Encouragement, Life Is Beautiful

A Christmas Picnic

I first met Laurie about 15 years ago when she and her husband were youth pastoring at the church we attended. Laurie led the Moms’ Group and my daughter who’s now almost an adult was two years old then. Laurie is a wife, mom, blogger, speaker, singer, friend, missionary, and a beautiful soul who loves the Lord. And she’s funny. This is a great piece and I’m honored that Laurie is writing for us today!  You can read Laurie’s blog (Living a Laughable Life and Other Things I’ve Learned) at http://laurieyost.blogspot.com/

Families all over the world are steeped in their Christmas traditions.  Year after year we count on things happening the same way and when they don’t it seems to throw off the schedule.  There are just some things that shouldn’t be changed.  I grew up in a family where Christmas day was always spent at either our house or my grandparents’ house opening gifts and eating ham, mashed potatoes, salads, rolls, etc…. Tons of time was spent getting the meal ready and tons of time was spent cleaning up.  For families that enjoy being in the kitchen that much it was fun but for me I wanted to be sitting and watching a football game, or slouched on the couch like my grandfather with my pants unbuttoned just a bit to ease the pain of what we’d just eaten.  My lot in life, because of Christmas tradition, was going to be in the kitchen doing dishes and cramming leftovers into mismatched Tupperware.  Could this really be what Christmas had to be?

I ended up marrying a preacher.  Those of you who spend much time in the church will know that the holiday season is a busy season whether it’s children’s Christmas programs, ladies’ teas, handing out food to the needy, or getting ready for the Christmas Eve service.  By the time we get home from the Christmas Eve service we are exhausted.  We decided early on in our marriage that Christmas day was going to be spent with just our little family at our house so that we didn’t have to cart the children to every relative for just that one day.  We didn’t like the idea of saying, “Here’s a few new toys but just get a glimpse of them quickly because we are leaving in 5 minutes to do the relative runs.”  Nope, we decided that Christmas would be our day to sit together and open gifts slowly as a family and enjoy talking about why we gave a certain gift to a certain person, eating cinnamon rolls, drinking coffee and enjoying the gingerbread/Happy Birthday Jesus cake that Zachary would always make. 

But then it would always come to the dinner; that loooong exhausting dinner.  When you have young children, you’re tired anyway but the thought of cleaning up after a big meal that you’ve taken hours to prepare doesn’t sit well—especially on Christmas day.  So we changed tradition.  My husband said one year when the kids were young, “Who says that we have to have a traditional Christmas meal?  We are tired from all of the ministry of the past weeks and our goal is to truly enjoy this day celebrating Christ’s birth, so let’s get pizza.”  “PIZZA!!!  Are you serious?  On Christmas you want to eat pizza?”  “Yes,” he replied and have fancy root beer and throw a sheet on the living room floor and eat it like a picnic.”  “Oh my, that seems almost sacrilegious.  Can we DO that?”  And then he said the words that were music to my ears.  “Honey, we can make our own Christmas traditions and this can be one of them.  You won’t have to be all day in the kitchen and we all love pizza so why not?” 

It was settled.  Pizza was going to be our new Christmas tradition.  The day before we order from the best pizzeria in town a few half-baked pizzas.  (and yes, we always have to tell them 2 or 3 times that we want them just half-baked).  On Christmas day we stick them in the oven and cook them the rest of the way.  We buy our fancy root beer and spread a sheet over the carpet and have our Christmas meal.  The first year we did it the kids were just small and they loved it.  We were having a picnic for Christmas!!  Now that two of the kids are in college and one just starting high school they know that when we celebrate Christmas day together it will be with our tradition:  the pizza pie.  I think at this point if I dared bake a ham that I would be looked at as a traitor.  So this Christmas, pizza it is.  I’m happy to say that I can’t wait for the clean up. 

December 10, 2014
Encouragement, Life Is Beautiful

From the Philippines to California, Jesus’ Love Follows Us

I’m always interested in how others live–how they operate in their daily lives, how they celebrate. Today I’ve been blessed by this piece written by my guest blogger from over at http://annaangela.com/ Pay special attention to the contrast between the observance of Christmas and treatment of elders in the Philippines compared to what we sometimes experience in the U.S. Take a few moments to watch the special video she created…

The streets were dark and so were most of the houses. There were no street lamps to guide the way for the rag-tag group of carolers. There were no strings of twinkling lights to beacon us to the more welcoming houses. So onward we went, house to house, ringing one doorbell after another. I stood in the darkness with my neighbors and friends, singing my heart out, one Christmas carol after another, hoping for a kind soul to give us some money. The ones who usually did had one thing in common. They had a parol.

The parol (or paról) is a Filipino Christmas lantern made of capiz shells. It is star-shaped, colorful, and bright. Most of them can be plugged into an electrical socket, and the twinkling lights dance and shine. The parol symbolizes the star that led the wise men to baby Jesus in Bethlehem.

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I don’t know if there’s a correlation between generosity and Christmas displays, but I remember looking forward to the houses with a parol hanging above their front door. Those houses opened their doors. Those houses listened to the carols. Those houses gave a bunch of kids singing off-key warm smiles, holiday greetings, and a couple of bills.

We had a parol. I loved sitting on the porch and staring at the lights bursting in intricate patterns. When my family immigrated to California, we didn’t bring our parol. It was too big and delicate to travel with our belongings. That wasn’t the only tradition that changed.

Christmas in the Philippines brought neighbors together. We drifted in and out of each other’s front doors. Children visited the elderly to give them a “mano po.” It is a sign of respect where you bring the back of an older person’s hand to your forehead and say, “Mano po,” translated to, “Your hand please.” It is also a gesture of receiving the blessings of the elders, and around Christmas, the elders also gave the blessing of money.

As a historically Catholic country, most people went to mass on Christmas Eve, and then back home to eat a feast, first as a family and then as a community. Neighbors traded dishes, and then someone would pass around the firecrackers and Roman candles.

Firecrackers are mostly illegal in California, and rag-tag caroling is intrusive. There is no open door tradition and neighbors barely know each other. There is more formality about Christmas: party invites, plate settings, and perfectly decorated trees and houses. Also, though a historically Christian country, most people forget what Christmas is really about.

We could all use a parol, bright lights that point to Jesus.

A few years ago, my parents went to the Philippines for a vacation and returned with a parol. I love staring at it. It gives me the warm feelings of Christmas that children get so excited about. It reminds me of family, togetherness, and the Love that sent Jesus here on Earth. That made me realize that a parol is really only a decoration if we don’t know what it means.

Christmas in California doesn’t have that homely, organic, and grounded feel of community, at least not in my community. And it’s true that most of us move at lightning speed with so much to do in so little time. Yet there are many bright lights here that point to Jesus.

Of all the traditions that have changed since I’ve moved to America, I love that the best. I’ve become part of a body of believers that may not know the neighbors on our street, but we do our best to help our neighbors in need.

We have carolers who come together every year to raise funds for missions. Our Children’s Ministry send shoeboxes to Operation Christmas Child every year. We have a ministry that brings the church to the elderly in homes and assisted living because they can’t come to the church.

And there are many other ministries and organizations that do the same and more. I’ve noticed that about America. We can be very good at getting together to help our neighbors, whoever and wherever they are.

What I love about having lived in two different countries is integrating cultures together. I love the apple pie sitting next to the pancit. The parol shining next to twinkling lights. Exchanging dishes with the one neighbor we know best, and helping neighbors around the world through missions and ministries. Giving and receiving blessings not just to and from elders, but to and from everyone, whether in gifts, in wisdom, or in acts of kindness.

The spirit of Christmas, the Love that sent Jesus, crosses cultures and boundaries. This Christmas, let us all become parols. To neighbors on our street or to neighbors we’ll never meet, let us become the bright lights that point other people to Jesus.

December 9, 2014
Encouragement, Life Is Beautiful

Christmas in My Corner of the UK

With Christmas all around us, this week I am featuring some wonderful guest posters who will share about their personal Christmas stories and how they each observe the season. Please welcome Zoe!  This is what she says about herself:

Hi! I’m Zoe, young wife and mummy to toddler Phoebe and baby Simeon, living village life in Oxfordshire in the UK. Jesus, my family, words and creativity are my passions, and I write about these things over at Zoeprose. Feel free to pop by and say hello! http://zoeprose.com/

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The build-up to Christmas Day is my favourite part of December- we usually go to candle-lit Carol services at our church, do some absorbing of the seasonal atmosphere in the Christmas markets and of course, decorate the house. As a young family, we are still in the process of figuring out our family traditions and working out which things from each side of the family to incorporate and change into our own. What started as a little Christmas tree on our first Christmas together after three months of marriage and some wonky salt dough decorations, has become a fun tradition of putting up the tree at the beginning of December, filling vases with baubles and hanging our felt advent calendar. Often we have little pocket decorations on the tree to hide chocolate treats in, or we hang Cadbury’s Christmas tree chocolates off the boughs. I find it’s really easy to forget in the hustle and bustle, the reason for the gift buying- the real gift that God gave us at Christmas, in Jesus. So we’ve got lots of purposeful decorations as well as the usual baubles and tinsel, with little hanging advent figures on the tree and angels.

“…the real gift that God gave us at Christmas, is Jesus.”

An avid Christmas lover, I play old cassette tapes of Christmas tunes and carols all month, as well as my more recent additions. The familiar songs I heard as a child evoke so much excitement and joy about the coming day, and I really struggle to wait past 1st December to decorate. There is something about having a Christmas tree in the corner of the room that fills my heart with gladness! This year I am excited to do some Christmas baking with our little girl. She’s not yet three but loves to bake, like her mumma. At my in-law’s house the days before Christmas seem to be full with Christmas baking- mince pies, sausage rolls, making marzipan fruits and trifles. When we have had Christmas at our house, some of these things have started coming with us, as we have learnt how to do them ourselves, and adopted traditions of our own.

Christmas Eve is for welcoming family or recovering from our own drive to be with parents, hiding away to wrap the last few presents, playing games, preparing food for the day. Christmas morning comes, and something on the end of the bed has shifted- joy has come in the night while we were sleeping. Stockings which were pretty, but flat and lifeless the night before have been filled, and we take the first moments of the morning to open them and discover the treats inside. Chocolate coins, chocolate Santas and perhaps a Terry’s chocolate orange are usually familiar items, other trinkets, pens, socks and toys for the little ones often fill the rest of the space. Bouncing on our parents’ bed to show them the things Father Christmas had brought was always next as a child- now I am beginning to share that delight with my toddler, who will be having her third Christmas, and now her little brother too.

Christmas in My Corner of the UK

Christmas in My Corner of the UK

Eating Christmas dinner evokes lots of memories for me. Brussel sprouts remind me of my Grandpa, who used to mask the taste with gravy (I concur on this point!) and the years we spent around their dining room table. Roast potatoes have been a bone of contention between my husband and I since our families cook ours in different ways- his family par-boil and cook little ones, mine go for larger ones, cooked under the juicy turkey. I have learnt from my mum how to make chestnut and sausage meat stuffing–always fought over and a favourite of my brother’s. There are often trimmings to go around these things- bread sauce, gravy, other veg like carrots, cabbage, roasted parsnips and sometimes gammon. Pudding growing up for me was always raspberry pavlova as the majority of my family didn’t eat the dessert of choice in England, Christmas pudding. Other options over previous years have involved mince pies, Christmas cake, yule log, trifle and cheese boards!

Christmas presents wrapped have also appeared, or multiplied overnight beneath the tree, anticipated but always much better than we could have imagined. After our dinner, coffee and chocolates, we take it in turns to give presents to one another. Often one person sits by the tree to deliver gifts to each person. The feeling of picking up pretty packages, not knowing what’s inside- knowing it will be something special for the person on the label but not knowing what- is such a nice shared part of Christmas. That we all get to experience the joy of giving and receiving at one time on one day is really unique to this day. Once the present-giving has been done, the quiet, or loudness of the afternoon descends. We watch the Queen’s Speech, perhaps play a board-game, watch some Christmas television or read our new books, entertain ourselves with our new presents. I like that kind of content quiet, the peace that falls from time well spent celebrating together.

Out of all of these things, the presents, decorations, the food and the family, my favourite thing has to be the atmosphere of anticipation surrounding Christmas. For a month prior to the event, we are busy preparing, shopping, thinking about the day which is coming. Readying our minds and homes to share laughter, love, good food and memories. Sometimes I have felt that the day itself could be a bit of a let-down after so much anticipation, that it could never be perfect enough to live up to the excitement and build-up. But then I remember that the real reason is not readying ourselves to get more stuff, or eat more food, or even to see everyone we love, but to celebrate the greatest gift ever. That we are anticipating the arrival of a tiny baby, a perfect human, God with us. To remember the best present we ever got, from the person who loves us the most- is truly the best thing about Christmas.

December 8, 2014
Encouragement, Life Is Beautiful

Stay Tuned!

After a very happy and eventful week in our family, I’m taking a breather this weekend to enjoy my family and get my girl ready for the Christmas dance tonight. There’s hair to do, toenails to paint, and photos to snap.  I will return Monday with a great series featuring some talented guest posters who will enlighten us about their traditions and activities surrounding their Christmas celebrations. You will want to “tune in” for this as these wonderful ladies come from different parts of our country and world. I’m excited to showcase them here so come on back and learn about “Christmas in My Corner” of the world!

December 6, 2014