Goodness, I sure caused a fuss when I posted that this Christmas sucked! I love my friends and family who prayed for us, and I appreciate all the cheer-up thoughts. I also enjoyed those who understand and empathized with me, maybe even agreed with me.
Marty tells me I always have extremely high expectations for Christmas. I thought I lowered expectations for this Christmas, but maybe I still had high hopes...
So, here are some reasons why this Christmas sucked, along with some exceptions (why it didn't).
1. Approaching Christmas our thoughts were on my Mom, who was hoping to live to Christmas (she did)! I wanted to make her Christmas special for her. Here is an Etsy collection that
I made with her in mind. Etsy is a website for crafters and artists, and I put together a "treasury" of items that reminded me of Mom.The Sunday before Christmas I visited Mom for a few days. I brought a present I had made for her by Seth Weinberg. When she was a little girl her father worked for Disney, and Clarence Nash (the voice for Donald Duck) used to call her on the phone. Here is a picture of her when she was little, as well as the cartoon he made for me:
So, going into Christmas I had the stress of wondering if Mom would make it, would we be able to give her good memories...
2. We didn't have enough time to prepare for Christmas. When I teach I give my "all" to my students. First graders take a lot of energy, just to keep up with them. Also, I have started physical therapy for my knee. I've been worried about my health so I started losing weight. I don't want pain, and I want mobility. I'm an "on the floor" kind of gr
andma and teacher, so I really worked at improving my knee. This took time and also made things hurt. I got the full week before Christmas off, I took most of that time to be with Mom. While I was on the coast I did get a couple special times - shopping in SLO with Rhiannon, and singing with Gwyn and the hospice harpist for Mom. Marty didn't get a day off until the Friday before Christmas. That made our Christmas preparation very squished and stressful. We left some things out that we usually did, and tried to choose only those things most important to us.
3. We left out: Christmas cards (for the first time ever, maybe - please see the possible card cover above), putting up a Christmas tree, going to Christmas Eve or Christmas day services (we just didn't have the time with preparing to leave for the coast on Christmas). I've gone to Christmas Eve candlelight services for years, and although we listened to great music at home and in the car we did miss that fellowship time. We put a couple decorations up at home, but no nativity scene, angels, reindeer... I kept encouraging Marty to get some things down from the attic but he pointed out that we wouldn't be home so why go through the trouble. He was right, but I missed it. He did do a nice job of decorating the outside of
the house, and I loved coming home in the evening to our twinkly lights.Here is a picture of the little tree that I usually put up at home with the presents around it:
We left out making fudge for friends (although I made one batch for the staff at school). We didn't go to any Christmas gatherings except for the one with our staff (and I did make my chocolate mousse pie for the gathering). There were a couple presents I wanted to make for friends or family, but I just didn't have time to. I did get Brielle's Christmas stocking done!
What I did have time for was making the week or two leading up to winter break lots of fun for my first graders. We did "Holidays Around the World" (holidays are part of the first grade curriculum), and we learned how holidays are celebrated in different countries. We listened to music, learned the words to Rudolph and Frosty, and made several crafts including bright glittered construction paper poinsettias, and sweet personalized jeweled ornaments for their families. The last day was a party which was mainly eating (healthy) snacks, getting some cool stuff from me, and jamming to music.
Marty and I also tried to take a few Christmas moments for ourselves. We went to Christmas on the Boulevard in Lancaster, and enjoyed strolling around looking at the ice sculptures, decorated windows, and local vendors. His last Thursday Marty had a minimum day so we met for lunch at the Lemon Leaf and did more strolling around downtown doing a little bit of shopping for family.
He made a grilled steak dinner for us on Christmas Eve. We were busy wrapping presents all day, so it was nice to take a break and have a nice dinner. He's a good guy.
(Snowboarding Santa ice sculpture)
So far the suckiness of Christmas was m
ainly things that we chose or didn't choose to do because of time and emotional constraints. Christmas morning began random suckiness.4. Christmas morning we finished packing, putting everything in motorhome. There were LOTS of presents to put away. I tried to sort them with signs according to when and where they would be opened (Mom's house Christmas morning, Rhiannon's house Christmas evening, Mom's house 12/26, Rhiannon's house 12/26...) However, we had problems with hooking up and driving. The Jeep had been worked on and the line that attached the brake controls to the motorhome was out of place. It took longer than normal to hook up. We set up a special place for Sandy to ride and we were off! We HATE I-5 - the road surface is so rough that everything in the motorhome bounces, clatters, crashes.... it wears on us, and makes Sandy a little bit nutty. It took longer to drive to Morro Bay than normal, and we arrived too late for the brunch (which Mom's caretaker's mother had kindly cooked for us).
5. Something totally un-sucky: Mom loved the Christmas stocking I had put together for her. I had collected "memories" for her - things that used to be in our stockings like Silly Putty and a mini Etch-a-Sketch. An antique marble. A collector Pearl Harbor coin. A polar bear (she saw them in the wild). A Snow White figurine (her dad worked on the color process on that movie).
Most important to me in Mom's stocking - a bag with some candy corn, cotton, nuts, candy bones, candy fish, a smiley-face lollipop and five pennies. I had my brother, John, help her figure out the clues to this gift. There was a book that she read to us over and over when we were little - it was a Little Golden book.
John had been a good boy all day. His mother sent him to the store to buy a loaf of bread, and she gave him five pennies to spend on candy. Johnny walked along saying "I have five pennies to spend on candy, all for myself, isn't that dandy? Johnny meets a cat who says "If I had a penny to spend as I'd wish, I'd buy myself a delicious fish." He meets a sad pig who says "I've never had a penny since the day I was born, but if I had one (sniff, sniff), I'd buy some corn." John continues to meet "friends' on the way to Mr. McCoy's general store where he sees mops and tops and hats and bats and all sorts of candy! Then he thought of the dog, he thought of the cat, he thought of the squirrel, he thought of the bird, and he thought of the sad, sad pig. He says "I'll take a penny's worth of bone, a penny's worth of fish, a penny's worth of nuts, a penny's worth of cotton, and a penny's worth of corn!" He trots home, passing out happiness, and then reaches in the bag and pulls out a big smiley face sucker with a note that said "To a good boy, from Mr. McCoy."
It was enjoyable observing John and Mom go through the clues and remember the cherished childhood story.
6. The hard part about Christmas at Mom's house was that she had carefully selected items from her safe deposit box to give each of us. Mom was giving away her family treasures. She had gotten them appraised, and wrote a n
ote about each item. The first problem was that some of the boxes were missing some items, and I tried to help figure out where missing items were - which led to some discoveries and some heart aches - some notes that Mom wrote were personal, telling her feelings about a family member, while other were simply factual - this watch came from this person.... (We had no idea that one family could have this many gold pocket watches)! The second problem was the emotional factor. One of the things she's giving me is her wedding ring set. She pulled it off her finger for me to try on, which made me weep.7. The grandbabies were sick! We had planned to go to Rhiannon's house that evening and open a few presents there. However, understandably, Rhiannon (who was also sick) canceled dinner and put the kids to bed early. Although I 100% agreed with her decision it was still disappointing not to get to see them and to share gifts with them on Christmas.
8. Our campground was dark, dreary, damp and lonely. The state parks are effected by the budget cuts and we somehow got switched to a different campground than the one we wanted. No electricity, so I couldn't string Christmas lights up or put up my little tree from school. The next day we moved our campsite to the street in front of Rhiannon's house.
When I posted that "this Christmas sucks" I had just left Mom's house, which was an emotionally wrought time, I regretted some of our decisions about what to leave out during Christmas preparations, I was sad about not seeing the kids (who were only a 10 minute drive away), and I wasn't looking forward to eating leftovers from the motorhome fridge for Christmas dinner. (The original plan was to go to Rhiannon's for dinner, but she had ditched her dinner plans in favor of an early bedtime). I was looking for restaurants that were open in Pismo Beach. I was considering Denny's (which if you know me, you know I'm desperate because I hate Denny's - it h
as something to do with frozen fried chicken for a birthday dinner)... God is good and gave me amazing children. Within minutes of my posting "Christmas sucks" both Rhiannon and Ca
lvin called me to see if I was okay. (They also know that I have high expectations for Christmas, I guess). Rhiannon offered to have us come to her house to share their meal. Calvin & Kelli searched for restaurant that were open, which is how we ended up at the Christmas spectacle of Madonna Inn!
I do love Facebook. Immediately I had friends praying for me, and friends called me over the next couple days, or sent me messages. Also, since people know that I rarely, if ever, use the "suck" word, it gave my sister, my niece, and others permission to vent about their "sucky" Christmases, also.
So here is the long version why I said that this Christmas "sucks." No matter how we prepare ourselves for the possibility of death, illness and disappointments, life can still play us like a "whack-a-mole" game.
We give those setbacks to the Lord, but being human our heads and hearts hurt for awhile from all those "whacks."
And, of course, we did eventually get to enjoy the granddaughters and the rest of our family for Christmas. Yes, I found my Christmas joy after all.
Oh, and one more disappointment - I love to create things and I created a Christmas video that I couldn't post beca
use of copyright infringements.... If you'd like to read about that, or more importantly watch my video, see the previous blog, "I (try to) Celebrate the Day". Blessings to everyone on your 2012!
