Lessons Learned At Christmas

I few lessons I learned or was reminded of this past Christmas:

Enthusiasm of Kids
It is so fun to have little kids around the house at Christmas. Everything is so exciting. It has made me more excited this year. Jaron and Russell seem to love everything about Christmas. Even seeing a house with a few lights outside brightens their day. And it's pretty darn cute to hear Russell say "lights" with his lisp. On Christmas morning, Jaron jumped up and down with excitement over his presents. I even found it hard to sleep Christmas Eve with the anticipation of seeing them open gifts.

Jaron enjoying a few toys at once.

Russell sporting his favorite Christmas gift. He finally got his own pair of sunglasses. He needed to wear them at that moment to block out the glare of our Christmas tree.

Procrastination - Not Good
I actually try to stay pretty far ahead of the game for Christmas. My goal is usually to have all my shopping done by Thanksgiving. This year I particularly wanted to get things under control since I wasn't sure if I would be having a baby before, during or after Christmas. (After since she hasn't come yet!) Well, procrastination kicked in when we were trying to decide on the gift for our annual Christmas hunt. It's a tradition that has carried over from my family. We do a type of treasure hunt with clues around the house which leads us to a family gift. Clark and I debated back and forth for quite awhile and when I finally convinced him to see things my way we couldn't find the item anywhere. Great - popular item! We did this to ourselves last year! Did we learn the lesson? Apparently not. In the end, it worked out. I found the item, didn't pay exorbitant amounts of money and amazingly it was delivered on Christmas Eve. Was the stress worth it? No, not for me. Maybe I'll let Clark deal with it next year.

Spontaneity is Always Welcome
We were doing Christmas entirely solo this year. We couldn't travel, no family was visiting and we hadn't had any invites. We both really wanted to invite someone over for Christmas Eve or Christmas day but worried about the possibility of me going into labor. (Hey, I did have a false alarm a few days before Christmas so this was valid.) Being new here and not knowing people particularity well we just didn't think it would be fair to invite someone over and then cancel on them the last minute. I was pretty down about it but resigned myself to our situation. Mid-afternoon on Christmas day the couple across the street rang our doorbell. How cute they were holding hands and wondering if we wanted to come over for Christmas dinner and they were sorry about the late invite. Are you kidding!? Who cares that I had a ham in the oven and rolls raising! It was so wonderful to join their household with both sets of their parents and their teenage and college children. It was great!

Count, Count and Count Again All Your Blessings
These past few months have been difficult for me. A mixture of so many things. I am constantly trying to remind myself of all the wonderful things I've been given instead of focusing so much on what I feel is lacking. I was forcefully reminded this Christmas of the truly important things in life. We had a woman in our ward, mother of 5 and only just 38 years old, die unexpectedly on the Tuesday before Christmas.

. . .

What do you say after that? I found myself not so much mourning my "lot" in life but mourning for the loss of this great family. We did not know them well but I count myself lucky and blessed that I had the opportunity to serve with this woman for the past 3 months in primary. I wouldn't have gotten to know her otherwise. I once again found myself treasuring the special little things this Christmas.

Kindness of Strangers

Like most mothers with young children I dread grocery shopping, especially during the holiday season. Too add to my already enjoyable and stressful experience I have the lucky privilege and opportunity of doing all my grocery shopping at a Super Walmart.

This morning I seemed to have made it through my entire trip unscathed. My boys were very obliging today and happily munched on raisins as I debated up and down each aisle the food I should buy and stock up on especially considering I may be having a baby very shortly. I'm trying to save Clark the burden of grocery shopping. I know, I know, what a good wife I am. I only had to end a few arguments and bend over about 5 times to put Russell's shoe back on. Why he always loses his shoe while we are grocery shopping I don't know.

Anyway, in the checkout lane, Jaron was begging for a little box of goldfish. Of course, me being the cheapskate that I am, I kindly denied him his request. No way was I going to pay $0.99 for a tiny box of crackers. We had crackers at home and he would be fine. Really, the boys were being good. No whining or complaining. Jaron just had this request. So while I'm conversing with him and unloading groceries a woman came up to me and handed me a $5 bill. "Get the boys a treat on me. They are so cute and I would just love to do this for them." I was completely stunned. Speechless. I thanked her profusely for her thoughtfulness and I think she enjoyed the huge grin on Jaron's face as I handed him the crackers. Russell was oblivious to the special occasion so I just got crackers for him too.

That little act was just sweet and thoughtful. I just stood there smiling and I tried hard not to cry. It probably wasn't a big deal to her but it was too me! I feel like I have such few interactions with people that for a complete stranger to want to buy my kids a treat - well, it was just wonderful.

Now this $5 is burning a hole in my pocket. I've got to do something for someone! I can't keep it. Her kindness and generosity needs to be passed on. I'm attempting to figure out a way to get Jaron involved in this especially. I hope that he sees her kindness and will remember it and want to emulate it.

So . . . Merry Christmas everyone! Sorry I can't buy you all a treat at the grocery store.

Weather Talk

Being a born and raised Minnesota girl, weather is a big deal to me. I'm not sure if that's the case everywhere around the country. In fact, my brother and his wife live in Palo Alto, CA and I doubt that the weather fluctuates too much there to illicit much conversation. Although, my brother still in Minnesotan-mentality will attempt to carry on weather-related conversation. I love it. But I digress.

The weather has been, according to my Minnesotan-mentality, perfect. That is, if it were September or April. Yesterday it was in the 60s. Today, the high is 72! But stranger than strange, the temperature is suppose to plummet to 22 degrees tomorrow. How's this for humorous, the MoTab just came on the stereo singing "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas". Definitely! Ok, so the temperature is mild and somewhat nice, but the wind, it is insane. I've never experienced anything like this. I'm surprised that Oklahoma doesn't have on it's license plate, "The Windy State".

I regularly have a pile-up of tumbleweed at my front door. Monday I had quite the battle with wind and my trash. On leaving for errands with the boys, I discovered our trash can had been blown over and was covering the driveway. Jaron and I cleaned it up, secured the lid on the can extra tight and went off on errands. Later, coming up our street I saw a huge mess of trash strewn all over the street. Dirty diapers were the primary find. Someone had kindly driven over one of the poopy diapers. Yuck.

To top it off, front in center on our driveway was a bath toy that Clark and I were attempting to sneakily throw away. We had a little turtle that squirted water. Unfortunately, he took in too much water and sat with it and other stuff was coming out with his water. We've been in the process of throwing this away for a good month. It had sat on an upper shelf for a few weeks while Jaron forgot about it. Finally, Clark disposed of it in that day's trash. There it was, in the middle of the driveway for all too see - especially Jaron. How I managed to pick that up without him seeing I'm not sure. So I collected the trash for a second time that day.

Thirty minutes later, I went out to get the mail, noticed that the garbage man had come but now I didn't have a trash can. Yep, it had blown away. I've canvassed the neighborhood on multiple times. I've seen lots of other trash cans. Plus, I've found some of my trash: a toothbrush, old contact lens case, pizza box, and a pair of socks that had holes in them. Sorry neighbors.

We've attempted several walks in this nice weather. The wind is so intense. It's quite a work out. Poor Russell. He can't stand it. He's only about 22 pounds so I'm sure he's always concerned he's going to blow away. Maybe I should take the kids to the park, then I wouldn't have to spend so much time pushing them in the swings. They would be wind-propelled.

Thanksgiving Recap

We had a great Thanksgiving. We hosted my parents; my brother, Blake; my sister, Kirsten and Kurt and their six kids; and my brother, Brad and Anne-Marie and their four kids. It was definitely a full house. For the most part I enjoyed the chaos. Although I was always glad when I could go to my room and have my space untouched.

I still can't get over the weather around here. I think the day before Thanksgiving it was almost in the 60s. It made it nice that the kids could go out and play in the backyard and it wasn't too cold. I was a little overwhelmed with the idea of putting on Thanksgiving. Mostly because I've never really cooked a turkey or learned how to make gravy. I finally realized I couldn't stomach the idea of touching the raw turkey so I told Clark that he was going to have to master that. (I learned how to do a ham and it turned out great!) All in all, I think it turned out pretty successfully. Throughout the course of a few days I realized that I take after my mother and I made way too much food. And, I still haven't learned how to make gravy. What a joke! Every time I make up my mind to learn something comes up. Someday I'll learn, in the meantime, hopefully my mom will be at all my major meals to fulfill that responsibility.

So coming off of that loud and fun week, I'm feeling a little lonely. My house seems too quiet. Yes, Jaron and Russell make noise and commotion but not enough to make up for 17 other people. I find myself wishing that there was someone else to talk to while I was doing dishes or something. That's one of the greatest things about having family around - they are such great friends! The conversations are endless.

So yes, I'm feeling a little sad and lonely in my teeny-tiny area of the country. It makes me feel grateful for the wonderful family and friends I have. And especially grateful for my opportunities to be with them.