untold stories of 2011 :: the holiday season

It wasn’t that long ago that I suddenly realized how much I love the Christmas season. Sure, I had the usual amount of excitement as a child, waking early on Christmas mornings to creep down the hall with my sisters and explore what Santa had left for us during the night. But then adolescence came and Santa was no longer a magical mystery, and eventually Christmas became one more holiday from school and a time when family gathered for gift exchange. I still enjoyed that aspect of it, especially as my niece and nephews arrived, but somewhere in the mix I lost the sense of wonder and joy. I liked Christmas as much as I liked other holidays but no more than that.

It was only last year that I felt the great stirring in my spirit that I’d had as a young girl. I’m certain this is directly proportional to my relationship with Jesus. As I’ve grown spiritually in the past few years I’ve come to view the world in terms of beauty and art. And that has brought with it a true JOY that I don’t recall experiencing in my younger years. I do all I can to choose joy throughout the year, but there is once again a sense of WONDER and MYSTERY as Christmas approaches. My heart is thrilled by the sparkle of the world – whether manmade or innate – and I have come to recognize a new buoyancy to my heart during the Advent season. Everywhere I go and everything I see fills me with expectancy and excitement. I have come to enjoy the experience of shopping for Christmas gifts simply for the fun of standing amidst the twinkling decorations. Every lighted tree makes me smile. Every shimmering display makes my heart happy. These are the reasons I don’t want to nail down my Christmas gift list too early in the year; I enjoy wandering the festive store displays in search of little treasures! There’s no telling when I might run across that perfect little gift that the recipient doesn’t even know she wants! That is pure joy for me. Even when the world seems filled with Scrooges and Grinches. As far as I’m concerned, those people give me even more reason to be joyful: Jesus did tell me to bring His Light to this world, you know. And Christmas is the perfect opportunity to reflect His love onto others.

That right there is the reason I believe the season has become so powerful for me. I am filled with wonder but that wonder always leads to worship. Every moment of Advent reminds me that Jesus came to this world for me. He chose to live a human life – and to die an excruciating death – for me. That reality never escapes me during the frenzy of holiday shopping and canned carols. Every gift I seek is for the single purpose of bringing the same joy to others than Jesus brings to me. Sure, it’s all material goods, but in the long run it’s not the item itself that gets remembered but the fact that I loved them enough to find something just for each person. And that builds a foundation for the future when gifts will drop away but our relationships will endure. I never want my loved ones to wonder how much I care for them and how important they are to me. During the holidays, I take all the time I can to impart that to each of them.

While the kids are still young there will be physical gifts, but I have to say I’m truly looking forward to the day when the wish lists are insignificant and time together becomes the most important aspect for them. It’s already become that for the adults. A few years ago my sisters and I chose to stop exchanging gifts to each other in favor of pouring all of the budget into the kids’ gifts. Because I have no children myself, each family gifts me one item, but I give only to the four children and to my parents. It saves on the finances, for sure, but it also has the added bonus of finding new and fun ways to share our love for each other. The older we get (and the older their kids get), the more we come to value our time together and our conversations during the other months of the year. Daily interaction has become the focus. I have no doubt that my sisters love me (even when they dislike me greatly for some stupid thing I’ve said), and I think they are assured of my love for them, as well. It comes from the way we share important events with each other, from the way we inquire about each other’s daily lives, and especially from the way we pray for each other and rally around when someone is hurting. The older we get, the more we know the importance of being friends. So when Thanksgiving and Christmas come back around, we use the special season to amp up the shared moments. More and more, my reward from my family comes in the memories we make together and photos I have to tell the stories. And the laughter. Oh so much laughter!

Each new holiday season seems a bit more special than the last. I’m sure it’s about feeling my age more and more, and I know it’s also about realizing that our years together are fleeting. My parents turned 65 this year and became “official” senior citizens (rather than AARP-eligible), and though they are as youthful as ever (and moreso) I cannot help but consider the reality that their days on the earth are fewer now than ever before. In realizing this, of course, I understand that none of us knows how many days we have left. It’s become ever-present in my mind. And the last thing I want in this life is to regret not telling people I love them or showing them the depth of that love. This becomes all the more poignant for me during the holidays, but rather than lament the shortness of days remaining, I choose to celebrate the time we have now. I love that the world lights up all around me while I’m experiencing that same sparkle in my own life.

In 2011 my family didn’t have the most typical of celebrations, but we held true to our traditions. In recent years, two of my cousins from my mother’s family have joined us for Thanksgiving Day, and this year my cousin Kim offered to host the holiday at her newly completed home. My sisters and their families did not join us, but I traveled with my parents to the western skirts of the Dallas region to hang out for the day. All of Kim’s family was present, including her husband and son, her sister Shawn with husband and young daughter, as well as Kim and Shawn’s parents, my Aunt Linda and Uncle Don. Linda is my mom’s only sister, and the last remaining member of her birth family, so I’ve come to understand how important it is for us to share time with this part of my extended family. We didn’t have much time together growing up and have only just reconnected a bit in the past five years or so, but during our childhood years I spent alternate Christmases with these cousins when we all gathered at my maternal grandmother’s home. Due to distance, that was often the only time we ever saw each other. I’m not sure how much my own (younger) sisters can recall about those holidays, but I have several good (and ridiculous) memories from those few years during our childhood. That we are now reconnecting a bit in adulthood is a nice thing. And Thanksgiving was a good day of relaxed family time. No great fuss, no pressure, some laughter and sharing and a ton of food. Holidays with my sisters’ families are never this tame. Or quiet! So this Thanksgiving was a rare moment of casual family time in the midst of holiday celebration. Driving back home that evening we weren’t even tired! And the awesome blessing of a beautiful sunset through the trees was a perfect topper to the day.

By contrast, Christmas with my sisters and their families was as chaotic as ever. In the very best way. It has become tradition for us to all gather (along with our parents) at my youngest sister Janeen’s home to have lunch and share a family gift exchange. Her house is the largest, and with eleven of us, that is much needed. By the time I arrive the stockings have already been sorted through and Janeen’s family has exchanged their own gifts to each other. Since my stocking remains at their house (and we have the new tradition of filling them for each other), I always have little gifts waiting for me when I first arrive. Not long after, my other sister Joanie arrived with her family and we set about getting lunch to the table. The kids would rather this tradition didn’t exist, but my paternal grandmother had a rule that no gifts could be opened on Christmas until a full meal had been shared and all dishes cleaned up. When we were children this referred to the breakfast meal, which was always a full and hearty breakfast that took forever (it seemed), but as adults it now refers to the lunch meal. To make it even more excruciating for my niece and nephews (ha ha!), my own mother implemented a tradition that the gift exchange take place in a round, with each person opening only one gift while everyone else watched, then continuing in birth order until all gifts were finally revealed. To say the kids get bored is an understatement. The youngest ones typically last for a couple of rounds before wandering around the house and complaining about how long it takes until their next turn. Even some of the adults get bored with this, but we’ve come to embrace it as tradition so it’s just part of the deal. And I love it like my mom does. This practice allows us to all know exactly what gifts were received and by whom, and everyone gets to share in the joy of each other’s creativity and personal attention. As much as I love giving my own gifts, I’ve come to realize how cool it is for me to see what others give. And I learn a lot about each person in the process.

Following the gift exchange this year was a fun period of photography. I’m always shooting throughout the day, more than ever lately as I try to capture every small moment, and in years past there has been some effort made to posing for “family” photos. We abandoned it last year since so many turned out so horribly (bad lighting, lack of interest), but Joanie wanted to capture her own little family this year so I helped out with that. The photos really didn’t turn out as I’d hoped but the experience turned into my favorite hour of the day. There was just a shared joy in being silly and not worrying too much over the process. Interestingly, this period also provided my very favorite photo of the day: an accidental shot of my brother-in-law mugging for the camera while I tested my settings. He wasn’t expecting the shot, I wasn’t intending to depress the shutter, but the image turned out amazing and really captured his sense of playfulness and our ease with each other that has only come about in very recent years. It’s taken 25 years for us to feel totally relaxed around each other (owing to the fact that I was completely unlikable when he and my sister met at 15 years of age), so having this hour of silliness with him and Joanie really showed me the importance of growing into relationships. If you’d told me that my favorite moment of the day would be laughing loudly with Shane over an accidental photo I would’ve told you “fat chance.” Now I can’t imagine not experiencing it again!

These are the memories that remain with me year after year, and they define the holiday season for me. As soon as they end I’m ready to fill that void with something equally brilliant. This has made the standard Christian phrase of “Keep CHRISTmas in your heart all year long” all the more simple for me. My holidays are wrapped up in family, but the heart of everything is worship. I worship Jesus all year-round, every moment of every day, and Christmas just shows the rest of the world the joy that I experience daily. When all the twinkle lights are taken down and the evergreens are tossed by the curb I am reminded that many in the world will be looking for something to fill that space in their hearts, something that keeps the celebration alive. There’s only one answer to that: Jesus came that we may have life – and have it abundantly. The joy of Christmas is present every day. Praise God for that!

Take a look at the complete gallery of my holiday photos.

Twenty years ago today… (well, twenty-five, actually)

My beloved niece Kiwi begins her senior year of high school today. In the midst of all the talk of it and her excitement of it finally arriving, I realized that this marks the 25th anniversary of my own senior year. Twenty-five years! It had never occurred to me before! But my own experiences of high school are very different from Kiwi’s life.

You may recall my mentioning that the teen years were less than pleasant for me, having moved away from my childhood home between freshman and sophomore years of high school. I was already an awkward and introverted fifteen-year-old by that time, uncomfortable with my physicality and even more uncomfortable with social interactions, so dropping me into a town I’d never before heard of with people who had essentially grown up together since birth was nothing short of devastating. I’d lived in my previous town since second grade, had finally reached a level of acceptance and comfort with a small group of friends whom I adored and who loved me back, and during freshman year I finally began to feel like I belonged and that my high school years were going to be epic. I was crushed, then — shattered, even — when my parents announced my dad’s promotion and subsequent need to move to a town located more than an hour north of Dallas and within only a few miles of the Oklahoma border. Oklahoma! It was the end of civilization for me! And I wanted no part of it.

I’d love to say I adjusted to the change over the course of the next few years, but I never did. I spent my entire adolescence feeling sorry for myself and angry at the state of my life, and by senior year I was thinking only of how I could get out of that town — it never did feel like “home” to me — and how life would certainly be so much better when I was “on my own.” Looking back I can only shake my head and laugh at that miserable young girl. But I also can’t say I’d do anything different. I’m still no better at entering new situations than I was at fifteen, though at least I know how to pretend a bit now. But not in 1986. Back then I was hopeless.

In ’86, as my first day of senior year arrived, I still had no close friends and no big dreams for the future. My niece, on the other hand, is filled with hope and joy. She’s had the benefit, so to speak, of living her entire life in one small country town and going to school with many of the same people every year of her life. She has some of the same friends now that she’s had since elementary school. People have watched her grow up since birth. And in Kiwi’s mind, senior year has always been one of the greatest times of life. She’s wise enough to know that it’s not the ultimate phase of life, of course, but she also knows it could become the stuff of legend. She’s grown up hearing stories of “the glory days” from her own father and friends, who all spent their high school years in the same town she lives in now. Kiwi has never expected her senior year to be anything less than glorious, and to finally arrive is one of her first dream-come-true moments. It’s hard not to get caught up with her in such excitement! Today she will experience a senior caravan to the campus, a senior breakfast before classes, a decorated locker by senior parents (her own mom / my sister), and a class schedule that reflects a bit of ease in academics. During the next few months she will experience the football season as a drill team officer and leader among her peers, and in the spring she will begin to have a series of “lasts” that will be both fun and bittersweet. I felt very few of these things twenty-five years ago. I’m thrilled that Kiwi’s experiences are so much greater and more special than anything I ever even dreamed of having, and I can’t wait to watch her walk through these days. I hope I can help her document them, as well, so her memories are established for years to come.

Congratulations, sweet girl! You are truly awesome and these are most certainly great days!

 
 
 

a party for the Pickle

The last boy is 9 years old today. Nine! He’s the youngest grandchild, my last nephew, and most definitely one of a kind. We celebrated the big event yesterday with his cousins, aunts and uncle on our side of the family, and I was reminded once again how precious are these current days. Very soon the two oldest kids will be in college and scenes like these will be fewer. I’m so grateful that everyone could gather in celebration this year and that there were true moments of joy. Not to mention, a really great surprise for the Birthday Pickle!

patiently waiting for the big reveal
 

 

Surprise!
 

one minute inside and the somersaults begin!
 

the last two boys
 

the girl + 3 boys ~ I love that they all still enjoy each other. These are the scenes I’ll miss the most when they’re older.
 

dad and son
 

a quiet conversation between dad and son
 

resting between bounce sessions
 

 
Happy birthday, Pickle! Love you so much!
 

On this day…

There is a beagle girl in a carrier kennel in her family’s garage.
It’s more like doggie jail.
She can’t be trusted to stay in the backyard.
She’s become a digger.
No matter how much is piled up and wedged into her escape hatches,
That girl just paws and claws her way through all of it.
She can no longer be contained. It seems.

After our first little excursion through the neighborhood
I decided it would be best to stay over. To dog-sit.
I assumed she was perturbed about being left behind by her family.
So I made sure she saw me moving around inside the house during the evening.
I made sure the TV was on so that she could hear signs of life.
I triple-checked the new barricade to be sure she had no openings.
And then I couldn’t sleep all night.
I guess I was feeling worrisome.
Or something.

I went outside early this morning to let the girl know I was still with her.
She didn’t come when I opened the door.
She didn’t come when I called her name.
She didn’t hear me… because she wasn’t there.
Another escape route had been cleared during the night.
She was gone. Again.

I began to drive through the neighborhood again, scouring every yard.
As I reached the east exit from the family’s neighborhood
The Momma of the family called from her vacation spot.
The beagle girl had been found.
Three neighborhoods over and past a school.
Nearly to the busy state highway with its constant flow of traffic.
Thank the Lord the girl didn’t make it that far.

She’s on a short leash now. Literally.
And, interestingly, she doesn’t seem to mind.
But diggers can’t be trusted. Unfortunately.
And it’s kinda sad. She really is a sweet dog.
Just a little… uh… headstrong, at times.

Silly beagle girl.

from the weekend :: Ka-Ciao!

This past Friday I joined my sister’s family for an opening day viewing of Cars 2, something that had been planned for months by their NASCAR-lovin’ selves. The first film is one of their very favorites, and the last boy tends to quote Lightning McQueen a lot, but I’ve never been as much a fan of that film beyond the simple fact that Pixar films are always enjoyable and visually stunning. The race car aspect though? Meh. So I was thankful that I could join their crew for this sequel because I knew my viewing experience would be made so much better by hearing the boy’s commentary throughout the film. Or at least that’s what I thought. Turns out, I loved the film more than any of them! It was far better than the first one — for me, at least — and my experience was heightened by sitting next to the first boy rather than his younger brother. Which just goes to show that nothing is certain in art or life.

I planned to take several photos before and after the movie, but the boys just weren’t having it. The Pickle was almost cranky the whole day, so I only managed a few. But I think I have enough to tell the story. The boys and their parents arrived at the cinema more than an hour before showtime, so they were able to secure the first spots in line. Such a long wait is not agreeable to the last boy, but he managed to endure with the help of Angry Birds — or, as he calls it, “Frustrated Birds”, because “angry” is not a nice thing to be. … During the movie, K2 and I laughed at pretty much every scene — and most of all when Mater gained the power to change his appearance by voice command and turned himself from a tow truck to a monster truck to a taco truck. We couldn’t stop giggling! I was sitting too far away from the other boy to hear his comments throughout the film, but I did notice him during the opening title sequence. When the original Cars graphic appeared onscreen, Pickle’s hand flew into the air displaying the number two. And as that number appeared on the movie screen, he shouted out, “Two!” It was a terrific way to start the show!
 

You'd think the movie didn't delight these guys, but the truth is they knew I was taking a photo. Plus, I think this occurred during closing credits (which were kinda boring).

My full review of the movie will be posted at a later date. But I will say, “Go see this movie!”