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I am at the “Making Things Even” stage of Christmas. It is a family tradition.

When I was a kid, my mother sent me to retrieve something from her wallet and I discovered a scrap of paper with a handwritten list of Christmas gifts and what they cost. She was making a list and checking it twice, making sure there’d be no strife.

Was such attention to equitable distribution necessary? Probably not in our minds, but it was in hers.

Now, here I sit before an open computer file analyzing spending. If only my mother had known about Excel. The tallies between families are within equitable margins. My long-range goal is balanced giving and a proportionate spread of good cheer. When did Christmas become the language of brokers and investors?

A lot of tweaking is happening. As a result, Amazon has worn a path to our front door, FedEx sends texts about deliveries and Kohl’s dings my cell letting me know a pickup order is waiting.

Yet there are still gaps and I rack my brain. What to give? What to give?

It has been said we give gifts we’d like to receive. Better judgment tells me infused olive oil and vinegars will not excite our son or our sons-in-law. Why can’t I channel my inner outdoorsman, distance runner or power tool expert?

What to give? What to give?

The interests of the grands span a wide arc from dolls and art to robotics, books, Nerf Blasters and fossils. There is no one-size-fits all. So the hard work of thinking what to give continues.

Then it comes to me. Scotch Tape!

I said we try to be equitable; I didn’t say we were lavish. They love tape. They’re always asking for tape. I don’t even ask why any longer, I just peel it off the windows and doors and kitchen table and chairs after they leave.

People keep asking, “Are you ready for the holidays?” In large part, they are asking if all the shopping is finished. Giving adds wonder and excitement to the season, but no matter how hard we rack our brains for that something special for that special someone, the most eye-popping, jaw-dropping gift has already been given — the babe in a manger.

Talk about lavish. Who among us would give up a child for the good of others?

It was the most astounding gift with a most humble delivery. There was no panel truck arriving, no cell phone alert, just a young peasant girl, far from home, in a strange place, on a bed of straw. The anguish of labor, the exhaustion of delivery, the first cry of new life and that new babe now breathing on his own.

Surely there were a few moments of stillness, a span of sacred quiet in which they absorbed the mystery and the miracle. Then it began. The celestial explosion, stars blazing, angels proclaiming, shepherds arriving.

Whoever said it is better to give than to receive surely wasn’t talking about Christmas. The driving question during this season isn’t truly, “What do we give?” but “What do we receive?”

Merry Christmas.

 

And now a few small gifts for you, my readers. You are so kind and encouraging. Your comments and emails are always appreciated. They are gifts to me. So here are a couple of gifts for you.

If you haven’t seen this sweet video . . . well, grab a tissue.

Finally, a favorite quote from Lloyd John Ogilvie that grows  more relevant each passing day . . .

“Christmas is a festival of hope. And there is nothing our world needs more desperately than authentic hope. We have placed our hope in all the wrong things. The false gods of human progress, inventive genius, the future, armed power, financial security, governmental effectiveness, movements, great leaders, political parties, negotiation –all have fallen from their thrones. True hope is inadvertent. It does not come from searching for hope. It grows out of two basic convictions: that God is in charge and that He intervenes. This is why a true experience of Christmas gives us lasting hope.”

It has been said that if you don’t have a good meal on a holiday, you probably have a good story.

I was in a fowl mood before Thanksgiving. Tired of cooking turkey, I opted for Cornish hens. The recipe I was using finished off the hens by cooking juices from the roasting pan with white wine.

Turns out the hens could have finished off the family.

We began eating and it was obvious the hens were undercooked. Not one to overreact, I yelled, “DON’T ANYBODY EAT THE CORNISH HENS!” and lunged for plates on the table.

The husband stuffed a roll sopped in the sauce into his mouth and said, “Bud id daste dood.” I grabbed for his plate. He blocked me with his shoulder and dragged the roll through sauce a second time. I grabbed his arm to keep the bread from entering his mouth. One of the girls swept in from the side and pried his plate from his grasp.

The hens returned to the oven and we returned to a disheveled table. There was still sausage and sage stuffing. The top was burnt black because someone cranked the oven to 400 to finish off a pie crust. The stuffing was “good, but tough.” The green bean casserole, now cold and short on liquids, had congealed.

We’d eaten some of the sweet potatoes earlier in the week, having forgotten they were for the holiday. There was only one for Thanksgiving dinner. I sliced it thin and garnished it heavily, but it still looked alone and afraid on the plate.

The crescent rolls were good. I hadn’t made those.

The hens were finally fully cooked, but I no longer trusted them. As they had foiled me, I foiled them and dumped them in the trash.

Meanwhile, the husband texted everyone a picture of our turkey from last year. It had been bacon wrapped in a basket weave.

He said he was trying to remind everyone of tastier times. He also asked if he had eaten sauce with undercooked juices, how long before he’d be feeling the effects?

Ina Garten, cook extraordinaire and host of her own cooking show, tells of a friend who put a turkey in the oven, then went for a walk. She came back and went to check on the turkey, but the oven door was locked. She had set the oven to clean.

I’d like the story better if it happened to Ina.

A home economist and extension agent in Ohio received a call from a gentleman wanting to know how long a frozen turkey could be safely used. The extension agent said a turkey that has been continuously frozen can safely be used indefinitely, but the taste could be affected. “Oh, I don’t care how it tastes,” the man said. “I don’t like these people anyway.”

I like my people. And I’ve left a bad taste in their mouths. Literally.

It will just be the two of us for Christmas. We’re having ham.

 

I sent an email to our girls and our daughter-in-law a few weeks ago saying it might not be a bad idea to stock up on staples again.

Crickets. Not a single response.

Late that evening, I received a text from our oldest daughter saying, “Now I get it! I thought you meant staples, like paper clips and rubber bands. I thought, why would we need those?”

Unreal, I thought. And I thought it out loud.

I asked her sister if she got my email about staples and what she thought it had meant. She, too, thought I meant staples for a stapler but didn’t want to say anything because she figured I was having a “Mom Moment.”

First of all, I didn’t know they talk about me having “Mom Moments.” Secondly, why would a “Mom Moment” constitute going to Staples to buy staples?

They’re bright girls. You’ll have to take my word on that.

It’s not them. It’s me. It’s always me. I’m out of date.

Dude.

That’s out of date, too.

Yo!

Archaic words and phrases make for a steep and slippery slope. Help! I’m falling and I can’t get up.

I have a browser tab set to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and not just so I can waste time repeatedly taking vocab quizzes until I can place in the top 10 percent. M-W.com is highly educational. Awhile back, they featured words that are no longer used. Among them were britches, gallivant, slacks, smitten and swell.

I still use gallivant and smitten and I’m going to keep using them. They’re staples. To my hipster credit, I quit wearing slacks years ago and switched to pants, although you wouldn’t know because they look exactly the same.

I’ve always enjoyed colloquial sayings as well. A college roommate from Kentucky used to say our apartment looked like “the wrath of the whoop-de-doo.” I’ve used that for years and will continue to use “wrath of the whoop-de-doo.” I still can’t define it—but I know it when I see it.

I have a friend with so many idioms I keep a computer file on her. She says things like, “I tell you what, that man has more money than Quaker has oats.”

Wouldn’t it be swell to know someone like that? You could gallivant around the world.

If there is unpleasant business ahead, she’ll say, “I’d rather have a spankin’.”

She might, but she should hike up her britches and keep moving.

A friend’s father talks about people “getting all fizzed up.” That’s a good one, too. He got it from his father. The man still using the phrase turns 96 this month.

The girls now understand that I meant pantry supplies (worked in another oldie), not office supplies, when I mentioned staples. I told them not to get all fizzed up about it.

When it comes to antiquated word choice, I’m as independent as a hog on ice, and I plan to remain as independent as a hog on ice.

Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.

The husband regards expiration dates on food as a mix of sheer fantasy and mathematical improbabilities.

The man has a hard time believing any food ever truly goes bad.

He’s from the “Waste Not, Want Not School,” which is why we have a tiny takeout container holding two tablespoons of honey mustard salad dressing that accompanied half of a salad I got in a takeout order, a small bowl housing four strands of spaghetti with a smattering of marinara from a long ago dinner, one leftover barbecue rib that is so old I have no memory of when we last had ribs and a box of cottage cheese that expired four days ago.

The husband interprets, “Use By” to mean somebody wants you to buy more of something sooner than you need to. From your wallet into theirs.

He considers “Use Before” to be the random guess of some number cruncher lounging behind a desk.

He reads “Best Before” and takes it as a personal challenge to throw caution to the wind.

Unfortunately for me, he is often more right than wrong. Many of those stamped dates are more guesstimates than anything. Still, as the willy-nilly in the house—and being from the “I Don’t Want to Get Food Poisoning School of Fear”— I’m more likely to believe the guesstimates than to challenge them.

The husband has been known to throw his body between me and expired food when I attempt to clean out the ‘fridge.

“What are you doing?” he says. “That’s still good!”

He doesn’t even know which remnants of food are in my hands, but his clairvoyant food expiration powers tell him they are still good.

Often times, he’s not even in the same room or within view of what I’m doing—it’s simply an auto response when he hears the refrigerator door open or sees the little light go on in his peripheral vision.

“Don’t throw that out! I’m going to eat it tomorrow!” he calls, glued to his computer screen.

Like he has a detailed schedule of the foods he plans on eating over the next few days.

“I’m changing the water filter,” I say. “You’re going to eat this, too?”

Even when the man does think something may have gone bad, he will need at least one and possibly a second confirmation before he can throw something away.

“This might smell funny,” he says, waving a gallon of milk under his nose.

Then he says, “Here, you smell it.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” I say.

One of the kids stops by and he says, “Hey, smell this milk, would you?”

But wait. It gets better.

Sometimes he’ll take a drink of the milk and say, “Yep, I think it’s going bad. Here, you taste it.”

I don’t want to sniff it. I don’t want to taste it.  I just want to pitch it.

When in doubt, throw it out!

Dear Family and Friends,

As you recall, the big concern at Thanksgiving last year was someone blowing up the holiday by talking politics. This year, the big concern is breathing.

We’re weighing our options and welcome your input. From a distance.

If we opt for a small indoor gathering, per our state guidelines, we must trim the number of you invited. After painful and lengthy deliberation (60 seconds), we have decided to issue invitations based on the food you bring.

You cheeseball, pecan pie and homemade crescent roll people are in. Perhaps we could see you overcooked broccoli and gummy stuffing people another time. Easter, maybe?

Naturally, if we do go with an indoor gathering, it will be B.Y.O. B.  Bring Your Own Blanket. To improve ventilation, we will cut the furnace and open all the doors and windows. The first one to whine will be put on disinfectant wipe duty responsible for wiping down light switches, bathroom faucets and toilet handles as well as stray cell phones.

There will be no ambiance with flickering pumpkin spice votives as the smell of bleach will overpower everything this Thanksgiving. Perhaps even the rest of the year.

I’ll be simplifying things, including the centerpiece.  In lieu of pine cones, adorable acorns and white pumpkins on a bed of pine branches, I’m going with a large pump bottle of hand sanitizer with turkey feathers hot glued to the back. No, it’s not on Pinterest. But it should be.

Yes, you can play board games after the meal, but with modifications. Each player will isolate in a separate room, take a turn, sanitize the game board and all related game pieces, then deliver them to the next player. Monopoly and Scrabble should wind up sometime mid-December.

Please don’t sulk if you are on the “not invited” list, as we have not ruled out the possibility of an outdoor gathering. Outdoors would mean less food but more people. Decisions, decisions.

We could do a fire pit Thanksgiving, six feet apart, roasting raw turkey and sweet potato kebabs on skewers over an open flame and finish it off with s’mores. It might not be good, but it would be memorable.

If it happens to snow while we’re all outside, so much the better. We all mask, hold our breath, huddle together for two seconds, take a quick group selfie and have this year’s Christmas card. Winner, winner! Turkey dinner!

Yet a third possibility is a progressive dinner and I don’t mean dinner at Bernie’s. Why not go from house to house and leave courses on the front step?

Appetizers at the first stop, main course at the next, sides in two different counties, and dessert at the last stop. It lacks the togetherness component, but when we’re finished going door-to-door, eating cold food in cold cars, we can all go home, join up for a massive Zoom call and watch one another nap.

Just throwing out ideas. Hope to hear from you soon.

Love,

Mom

P.S. Who’s excited about Christmas?

“I want a baby brother for Christmas!” she shrieked, lunging from her chair. She’d made her desire known. It was a demand really.

“Yes! We all want a baby brother for Christmas!” her sisters joined in, jumping up and down, eyes dancing with anticipation.

“You have two boy cousins,” someone dead panned.

Right. The first obstacle would be catching them. The boys are 7 and 9, run fast, shinny up trees, roll in the mud and have a thing for animal bones they find in the woods. The second obstacle would be pretending they smelled fresh, were completely helpless and wanted to be spoon fed pureed vegetables.

They were momentarily quiet, then resumed pleading for a baby brother.

“You don’t always get what you want,” I said. “That’s Rule No. 38 of Life.”

Silence. They were stunned. They never knew there were rules for life, let alone 38 of them and possibly more. What else had the grown-ups been hiding?

“Rule No. 1,” their dad said, “is to be content with what you have.”

Score one for Dad. He has introduced the basic structure of thankfulness—contentment.

Contentment is not the same as complacency or resignation; those can be the fast track to despondency. Contentment does not mean you never yearn for things to be different or better. God forbid we should ever destroy the seeds of hopes and dreams.

Contentment is comprehending and appreciating the goodness that surrounds us even now. Living in a materialistic culture, we think of blessings as things like a roof overhead and a working furnace—and those are wonderful blessings. But blessings are also essence, gratitude for another day of life, the joy of hearing a loved one’s voice, the comfort of friendship, the beauty of sunrise and the colors of fall.

Plato called contentment “natural wealth.” It may be natural for some, but for others it must be learned. In a well-known Bible verse, the Apostle Paul wrote, “I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance I am.”

The man had been shipwrecked, chased out of town, beaten, in poor health, imprisoned and in chains. Yet he had learned contentment. That doesn’t sound like a course most of us would want to sign up for. Life sends odd teachers.

Contentment and gratitude are habits of the heart. Twenty-one days was once considered the standard for the time it takes to form a new habit. That figure has been updated to 66 days. Good things require time and fortitude.

It is amazing how people who suffer much in this world are often among the most cheerful and thankful. They are the ones who have learned well, the ones who have acquired the “natural wealth” of contentment and thanksgiving.

An old hymn says it well:

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed,

When you are discouraged thinking all is lost.

Count your blessings, name them one by one.

Count your blessings, see what God has done.

 

Despite pandemic restrictions on gatherings, we are still able to enjoy attending live performances. They are family productions that are affordable (free), convenient (in our own home or backyard) and we don’t have to dress up (slouching clothes are fine).

One among the brood excels at the violin and goes to town on her fiddle playing songs about dogs chasing raccoons and lonesome train whistles. Her brother may begin strumming his guitar, others strap on tap shoes and display some fancy shuffle, shuffle, step, ball change.

Still others begin singing or reciting poems and the overall scene looks like a three-ring circus and feels like a migraine, but who would stifle creativity?

Recently, I was invited to a dance performance presented by the eldest and youngest of three siblings. The middle sibling and I were instructed to sit on the sofa.

Then came the second directive, the likes of which I had never heard before. I’m familiar with, “silence your cell phone” and “no photography during the performance,” but this was new: “You’ll probably want to protect your legs.”

The child next to me was told to pull her legs up onto the sofa. “You probably can’t do that like she can, Grandma,” said one of the performers, “so you better watch out.”

Who doesn’t anticipate a performance that begins with “you better watch out.”

It was a fine dance performance, with a lot of running and leaping and twirling along the lines of ballets they have attended. They danced the length of the room, parallel to one another, intersecting one another and sideswiping one another.

The child next to me leaned over to explain there would be a pause in the music, but it was momentary and would not be the time to applaud. I am thankful for coaching that prevents me from social blunders.

The music paused, the dancers squared off at opposite ends of the room and nodded, indicating the grand finish was about to commence. The dancers were not well-matched physically. One is tall, lanky and built like a reed. The other is healthy and fit but looks like a rectangle next to the reed. We all look like rectangles next to the reed.

The Rectangle backed into the kitchen to get a better run at the Reed, who apparently planned on catching the Rectangle and doing an overhead lift. Yet the laws of physics dictated that should the Rectangle slam into the Reed with such force the Reed toppled backward onto the tile floor, we would all be jumping and leaping to the nearest emergency room.

The Rectangle flew past in a blur. The Reed, sensing the potential of speed compounded by mass, abandoned the overhead lift, wrapped the Rectangle in a bear hold and spun the Rectangle wildly, her legs flying outstretched through the air.

The grand finale was more Sumo wrestling than ballet, but skill is skill and no one was bleeding. Another marvelous time spent enjoying the performing arts and best of all, our legs were safe.

Seems I see them more often these days, caps and jackets that say Vietnam Veteran. What always surprises me is how old the people wearing them look. I remember the guys going to Vietnam as being in their late teens and early 20s.

Then I catch my reflection in a window and am surprised at how old I look.

I was in high school when I slipped a small check into an envelope and sent away for a bracelet with the name of a POW or MIA.  I wore MIA Maj. Vladimir Bacik’s bracelet for many years.

I prayed for him regularly. I never had many details about him or knew what he looked like. Until now.

I found him on the Wall of Faces on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund website (vvmf.org). There’s a great picture of him with his wife.

My brother-in-law, marking the 50^th anniversary of when he was in Vietnam, told me about the site. On the Wall of Faces, each page is dedicated to someone who didn’t make it home: name, date of birth, location and date of casualty, hometown, branch of service, rank.  There are wedding pictures and family pictures, a father with his small son. They have the same eyes.

Many of them look young.

So very, very young.

My brother-in-law often scrolls through the Wall of Faces.  He could have been on the wall, too.

Some 2.7 million American military members served in Vietnam and some 58,000 died there. A lot of them, now in their 60s and 70s, are marking anniversaries of service there.

During the Vietnam War the U.S. dropped millions of gallons of Agent Orange. It was a highly toxic herbicide that defoliated forests providing cover for enemy troops. At the time, our troops were told it was safe. Decades later, Agent Orange was acknowledged to be responsible for serious medical conditions to those exposed, and even to their children and grandchildren.

My brother-in-law is close to five veterans made ill by exposure to Agent Orange. One, who died this summer, was best man at his wedding and a friend of 50 years. Another was an elementary school classmate now battling esophageal cancer and brain cancer. Two others were high school buddies. One has cancer and cardiac problems, the other has multiple myeloma. My brother-in-law has dealt with prostate cancer and heart problems in the past few years.

Vietnam is far behind us, but lingering battles remain in play.

I have an elderly uncle still living who was career Air Force and served in Vietnam. Mom read one of his letters from overseas at dinner one night. He described the sounds of bombs and explosions as he operated radio equipment in an underground bunker. I watched my dad’s reaction, as he was a World War II vet. He didn’t say anything. He was just quiet.

Mom tucked the letter behind a clock on the kitchen counter, where odds and ends sat until they made their way to the trash. When we closed out the house, we found that letter in a box with newspaper clippings about Dad’s brother who was killed in WWII. Some things we should never forget. Service and sacrifice are among them.

I’ve been hesitant before, but the next time I see someone wearing a Vietnam Vet hat or jacket, I plan on saying thanks.

 

Wall of Faces https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/

The black snake, stretched out on the hard clay, was nearly five feet long. We stood watching to see if it would slither back toward the woods or toward the basement entrance of the house our son and his family had been building.

Our son’s father-in-law, a seasoned outdoorsman, looked at me with my hands over my mouth stifling screams and said, “That snake is just as afraid of you as you are of it.”

“Lies!” I thought to myself. “He’s a good man, but he’s lying!” I knew he was lying because at no time did the snake have hands over its mouth stifling screams.

He also said black snakes are good because they eat rats and mice. A lot of animals eat rats and mice, but that doesn’t mean I want them near the grandchildren.

He said the snake would not bother anyone unless it felt cornered.

Sometimes in life things are said that you never forget—that a black snake will not bother you unless it feels cornered is one of them.

Several weeks later our son’s family called to FaceTime with us. They were huddled together in front of the phone. The littlest one had something to say.

“Snake in dah cah,” she whispered.

“A snake?”

The others sat frozen as Daddy Bear unpacked the story. He, Mama Bear and the five cubs were making another pilgrimage to the big box store in town for building supplies when Mama Bear, wearing sandals, felt something slither across her feet. She looked down and saw a black snake, whereupon she screamed, “Somebody ate my porridge!” No wait. Wrong story.

Mama Bear screamed “There’s a snake in the car!”

Papa Bear slammed on the brakes. Mama Bear reached into the backseat to open the latch on the minivan door, but the blacksnake was crawling up the door. The door by the 2-year-old’s car seat.

Oh yeah. Snake in dah cah!

Daddy Bear and Mama Bear opened minivan doors from the outside and told the cubs to unbuckle from their car seats and run for it.

The cubs ran and the adult bears watched the snake slither along the passenger-side window and down out of sight. They flipped open the back gate to the vehicle.

The snake had coiled around a bolt anchoring the rear seat to the floor of the minivan. The snake was content. And why not? The snake had backpacks, jackets and shoes for cover, Cheerios, dried fruit snacks and bits of granola bars for snacks. It was four-star dining.

Papa Bear cajoled the snake with a long stick, but it wouldn’t move. Then, a large fellow the size of a Chicago Bears linebacker appeared and offered help. He pulled with all his might on the tail of the snake. He pulled and grunted and broke great beads of sweat, and finally the snake let go, flinging out of the car and calmly slithering away.

The snake was gone, and most of the kids were, too. Papa Bear said to Mama Bear, who still had trauma tears streaming down her face and a toddler on her hip, “Let’s get the kids and go. The big box is open for 10 more minutes.”

Sometimes in life things are said that you never forget. “The big box is open for 10 more minutes” will be one of them.

 

 

The way the husband talks, you’d think I was a racehorse.

“Pace yourself!” he says. “Pace yourself.”

He says I move too fast. I’ve yet to beat a thoroughbred, but he could have a point.

The other night I was invited to watch a movie outdoors with several friends on a patio. When the movie was over, I was the first to start carrying snack bowls into the house. I flung aside the screen to the sliding door and charged directly into the glass.

A gal coming behind me saw it, chuckled, and said she wouldn’t mention it to the others.

She didn’t have to. They heard it.

SMACK!

I’ve tried slowing down but it feels like a car that idles rough.

Our girls get on me for not drying dishes thoroughly. “Why waste time with a towel doing what the air will do naturally?” I ask, dropping a wet spatula into the utensil crock.

I’ve also been told to stop jumping on the counter to get at the top shelves. I should go get a ladder. I’ve gotten what I wanted, am off the counter and revving up the mixer by the time someone else finds the ladder.

Because I walk fast, I shop fast. That’s how we came to own two large bottles of bodywash that we will never use. I thought I’d finally found large refill bottles of liquid hand soap. Speed also enables me to score avocados that are rock hard and tomatoes that are mush.

Moving fast has brought me a life filled with color. I often sport a big black and blue mark on my left arm from clipping the side view mirror on the SUV as I speed by it to dump a bag of trash in the garage.

I return inside moaning and holding my shoulder. “Pace yourself,” he says again. It’s like a Ring Doorbell that constantly chimes.

Speed has also enabled me to be at the front of the pack doing word scrambles.

APCE SEFLYOUR

I will admit that a penchant for speed as a writer can result in typoes and gramatcal errs. I can bring retired English teachers to tears.

The husband, who is moderately paced, was frantically dashing about the house the other day, flying in and out, racing up and down the stairs.

After a career in newspapers, he took an early retirement buyout several years ago and has been living the easy life.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” I asked.

“I’m on deadline,” he said.

“What’s your deadline?”

“Death.”

Perfect. The man has just given me a defense for moving quickly. I’m on deadline, too. We’re all on deadline, which is why I will continue to stand, or walk briskly, in defense of speed.

One final nugget before I close my case: Secretariat wasn’t a Triple Crown Winner because he moved slow.