Oops we jumped the tracks

That slow train to Christmas turned into the Polar Express, got out of control and derailed. I scheduled minor surgery that turned into ten stitches and then my stepmother went into hospital (she's still there.) Since I work on Sunday nights, the candle and liturgy fell to the wayside and the notes in the advent house kind of, well, stopped. And even though we've managed to do a Christmas "event" every day, the girls are still wailing for the silly rhymes. In between school parties, dinner parties, and watching the Nutcracker Ballet (on television), for posterity, here is more evidence that we salvaged every day with Christmas spirit:

Nai Nai's first Christmas


bead ornaments for the teachers


cookies and chocolate


fuzzy snowman


nutcracker prince


glittery stockings


happy chilluns

The slow train to Christmas

Last night Brad made homemade noodles - from scratch - from flour and water and a rolling pin. This morning he made Wuhan morning Bread: a fried flat bread made with sausage and green onion. I think I smell a new tradition in the making! I prefer the slow approach to Christmas. So.
Today we bought the tree. Tomorrow we decorate - if Pillow doesn't interfere.

FYI

In case you forgot, I alternate posts between my two blogs. Check out Paper Trails.......

December 5, 1990. There was a time when I wouldn't "start Christmas" until after the fifth; it was a day of mourning. Today it is a day of remembrance. The girls got to pull out all the Christmas animals I've collected over the years - starting with Brittany's Christmas Monkey. Each year, a treasured but worn out "family member" is added. They bring back such sweet memories.

Bear Village

The Bears and all their friends finally got to see the light of day though it was well past the girls' bedtime before they put the finishing touches on the village trees. Pillow was enthralled and deep into the night performed her own mischief on the village. So we'll get to do it again tonight... and the next night... and the next....

Cows, corn, and cocoa

Maria invited the girls over for a play-date today. Her daughters are in the same classes as mine. We discovered this several weeks ago at "art night" and then learned we shared the same alma mater - University of Georgia. So over cookies and cocoa, we entered that first, awkward stage of a friendship: Who are you and where do you come from? Upstairs, our daughters squealed and tumbled, chased and hid.

Maria is from Bolivia. She arrived in America on a scholarship to a small midwestern women's college then, again on scholarship, got her Master's at Mizzou. She sought her PhD in Animal Nutrition Science at UGA but never finished. She specialized in Bovines because they smell less than other farm animals. She laughed that she was so used to lab work when her first child was born, she kept the baby on a strict schedule and measured out all the nutrients.

I visited Columbia, Missouri last summer and met a professor of corn sciences. Who knew so much could be distilled from the study of corn - or cows? It's a far trot from my major "Ancient Studies." I wanted to be a biblical archaeologist and so I studied things like Aramaic and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

People are as unique as snowflakes and there is hope in new friendships.

Hope Through a Window

Mittens, snowman, tree and bow; On the window they will go!

We may not have snow, but we can still see Frosty through the window pane. Windows are a great way to share happiness.

Advent One: Week of Hope

It is still November. Yet traditionally (unless you are German Lutheran) Advent begins on the Fourth Sunday out from Christmas. And the candles are violet (or blue if you're Swedish; red if you're Russian Orthodox.) And I chose a white fifth candle for Christmas eve. Once a season of fasting and penitence until the third Sunday (pink candle) of Joy, for our family it had been reduced to paper calendars with chocolate stuffed inside.

I'm kind of shooting from the hip on this. I have a little booklet with child-sized devotions and boxes and boxes of ideas, traditions, and hopes for each Christmas season. Yet I don't come from a liturgical background so I've cobbled together some research to keep us focused. The Sundays are the candle lighting days; the days we prepare for the week to come. The weekdays will focus on activities and traditions as we prepare for the King's birthday.

So tonight, as I stumbled through an explanation of the candles (and I forgot to mention the circle of green), my six year old Bethany leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Mom, I thought this was supposed to be fun." Be thankful we're not fasting, I thought as I wondered how to explain Hope, the first lighted candle. What does a child know of the world's need for Hope?

Outside, the wind blew hard, divesting all the trees of last year's leaves. I can see the blue sky now that the branches are naked, like my soul. How do I explain what I do not clearly understand? We will struggle this week to understand Hope: how to have it, how to give it. Journey with us.

Eat green bean casserole - not turkey!

Each year the kinder kids go on a turkey strike. Two years ago, Hannah wore the feathered basket. This year it was (embarrassed) Bethany's turn to dress up as a gobbler and demand more humane treatment. They sang the turkey tango and marched across the stage in their first public protest.

And no wonder. There's something odd about Woodstock sharing turkey with Snoopy as Charlie Brown, et al. drive off to Grandmother's condominium. I mean, it borders on cannibalism. But Schultz redeemed himself with an unbelievably accurate portrayal of the first Thanksgiving in a rarely seen cartoon that ABC broadcast this year. Imagine a journey to a new land in which half your party dies. Of the 50 who remain, one third are children and only five are women. That first harsh New England winter only five people at a time are well enough to construct a common house that houses the sick and dying.

In the dead of winter there are only five kernels of corn to eat per person, per day. In the spring of that year when an Indian arrives speaking English and promises to introduce you to another native who speaks even better English AND Spanish, you probably faint in disbelief. Together, Samoset and Squanto (with an amazing story of his own) teach the newcomers how to survive. It results in the longest standing American treaty ever made with native Americans (sadly, less than one hundred years.) We all need one another more than we know.



Starting November 30, the first day of the Advent season, I will be posting our daily approach to Christmas. Laughable, since I only posted two or three times in the last year. I'll be using both my blogs interchangeably (see my profile above) as we count down to my favorite day of the year. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving, and remember not to bite the hand that feeds you.

Time warp thingys

Sarayu. If you've read "The Shack" then you understand a little more about colors and fractals and wind. Lodged within the story line of one man's weekend with God, was this undulating, pulsating, windblown energy that moves the clouds and gives birth to creativity. A whisper is all it takes to blast away vestiges of religion - dry and dead - off the branches of my life.

The book, though not a literary gem, is a gift of insight and wisdom. It is less an allegory than Pilgrim's Progress (a case made by Eugene Peterson), and seems to be scaring away a lot of Christians. This makes it more appealing, I think, and so I read it with one eyebrow raised. And each time I thought I could predict the plot, I failed. Wonderfully failed.

These clouds, sliced and cut open by troughs of air that tumbled and flipped the temperature, blew in on the leading edge of a cold front while I was reading the book. Who has seen the wind?

All Saints Day

Funny thing, Hallowe'en. Like Mardi Gras, something in humans craves excess prior to sobriety and, for the life of me, I don't understand our infatuation with the macabre. My Chinese mother-in-law noticed the "dead zone" decorations erupting from manicured lawns a few weeks back as we drove the girls to school each morning. Frankenstein hands reached from the grass; spider webs hung like mosses from the lagustrum; a guillotine hung gleaming over a straw-stuffed old man.

"It's like the Day of the Dead," my husband told her. She doesn't speak English and my limited Chinese could never explain what Hallowe'en is to Americans. I'm not sure I can explain it in English.

"But we don't worship our ancestors," I said to him.

"It's all she understands," he said.

There was a time I eschewed all forms of observing Hallowe'en. A day when we pretend to be demons and ghosts? And laugh when our children dress up like our worst nightmares? For years I ignored it or took my daughters to "Fall Festivals" where they dressed like zoo animals and bible characters.

But then I moved to Dallas and the girls grew older. First they were SMU cheerleaders, then Hannah Montana rock stars. Last night Hannah was the Olympic Medalist, Shawn Johnson, and Bethany was a veterinarian. They were oh, so cute and innocent. The costumes are always their ideas. For the first time, though, we actually trolled the neighborhood "dead zones." My mother-in-law came with us. House hopping from pumpkin bedecked walkways to spider-webbed porches, they filled their pastel colored Easter baskets with Hallowe'en candy.

The last glow of the sunset faded into dusk and up ahead the girls could see smoke and shadows. For the first time, they were scared. We all approached cautiously, gingerly stepping around a maimed Alice-in-Wonderland doll to where a fortune-teller beckoned the girls to get candy - if only they would walk through the archway nailed with bloody baby heads and doll parts.

Bethany got a little teary and backed into the street, but Hannah and another young girl boldly went for the candy. "Alice" quietly got up and did a macabre dance into the yard. A figure silently moved toward the curb and in the darkness, other figures began to rise and walk slowly forward: a court jester, a disemboweled King Kong, a tall corpse. The girls screamed and I laughed at the creativity and passion this family had generated to pay homage to the dead, secretly hoping that nightmares wouldn't torment this night's sleep. There are things about death I still cannot understand.

Last year's pumpkins have mildewed away; this year's leaves still fall.

The texture of my life

My hiatus has not been deliberately imposed. Rather, I found myself full to gagging on technology and my (limited) virtual world. I also became tired of words, and in the ensuing months of my withdrawal gravitated toward color, texture, glossy pictures, paints, paper, and ephemera that excited my tactile senses. I started a sister blog called Paper Trails, but still couldn't bring myself to post much there, either. I stopped visiting other blogs. It's an odd time in which I neither feel depressed nor passionate; yet I am waiting and watching, observing and finding.

Yesterday I took a walk with the girls after a spring rain. It had been a while since we explored the creek together (though they have been happily discovering fossils, footprints and petrified wood among the shale and limestone.) Another year of Derecho winds had toppled my favorite stump yet other trunks sprouted odd butterfly mushrooms and lichen. Once again I was drawn to the texture and uniqueness of my world. The girls gathered last years pine cones, mulberry seeds, found objects, and spring blooms into their baskets. We spotted Mr & Mrs Mallard for the third year in a row, got close enough to touch a pair of disinterested rabbits, and in our quest to spot a snake down in the creek a few yards below, were scared witless when one appeared not six inches from our toes. It was a "baby," three-foot black snake with bright yellow stomach and he was scared as silly as we were. He stuck his head in a hole under the concrete curb where we were standing and couldn't wiggle in. The girls screamed and got as close as they dared while I snapped pictures and prayed he'd show his head. When he did, I startled again and jumped back as he slithered away faster than my camera shutter.

The texture of my life is ever changing and still surprises me but it remains real and focused on the beauty of the mundane.

Promise

A new year, a new leaf, hopefully, new fruit.