Christmas Eve

at one of my jobs i have made it a habit to make sure i wish everyone a "Happy ________ " - filling in the blank with whatever day of the week it happens to be. so Happy Monday! Happy Tuesday! Happy Wednesday!. . . you get the point.

there are a couple of people, i think the same ones who despise the "good morning" ritual as being presumptuous (it IS morning. . . really to early to tell whether it is good or not), who have mentioned that "Happy Monday!" is a lie straight from the pit of Hell. there is nothing happy about having to be back at work. "Happy Friday!" is the exclamation point at the end of long, dry sentence. "Happy Monday!" is nothing more than a painful reminder of an entire workweek to come.

so i have borrowed from Christmas Eve's wonderment to help ease us into the next day. i now wait until after 1:00pm on the offending Monday so that i may wish a heart-felt "Happy Tuesday's Eve!" (this is also quite useful in tiresome weeks where Friday seems to be playing hide and seek. . . there is nothing like an entire Thursday afternoon of "Happy Friday's Eve!" to encourage all that Friday is inevitably on its way and SOON!"

i say all that to say this. . .
it is Christmas Eve today. for me, a small "catch your breath" moment before the big showy arrival of a people-packed, gift-giving, feast-laden Christmas day. i love attending the quieter, reflective 11:00pm church service. a group of people come together to welcome the Christ child with new candles and old songs and really old scripture - all speaking to our hearts about God's love come down at Christmas - technically, tomorrow.

so i wish you a very merry, Happy Christmas Eve!

p.s. tomorrow is FRIDAY AND CHRISTMAS!!!

Charlie Brown Christmas

couldn't have said it better than a cartoon. . .

The Invisible Woman

at this time of year - especially - just wanted to remind us all who we work for. . .

Christmas in January

maybe my circle of influence has an inordinate amount of scrooges as members or maybe i just caught everyone on a bad day- scratch that - a bad WEEK or maybe this is a small indicator that Christmas this year is not a Christmassy as years past. that there are a lot more people having to work at getting into the yuletide spirit than those who are just basking in it. . .

i think this downward trend in the economics of merriment can be attributed to an over-saturation of the market place strategy to bring Americans the opportunity to buy all the trappings of Christmas earlier in the calendar year.

in other words. . .
STOP HARKING CHRISTMAS WARES IN OCTOBER - right after the going-back-to-school sales!
PUT CHRISTMAS BACK WHERE IT BELONGS - right after the non-commericalized "Turkey Day" and right before the much needed "Bring on the new year."

we could all deal with the roughly 4 weeks from Thanksgiving to Christmas. it was crunch time - we all knew it and were committed to cramming as many parties, brunches, services, and get-togethers as we could squeeze around those LIMITED number of shopping days.

with a limited number of shopping days - there were real-time expectations of what one could and could not accomplish (please exclude that suzy snowflake in your circle of friends who now raises her own ginger in her year-round indoor aero-garden for her exquisitely designed and crafted gingerbread houses and men, and women, and children, and all the inhabitants of the North Pole, and all the creatures and animals in the last Narnia movie whether they could talk or not. she is an anomaly and cannot be included in our calculations to determine average level of festive expectation).

LIMITED number of shopping days = LIMITED amount of expectations.

i only have X amount of money to spend on Christmas. especially in this economy, i have to practice economy. giving me more days to spend my money and thus the opportunity to blow the whole shabang early in the game only leads to me having more time to brood over what i have already spent and get miserly with what i have left. . . and leading to unrealistic expectations that the retailers should lower their prices yet again and again and again as the holiday d-day approaches.

i admit, i am stressed out. i shouldn't be. over the last few years, we have down-scaled our merry-making, cookie baking, gift giving, card sending Christmas - trying to remind ourselves what is important - focusing on the real reason of the season. but this year i have found myself getting caught up in the negativity instead of the nativity. and that's nobody's fault but mine. so i am not going to read, watch or listen to the daily news (the federal deficit doesn't need my attention or approval to continue to "deficit"). instead i am going to surround myself with friends and family who don't mind my protective killer dust bunnies under the couch or the lack of this year's hottest decorations. . .

on the other hand. . . this week a friend told me that with all the stress of planning an awesome celebration and everyone's hectic schedules and tight budgets, her work is having The Holiday Party in January so everyone can enjoy it. . .

Silent Monks Singing Halleluia

wow! silient monks and the Halleluia Chorus. . . just goes to prove if you wanna do something bad enough - you will figure out a way. . .

Suzy Snowflake

ok, since someone brought Suzy Snowflake up, i'd thought i'd share. . . can't believe how very simple this was and how much it kept our attention. . .

Hardrock, Coco and Joe: The Three Little Dwarfs

as a kid growing up in the Chicago suburbs this was always a favorite. . . not like today with instant viewing - but back when you had to commit some serious time to watching and waiting and hoping and crossing your fingers that this would be the day it would be shown on Garfield Goose. . . if you were lucky, your friends might even be over and get to watch it with you. . .

football

i didn't understand the game of football AT ALL until my freshman year in college.

it was a long ways from my home in the Arizona desert to the frozen tundra - home of the Chicago Bears. but it was not long before i realized that these Chicago fans would risk life, love, limb, and frostbite to see a game at Soldier Field and breathe in the same air as DA BEARS. (ok, this was in the late 70's BEFORE our superbowl win in the 80's. we had payton - thee walter payton - but we were having quarterback issues back then too.)

i sat through a couple of Bears games in a crowded room being the only girl there and desperately trying to figure out what the heck a "down" was and why there were four of them. the game made no sense to me. and although i loved spending time with dave, i had entered the sacred shrine of male sports and it was fast becoming obvious when i didn't have the correct reaction to the play on TV that i was a football fan fake and worse - a Bears fan imposter.

i finally broke down and admitted to dave my failings as a girl friend and a human being - i did not understand the game of football.

he was stunned. i had attended numerous football games during high school. surely i picked up some of the rules. NOPE.

i was a member of the elite, disciplined, enthusiastic high school marching band. yes, we provided a stunning half time show but we also played appropriate snippets of songs during appropriate pauses in the game.

come on, who can forget the appropriately applied alka seltzer's "plop, plop, fizz, fizz - oh what a relief it is. . . " . or KC and the Sunshine Band's "oh, that's the way, uh-huh uh-huh, i like it, uh-huh, uh-huh."

we roused the fans and the players with our enthusiasm and our nicely placed references to pop culture. i didn't have time to understand the finer points of football - i was helping to create the ambiance of the much sought after WIN.

after much hair pulling, teeth gnashing, and name calling - dave finally instilled the football novice's rules of the game. i could now watch football and not make a fool of myself or him. surprisingly, i found out that i like the game.

this did get me thinking that every day people participate in things they maybe don't fully understand. and maybe they don't want to admit they don't understand. like church. . .

i spent a lot years on Sunday mornings, sitting on the piano bench (and in this case "sitting on the bench" actually means you ARE playing in the "game") actively participating but not quite understanding the whole God sent his Son as a baby. . . wrapped in human flesh. . . becoming one of us. . .

i didn't truly understand until someone looked past my years of participating and asked me if i knew that "God so loved karen, that he gave his one and only son, so that if karen believed. . . "

so, being at the stadium and cheering your guts out doesn't prove that you really understand football any more than going to church and sitting through the service proves you know God loves you.

name tag baggage

i hate name tags. . . well not the idea of name tags or name tags themselves. . . i hate the placement of name tags - always have.

i remember one of the first times i had to wear one as a kid. i was a visitor at a Sunday School and they gave me a very cool looking name tag and told me to put it right where i would place my hand when saying the Pledge of Allegiance - over my heart.

i thought that was weird.

i thought the palm of my left hand would be a much better place. i could just wave "hi" and flash my name at the same time. if i wanted to answer the sure-to-be-coming bible story questions - the teacher would see my name tag on my raised hand and call me by name - i would just have to remember to raise my left hand instead of my usual right.

i took too long thinking about where to place the name tag so the teacher did it for me.

it didn't take too long for my name tag to find its way to my left hand. as soon as that was noticed, the teacher carefully put it back where it belonged.

soon the name tag was on my right hand and even sooner - it was back - plastered to my chest.

i looked at the teacher. she looked at me. i nodded in acknowledgment that this was over. she smiled acknowledging that i was now acknowledging the correct placement of said name tag.

and then my name tag mysteriously disappeared. "we" looked for it on the floor, under the table, in my bible (i would never have desecrated my bible by sticking a name tag to one of its pages), and under my chair. but it was gone.

but it really wasn't a problem.

the teacher had my name memorized the second time she had to help my name tag find it's way back to it's spot. the other girls in my class remembered my name too.

the teacher made a point of meeting my parents. she told them about the name tag.

on the way home they asked me about it and i tried very hard not to lie while peeling it off the bottom of my left shoe.

as a kid i thought the over-heart-placement was dumb. as an adult i think it is even dumber.

i like the idea of small name tags worn on our foreheads. i only get to know what your name is should i choose to talk to you or you choose to talk to me. i can look at your forehead and then your eyes and engage in meaningful conversation.

and isn't that the point. . .