A Very Special Christmas Eve

A very special Christmas Eve. For those of you who have asked, I do still write "Walker Stories", but don't post many anymore. I'm hoping to maybe publish some in the near future. Here's one of the oldies that some of you probably haven't seen.

Walker spends a great deal of time in his room or playroom with his assortment of stuff, and as I have come to realize in recent years, sometimes plans surprises for us all.

After Molly and Robert were married some of our traditional holiday customs had to be adjusted to accommodate the young couple’s desires to share the holidays with both of their families. It was agreed that our main Christmas meal would be on Christmas Eve, and I decided to invite Robert’s parents to join us. It was an opportunity for a new tradition, and we were all looking forward to it, but I was a little nervous about expanding our family to include the Gooches. Walker, however, was thrilled. He had enjoyed Robert’s parents, and especially his brother, Perry, during the wedding festivities, and the idea of having them with us made it like a party.

As I was making last minute preparations for the dinner, Walker came into the kitchen and asked me if he could say the blessing. This was a privilege he usually declines, probably because he is a little apprehensive about forgetting the words to the memorized blessings that his sisters have used through the years, so I was surprised, but readily gave him permission. I set up the buffet and everyone gathered in the dining room. As we bowed our heads, Walker began cleared his throat nervously and began to recite,...”T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. The children were nestled all snug in their beds....”

I panicked, caught between being impressed with the time and effort it must have taken him to memorize the long poem and being uncomfortable with all of us standing there with our heads bowed in prayer as he recited it. The girls were stifling giggles, but Molly’s new in-laws acted as if this sort of blessing were the most natural thing in the world on Christmas Eve. Walker continued, “On Dasher, on Prancer, on Comet and Blixen...”

Finally, he began to stumble over the words to a difficult portion of the poem, and I suggested to him that maybe we should go ahead and eat our dinner before the food got cold. I assured him that he could finish the poem after dinner. He shrugged his agreement and we proceeded with the meal.

When dinner was done, Walker asked to be excused while we ate dessert. A few minutes later, I heard him clear his throat, and looked up and saw him sitting on the stairs with his “Night Before Christmas “ book. As we enjoyed the last of the wine with our dessert, Walker read the poem to us.

I don’t know whether using “The Night Before Christmas” will ever catch on as a blessing, but Walker’s well rehearsed version was a blessing to all of us that Christmas Eve.

The Year in Review 2016

The kind folks at Facebook suggested I repost something I wrote last year titled The Christmas Letter, and I re-read it, and it did remind me of the value of looking back over the past year and recording it in a somewhat more permanent way than my Facebook posts.  In that post I commented about not enclosing a summary of our family activities with our Christmas card anymore, and I guess I probably assume that most of the people who care about us stay in touch through Facebook, but that’s not really true.  And, that lovely Christmas album is still sitting in the armoire awaiting my getting “a round tuit” and filling it with the history of our family Christmases…so here’s this year’s update.

The Christmas Letter 2016

For some reason 2016 seems to have flown by faster than ever.  No major surgeries for anyone, although both Walker and I have had some really annoying lingering coughs which reminded us that we don’t throw things off quite so easily at our age.  Otherwise, we’re all pretty happy and healthy. 

Our most significant adventure was our trip to Israel.  Ten days of “forced marching” in the Holy Land is an amazing experience.  Highlights were staying in a guest house above first century “cave homes” where Jesus probably played and visited, and possibly lived, visiting the Al Aqsa Mosque—only the second group of Christians allowed inside (after being draped in appropriate garb), and a day at Masada on our own.

Most of the grandkids are tweens or teens, except for Beau and Emmett who remind us of the pleasures of having little ones around when they visit.  Emmett adores being with his cousins, and manages to keep up with the big guys amazingly well.  Beau is a ray of sunshine punctuated by intermittent thunder storms.  She’s a real chatterbox, sings all the time,  and is the best eater of the bunch.  We have to stock up on avocados and eggs and beans and rice when she visits.  The kids enjoy each other, and we take great joy in seeing them make music together.  They performed and recorded a special song for our 50^th wedding anniversary that brought tears to our eyes under Molly and Katie’s direction.  Sarah and her kids flew in and surprised us for that momentous occasion, making it just perfect!

Walker’s hobby farm yielded about 125 pounds of pecans this year, meaning lots of roasted pecans for gifts and lots for cooking.  The freezer is stuffed.  The most fun was the day in Arkansas at the “Indian Museum” and pecan picking with the whole family over Thanksgiving.  The older kids drove the four wheeler for the first time, and I even picked up my share.  He's had a decent number of quail covey's since the weather got cooler too and loves it when he and the dogs can find them with guests.

The most significant achievement of the year was the founding of Special Friends Fellowship Club, a project of the Diocese of West Tennessee.  It was Janie’s idea, prompted by seeing the work done by other denominations, and a nudge by a voice in the middle of the night asking, “Why aren’t you doing something with your own church?”  A letter to some clergy resulted in the trial run over the summer, and it went so well that the program was extended into the school year.  We have twenty special needs adults on roll, and the whole family has helped out through their churches.  Walker III is thrilled…it’s almost as good as Young Life, and he loves helping with the planning and setting up.  Big Walker is the muscle of the program, turning Janie’s nutty ideas into reality whether it be hanging a mirrored ball from the ceiling or hauling a hay ride around the church property…he’s always agreeable.  We have all been blessed by new friends from the diocese and these wonderful young adults and their sweet faith.

It was a hard year in some ways, some dear friends left us and others are fighting illnesses.  We are not happy with the result of the election, and are anxious for our country, but we have seen a lot of changes through the years, and we’ve weathered them all.  We carry on, knowing we will make it through whatever comes our way in the coming year too.  Seeing our grandchildren and their friends turning into such fine young people gives us such hope for the future, and maintaining friendships through it all is what it’s all about.

Happy New Year and Blessings to all,

Janie

The Christmas Letter

I’ve had a lot of things knocking around in my head this morning that led me to the conclusion that I shouldn’t let my last post be the final one of the year. 

What got it all started was an article in the New York Times about divorce being the last taboo on Facebook. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/fashion/facebook-last-taboo-the-unhappy-marriage.html?_r=0

 Now I’m definitely not contemplating divorce, but in that last post I did do something that nice girls usually don’t do, I aired a bit of dirty linen.  My husband and I occasionally have a spat.  Mind you, they are not nearly as frequent as they were when we were younger and there were a lot more stressors, but sometimes, just sometimes, we get on each other’s nerves and one or the other of us blows up.  The package wrapping incident was one of those, and one that probably didn’t deserve as much ink as it got…and is still getting…but for some reason sometimes something is just all it takes to cause a blow up.  A stupid piece of tape was that something that particular day.

But, as we were riding to church today, I was thinking about what a really great year we’ve had, and feeling all happy about virtually every month of the year, and it dawned on me…actually during the service…mea culpa…that I don’t send those year-end Christmas letters out with our cards anymore.

During the holidays I’ve been sorting through all our Christmases past in preparing a scrapbook, and have really enjoyed looking at all the cards and letters and group photos of us in various stages of posed perfection and candid imperfection during the Christmases beginning with our first one together in 1966.  Somewhere along the way, as our card list got longer, I started sending out summaries of the year that I had copied at Kinkos rather than hand-writing notes.  Then I began seeing letters to Ann Landers and Dear Abby ridiculing the practice and at some point, probably after my daughters were old enough to be sending their own cards, I quit writing them.

Those letters were always a sanitized version of our life…much like the posts on Facebook.  The darker stuff remained in the shadows, but the kids accomplishments, and a few of our own, were fun to share, and I tried to make them funny and clever, but I’m sure they made some friends want to gag…I’m sure we seemed way more perfect than we actually were. 

We only get one Christmas letter every year that seems to approximate reality, and the guy that writes it may or may not be trying to be humorous, but if his kids are unemployed or struggling with demons, he mentions that along with the good news.  He’s a brave soul…

What I missed this year was that in not compiling that letter, I had lost sight of the fact of just how wonderful the year really was.

I got to be with Sarah and Ned for the birth of Baby Beau…our seventh and last grandchild, and a long awaited second granddaughter to boot!   I had some precious time spent with Molly and her family at Groton while Robert was not well and needed family nearby.  I had a fabulous trip of a lifetime to New York City with Katie and Becket.  I got to see Walker III discover the joy of communicating over the internet with his new iphone and Facebook account... I honestly never knew he had so much to say!  We had time to spend having fun with out of town friends at football games and at the beach and at the lake.  I had the pleasure of teaching about forty women to play Mah Jongg, giving them a new set of skills and a new set of friends in the process.  I learned to operate in a recording studio and take great delight in reading on the radio once a week and recording novels in between time.  Walker got to see the fruits of his efforts in quail habitat restoration yield more coveys of quail.  Our home garden was a bit of a bust due to weather issues, but you know what, the Farmer’s Market had plenty for everyone.  It was a very good year, and I needed to write about it to appreciate just how good it was. Writing seems to be what I do...

Blessings,

Janie

An Imperfect Christmas

Strangely enough today started off really well. I woke up ready to finish up some wrapping that needed to be done to get last minute packages in the mail.  I was feeling pretty good about all the holiday preparations.  I had gotten the house decorated, at least as decorated as it needed to be, early enough to schedule three small gatherings with friends.  I had had time to make some of my favorite recipes and then to enjoy those events with people I really love, even if family meals were rather strange on those days.  Yesterday some last minute shopping both on line and in person had finally filled in some blank spots on my gift list, and I had the whole day today to wrap and tidy up before going to hear three of my grandsons in their Christmas program tonight, one of my absolute favorite events every Christmas season.

I wrapped away and got my husband to scour the attic for boxes for mailing, and then printed out address labels which I’d been wise enough to store on my computer through the years.  I was feeling pretty good about myself.

Then the Grinch crept into the breakfast room.  “You know you should print these with a bold font to make it easier to read.” 

“Mmmm Hmmm.”

“And if you wouldn’t skip a line between each line on the address, I’d only need one piece of tape to stick them on the package.”

Just two sentences, and then I lost it. “So what if it takes two pieces of tape!!!!  I’m sick of you finding fault with me!”

As I noted in an entry a while back, I discovered that I wasn’t perfect way back in 1948 when the photo of the Christmas pageant arrived and I realized that my hands were crooked. (See picture below.) This alarming fact distressed me mightily then, and actually I got some pretty severe corrections to my imperfections throughout my life.  My hair wasn’t curly like Shirley Temples, so I endured Tonettes to fix that problem, beginning at age two.  I made some “B’s” on my report card, and actually some “U’s” (in conduct…always my most difficult subject!)  One of those was in Kindergarten, and the note said that it was because I sat on my foot instead of with both feet on the floor like a proper child.  It wasn’t until I was in second grade and Mrs. Williams noticed that my feet didn’t TOUCH the floor and made a cigar box to go under my desk that that little problem got fixed. 

A lot of my imperfections never got fixed.  I always had so much to say that I couldn’t wait my turn.  I was more prone to go off alone and read a book than to socialize with playmates at times.  I didn’t have a “sweet disposition”….something highly prized by the adults in my world.  I just couldn’t do too much about that…I spoke out when I shouldn’t about things I had opinions about.  I still do, and it annoys some people, and often embarrasses my family and sometimes even me.

After seventy years, I’ve pretty well made peace with my imperfection.  I’m so sorry when I say something that I shouldn’t and causes someone pain…I truly never mean to be cruel…I just have an innate inability to lie very well.  But other than that, I’m okay with my imperfections.  In general I think imperfect things are a bit more interesting.  I like the Impressionists way better than painters whose works look more like a photo.  I like designers who do unlikely combinations….I finally kind of like ME!

So why do I still react to the people in my life who are trying to fix my imperfections?  I’m not exactly sure.  I know from some of my studies that their comments are usually perceived immediately as criticism, and not the helpful kind.  Their comments seem to me to ignore all the things I’ve actually done right, and zero in on the ones I’ve missed. I feel like I should be able to say to myself, “So what?” and just move on.  And most of the time I do, but today I didn’t.  Today I had done so many things right that going back and correcting the one or two I hadn’t was just too much.

I’ll calm down by this evening and I’ll be swept away by the sound of several hundred little boys singing Christmas Carols.  I'll probably apologize for my outburst.  Tomorrow will be a better day.  I’d be willing to bet I won’t be perfect tomorrow either, but I'll be pretty good, and that's okay with me.  To my knowledge the only perfect human was born in a stable a long time ago, and even he got cranky once or twice.

Blessings,

 Janie