Category Archives: 25 Days of Christmas
Let’s start with Four Christmases. I have a healthy respect for Reese Witherspoon, and Vince Vaughn can usually play a character successfully. Under those circumstances, this movie was within the realms of acceptability, even though it gets negative online reviews. Basically, Witherspoon and Vaughn are San Francisco yuppies who have decided to remain unmarried and childless. They have escaped their crazy childhoods and usually evade going home (to each of their four divorced parents’ households) for Christmas by pretending to be doing relief work in some country where they are unreachable. Instead, they take a self-indulgent expensive vacation.
That brings us to my all-time favorite, Love Actually. I’m a sucker for a romantic ensemble movie, and I have loved the interwoven plot design of Love Actually since the first time I saw it. I’ve watched it MANY times since then, by the way, and continue to love it every time. I never tire of Bill Nighy’s pitch-perfect aging rock star or Hugh Grant’s conflicted prime minister. Each love story and the characters involved in it is compelling and realistic. My personal favorite is when Kris Marshall, playing Colin Frissell, packs his backpack full of condoms and flies from London to Milwaukee to find a willing American girl who thinks he’s “Prince William without the scary family.” His visit to a “normal American bar” is hysterical. As I write this, I keep thinking of other scenes that tickle my fancy and make me smile every time. Love Actually is not for children — big warning on that — but for adults with a sense of humor, I highly recommend it.
4 Days of Christmas
We’re getting close now. As I wind up my shopping and my preparations for Christmas parties and celebrations, I start to forget about the secularity and downright crassness of what I’ve been encountering at the mall and on television. I begin to focus on what’s important, my relationships with my family and friends. The miracle of the birth of Jesus starts to feel real about the 22nd of December. To me, the birth of a baby is a symbol of the renewing power of life’s cycles. Jesus’ birth serves as a reflector for Christians of the smaller miracles that happen every day all around us.
Today I feel blessed by a couple of other babies. My niece gave birth to her second child on Monday. There was plenty of room for their little family in the hospital. She wrapped him in a fleece onesie and brought him home in their car to a warm house where her mother and sister waited, ready to assist her and her husband with infant care. He’s not the Messiah, but he’s a flesh-and-blood miracle whose December 20 birthday will forever be linked to Christmas. Given the pain and sadness our family has experienced over the last couple of years with the death of my father and the ongoing decline of my mother, little David is a message to us that life does go on.
And then there’s little Clare. Born in the midst of her young mother’s heart problems, she’s a healthy, happy little three-month-old charmer surrounded by a flock of adoring parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts. She’s turned her grandmother, a highly erudite college professor, into a cooing slave to her every need, and that’s how it should be. Seeing Clare lying in her “transportation system” cradle entranced by the lights of the Christmas tree spoke to me in ways that Christmas shopping mania will never do.
I believe that Christmas brings us face to face with our personal miracles. Let’s celebrate all the reasons for the season rather than focusing on the pagan beginnings of Christmas or our secular traditions. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go finish my Christmas cards…
5 Days of Christmas
One of the things that school teachers do during their vacation from school is to go to the doctor, and I am no exception to the rule. Once every five years, I schedule a colonoscopy during my school vacation. This, my friends, is my fifth day before Christmas Public Service Announcement, and it’s not a pretty story.
My father was a colon cancer survivor through no preventative behavior of his own — they caught his cancer accidentally because of another test. He had about a foot of his guts removed and lived to tell about it. My mom, unfortunately, somehow didn’t think that having a colonoscopy might be a good idea for her, and five years ago ended up with a colostomy due to diverticulitis that led to peritonitis. She’s still living with the choice she made, and with dietary changes her problem could have been avoided.
Many of us will end up with some sort of diverticular disease by the time we are sixty, but we don’t have to die from it. All you need to do is to keep your bowels moving so that you don’t get pockets of nasty stuff caught in your gastrointestinal tract (I warned you that it wasn’t a pretty story!). It’s pretty simple, really. I’m not a doctor, but this isn’t rocket science either.
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Drink lots of water
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Eat food with fiber: fruit, vegetables, whole grains
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Exercise
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Talk to your doctor. He or she will probably tell you to have a screening colonoscopy if you are fifty, or before that if you have risk factors such as family history.
So that’s my story for today. I didn’t get my dining room table cleared off or decorated, but I’m pretty sure that I will have five more years to be alive to enjoy Christmas in the future. That’s more important.
6 Days of Christmas
What kind of an idiot schedules a large-scale home remodel around Christmastime? Well, apparently that idiot would be moi.
After three weeks of remodeling, the new tile floor is done, the lavatory has been tiled and so has the master bath.
We’ve got new doors and trim, and generally, I’m really happy with the results. The problem lies with the timing. Today the contractors are removing the stairs and replacing them with new ones that meet code. Then they will fix the drywall, stain the wood, and paint everything. It’s going to be wonderful when it’s done.
So why am I crabby? Let’s start with the fact that every day since I FINALLY started my Winter Break from school, I’ve had to get up at 6:20 AM to get showered before the contractors come. Granted, that’s an hour later than my wake-up time for school, but still… can’t a girl catch a break on vacation? I couldn’t bear to publish a photo of my dining room table, but it’s covered in papers, bags, boxes, and wrapping paper, the leavings of a month of shopping and gifting — and there’s nowhere else to put anything because every other room is being used for storage from the remodeled rooms.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The process was supposed to start in early October and be done around Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, it took almost a month to get a permit from the city and my contractor had to take another job in the meantime. Don’t get me wrong; I love my contractor and the final results are going to be fantastic, but I wish it would just GET DONE.
Here we are, five days before Christmas and my house looks like this, but all is not lost. I’ve saved the best for last. We’re not celebrating Christmas at home. We’ll be winging our way west for a lovely Christmas celebration in the gorgeously decorated home of my husband’s brother and his family. Our grown-up kids will be joining us and all will be fabulous. And, when we get back after five days of great food and drink and family togetherness, my house will be almost done, just in time to try to put everything away before I return to school, renewed and refreshed.
Today I plan to clean off the dining room table and put up some Christmas decorations. It probably won’t look like Martha’s, but at least I’ll get the satisfaction of knowing that I decorated a little. That’s the blessing of Christmas, isn’t it? Little things become big gifts if we take the time to recognize them. I’ll take a picture to share my clean table with you tomorrow. Until then, keep looking for the little blessings to get you through the next week.
11 Days of Christmas
I was all set to write a rant about this photo I took last night.
I was going to say something about the entitlement that some people feel in shopping malls when they choose to ignore obvious markers that say “don’t park here.” I was going to go on a tirade about impolite behavior in the guise of Christmas cheer. That was before.
On my way home in the early dusk of the solstice sunset, I encountered a motorist pushing his car across a very busy intersection. All the cars in the opposite direction were stopped, waiting for him to get across the street while he pushed his medium-sized sedan by himself in very cold weather. As he cleared the intersection and traffic began to move through, one of the cars rounded the corner and pulled up behind the guy who was still pushing his car. The new motorist got out of his car and went to help the guy push his car further out of the intersection and away from traffic. The Good Samaritan was not elderly, but his shock of grey hair marked him to be significantly older than the kid whose car had broken down. Then he went back, moved his own car further down the street and away from the intersection and appeared to confirm that the driver of the now safely parked dead car was going to be okay. As the Good Samaritan returned to his own car, I rolled my window down and told the GS that what he had done was really nice, and then drove off myself.
This whole scenario took about 3 minutes but it broke the hold the jerk in the mall parking lot had on me. For every person who mows down a cone in a parking lot, there’s another person who will take the time out of their commute to help a stranger. That’s the true meaning of Christmas spirit to me.
12 Days of Christmas
For today’s Christmas wish, I am sharing my niece’s blog. Thank God it is not me who is 39 weeks pregnant. She’s remarkably cheery, considering everything.
Monday, December 13, 2010
When you are very, VERY pregnant at Christmastime, not everything gets decorated. It’s been three years since I decorated much at all due to circumstances and babies. I really wanted to do it this year. But I was already 36 weeks pregnant at Thanksgiving. I did what I could. 
My dining room table. I absolutely love this table runner we got several years ago. It has the words to The Night Before Christmas.
Sadly, one of my snowmen lost his nose when I was getting this out of the box. I tried craft glue and it was a no go. I think I need a hot glue gun!
The painting project I did with Libbie the other day. I think it’s funny you can see my giant belly in the reflection of the balls. My ingenious husband suggested we do the baby’s handprint on the other side of the balls once he gets here!
Three Christmases!
So sad that one of my kings is apparently blind.
We wanted to start an ornament series for Libbie this year. (Apparently the first year we’ve been cognizant enough to think of that.) Hallmark started a cupcake series this year, so we decided on those. Cute!
And this is my poor, $7.50, Charlie Brown Christmas tree. With a leaning angel. And that whole “I have a toddler therefore there is no bottom third decor.”
The Little People Nativity
My little Christmas elf insisted on having her picture taken, too.
13 Days of Christmas
O.K. I missed a few days. Everyone needs a little vacation now and then, right? Christmas parties and shopping and schoolwork and remodeling got in the way of my daily posts, but I’m back with a new energy to take our countdown right up to the big day!
Depending on who you talk to, people consider my love of dishes either endearing or crazy. My husband falls on the “my wife is crazy” side, but despite this, I have to express my appreciation for his willingness to do the dishes after we have one of our all-out dinner parties. I do have other friends who are right there with me, setting their tables with seasonal decor and enjoying mine. As we count down the blessings of Christmastime, I’d also like to give a standing ovation for all of those display people who work in retail at this time of year. I really appreciate what they do to raise my spirits at Christmas (and sometimes cause me to open up my wallet).
Just a quick walk through the mall last week brought lots of visual delights. Here’s the “12 Days of Christmas” plates from Williams Sonoma. I’ve always wanted these, but they are pretty expensive and I already have lots of Christmas plates. Still… they are gorgeous and fit my family traditions perfectly.
Crate and Barrel never disappoints me, but they really pull out all the stops for Thanksgiving and Christmas. The sensory overload from the colors and shine is enough to bring on a seizure, but oh, my. Can I resist that bright green against the red? I could mix these linens with my mother-in-law’s very traditional green and gold-rimmed china. See, I can rationalize just about anything when it comes to dishes, and I think the green vase is just drop-dead-fabulous.
Or this cute modern stripe on the runner and the ruby glass with the fifties-inspired plate. I could do that, too. It would look absolutely smashing with my red sofa…
This modern setting isn’t really me, but the joy of dishes is that you can always buy it for someone else. I do like the mix of textures with the plain red glazing, the dimensional linens, and the wooden coin place mats.
And who can resist jewel tones for the holidays? I could probably figure out how to use these saturated purple and turquoise pieces somewhere.
When you think about, dishes really do make magic. The looks on the faces of your family and guests when they see your beautiful table is worth the little bit of extra work it takes. Although people these days seem to have strayed away from collecting and using real dishes, creating a fantasy at your table will take even pizza to a higher plane. As long as it will go into the dishwasher, why wouldn’t you use the prettiest thing you can to make your family and friends feel special? It’s not crazy, it’s just fun.
17 Days of Christmas
Really? How can Christmas be coming so soon? Somehow seventeen seems closer than eighteen did — more than one day sooner. Thanks to all of you who are following the countdown; my readership has soared exponentially. Twenty is exponentially more than three, right?
One of my December guilty pleasures in the past two years has been The Sing-Off on NBC. Not only do we have Ohio’s own Nick Lachay (a graduate of Cincinnati’s Walnut Hills High School) as host, but I am privileged to be allowed to participate in the University of Rochester’s a cappella alumni chat room during the television broadcasts. It’s fun to be snarky with people who have been performers and know what these contestants are going through. It’s also fun to laugh at the judges’ comments, although Ben Folds and Shawn Stockman have some respectable musical chops. I’m not so sure about Nicole Scherzinger. She looks pretty, though.
If you missed it, you can download the episodes online. Here’s episode one, where all the groups were introduced. I was hopeful for Eleventh Hour, high school kids from Kettering, Ohio, but they didn’t have the chops to compete with adults. Whoops, I gave you a spoiler. Sorry. One of the groups has a young woman who graduated from the middle school where I teach. The Backbeats is a “supergroup” from southern California. Rachel is the one who’s turned sideways in the promotional photo. Awkward.
I hope you take some time to watch The Sing Off. These are real people, actually competing to win something that is meaningful to them — some money and a recording contract.That’s what I love about music — it’s the level plane in the world. If you’ve got it, people will recognize it.
18 Days of Christmas
I’m a band geek. There’s no getting around it; I was probably born with the band geek gene and will live with it until I die. Despite what Glee might lead you to believe, it’s not the worst thing in the world. In fact, most of the time, it’s pretty fun to be a band geek.
Hubby and I both play in the American Wind Band (we’re not in this photo; it was taken before we joined), and tonight we had our Christmas party. We did an ice breaker, so for today’s post, I’d like some audience participation. Here’s your questions… please answer in a comment.
1. Who has traveled to at least five of the seven continents?
2. Who has lived in four or more states?
3. Who regularly participates in three or more musical ensembles?
4. Who has lived in his or her current home for 30 or more years?
5. Who has performed music as an adult on two or more instruments?
6. Who can play a high school or college fight song by heart?
7. Who has a college degree in music?
8. Who loves opera?
9. Who loves jazz?
10. Who has played his or her instrument for more than fifty years?
11. Who earns his or her living in music?
12. Who has performed outside of the U.S.A.?
At Christmastime, there’s nothing better than a great piece of Christmas music. Here’s one of my favorites, “Christmas Day” by Gustav Holst. We played a band arrangement of this, but I also love the words. There’s no video, just listen to this fabulous choir and orchestra.
19 Days of Christmas
Did you grow up with the traditional reading of Clement Moore’s “The Night Before Christmas”?
In our house, the Family Singers did it one better — we sang it! My mother was a piano teacher, and spent many an hour practicing Ken Darby’s wicked score that set Moore’s immortal poem to song. Every Christmas Eve our family would gather around the piano and sing our hearts out.
This year, when my family gathered for Thanksmas, we didn’t have a piano player that could tackle this score. My mom is in a wheelchair and none of the rest of us have had the time to practice this bear of an accompaniment. Thankfully, we now have the magical invention called YouTube, so here’s Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians singing it in 1955. We were able to sing along with the computer, and so can you. I highly recommend that you add this tradition to your Christmas Eve.
