My Christmas To-Do List

My mind swirls with what needs to be done:

• Baking
• Candy-making
• Making homemade gifts
• Wrapping gifts
• Shopping for gifts

I'm sure there's more -- I just can't remember it all right now.

So where's the wonder in the midst of the busyness?  Does the sometimes happy, sometimes stressful bustling busyness of Christmas automatically negate the wonder?  Where's the balance?

It's in the Advent moments like these:

• the lighting of the advent candles

• the joyful singing of an overly excited preschooler

• the full table of bowed heads thanking God for blessings

• the air of anticipation that hovers over everything mirroring the waiting experienced by the people of Israel so many years ago, wondering, waiting, expecting even as they went about their daily business

And in those moments my heart ponders the meaning and my spirit sings, 

Come, thou long expected Jesus, 

born to set thy people free; 

 from our fears and sins release us, 
                         let us find our rest in thee.  

 hope of all the earth thou art; 
                         Israel's strength and consolation, 
                          dear desire of every nation, 

 joy of every longing heart.

Our Out-of-the-Box Thanksgivings

Thanksgiving has always been an eclectic sort of holiday for me.  Living so far from extended family, my parents looked for alternative ways to make Thanksgiving meaningful - even if we as kids didn't always appreciate their intentions.

My Thanksgiving memories from yesteryear include:

•  faux Indian name tags (like Babbling Brook) at our place settings;
•  inviting over the people from church who had no place else to go either (like the mentally challenged woman who had no concept of personal space that we as kids groaned about inviting over);
• plastic tablecloths with magic-marker "I'm thankful for..." statements by each of us, carried over from year to year, a source of ribbing among us siblings as the names of the boyfriends written in indelible ink changed with the calendar year.

Fast-forward to my adult married Thanksgivings ~ Now both of our extended families live far away, so Thanksgiving is still on our own.  So the tradition, begun in my childhood, carries over, but with our own unique twists.  I admit, I'm not so handy or creative with the "fun" name tags, but we find our Thanksgivings to be a new adventure from year-to-year.

• One year, soon after we were married, we had a "very Jamaican Thanksgiving" with our close friends, cooking traditional American food alongside authentic Jamaican cuisine. 
• Another year, Thanksgiving consisted of a dozen or so international students from my ESL class clustered around our coffee table in our living room, enjoying their first-ever dinner in a real-life American home. 
• Last year, we had two Thanksgivings -- to fit in different schedules for different friends.  
• This year we enjoyed having our "adopted" college kids home with us for the week, cutting down a real tree (first time for them), and cooking turkey in a whole new way.  

So this Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for the legacy my parents provided -- for the example of looking beyond ourselves.  And now we're pretty excited about our tradition of non-traditional Thanksgivings.  I can't wait to see where the next Thanksgivings will take us and who will grace our table next!

The Many Faces of Valentine's Day

I know there's only an hour left of Valentine's Day.  This post is a bit late. But it's a post I've been thinking about a lot today and just now have the time to sit down and type it out.

Valentine's Day brings out a myriad of polarizing emotions in people.  Tonight in Starbucks, I heard a divorced man loudly proclaiming his dislike for the holiday, while the middle-aged man serving him commiserated.  I've seen the posts on Facebook ranging from extreme dislike to a call to realism, to the typical red hearts, dinners out, roses and chocolate.  And I say "Yes" to all of the above.  I can relate to each position, have felt the emotions of each face of Valentine's Day, and understand the theories, thoughts, and beliefs behind each post/view.

I have been the single girl, then the single adult feeling left out and alone on Valentine's Day. Because I can remember so clearly how those days felt, I almost want to downplay my own married Valentine's Day celebration.

I have experienced dashed expectations at times as a young wife and know many married women who hurt on Valentine's Day because of the lack in their own situations. So a call to realism is accurate -- sometimes our own over-the-top, Hollywood-induced, fairy tale ideals get us into trouble and cause disappointment because the typical guy just can't live up to such unrealistic expectations. Other good blogs have addressed this issue among married women.

I have experienced and do experience the glittery, gooey, sappy, starry-eyed version of Valentine's Day.  All love and hearts and flowers and chocolates. So in love with the man of my dreams.

But I get it. I do.  I get the varied emotions of Valentine's Day. 

Now, with mama-hood, a new stage has entered.  As much as I love my man and enjoy celebrating our love, I find myself excited to share new Valentine's traditions with my daughter -- to ignite the joy and interest in her eyes as she exclaims over heart-shaped pancakes and little kiddie cut-out cartoon cards. The older I get, the more of life's stages I've traveled, the more I think back with fondness to the fun holiday childhood traditions we celebrated in my family growing up.  What fills me with joy and anticipation this Valentine's Day is the prospect of building memorable traditions with my own daughter and family, passing on the fun and the love wrapped in little paper cards and conversation candy hearts.

Jesse Tree and other family traditions

It's here --  The Christmas I've been anticipating all of my life.  I know this sounds like the previous post, but all of the sudden I am saturated in awareness that this season of my life and of my little girl's life is the one I've looked forward to for so long.  And I want to bask in the moments.  I want to capture every golden smile and sunshine-drenched day of these precious little toddler years.

Right now I'm reveling in the joy of instituting family Christmas traditions.  One that I've recently encountered is the Jesse Tree Advent Celebration. Jacie and I found the Jesse Tree branch today in our yard.  I'm sure she had no clue why Mommy was foraging through brush looking for just the right stick. But I was excited, and she was happy just to be outside.  Tonight I hung the homemade, crayon-colored earth ornament on our Jesse Tree and read Jacie the Creation Account from Genesis.  As I look at our Jesse tree adorned with its lone ornament, I'm almost tempted to just have the Jesse Tree this year and not do a regular Christmas tree.  I love the simple symbolism of the Real Meaning of the Advent Season.

Almost tempted.  Because another greatly-anticipated tradition to be instituted this year is choosing and cutting our own tree!  We've had a fake one since we got married, and I probably had it for myself  when I was single even before that. I've long vowed that it would be different once we had kids.  Last year hardly counted, I felt, since Jacie wasn't quite six months old at Christmas and completely unaware of anything.  This year is The Year.  The year of awareness.  The year of instituting traditions.  The year it all begins.