-are-you personality quiz, and we used those names to address the gifts.

Ornaments
I painted a ceramic ornament with a green hobbit door on one side and the following quote on the other side: In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

Advent Calendar
For the advent calendar, I didn't want to do gifts or candy. So for each day of December, I planned a riddle. Since there aren't enough riddles in the Hobbit to have one each day, I had to find a few extras from elsewhere. Then I found a 750 piece puzzle with a dragon on it. I divided the puzzle into 25 parts so we would open 30 pieces each day. On the back of the section of the puzzle I wrote the answer to that day's riddle.Each set of puzzle pieces and riddle went in a box wrapped in brown paper, commemorative of the gifts Gandalf brought. Then each package was marked with a date.

i don't want to reveal all the hobbit things I've planned for Christmas yet. So I will write a continue this later.

Lifeguard On Duty

It has been a while, but racing down to the water’s edge for the first time this summer is like greeting an old friend. This is the ocean I had played in nearly every summer as I was growing up. I’ve been in the Pacific and Caribbean as well, even the Mediterranean Sea. But this is the ocean I know. I let the water lap over me feet and I move out deeper, familiarity rising and falling over me with each wave. I brace myself against the strong undertow, gazing out at the wide expanse of sea where distant boats float on blue. A sandbar allows me to stay waist deep until a rising curl whips me off my feet and I feel that sensation of floating midair before I crash back into the white froth. I ride the waves for a while like this, jumping the smaller ones, diving under the larger.

And then the waves changed. The crash of water is more insistent, stronger than before. I barely catch my breath from one before I’m hammered by the next. The thought of moving closer to shore hits me only a moment before the whistle blows. I start swimming hard. The group I had been swimming with is now a wave ahead of me, and then two. The waves are striking me at different angles now, holding me back in a watery grip. With each big wave, I kick for all I’m worth, thinking this is the wave that will carry me all the way to shore, but I make no progress. Each time, I’m pulled back deeper into the ocean. I can’t see anyone else in the water anymore. I look to the shore. The lifeguards are standing now, not breaking eye contact, waving me in. I fight the water again, swimming, but in vain. A feeling of exhaustion washes over me suddenly, and I know I have nothing left. I can’t make it in. Another wave dunks my head under. I don’t fight it. After the crash, I let my body float back to the surface and gasp for another breath. Salt stings my senses. I look again to the life guards poised on the water’s edge. I slowly shake my head and wave an arm. I can’t do it.

Then suddenly, I hear a succession of short fast whistle blows. Two life guards hit the water, swimming at me faster then I thought possible. I have time to think of staying calm. Strong arms, stronger than the clutch of the water pull me from the riptide. I won’t recognize either of my rescuers later. I’m only aware of the arms that hold me on either side, bringing me to safety. In that moment, even before my feet touch the sand, I am at peace. I feel perfectly safe. 

Once the strong arms were there, nothing else mattered. It meant moving beyond the humiliation of asking for help. It meant moving beyond the feeling of insufficiency at not being able to help myself. It meant resting in a strength far greater than my own. And I think I'm learning to do that. Maybe this was all just part of the process. 

Camping

I just got back from a camping trip, not the roughing it kind by any stretch. Not that I'm opposed to roughing it camping. That's just not what we did. I haven't camped in a long time. We did it a lot growing up, but it's been a while. And this particular campground was only about ten minutes from home. But it was camping just the same. I was excited enough to buy my own tent. Or maybe I just didn't relish the thought of sharing a tent with certain individuals who snore insistently. The tent I got was advertised as a 2 man tent, so naturally it sleeps one. If I ever get married, he'll just have to get his own tent. My new miniature abode has a base measuring 7 feet by 5 feet, but it isn't really. It's more like 7 feet by 3 feet and is rather like sleeping in a coffin.

Lot's of experience camping teaches you certain skills. I can now get changed inconspicuously in the backseat of a car (though that may have less to do with camping and more to do with three years of deputation and being required to arrive at churches in a skirt). I can roast marshmallows to perfection. And I generally don't forget the basic essentials anymore. The only things forgotten this trip that were deemed worth going back for was salt, aspirin, and the second bag of marshmallows.

The best part of camping:
Cooking "gourmet" over a wood fire.
Snuggled up in a sleeping bag reading by flashlight late into the night.
Walking along various campsites and watching people who have no idea how to set up a tent.
Guitar and psaltery by firelight.
Telling funny/scary stories--recalling the story Mom told me when I was eight that gave me nightmares for the entire rest of my childhood.

Everything Pink

Check out the new new blog on my blog list. "Everythink Pink" is for my niece who insists that pink is the best color despite me tellling her that pink is gross and yucky. She'll be six soon. Check out what she has to say.

Easter. Traditions and Tragedies

Something new: I wanted to go Easter Caroling this year. It didn't work out. I'll try again next year.

A few years ago, I found a green egg in one of my grandmother's african violets--a real egg, mind you. I actually remember putting it there. Scary thing is, I haven't done an egg hunt there since I was a kid. Guess they don't start smelling till they're cracked.

This is the first year in a while having an Easter with a kid around. So I was pretty excited about hiding the eggs--all 95 of them. I had 40 boiled and 55 plastic. Valinda suggested I write a list of where I was hiding all the eggs at least for the real eggs. Now my sister and I are very different. Valinda is one who writes lists and rough drafts for her lists and somewhere on her rough draft she writes "rewrite list." Naturally, I respect her organization, but I like short cuts. I wasn't going to write a list. I would remember. I had a pretty good memory.

I've been out of school for a little while and unfortunatly memory of intelligence and actual intelligence are two different things. I should have made a list.

We found 54 plastic eggs and 37 real eggs. I should have made a list
I did recall my best hid eggs. One locked in my lock box designed to look like a Standard English Dictionary. The other buried under my potted braided palm.

Favorite Things

2008

Christmas, New Year, presents, programs, lit trees, Luke 2 readings, family, shopping, decorations, cookies, long lost relatives, laughter. It's been a good holiday. I can't wait till next year.

Christmas Time

Favorite Christmas Songs:
So This Is Christmas
All I want for Christmas is You
Baby It's Cold Outside
Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy--Bing Crosby/David Bowie
O Holy Night
Carol of the Bells
Wizards in Winter

Favorite Christmas Tradition:
Serving breakfast in bed. Opening presents one at a time. String caroling.

Favorite Christmas Gift:
A box of stones. Mom and Dad couldn't afford much that year. They gave a each a box of stones. Each stone represented an aspect of the Christian life. It actually started the idea for the memorial stones that I keep now.

Favorite Part of the Christmas Story:
Luke 2:25-35
And behold there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon...and it was revealed to him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ...and he took him up in his arms...and said...mine eyes have seen thy salvation...a light to lighten the Gentiles.

Most Unusual Christmas:
The Christmases spent in Africa where wishing for a white Christmas took on a whole new meaning, where "I'll be home for Christmas" was banned from every repertoire, where we planned to decorate palm trees, but never did, where we opened a canned ham as a special treat to celebrate, where we sat in church for six hours to watch the African's reenactment of the nativity, where we never hung lights because of a cultural association with the local bars, where our favorite gift was a candy bar.

Most Remembered Christmas:
The year we spent in France. We had an itty-bitty tree that Dad cut down. We made ornaments covering shapes cut from cereal boxes with tin foil. It was the only year we had real mistletoe-not the plastic substitute. It smelled horrible. We strung popcorn and when Christmas was over, we hung the popcorn from the balcony. All these birds came. We invited a Chinese friend to celebrate with us and ate Christmas dinner with chopsticks.

What are yours?

Kodak Moment

Valinda's first day of school.

Shelly's first day of school.

The Done List

Yes, I have a list too. I'm constantly adding to the list: Things to do before I die. I'm a huge advocate for putting check marks on my list. I like to dream big, but I like to see things move from I wish into reality. I don't list the impossibles. Going to the moon is not on my list, neither is running for office in a presidential election. I'll never have the satisfaction of checking them off, and that would just depress me.

I'm not posting my Things To Do list. Maybe another time. Maybe not. This is my Things Done List. And there is already a beautiful check mark by each of them.

• Taking a canoe down an African river
• Climbing the Eiffel Tower (3 times)


• Hiking in the Swiss Alps



• Eating snake


• Kissing the Blarney Stone
• Climbing an active volcano
• Observing a surgery in a third world country
• Helping deliver a calf
• Bottle feeding a lamb in the Pyrenees Mountains
• Seeing the original Mona Lisa
• Diving off the side of a schooner into the Carribean
• Seeing the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean
• Snorkeling under the "Pirates be warned" rock
• Sleeping in a jungle
• Listening to a stalactites pipe organ
• Touring the Palace of Versailles
• Skydiving

7 hours in the ER

My day started with a phone call at 6:30 this morning. I spent the next 7 hours crammed in a cubicle surrounded by instruments, blinking monitors, beakers of things I was trying hard not to identify, and smells I was trying not to inhale.

I'm with the majority of the population that hates hospitals. I mean, I like knowing they are there, but I'll appreciate their existance from a distance.

7 hours is a long time and an unexpected trip to the emergency room led to some rather interesting conversation.

We talked about dreams and nightmares and and if you can read in your sleep and how to rewind and manipulated dreams. About your life being in danger and what to do. "Jack would not lay down and die. He would find a way. He would do something."

We talked about plastic Christians and silver platter faith, the tragedy of second generation Christians and the problem with fundamentalism. Of friends who left fundamentalim. Of why I did not and why I was still frustrated with fundamentalists. We talked about legalists and liberals and the point where they meet.

We talked about abnormal childhood perceptions. I was the heretic and the skeptic in my elementary Sunday School classroom. But it wasn't my fault. I was misunderstood.
Teacher: Jesus died for everyone in the world.
Me: Are you sure?
Teacher: Of course, the Bible says so and the Bible is true
Me: But it doesn't even make sense
Teacher's perception: This child doesn't believe Jesus died for her.
My perception: The teacher says we live IN the world.
This led to many years of confusion trying understand why airplanes didn't crash into the earth's crust and why China's ocean didn't drip on my head.

I was the kid who at 4 years old was found standing on her Bible singing at the top of her lungs, "I stand alone on the Word of God!" I took Sunday School a little too literally.

I thought the Bible was divided into 3 equal parts: the story part, the memory verse part, and the confusing part. Unfortunately, I could omly find the confusing part.

We talked about being single. And why being older and single makes you a perfect candidate for everyone's brother, uncle or friend who is desparate, old, and willing to settle for anything that's female. Just this week, I was recommended to someone who needs a visa. Apparently, he's willing to pay. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I'm still holding out for someone with a personality.

We talked about burial rituals, tattood lampshades, and cheese.

A Lifetime Loving You

Jane Who?

I picked up this delightful little book. It's called Overheard at the Bookstore. And that's all it was, just a little thing with a quote on each page of things people have said while browsing through shelves of books. As much as I love books, watching people is just about as much fun. But watching people with books combines the best of two worlds.

Here are some of the better quotes:

• You'll never finish that here--why don't you just buy it?
• I think I could probably write this book.
• Do you have anything for dummies?
• I don't know the title or author, but the book's purple.
• It doesn't make any sense--it's called modernism.
• This was such a good movie.
• You definitely don't have it, or you just can't find it?
• I'm afraid I have to disagree with the reviewers.
• These are the two that I'm going to buy, and these are the twenty I'm not.
  

I laughed because many of these I've heard myself. Sadly a few of them were spoken by my mother. So I was reading through them out loud when my parents came over to visit my library. I was already laughing when I read to them my all time favorite--

• Should I buy a Jane Austen or a Stephen King?

I don't know--somehow that one just hits me funny.

"Wait a minute," mom said. "Now what did they write?" My jaw dropped, and I am still greatly distraught every time I think of it. Don't get me wrong. I love my mom, and she is a very intelligent woman. We just don't read the same things. I directed her to my bookshelf. Ironically Jane Austen and Stephen King were sitting next to each other. (It's the one shelf I haven't alphabetized yet.) And though she was very attentive through my emergency literary lesson, I suddenly feel as though there is this great chasm between myself and my parents that can't quite be bridged.

Contentment On a Moonlit Night

I watched the lunar eclipse tonight. It brought back memories. The first time I ever saw an eclipse of the moon, I was in 4th grade. I was living in Africa that year. It's actually one of my strongest memories. We and about 5 other families set up lounge chairs in the yard and watched the eclipse, the entire thing from start to finish. I remember as a child not daring to look away from the sky for a second for fear I'd miss it.

Africa was a different world. There wasn't a lot to do. We didn't have electricity let alone TV. Even then, I loved to read, but with no libraries, you can only get so much from reading the same books over and over. Creativity had a different meaning back then, and my brother and I were masters at it. Watching the eclipse was one of the biggest events for us that year. There we sat, mesmerized, all facing the same direction. The Africans would walk by, look at us, look the direction we faced. What are you looking at? We pointed to the moon. Monsieur and Madame has never seen the moon? And they walked away shaking their heads.

Sometimes I wonder if I could still be that content. Could I live someplace that hard again and still love it? Could I give up internet and cell phones and paved roads and clearance racks and ice cream and libraries and Starbucks and every other amusement? Could I give it up and have as much joy as i did that night? I don't know.

But tonight I watched the lunar eclipse, and I remembered. And I called up my family, my parents next door, my brother 4 hours north, my sister 3000 miles west. And I told them to look. And I wonder if they remember too.

Little Pirate

Had to post a couple of these because my niece is just too cute for words.

Walk the plank!

Ship ahoy!

Is this gold real?

Hey Grandpa

I just found out that I'm related to this guy. He's my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather. I sort of stumbled across him by accident. Some relative told me I was a direct decendent of Sir John Hawkins, and I was looking up some information to see if it was true, and next thing I knew, I was tracing names through the house of Tudor straight back to Henry VIII. It's kind of cool because I can actually trace all the names in between. I think he's funny looking. I hope there's no family resemblance. Apparantly in 1509, people thought differently. Someone said of him,

"His Majesty is the hansomest potentate I ever set eyes on; above the usual height, with an extremely fine calf to his leg, his complextion fair and bright, with auburn hair, combed straight and short in the French fashion, and a round face so very beautiful that it would become a pretty woman, his throat was rather long and thick"

Then again, I'm not certain any validity can be taken on such a comment considering he executed anyone who disagreed with him. What a charming man! So, it's kind of fun to trace your heritage. And it's kind of scary some the characters that show up.

My Canoeing Adventure

Once a favorite activity, I haven’t been in a canoe in at least 11 years. So when my parents asked, “What do you want to do?”

Let’s go canoeing!

I have wonderful memories of taking a boat out with my sister. And before that, I remember when all five of us fit in one canoe. There we sat in the boat like five orange bumps on a log. Peering over the edge looking at the fish. Chasing a blue heron around the lake. Paddling down a river between majestic mountains, singing “How Great Thou Art” at the top of our lungs. It’s been a few years, but canoeing is like riding a bike right? You never forget.

Tim and I shared one canoe. Mom, Dad, and Janice Williams (an old family friend) took the other.

The adventure began when Tim and I found a little tributary curling out from the lake. We were no longer vacationers in a rental canoe. We were explorers. Who says imagination dies when you get old. Never mind that the water was only about 18 inches deep and we were using the paddles to push ourselves up and over sandbars, rocks and logs. Never mind the stream was so narrow and the bushes so dense that I kept getting whacked in the face. Never mind that our beautiful lake had become a rancid smelling bog, and we were stirring up swarms of insects that were making it very clear that they preferred not to be disturbed.

What do you do when you find a bridge in the middle of nowhere? That’s easy. You go under it. Uh…we got stuck. So the water was increasingly becoming shallower. My head was scraping the bottom of the bridge. Yeah, there were spiders under there. And I was in the front trying to navigate around protruding logs. Didn’t work.

Plan B: We’ll carry the canoe over the bridge and lower it down on the other side. Never mind that the two of us were carrying the canoe uphill. Never mind that the path was not wide enough to support two people and a canoe. Never mind that on the other side of the bridge and around the corner, that water dried up and there was nowhere to go. Never mind that jumping in to a canoe from a bridge is a pretty likely way to topple it.

This is Tim gracefully lowering himself into the boat. Hmmm, for some reason the boat did not remain stationary for him. And as the boat carried his legs under the bridge, he held on for dear life.

I don’t have a picture of me falling in the lake. Good thing too. If he had sat in the boat snapping pictures while I struggled to get in a wobbly boat, I don’t think he would have lived to tell about our adventure.

I don't know. Something about me and water....I always seem to fall in. So yeah, I was wet for the rest of the day, but that's okay. We had fun.

And no, we didn't tell the rental people what we had done with their boat.

My family

These are the most important people in my life. I love them dearly. I don't claim to have a normal family, but who wants to be ordinary when there are so many other options.

These are my parents, best parents in the world. And they're cool enough I think I would say that even if I wasn't required to. My dad is the most humble man I have ever met. He gets cuter the older he gets. I think he looks very distinguished. He's as steady as a rock. He taught me what it means to trust God. Mom is my friend. She's about the best preacher I ever heard. She doesn't...but she could. Probably the only person I've ever known can pull any Bible reference out of her head, and weave difficult, in depth theology into everyday conversation. My parents are missionaries to St. Vincent in the Caribbean. Yes, the very same island where Pirates of the Caribbean is filmed.

This is my brother. I think he wanted to be in the mafia when he grew up. Or maybe it was the secret service. I hope not or I just blew his cover. Oops. He's really not as dangerous as he looks. And some of my girls who have seen this picture haven't stopped drooling yet. Sorry ladies. He's a confirmed "bachelor till the rapture." Tim is amazing. With only a year between us, he's my little brother who wishes he was my older brother. We've been pretty inseparable since he was like two, I think. I hope that never changes.

This is my sister. She's two years older, but we never let that come between us. She's the one I can talk to about anything. She is friend and confidant. I go to her for advice, and for some reason she comes to me for the same. Anyone who can put up with an annoying little sister (and I did the annoying sister thing well) deserves a lot of praise.

This is my wonderful brother-in-law. We like him. Stephen can fix anything so we break things on a regular basis for him. He takes such good care of my sister. I'm not quite sure how we got along without him before he was part of the family.

And this is my niece, Michelle. For some reason she's obsessed with the violin. I'm sure I had nothing to do with that.

Remembering when...

This is for Tim and Vin, them being the best brother and sister in the world.

• Tim, remember the rock quarry and arguing over whether or not we should tell Mom we had seen a cobra?
• Remember the trips we made through the cemetery just because we thought we weren't allowed?
• Remember when we would go to the park and not speak English because we thought it was fun when people started talking about us thinking we couldn't understand?
• Remember the chicken that mom kicked during the invitation that started squawking got the deacons glaring at us?
• Tim, remember all the clubs I started and dragged you into joining?
• Remember the language we invented?
• Remember the tortured scorpions?
• Remember the fruit bat that got loose?
• Remember Mom's screaming?
• Remember when Valinda wanted to see Niagara Falls up close?
• Remember Mom's screaming?
• Remember the hotdogs Dad made that the dog wouldn't eat?
• Valinda, remember the year I thought we should keep Christmas lights up in our room all year long?
• Remember the night the three of us stayed up all night reading ghost stories by flashlight?
• Remember going to MacDonald’s and ordering french-fry foam and a chocolate marlamo?
• Remember the lady that swallowed her brains?
• Remember eating lunch under the piano?
• Remember the day we turned all the pictures in the house upside down and Mom didn't notice?
• Tim, remember when I used to sneak into your room to watch scary movies after Mom and Dad went to bed?
• Remember the day Mom decided to roast mini marshmallows?
• Remember the red wagon?
• Remember the lemonade stand--except we used our own nickels, thinking we had to buy our own product, and drank more than we sold?
• Remember when Valinda scribbled all over my face with a magic marker and it wouldn't come off before school?
• Remember the Little Black Kitty song that Dad would sing just to torment Vin?
• Remember the log slide?
• Remember riding our bikes pass the kitchen window and Mom giving us lunch "Drive-thru" style?
• Remember when Mom and Dad didn't realize we understood Sango and we found out all our Christmas presents early that year?
• Remember the more "creative" ways of eating spaghetti?
• Remember the hours in the back of the truck singing at the top of our lungs?
• Remember how much fun automatic doors were after living in Africa?
• Remember going up all the down escalators?
• Remember all the shop keepers that had no sense of humor?