Thursday Thirteen - Christmas Memories

Thursday Thirteen - Christmas Memories

1. As a young child, I pretended to be Mary by placing a blanket over my head and a bucket on top of it as a hat to keep the blanket in place

2. Coming downstairs to see a red banana-seat bike assembled, donned with a bow and waiting by the tree.

3. My brother and I saving up $120 over many months of babysitting, leaf-raking, snow-shoveling and allowances to buy ourselves an Atari system for Christmas, complete with Space Invaders and PacMan.

4. Every year of my teenage years going Christmas caroling with our very small church... we always ended the evening caroling in an 11-story retirement home apartment building. We rode the elevator to the top and caroled through each hallway, ending each floor with "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", and exiting to go down one flight of stairs at a time. We would give out yarn cross-stiched plastic crosses. Some of the residents would give out candy and such to the kids/teens. I remember the many who smiled so big... they must have really looked forward to us coming each year.

5. Fond memories of Christmas Eve in Pittsburgh (ages 12 & up). Our pastor's family always made a point of inviting us to their house for a social after the Christmas Eve service (we never lived near any extended family). They'd usually invite another different family each year, but we were their "family" that were there every year. Memories include... cocktail shrimp, pizza-rolls, buckeyes, a musical lighted Christmas tree on their front door, us younger ones (my brother and I, and pastor's two sons who were college-age when we first came) hanging out in the lower-level family room by the tree and the fire, watching It's a Wonderful Life, while the adults socialized in the living room upstairs.

6. Ice-skating with friends

7. Fond memories of walking in a "Winter Wonderland" with friends around our church after youth group... the parking lot/drive completely surrounded the church so we would walk and skip round and round in the dark of the night, singing carols while huge white flurries floated downward.

8. Unpacking the tree and decorating the house... this job was relegated to me at a young age (probably pre-teen) because I loved to do it (and no one else really did like it that much... they liked the results, but not putting forth the effort!).

9. Same with wrapping presents. Since my parents didn't really want to do it, from the time I was probably six or seven years old, I wrapped all the presents except my own. I liked to do it, and still do. Maybe it was because they encouraged me with what a good job I did. It wasn't till the fifth grade that I found out that maybe I wasn't the best present-wrapper in the world... I was pretty confused about that at first!

10. My first Christmas Day away from home... a nice lady I worked with invited me (and HotSauce... who was "just a friend" at the time) to her house for Christmas dinner, with just her and her husband. She's a gourmet cook, and writes a food column for our local newspaper, so dinner was fabulous (need I say more?).

11. Christmas with Beka's family... she's the oldest of six. They're now all married with a total of fourteen children and two on the way! For many years, until the past two, they have done their family Christmas at New Years, so that they could all be together. We have been adopted into their family for eleven years now. We are invited to reunions, participate in the family gift-exchange drawings, go to weddings, etc. Since I've never had big family gatherings, I've so enjoyed their family Christmases!

12. Our first Christmas with Squiggly-Wiggly. His first gift-opening experience was a couple days before Christmas at Grannycakes' house... he was so overwhelmed we had to take the gifts home with us, still wrapped, and present them one each day to him. Children don't have to be greedy... we're working hard to make sure that ours are joyful givers and thankful receivers!

13. On that note... my newest Christmas memory will be from this year. We took Squiggly-Wiggly to Fort Hunter Park to their Kids-Only Christmas Shop, allowing him to shop on his own for Christmas gifts for his friends and family. You put the money in the envelope, write the amount on the outside, and the list of who they're buying for, and a volunteer is paired up with your child to help them make appropriate gift choices based on the list and money available. Squiggly-Wiggly LOVED this! He has been so excited to give his gifts to everyone. He had a hard time waiting until Christmas day, especially for his gift to Fuzzy-Wuzzy! We had two weekends before Christmas of gift-giving with grandparents, so he got to give a few gifts early. We still need to give the gifts he bought for select friends.

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Shopping on Christmas Eve... with kids

It went really well... seriously! I've never shopped on Christmas Eve before. I thought that the stores would be packed and crazy.

My first stop was Best Buy; I thought surely they'd be packed! I got a front row parking space, although the lot was fairly full. A nice little cart awaited me at the door... one with a seat for Fuzzy-Wuzzy, a small basket for shopping and standing area for Squiggly-Wiggly (OK, that part was supposed to be for large items like computers and such, but he loved standing there and riding on the cart. I walked halfway through the store and found an available associate (no waiting for him to help other customers first). He took me right to my choice purchase. I waited in line for a half-minute!

I drove across the street to Gander Mountain. Good parking space again. Carts readily available. Nice lady holding the door patiently for me while I strapped Fuzzy-Wuzzy in (I didn't realize she was there waiting to help me in with my two kids... how nice!) I didn't have to dodge one single person. I found just what I needed, compared brands, and got in line behind two others. In and out in probably 15 minutes!

Drove back closer to home to visit Five Below so Squiggly-Wiggly could get a couple of gifts for his friends (that's another story... he's really caught on to the giving this year... yeah!). Great parking space again, carts available. This store seemed a little more crowded, but we managed well. Had virtually no wait in line.

Now, the grocery store was an entire different story! The parking lot was jam packed. It took me at least 5 minutes of waiting just to get into the parking lot. I parked farther from the store than I ever have. Fortunately, one of those "little car" carts was in the stall as we passed, so Fuzzy-Wuzzy got to drive instead of me carrying him. And Squiggly-Wiggly got to play in their childcare room, which was a good thing, because this store was really packed. I had to wait at least a minute almost every time I wanted to go into an aisle because there were shopping cart traffic jams everywhere.

Still, I had mentally prepared myself for a black-Friday-like experience, and I was so blessed to get all those last-minute things quickly! Sorry if this was such a boring post, but I thought that I'd help dispell any of your fears of shopping on Christmas Eve!

We don't want to miss it!

A conversation with Squiggly-Wiggly, who obviously doesn't quite get the concept of "a long time ago."

SW: Mommy, where is Bethlehem?
HF: On the other side of the world, in Israel?
SW: Where's that?
HF: I'll show you on this globe. It's not marked, but here's Jerusalem. It's really near to Jerusalem.
SW: Mommy, we have to hurry! We need to go to Bethlehem right away, so we can see Baby Jesus when he is born!
HF: Oh, honey. Baby Jesus was born a long time ago. Remember? He died on the cross for our sins. And he rose again, so now he's with God in heaven and he also can live in our hearts.
SW: Oh. Hmm. Well, we still need to go to Bethlehem now so we can see where he was born.
HF: That would be nice to do someday.
SW: No, we need to go now. Look, we can drive all the way there.
HF: You can't drive over that much water. We would need to fly. It costs a lot of money to pay the airline so they can pay the pilot and their workers, and buy all the gas needed to fly the airplane all that way.
SW: Oh. Can we go?
HF: Maybe someday we will have an opportunity to go. But not this year.
SW: OK.

I think it's so sweet that he wants so much to see baby Jesus, or at least see where he was born!

Thursday Thirteen - To Do List

My parents are arriving tomorrow to see Squiggly Wiggly in his first school Christmas program, to celebrate an early Christmas with us, and to transport our presents back to my brother's family. I've procrastinated, so now I have a lot to do today!

Thirteen Things I have to do Today

1. Decorate the Christmas tree... it's had only lights and a star since Sunday
2. Put away stuff and clean in the guest room
3. Help Squiggly Wiggly decorate 2 little purses with fabric paint and jewels for his girl cousins
4. Help Squiggly Wiggly glue letters and figures onto 2 wooden keepsake boxes for his boy cousins
5. Help Squiggly Wiggly sponge paint with letter sponges on the front of the Grandparent shirts we're making as Christmas gifts
6. At least four hours after #5, help Squiggly Wiggly and Fuzzy Wuzzy paint their handprints all over the back of the Grandparent shirts
7. Give Squiggly Wiggly and Fuzzy Wuzzy a bath (see #6)
8. Sort through the last 2 weeks worth's mounds of mail to find the real mail
9. Pay the bills, once I find them (see #8)
10. Wash dirty laundry
11. Put away the clean laundry that has been sitting in baskets for a week
12. Pick out (and iron?) Squiggly Wiggly's outfit for his school's Christmas Program tomorrow
13. Make Stuffed Pepper Soup for supper (HotSauce's request)

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Gotta go now and make lunch for my boys!

Family Togetherness

Here are a few pictures of what we've been up to lately (in reverse chronological order):

First snow of the season... I got to be the sled-dog :)

A Day Out With Thomas at the Strasburg Railroad. Fuzzy Wuzzy is almost two, and loves Thomas (as does Squiggly-Wiggly). Under 2-yr olds are free, so despite warnings from friends that it is not worth the hassle for all the crowds/chaos, I took my boys anyhow. We arrived a little after 9 am to take a 9:45 train. It was a cold Friday morning, not very busy at all. We had a wonderful time! By the time we were heading back to the parking lot (around 11 am) it was becoming a madhouse, and I was so glad we didn't have to put up with that! We met HotSauce at his workplace to have lunch with him. My advice: if you want to beat the crowd, take a Friday morning train!

The Jerr-Dan tow truck company: On our way to my favorite getaway, our good friend AskJeev gave us a tour. He is an engineer there, so we got to see trucks he actually designed! They just released his latest design, a side-loader tow truck that can tow away a parallel-parked car in less than a minute. Can you see Fuzzy-Wuzzy pointing? He loves all kinds of big trucks.

Near my favorite getaway, the boys wrestle with Grandpa at Natural Chimneys Regional Park.

At my favorite getaway, the guys dragged out a relic from HotSauce's childhood, a potato cannon. Hairspray is the fuel. One turn of the flint sends a potato flying over the field. Squiggly Wiggly thought this was loads of fun!

Also near my favorite getaway, here's Fuzzy Wuzzy on our hike through the "world jungle" as Squiggly Wiggly called it--whatever these bushes were (they looked like Rhododendron) they were at least 15 feet high, and often formed a tunnel for us to walk through. We hiked to Hidden Rocks, where we did a little rock-climbing, of course!

Christmas MeMe

I got this Meme from The Gang's All Here, and it looks like fun. So here goes...

A Christmas Meme About Me!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Some of both
2. Real tree or artificial? Love real trees, but I switched to a very real-looking artificial while my children are young. Can't wait till I switch back to real when they're past the climbing everything in sight stage. Hmm, come to think of it, HotSauce is still in that stage, so I guess my chances of them growing out of it are quite slim!
3. When do you put up the tree? If we are home for Thanksgiving, I put it up that weekend. Otherwise, the first or second weekend in December. I'm behind on everything this year, so it's not up yet. I'm aiming for this weekend!
4. When do you take the tree down? If it's real, before all the needles fall out (usually a week after Christmas). Artificial? Hmm, last year I think I took it down just before daylight savings began!!!! Seriously. I actually enjoyed having it up... it takes a little dreariness out of those short winter days.
5. Do you like eggnog? YUM!!! Actually I prefer Light Egg Nog, and usually have to hunt for it. This year, I'm only finding it in Horizon organic brand, or Pumpking Light Egg Nog (different, but pretty good) at Weis.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? ice skates
7. Do you have a nativity scene? yes, four. We have a ceramic one... a few broken edges due to Squiggly-Wiggly. So we bought him a wooden children's set. We also have the "What God Wants for Christmas" set from Family Life. It has seven days worth of advent-style boxes to open. Then we got the Veggie Tales set as a gift for the boys, but we keep that one's characters in the playroom for year-round use. I'm excited to introduce Fuzzy-Wuzzy to the nativity this year, as he is now old enough to enjoy playing with little figurines.
8. Hardest person to buy for? My teenage nephew
9. Easiest person to buy for? HotSauce, but it's also kind of boring to buy the same things for him all the time (rock-climbing gear). Mostly, it's all he wants, and he's quite thrilled to receive it.
10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? A set of three dollar-store style chubby cherub ornaments.
11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail in the past, emailing for the first time this year... except that only 3 of HotSauce's 15 pairs of aunts/uncles have email. I guess we'll do a combination!
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Charlie Brown Christmas
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Usually October or November. Often HotSauce and I will have a Christmas-shopping date on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. This year, I started three days ago... yikes! Last-minute things are always found by taking advantage of the late-night hours in December... I love it when the stores are open till 10 or 11 (they're not at all crowded then).
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I think so
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Christmas-morning breakfast arrangement of sweet rolls to look like a decorated Christmas tree (or sometimes we do a wreath). But I also really look forward to all things sweet... fudge, cookies, eggnog
16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Both! I have colored lights buried in the branches and white lights on the edges. Very few of the colored lights blink. I experimented with this several years ago to resolve a Thrills-style argument. I ended up loving it, so now I have strung the lights in sections on my artificial tree so that we don't have to take the lights down... we store them on the tree.
17. Favorite Christmas song? O Holy Night, sung live by any extremely talented female vocalist; and Breath of Heaven, sung by Amy Grant
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? either. This year we're staying home.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? I think I can sing them... but it might be the way a child sings... you know, just as long as it sounds something like what you think it should
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Morning, or whenever we gather with out-of-town family
22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? The crazy traffic near shopping hubs and the crazy amounts of people in stores like Walmart, where I might just happen to need to get something during the week before Christmas... gotta plan two hours for one trip to the store!
23. What I love most about Christmas? most everything not shopping-related: gatherings with family and friends, the cozy warmth, the music, the fun foods, the laughter, and watching someone get close to tears over receiving a special gift, SNOW, Christmas plays and productions: both the WOW ones and the cute little children's ones.

You're next!

Two Very Small Copper Coins

I've had an "aha" moment. Although I've seen many other of Jesus' finance-related parables applied to other areas of life ("talents", etc.), somehow I never applied non-monetary aspects of life to this one:

As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. "I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. Luke 21:1-3 (NIV)

All of a sudden, last night and today, the Lord has kept this parable in my heart and mind. I'm realizing that all he asks of me is to give what I am able. Although it may look like so much less, and even those close to me may scoff and think I'm doing next-to nothing, He sees what I am truly giving.

I need to fully grasp this thought, because I have been reluctant to give that little bit lately. I am continually giving up rather than persevering, because it seems that: I'll never get things right, I'll never accomplish what I feel I'm supposed to, I can't be what my family and others expect of me, etc.

As in another parable, I've been taking my one measly "talent" and hiding it in the ground. This revelation that He only expects me to give what I am able is inspiring me to dig up that little bit and start investing it again.

For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. Matthew 25:29 (NIV)

That verse has haunted me for a long time as I struggle to find the motivation to apply myself. I've been holding back, afraid to give my all because my personal stock market crashes way too often. Realizing that He sees when I give my all even when others don' t is the motivation I need to begin to give my all again.

Wordless Wednesday

Another Soup Recipe

Tis the season... for soup. Here's another recipe from Taste of Home's 30-Minute Cookbook.

Cheeseburger Soup
Makes 8 servings

1/2 pound ground beef
3/4 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup shredded carrots
3/4 cup diced celery
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
4 Tablespoons butter or margarine, divided
3 cups chicken broth
4 cups diced peeled potatoes
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 pound process American cheese, cubed
1-1/2 cups milk
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup sour cream

In a 3-qt. saucepan, brown beef; drain and set aside. In the same pan, saute onion, carrots, celery, basil and parsley in 1 Tablespoon of butter until vegetables are tender, about ten minutes. Add broth, potatoes and beef; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 10-12 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Meanwhile, in a small skillet, melt the remaining butter. Add flour; cook and sitr for 2 minutes or until bubbly. Add to soup; bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low. Add cheese, milk, salt and pepper; cook and stir until cheese melts (do not boil). Remove from the heat; blend in sour cream.