26
Sep 2012

Welcome to Christmased.com 2012

By 18 Comments

 T-minus 90 days until Christmas 2012. And that’s why we’re here. To kick things off for the early birds, and let those of you who don’t want to think about Christmas until after Thanksgiving feel smug about what crazies we early birds are.

Look, if people can have Oktoberfest in August, then we can start getting Christmased in September.

If you haven’t been here before, Christmased.com is a place for all things Christmas–the religious, the secular, and combos of both. We’re excited about Christmas, we like Christmas, but we also examine the dark side of the season–commercialism, isolation, disconnectedness. Basically, if you’re thinking it about Christmas, it’s safe to say it here.

Feel free to follow us on Twitter and Pinterest and Like us on Facebook. I’ll be putting up some Christmas music playlists in the next few weeks for your listening pleasure.

Have an idea for a topic you’d like to see here? Leave a comment here or on our FB page, or Tweet it to us.

And now for the big question: If you could get any gift this year for Christmas, what would it be?

Categories: Talk Tags: , , , ,
24
Dec 2011

I Believe

By 2 Comments

I swear to this day that I once saw Santa’s sleigh flying across the sky. I was ten years old, old enough to have figured out what was really up with the fat man in the red suit, and yet I swear to this day that I saw him. It was late Christmas Eve and we were driving home from a party, and I was in the back seat of the station wagon wearing a scratchy disco-era party dress, leaning against the window, looking out. It was cold, for South Florida, and the sky was bright with stars, and I was dozing and half dreaming, although I felt wide awake. I saw him, small, but not too small to make out the details — the sleigh, dusted with starlight and fairy dust, and the string of reindeer. That’s when I really figured it out. Belief is an act of will and, like love, it is as much choice as it is feeling. When I was extremely little and believed in Santa Claus it was because I was told he was real, When I was ten, I began to believe in Santa Claus as a choice, an act of faith.

Sometimes I wonder, if faith is a feeling then how can it be a choice? I don’t see faith as a feeling so much as knowledge — but faith, by its very essence, can’t be proven like some scientific theorem, nor can it be disproved — and that’s where magic comes in. By choosing to still believe in Santa, I admit that there’s stuff I can never, and will never, completely understand.

When my kids were very young, I figured it out even more. Not only was my belief in Santa a choice — now it was time to bring my belief into the real world. Not just the shopping and the hiding presents and the wrapping, although those things are important, but also with the stuff that was a bigger challenge — the extra effort to make everything special at Christmas. Reading Christmas books out loud at bedtime when there are a thousand other things I need to be doing. Keeping the chaos, magnified by the holiday, under control. Keeping a level head when my kids, up too late, and stuffed with far too many sugar plums, dance around like rabid hyenas. That Elf on the Shelf: he’s not just watching the kids. He’s keeping an eye on all of us, even me. My actions count.

I wonder, sometimes, what our Christmas is going to look like when my kids are old enough to look behind the velvet curtain. On the one hand, I’ll be heartbroken. I know this was likely the last year I’d be able to see my son’s eyes get huge as he sits on Santa’s lap, tells him he’s been good, and asks for what he wants. On the other hand, the Christmas is coming, right around the corner, when my kids will be old enough to understand why we do it all — the baking, the shopping, and above all, the giving. I’ll be able to teach my children what it really means to believe.

 

Elizabeth Rose is a stay-at-home mom, cancer survivor, and writer. You can find her blog at Dance with the Reaper.com, and her column Christmas Tango here every week at Christmased.com.

 

Categories: Christmas Tango, Think Tags: , , , , ,
22
Dec 2011

It’s All About the Jelly Doughnuts

By 1 Comment

Last weekend, Chris and I took our kids to a park called Dallas Heritage Village, a city park featuring a collection of historic Victorian-era buildings and living-history storytellers. It’s a great place any time, and in December, it’s is open late with bonfires and candles everywhere, and people dressed up in Victorian costumes singing Christmas carols. It’s an easy way to get into the Christmas spirit. Or, alternately, the Hanukkah spirit, because one of the great things about Dallas Heritage Village is that it one of the houses belonged to a Jewish family, and their religious observance is part of the living history of the building. I was explaining to my kid (the talkative one) about how the house we were in had belonged to a Jewish family.

“How can you tell?” she challenged me.

“Well, there is a Passover plate and a menorah over there on that cabinet. Those items are part of Jewish religious life, so a family that had them would be Jewish.”

“Well, we have a menorah and we’re not Jewish.”

We have a menorah because when we first moved to Dallas, all my friends were either from my church or my kids’ Christian school, and one December a few years ago, I was sad because it was Hanukkah and no one had invited us over to eat latkes and light candles. Dreadfully homesick for the diversity of the northeastern United States, horribly missing my friends, I bought a menorah and started celebrating Hanukkah with my family. We don’t make a big deal of it, but now every year we light the menorah and I read the story out loud to my kids, and I tell them that the Jews are God’s chosen people and He loves them, and I use the holiday to brainwash them just a little bit to make sure that they never, ever evangelize or proselytize Jews. I know it’s a little but unusual for Christians to celebrate Hanukkah, and I’m sure there are plenty of religious Jews who would be mightily offended to hear about our secular celebration of a Jewish holiday, just as there are plenty of religious Christians who think we’re nuts, but it’s part of our family’s tradition and we love it.

This year was different. This year, I did not stick a match on center candle of the menorah with a gnawing pit in my stomach, missing my friends. This year, the woman who was my best friend when I was thirteen, at whose bat mitzvah I lit a candle, whose parents were the first people to show me what it meant to them to be Jewish, is visiting me over Hanukkah. I grinned at her as I set up my menorah, and lit it.

“Check me out with the menorah,” I said. “I r teh awesomzorz.”

“Brat,” she said. “Show off.”

I’m going to wake my friend up at the crack of dawn to go with me to get freshly-made jelly doughnuts from the Korean couple who own the doughnut shop around the corner from my house.

Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. And please pass the doughnuts.

 

Elizabeth Rose is a stay-at-home mom, cancer survivor, and writer. You can find her blog at Dance with the Reaper.com, and her column Christmas Tango here every week at Christmased.com.

Categories: Christmas Tango, Eat, Talk Tags: , , , , , , ,
21
Dec 2011

The Brady’s Perspective

By 4 Comments

(Ed. note: The first part of this two-part series, written by the author’s wife, a Christmas-celebrating American, is here: “The Modern Hortons”.)

I  came from religious Muslim family, as I grew older, my parents did the pilgrimage to Mecca, fasted and prayed . I remember my father going to the Masjid to pray and my mother praying too. I guess what I am trying to say is my family was quite religious .
In Egypt, most of my Christian friends were Coptic and  Christmas celebration is January 7th.  My parents respected the “Christian” holidays and observed Christmas by fasting that day and celebrated with our neighbors. I learned  from my parents to respect other religions and the people who practice them. My Dad used to tell us stories and assert how very close the holy books are as they came from the same God.

My friend at elementary school was Christian and we had to go to different classrooms during religious studies. When we got together we would talk about the prophets’ stories in the Bible and the Quran, we found that they are almost identical.

Fast forward to about 15 years ago, I met “the one”.  We were going on our first date, where I went to her grandmother’s house to pick her up on the famous cookie weekend.  When I was asked to get a Christmas tree for my almost bare bachelor’s apartment, I thought of it as a good start and just natural. I got to know about the Bronners’  Super Christmas  store. Looking back now, we were starting to build our life together.

Every year we add more ornaments and have great fun in decorating the tree and the house.  I love being able to be carried away with lights and the decorations. Shopping for the kids and my wife is a lot of fun.  We all look forward to cookie weekend at our house now, opening the presents Christmas morning, but most of all we all look forward to Mommy’s home made cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.  Every year at this time it always hits me that we are very blessed to be able to spend another holiday together and celebrate it the way we want.  There is always a point during the season where I feel calm and peaceful,  remembering back  to my childhood and start feeling what Christmas is all about.

A few years ago, our little ladies came home from school and dropped the bomb on Mommy that Christmas should not be observed by “Muslims”.  I kind of knew that some Muslims thought that way about Christmas, despite the fact that Jesus is mentioned at least 25 honorable times in the Quran.  That, I think was an eye opener for me as I am usually busy with work. I try to be proactive in the children’s perception and recognition of religion.  I hope to teach them what my parents taught me, moderation and respect for all religions is essential  to be a better person in life.

 

Khaled ElSayed, married father of three, loves holidays.  You can put ‘holiday’ after any day of the year and he will find a way to celebrate it.

Categories: Talk, Think Tags: , , , , , ,
20
Dec 2011

The Dilemma is a Question

By 1 Comment

When it was just my husband and I we didn’t bother to make a big deal out of Chanukah. We’d light the candles and exchange a few gifts and that was that. But now that we are raising little boys that we hope will embrace their faith, we’ve starting making Chanukah A BIG DEAL. Chanukah is awesome! Chanukah is eight nights, not just one! Don’t mind those Christmas trees or Santa, look at Chanukah!

Last year, in our ongoing attempts to make Chanukah cool and as fabulous as Christmas, we took our almost 4-year-old to the ice menorah lighting sponsored by the local Chabad. It was beautiful, of course, a large ice menorah with oil lights and our local lake as the backdrop. A nice crowd of people holding candles and singing songs followed by latkes and donuts.

After the menorah lighting and after we had stuffed ourselves with fried food, there was a movie. At first we weren’t going to stay but our son was intensely interested in the movie which was a cartoon storytelling of the Chanukah story. There were the Greeks first telling the Jews they could practice as they wish followed by the predictable turn of events when the Greek ruler Antiochus outlawed Judaism and desecrated the Temple.

Sitting in my husband’s lap, my son started to get tears in his eyes as he watched Jerusalem and the Jews suffer through that difficult time. He looked me and asked “Where is God?” My husband and I looked at each other, touched and slightly bewildered by his question. We reassured him that all would be all right and that God is always with us, and the movie went on to show how the Jews and our son’s current hero, Judah Maccabee, eventually rose up and rededicated their Temple, and the oil burned for eight days and it was a miracle. After the movie, we thanked the rabbi and made our way home.

My son’s question struck a nerve with me. Having grown up in an interfaith family in Europe, I celebrated both Christmas and Chanukah but with very secular activities. There wasn’t much mention of God or why these holidays should be meaningful to us. After marrying my husband, who had spent many years in Israel, we decided to start keeping kosher and being more observant, and we would call ourselves a sort of Reform-a-dox household.

We are part of a Reform Jewish community with many interfaith families that celebrate both holidays in December. Some families do this with ease and grace, but so many find it a difficult time, the “December Dilemma” with one side of the family finding offense or being upset or simply not honoring the other holiday. There’s the perpetual debate about whether it’s “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” or someone feels slighted because they don’t get a visit from Santa. I used to have some strong opinions about this myself, but now humbled by my son, I fall back on his innocent question: Where is God?

I’m no longer so worried about whether I can make Chanukah more fun than Christmas for my children or whether another family in our congregation has a tree. I smile and thank everyone that wishes me a Merry Christmas and hope that they find true meaning in that wish. I teach my children that miracles happen in the most unlikely places, just when we think things can’t get any worse. We are all just trying to find the light in darkness. We are all looking for a little redemption and a miracle. We are all looking for God.

 

Jennifer Harmon is an aspiring writer and SAHM to two boys. She is just entering the blogosphere with a blog called writinguntildawn.wordpress.com where she hopes to chronicle her journey toward finishing a novel. Her favorite Christmas song is “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

Categories: Talk, Think Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
17
Dec 2011

The Christ Child: Surprising Love

By 1 Comment

The Fourth Week of Advent

This is the point in the season when we need Advent the most.  The kids are wound up.  Your cookie calculations were off and now you don’t have enough for the office Christmas party tomorrow.  The suitcases are sprawled all over the floor.  You’re trying to figure out how to pack wrapped gifts, fancy holiday clothes, and bulky toddler toys without having a mental breakdown.

Here’s the perfect escape: the fourth week of Advent begins on Sunday, December 18.  Go ahead and light all four candles on your wreath.  The first candle is the Hope candle.  The second and third are the Joy and Peace candles.  For this fourth and final week, light the Love candle.  Look at how much brighter the Advent wreath is.  Jesus is coming soon.  Read aloud Matthew 1:18-25.

Advent is a time of waiting.  We are waiting for Jesus to be born.  We are also waiting for him to come again in glory to redeem the world once and for all.  Today’s reading gives us a glimpse into what it was like for Joseph and Mary to wait for Jesus’ arrival.

As Matthew explains, when Joseph found out Mary was pregnant and he was not the father, he was planning to call off their engagement.  But then an angel of the Lord intervened.  He told Joseph in a dream what God was up to with this child.  The angel even saved the couple the trouble of trolling through baby books for a name.  “‘You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins,’” the angel told Joseph.

The Lord had also spoken through the prophet Isaiah long before Joseph’s dream, long before the Holy Spirit gave Mary the child in her womb.  Matthew makes sure we know the backstory.  “‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.’”

Those four words—God is with us—overflow with love.  That baby in the manger is God’s love in the flesh.  Jesus is coming into our broken, sad, and conflicted world.  He is the only one who can bring us the hope, joy, and peace our hearts so desperately need.

Joseph and Mary probably waited for their son’s birth with a mix of apprehension and excitement.  They probably waited and watched throughout his life to see how the angel’s message from God would be fulfilled, how Jesus would save his people from their sins.  At the time of his nativity, they probably couldn’t imagine the cross or the empty tomb.  They couldn’t foresee how God would surprise them and the world with something even more amazing than his birth, by raising his crucified Son to new life.

Joseph and Mary didn’t know the end of Jesus’ story as they counted down the days until he was born.  But we know how God’s love overflows from the manger, to the cross, to the empty tomb, and to you and me, gathered around our Advent wreaths, praying, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

Be encouraged.  Be at peace.  Jesus hears your prayer.  It is almost Christmas.  He is coming soon.

After reading the passage from Matthew and reflecting on it together, talk about any or all of these questions for a few minutes:

  • When is a time that you have been surprised by God’s love for you?
  • How can you share God’s love with others?
  • Think about the four Advent themes we’ve talked about during this season: Hope, Joy, Peace, and Love.  Which have you felt or experienced the most during the past four weeks?  Which have you seen reflected in the lives of others?  Share your stories.

After some time of conversation and reflection, sing this verse of  “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” together.  “Emmanuel” is another name for Jesus, as we heard in the Matthew reading.  It means, “God is with us.”

  • O come, O Branch of Jesse, free your own from Satan’s tyranny; from depths of hell your people save, and give them vict’ry o’er the grave.  Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.

At the end of your Advent wreath lighting, pray together.  You can use this prayer to get started.  Children can read it and lead your family in prayer or repeat it after you.  Include prayers for people you love, and for people who are neglected and are in need of love.

  • Come, Lord Jesus, and bring your love to us.  Let it heal our brokenness, cast out fear, and bring us peace.  Help us share your love with others, especially (names). We are keeping watch for you.  We are waiting for you with hope and joy.  Come, Lord Jesus.  Amen

Advent Everyday: Each night, at dinner or whenever you can fit it in, light all four candles on your Advent wreath, the Hope, Joy, Peace, and Love candles.  Get ready for your Christmas traditions that pass on faith, such as worshiping together on Christmas Eve, saying a table grace at a family meal, or placing the baby Jesus in the manger of your nativity set.

Since we’re a clergy family with lots of worship services on Christmas Eve, we don’t have a big dinner that night.  Instead, my kids decorate cupcakes.  You could have a birthday party for Jesus anytime around Christmas.  We put one candle in each cupcake and sing happy birthday to Jesus.  I try to get a picture every year since the decorating looks pretty funny, and more importantly, because I want my kids to see themselves growing up in faith as the years go by.  My two-year old son loves to sing “Happy Birthday.”  Who better to sing it to at the end of Advent than Jesus?

 

Paige Evers is a Lutheran pastor, a mom to two young children, and the wife of a Lutheran pastor.  She thanks you for joining in her Advent celebrations this year!

Categories: Advent, Do Tags: , , , , , ,
15
Dec 2011

Crafting Christmas: Let’s Do This. Eventually.

By 1 Comment

I have been enjoying some amazing crafting mojo lately, my peoples. For just one example, today I knit half of a hat just during my commuting. Granted it’s the bottom half of the hat, so it’s still not gift-able, but still. That’s impressive.

I think it’s because I have a million things I’m doing – in previous posts I have detailed how my life this Nov/Dec has involved a myriad of writing projects and grad school applications as well as full-time teaching – and none of them are all that appealing, so I reward myself with knitting. Plus, I’m hepped up all the dang time, worried about grad school, about my students, about… um, everything… so knitting allows me to burn off some energy.

How has your crafting mojo been lately? Are you churning through projects, or are you stuck in some sort of netherworld where the garter stitch binding is taking, like, twenty years, and you can’t sew in a zipper to save your life? I’d love to know.

I’m not just here to brag, though. I’m also here to tell you that deadlines are stupid. Ok, yes, they have a purpose in life (and in the world of grad school applications, I suppose), but they’re pretty silly in terms of Christmas. So what if you don’t get your handmade gift to its recipient by the close of merrymaking business on December 25th? Is the world going to end? Most likely, no. And if it does, you late gift’s probably not the cause. Unless you’re making a hat for Phoebe’s scientist boyfriend on “Friends”,* you’re going to see the person you want to give it to again, right? Or you could mail it to them, right?

If you’re thinking that I’m saying this out of self- interest: Yes. I am saying this out of self-interest, because I do stuff like that all the time. I really wish I was the kind of person who got birthday cards, Christmas gifts, anniversary flowers and all of that stuff out on time. But, alas, I’m not. I recounted in a previous column that my best friend received his snuggly wool hand-knit afghan from me in the early summer. I’ve also given Christmas gifts as late as early October. (In my defense, if you’ve gone past March, there’s really no point in giving a knit hat again until the fall, right?). I’m sure my friends and family would have appreciated them if I’d gotten these gifts to them sooner, but they seemed pretty happy with them at the time of giving as well. After all, just like the Spanish Inquisition, no one expects a Christmas gift in August.

I feel it’s worth noting that I’ve been on the receiving end of this practice, too. One of my very closest friends, a dear, sweet, lovely woman, is often late with my gifts. Once, she gave me two gifts when I saw her in September, and she said, “This one is for Christmas, and this one is for your birthday.” (My birthday is in May.) I, in turn, am late to send hers, as well. In fact, we are often so very late in doing this, and it’s become so routine, that she has had to email to alert me that my gifts are indeed going to be semi-on-time, so I don’t get confused or scared.

I actually really treasure this aspect of our friendship. To me, it says that we love each other enough that 1) our friendship will still be going strong months from now (which has always been true) and 2) we don’t have to practice societal norms about appropriate gift-giving behavior. It’s so true: If timely arrivals was all we craved out of a friendship, we’d all be best friends with the newspaper delivery kid.

So, I urge you not to tank that sweater that’s taking longer than you expected, nor the cookies you’re not sure you’re going to have to have time to decorate. Consider giving an IOU. I have a feeling this coming year is going to need some Christmas spirit just as much as the next 10 days do. More, maybe. In any case, the amount of love you put into what you made doesn’t have an expiration date

Craft on, all ye faithful!

 

* For those of you who don’t remember, he suddenly moved to Minsk for several years, thus ending their relationship. In his particular (very particular) case, it would be good to have the gift done on time.

 

Despite her outer sardonic nature, Shannon Reed actually loves bubbles, ducks, snow and Christmas, and is happy to start thinking about it as early as August. You can read more of writing and her writing about writing at www.shannonreed.org.

Categories: Make, Shannon Reed, Talk Tags: , , , , ,
09
Dec 2011

The Shepherds: A Surprising Sight

By 1 Comment

The Third Week of Advent

Last week’s Advent reading ended with a bunch of shepherds staring at the sky and hearing the angels sing: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”  In the dark of night, the glory of the Lord shone all around the shepherds.  They had no idea what was happening and they were terrified.  And yet, the angels’ joyful news that the Messiah, the Savior, had been born in Bethlehem propelled them past their fear and got them moving.

For this third week of Advent, beginning on Sunday, December 11, take a moment to light three candles on your wreath.  The first candle (which is getting pretty low by now, right?) is the Hope candle.  The second is the Joy candle.  For this third week, light the Peace candle.  Read aloud Luke 2:15-20.

If the Discovery Channel show “Dirty Jobs” had existed around the time Jesus was born, it would have featured shepherds in one of the first episodes.  People in Jesus’ day viewed shepherds and their work as unclean and uncivilized.  So the fact that God chose them to hear the heavenly announcement of Jesus’ birth is surprising.

The shepherds didn’t only hear the good news, though.  God also chose them to be the first ones to go and tell the good news.  Once they overcame their fear, the shepherds went to Bethlehem.  They explained to others what the big deal was about this baby in the manger.  They shared the hope, joy, and peace that would be possible for everyone now that Jesus was born.  The long-awaited Savior had come.

Try to imagine the shepherds bursting into the stable.  The sight of Joseph, Mary and Jesus making them dance around and pump their fists in the air.  “Yes, we found him!”  Then the shepherds “spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed.”

Think back to Mary’s amazement at what the angel Gabriel told her: she would bear a child who would be the Son of God.  The shepherds were similarly startled by what the angels told them: the Son of God had been born in Bethlehem.  Now the shepherds keep passing on the joyful news.  They may be unlikely messengers, but they know what they’re talking about.  God has come in the flesh to live among us.

As you wait for God’s Son to be born, take a look at your Advent wreath.  The light is growing brighter.  Our excitement for his birth is building, even as our hearts are filled with God’s peace.  It doesn’t matter how many tasks you’ve checked off your Christmas to-do list.  It’s ok if you’re feeling uncertain about what’s in store in the new year.  You have nothing to worry about, nothing to be afraid of.  God is taking care of that which matters most.  The Savior is coming soon.

After reading the passage from Luke 2 and reflecting on it together, talk about any or all of these questions for a few minutes:

  • When is a time that God has helped you move past your fear and get moving, as the shepherds got going in a hurry toward Bethlehem?
  • What part of the story of Jesus, from his birth to his resurrection, brings you the most peace?
  • Where are places in your life, work, school, or community that are in need of peace?  How can you be an instrument of God’s peace in those places?

After some time of conversation and reflection, sing this verse of  “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” together.  “Emmanuel” is another name for Jesus.  It means, “God is with us.”

  • O come, O King of nations, come.  O Cornerstone that binds in one: refresh the hearts that long for you; restore the broken, make us new.  Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.

At the end of your Advent wreath lighting, pray and include petitions for people or places in need of peace.  You can use this prayer to get started.  Children can read it and lead your family in prayer or repeat it after you.

  • Dear God, we are waiting for Jesus to be born.  Fill our hearts with your peace as we keep watch by the manger.  Help us share your peace and love with others.  Come, Lord Jesus.  Amen

Advent Everyday: Each night, at dinner or whenever you can fit it in, light three candles of your wreath, the Hope, Joy, and Peace candles.  Throughout the week, have some family reading time with a board book or other children’s book that tells the Christmas story.  Ask your child questions about what she sees in the pictures and what she thinks will happen next.  Point out the baby Jesus and share memories with your child from when he was a baby.  Help your children sense the amazement and joy that the shepherds felt when they saw him for the first time.  Talk about the hopes they had for Jesus because of what the angels told them.  Finish your reading time with a hug.  Let your children know how much you love them and how much God loves them.

 

Paige Evers is a Lutheran pastor, a mom to two young children, and the wife of a Lutheran pastor.  Looking back, she is thankful that God got her past the fear of the unknown and got her moving to Japan, Minnesota, and Delaware, among other places.

Categories: Advent, Do, Talk Tags: , , , , , ,
08
Dec 2011

Crafting Christmas: So. Everything is Perhaps Not Entirely Do-Able. It’s OK.

By 3 Comments

I walked away from a project this weekend. I was online, shopping for a specific gift for a specific person, when I made the mistake of/ had the good fortune to click to the sale section of said site, and happened upon a gift that is perfect for my sister-in-law… except that I already purchased yarn to knit her a hat. I almost clicked on, but then realized: the yarn was still just yarn (not an actual hat), it was December 3rd, and this gift was well-priced and perfect for her.

Reader, I bought it.

It’s that time of the Crafting Christmas season: A Time of Letting Go of Dumb Ideas. The idea that you will hand-knit gloves for everyone on your Christmas list? Well, hopefully, that idea was already let go. If not, let. It .Go. Concentrate on what you can get and want to get done.

By the way, this Let It Go-edness also applies to anything you have started but no longer enthralls you. I have a project like this every year, usually discarded because I realize that my mad crafting skillz are not quite good enough to complete said project. This is mostly because I cannot sew half as well as I seem to think I can. Alas. This year’s abandoned project is a set of quilted coasters. I might still try to make them for someone, or me, someday, or never, but they’re not going to be wrapped and placed under the Christmas tree this year.

So, we’re good, right? We’ve let go of things we cannot craft, and we’ve embraced that we might not be able to make some of the stuff we still intend to. Great. Now I want to encourage you to knit in church.

Yep, knit in church. Or knit at your kid’s sports game. Or embroider at work. Or quill at the doctor’s office, whatever. [Note: It may not actually be possible to quill at the doctor’s office. Also, don’t risk getting fired.] I encourage this because this morning I knitted in church. It was a hat for a friend, I didn’t need to look at the pattern, I don’t need to watch my knitting when I knit, and I had quiet, not clickity, needles. I don’t think I disturbed anyone, and my pastor didn’t seem to mind, although I’m not sure what she would have done if she had. Made a frowny face? Unlikely.

As I sat there knitting, and listening – I really was listening! – to the sermon, I became aware of the sensory input from what I was doing. The yarn felt soft and warm on my fingers. The hat, all three inches of it, was shaping up into something pliant and lofty. My pastor was saying smart, helpful things about the Greek language. Candles were burning, and sections of the AIDS Memorial Quilt hung over my head, displayed for World AIDS Day, on the 1st. I began to feel something different. Not sleepy, which I’ve felt many times in these last few, difficult weeks; Not exactly engaged, either. Although I did feel both of those, vaguely, what I more was peaceful, expectant. It felt good to make something. It felt good to be instructed. The candles were pretty. I felt sad for the people who still missed the people who had died of AIDS complications.

After the sermon, I put my knitting away, and soon stood in the foyer of the church. I stood between worlds, I guess: On one side of me, behind one door, the organ sounded an Advent carol, and on the other, through the outer door, people scurried by in the typical New York way of hurried purposefulness. I stepped out into it, and had my iPhone out within seconds, just another New Yorker on her way to 7-11. (What? I wanted a Slurpee.)

But as I scurried, too, I found myself thinking back to those expectant moments, already missing them. I can’t take the pastor, church organ, or candles with me, but I could take the hat I was knitting.

I was glad, then, for the nature of crafting. It really is impossible to rush. I would, eventually, be home on the couch, or on the subway, or at my friend’s house, or in an airplane, laboriously making the same motion over and over, expectantly waiting to bind off, ending my journey with that hat, but awaiting the beginning of its message of love when I hand it over to my friend.

Craft on, y’all.

 

Despite her outer sardonic nature, Shannon Reed actually loves bubbles, ducks, snow and Christmas, and is happy to start thinking about it as early as August. You can read more of writing and her writing about writing at www.shannonreed.org.

Categories: Make, Shannon Reed, Talk Tags: , , , , ,
05
Dec 2011

The Modern Hortons?

By 7 Comments

As a little girl I remember watching soap operas with my parents, every day from 12:30-3:00.  There were three different shows, but of the three, only one was the one not to be missed, was on from 1-2pm.  During that time, we watched the stories of the Horton and Brady families unfold and I’m sure that if you asked me now, I’d be able to tell you about them all, just like they were extended family members even though I’ve not watched now for over 10 years.

Out of all of the days I spent that hour watching, in my parent’s living room or the TV room at the student union, my most favorite episode every year was the annual Christmas Tree Decorating episode.  I looked forward to that day as much as some people looked forward to Oprah’s Christmas Show.  I called it Ornament Day.

Mr. and Mrs. Horton had this tradition that they had special hand painted ornaments for each member of their family.  During the episode, they would either hang their own ornament, or one of the Hortons would hang the ornament and you would be treated to a montage of reasons why that person was so special in the family.  Highlights of each member’s life, or pivotal points in their story were played with a special song that the viewer would associate with that character.

So, why am I giving you the crib notes on The Horton Family from Days of Our Lives?  Well, it was always my dream to have a tree like that, full of special name bulbs for each member of my family.

Khaled and I had our first official date on Christmas Cookie Weekend.  Normally, you wouldn’t think much about that fact, but the truth is that I told him we needed a Christmas tree in his apartment not more than two weeks afterwards, and we went out and bought one.  The next weekend we were up at Bronners’ Christmas Wonderland buying our name ornaments.

I guess now that 15 years have passed, I can see that somehow I knew we would be building our own ‘Horton Family’ when we ordered those ornaments.  We were committing to building the foundation for what has become our close knit, interwoven family that is always together and in each others’ business and fiercely loyal to each other.

So, what is the point in all of this?  Well, I didn’t truly grasp the complications of celebrating Christmas with Muslim children until my daughters, Pea and Kate, came home from school and told me that celebrating Christmas was haraam (forbidden) in Islam.  Boy that was a tangled, beast of a mess to sort out!  Depending on how strict you follow the letter of the book; some families do think that celebrating any holiday other than Eid ul Fitr and Eid ul Adha is completely wrong and non-negotiable.  In our family, we celebrate my cultural holidays, the American Tradition, as well as the Islamic, Egyptian holidays.

Every year since that very first Christmas together, I go and buy the yearly Li-Bien ornament from Pier One, and when we are decorating, we tell the story of each item on the tree.  I tell the story of how Baba brought home the train that encircles the middle of the tree, and the few homemade ornaments we have from the children’s time at non-religious schools.  We also have the crystal ornaments my grandmother gave me the year before she died; the girls love to see me hang the glass angels, and tell them about Grandma Patricia. I have many ornaments that were on my mother’s tree as we were growing up, that were passed down to her from her mom.  My second mom gives us all Hallmark ornaments each year, the children love to hang their own.  We have special treasures from Great Grandma’s house that we bring out during our Christmas decorating and that always leads to remembering our time with her.

Our tree is a reflection of the years we have spent together, and the history of our family, much like the Horton Family Tree, and the stories we tell are of loving moments, memories that my children can tell just as well as we can.

Every year we visit the Lights before Christmas at the zoo before the weather gets too bad and we love to drive through certain neighborhoods in our town and see who added to their display and who decided not to decorate this year.  I do my very best to send out Christmas Cards on a timely (and sometimes not so timely basis) and we collect and display the cards we receive in the arch of our kitchen.  We sing non-religious songs (usually by The Chipmunks and other pop artists) and we have a lot of fun over the winter break hanging out together.

It is part of my family tradition to bake dozens upon dozens of frosted cookies with the ladies of my family, so to continue this with my generation; my sister in law brings over my nieces and joins my mother, daughters and I in baking for an entire day, gathering for an abbreviated version of Cookie Weekend.  I started a new tradition in using graham crackers to build ‘Gingerbread’ houses to decorate and display.  On the night we celebrate Christmas with Aunt Carol, we watch The Polar Express while snuggled under comforters all together on the sofa. We visit my family, and we Skype with Khaled’s family, all who wish us a Merry Christmas.

Our children have come to accept that we live in a home where Mommy was raised Christian, and it is perfectly ok, and fun, to celebrate the holidays and traditions that Mommy grew up celebrating.  Most often the mixed culture families that we are friendly with leave town to avoid the holiday altogether.  They don’t have a tree, they don’t have the lights, they don’t get to celebrate that part of their culture that is not only about religion, but about the love of family.  I am blessed that this isn’t an issue for us.

 

Kristina ElSayed is a family keeper, a writer and a substitute teacher who strives to be a Renaissance Woman in the Mid-West.  You can find her talking about living an Islamic Life and Parenting Muslim Children @ MyIslamicLife.Wordpress.com.

 

Categories: Talk, Think Tags: , , , , , ,
« Older Posts