Merry Christmas to All

Merry Christmas to all of you, and may your new year bring you continuing hope, love, and blessings.

I write this message early Christmas morning. Tracy, Shahra, and David and Kay (Tracy's parents who suffered long delays in Chicago's O'Hare International airport to share this holiday with us) are fast asleep. Meanwhile, I sit writing, sated and in a sublime stupor from last night's sugar-filled dainties and spicy meats and cheeses. In my bedroom lay a couple stunning dress shirt/tie combinations, a couple of lovely and trendy sweaters, a couple book I know I will enjoy reading. The gifts are wonderfully generous and thoughtful, and I appreciate my family for them. But, this Christmas morning, my thoughts go, not to gifts, but to fatherhood, family, and Christmases long ago.

Soon Shahra will awaken. We will tell her about Santa's midnight visit, anticipating her reaction to a coterie of toys that should make her squeal and giggle in delight. Our eyes will be on her, even as she fails to recognize the tradition we are creating for her benefit. In this morning reverie, I think about my own Christmas mornings.

For me, those Christmas Eve night's long ago were a fight with my eyelids for daylight, the earliest glimpses of morning that might justify my approach to a Christmas tree laden with those special gifts from Santa. My nights were virtually sleepless and I shivered with anticipation and childish ecstasy as I plotted up stairs or across a hallway in footed pajamas, creeping, peering around a corner through dim Christmas tree lighting, trying to discern with tired, weak eyes whether Santa had arrived or whether I should make a mad dash back to bed lest I scare him off.

Yet after all these years, there's only one Christmas morning I distinctly remember. I was five or six, and I received a He-Man action figure playset called Castle Grayskull, fully assembled and waiting for me in front of the Christmas tree, beckoning me to grab my other action figures and play, play throughout the Christmas morning. For all my youthful excitement, though, I grew out of this toy; I don't even know what has happened to it. I doubt many of you even remember what He-Man, let alone Castle Grayskull, is--if, of course, you ever did know.

This memory makes me a bit somber. Not for a longing to feel that childhood innocence again, not from a sense that those misremembered Christmases of long ago can never be reclaimed, but because for all that glorious ecstacy I felt as a child I realize now that, for me in my youth, those memories were about the gifts. I cannot glaze them with a sugary coating of childhood innocence or dress them in evergreen trimmings of family gatherings. I longed, throughout the Christmas season, for the gifts. Many nights in the month of December, I dreamed about what I would get. I wrangled and wriggled all of Christmas Eve, grumbled as I dressed for church, urged brevity in others speeches, dismayed at long dinner table conversations, hurriedly gobbled my food, held the seat of my chair, waiting for when the crowd would move to the living room and we'd open those Christmas Eve gifts to one another. Then I'd wait in anticiptation for Christmas morning.

It's not that I expect too much from the childhood me. As children, we were all egocentric, too concerned with ourselves, never looking too much outward, except for approval. All I know is that, in the past, it was about the presents and that, now, it isn't.

Now, in my Christmas Eves, I prefer to linger. At church, I sit anticipating, not splendid wrapped gifts, but an epiphanic moment, as I think of Christ's birth in a manger through chant and song that carries my voice and the voices of others up, up, throughout the sanctuary and, I hope, out the church doors to the souls of some others. That night, at home, I linger over the good food and good company, not really concerned about what I will open or whether I will open much of anything at all. Instead, I consider how I will build in traditions, how I will contribute to make the experience richer for us all, thinking about what traditions of my past I should carry forth to my family, figuring out what should go in the child's stocking or whether, this year, we should read together the Christmas story in the book of Luke. I think about how to delay the gifting, just a little bit, to weave a rich fabric of family togetherness before the material revelry. This morning, I will glory in seeing my child's ecstatic, gleeful smile.

When does the heart open up? When do we, as adults, shed that childish, egocentric mindset and begin to think more of others than we do of ourselves? I certainly cannot mark a Christmas in my past where my mind went from selfishness to generosity. I imagine my heart opened slowly, after several long ago Christmases. And I antipicate, quite ecstatically, that it will keep opening, for as much as I cherish my memories of past Christmases, I love the Christmas present ever more.

Merry Christmas to you all. Today, may you be surrounded with family love and generosity that will highlight the bright moments of your year and carry you through the dark ones, until next Christmas.

Amen.

November: Turkey, Trees, Twists and Turns

Hello all!

For those who just want pics of Shahra: They'll be coming soon. We even got new pics taken a week ago. Just be patient and enjoy some original prose by Tracy.



Hope you had a great Thanksgiving and have begun looking ahead to Christmas. We're doing quite well in Indiana. This week we had our first cold snap (ok, it only got down to 22 above, but the wind was cold :) There could be snow by the end of the week (yes, yes, just an inch, and it won't stick) It looks like I need to keep the old ice scraper shined and ready to go (fine, fine, it's Dec 3 and I've only used it 3 times) Old man winter has come to Indiana (well, maybe not "old man winter" but his 2nd cousin twice removed sent us his love) Basically, this MN gal has nothing to complain about, but that wind still felt icky this morning!


Thanksgiving:

Thanksgiving is the big holiday in the PJ household. In contrast to Christmas, my family did not always do a lot for Thanksgiving. Since we've been married, Jeff and I have created our own down home family holiday. I joke that I like to recreate the Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving picture each year. All we need are the people. This year we co-hosted with Pastor John and his wife and adult kids. One of Jeff's grad friends Jill also joined us. Thanksgiving is the one time every year I get REALLY domestic. I make everything from scratch. This includes about 8 dainty recipes I got from grandma after I got married (for those who don't know, a "dainty" is a sweet treat consisting of various amounts of sugars, coconut, chocolate chips, etc, etc. Amazing little treats made with love, and lots of sweetened condensed milk). I think we could have fed 30 people. 4 homemade breads, 5 lbs of mashed potatoes, 2 kinds of stuffing, 4 pies.... it was everything hard working, gluttonous 'Mericans could ever hope for.

This was followed by a day of shopping at the crack of dawn.

Thoughts on Christmas:

When I was a child, Christmas was the big holiday. We always went to Winnipeg and saw all of my mum's family. It was a wonderful 3 day event with everyone at church, followed by a visit from Santa at Uncle Richard's place, Grandma's dainties and visits. There were many years when my parents and I would go to a fancy, 5 star restaurant with my grandparents on Christmas Day for dinner. Perhaps the Long family would join us, or the Wilkie relatives. I remember a harp playing by our table one year as we ordered the most elegant dishes served on fine china. I was expected to act like a little lady, and gladly complied. It was always cold in Winnipeg and the back seat of the car never held 4 people very well. I can still hear Auntie Millie comment on the great changes made to Portage and Main over the years and my father's yelling "you know, we'd get there quicker if they had a throughway in this city." As we drove by the stuco ranch homes on Winnipeg's south end, I thought of the families inside. The way they were gathered around their tables. How they knew where they were and didn't get lost every year trying to get to Uncle Richard's house. I envied those families, cozy in their homes, sitting by the fire, while I froze in the back seat of a 1985 Chevy Celebrity with my 3 cousins. But I hold these memories dear to my heart. Christmas was the one holiday that I could count on...it never changed.

But, I have changed. Grandpa died in 2005 and had Alzheimer's for years before that. After a time, the "London Weinds" as we called the relatives from eastern Canada were unable to make the 17 hour car trip. All the kids grew up, yours truly included. It wasn't the same when 19 year old Erin handed out the presents a few years ago. Last year, we made what we knew was to be our last trip up to Winnipeg. Ministers are pretty busy over Christmas. The grandchildren were having children of their own. I believe we all knew things had changed...our family church pew included 5 people who blended in to an unfamiliar church. This is a far cry from the days when all 18 members of Pastor Weind's family filled multiple pews at Christ Lutheran. So, last year we knew we were saying goodbye to a beloved time. But as we said goodbye, we realized that perhaps we had said goodbye many years ago and didn't realize it. One by one, the traditions changed. But we enjoyed them, remembered them, said goodbye to them. As the church choir sang Silent Night in German and the lights were lowered, I remembered the Christmas Eves of my childhood and wept inside that they are forever gone.

Well, that's the news from Lake Winnipeg, where all the women shovel sidewalks, all the men ask your pardon and all the children learn French :)

(Peter Sherry I'm counting on you to understand the above)