The Best Christmas Present Ever

That award this year goes to my sister and BIL, Rosie & Rob. As Rob tells it, Tuesday night before Christmas they had just gone into a deep sleep when he woke to footsteps in the hall...

Reuben? Didn't sound quite like him.

Rob Jr? What would he be doing at the house at 12:30 in the morning?

The door to their bedroom opened, and a sweet voice said, "Mama?"

HELEN CLARE!! What are YOU doing here?

Helen Clare and Adam flew in from London (yeah, that London -- as in England) to surprise them. A friend picked them up in Jackson and took them home. They are staying until the 9th....

Definitely the biggest surprise and the best Christmas present anyone in our family received this year. Though I think Lyn would be quick to point out that having Timothy home in Berlin from his freshman year at Covenant College in TN would run a real close second... Her torn Achilles tendon which has put her in a cast is decidedly on the bottom of the list.

Welcome home, Helen Clare!

Christmas Eve

It really doesn't LOOK like a traditional Christmas Eve around here. The sky is blue -- but beginning to darken as evening falls. The luminaria are out -- we only got 30, which is comfortably enough for the front walk, but not the side walk. So he is out moving a few from the front so it goes a bit farther down the side of the house.

Luminaria are a Big Deal in our immediate neighborhood. All up and down our street running north & south you can see them. Sort of an unspoken Christmas Eve decorating "rule." Today being Sunday and a warmish sort of day for Chicagoland, folks were getting the brown bags, sand & candles out and ready shortly after church.

Assuming, of course, they went to church.

This is the first Christmas Eve in quite possibly forever that we've been home alone. Since we did our big Christmas celebration last week -- the one tomorrow will be just Bob, Tim and me. And tonight, Tim is working -- so we are headed up to Weber Grill to have dinner....have made reservations, and told them it must be with Tim. Fun to have him serve us -- as I will be serving him dinner tomorrow!!

He'll get off around 8:30 or so -- plenty of time to come home and get ready for our 11:00 Christmas Eve candlelight service which includes all the pastors dressed in robes, reading the Christmas story from Luke 2 -- the only time the King James Version of the Bible is used in our church -- and ending with the congregation singing Silent Night as candles are lit from person to person in the darkened sanctuary.

Tonight will be a bittersweet service -- it is our senior pastor's last. After 27 years he is retiring -- well, retiring from being a pastor, though we are quite sure he will be more than busy. He'll be moving to Spokane next month and will be busy writing, traveling, and teaching.

Since we got our jammies from the elves last week, we'll come home and have a cup of tea in our regular clothes. Tim will sleep late tomorrow so we don't even have to put the presents out or fill stockings until morning.

Christmas is different when your children grow up.

But it is still the most wonderful time of the year.

Christmas Letters....

Have I mentioned that I absolutely LOVE getting Christmas letters? Short -- long -- medium -- full of mentions of people I don't know -- children's accomplishments -- trips to Europe -- promotions....I think they are wonderful. My favorite letters are accompanied by pictures.

I also enjoy the letters to Amy or Abby or Amanda or Alfonse complaining about said letters. Garrison Keilor had an editorial in the Tribune not too long ago wondering what it would be like if we *really* told it like it is.

But wait a minute! Christmas is a time of Good Tidings of Great Joy which shall be to All People. Now while my news certainly isn't nearly the caliber of the Gospel of Luke -- surely we should be able to share some of our own good tidings; particularly when we can share how God has blessed us, answered prayer, or been close in a time of need.

We started our annual letter in 1981. Why we didn't do it earlier, I will never know. Sending out Christmas letters with handwritten paragraphs of our news was a long and arduous process. Torrey and Chris are a lot smarter than we are -- they sent out their first letter this year. And it was super!

I have a large three ring binder. In it I have 8 x 10 pictures of (a) the family, (b) Jill -- all the way through high school, (c) Torrey -- same, (d) Timothy -- ditto, (d) other assorted family members and (e) one of each of all the Christmas cards and letters we have sent out since we were married. It's truly a treasure trove of family memorabilia all in one spot. I need to start an (f) Grandbabies and (g) Christmas letters of other family members.

How large do they make those binders anyway?

Christmas Number One

It's not every year that we have the opportunity to have THREE Christmas celebrations -- but we are having that chance this year. Yesterday was our first Christmas. Torrey and Chris came on Friday night -- we met up at Alfie's as usual. Since there really aren't any Christmas Eve services on December 17, we opted to go to Beijing as usual on Saturday night, then head to Cantera to see The Nativity -- just about as good a Christmas "Eve" service as it gets. Tim didn't have to work either Saturday or Sunday, so he decided to spend the night at our house so we could do Christmas according to all the traditions....









Including the new tradition in which we all eat lots of hors d'oeuvres throughout the day instead of me cooking. Ah, that's a LOVELY tradition!

We watched the Bears game -- whew, they WON!




We played the Amazing Race game which we gave Torrey & Chris. It was a bit confusing at first, but we finally got the hang of it. It is rather odd playing a board game on a board and on TV as well.... We watched the movie Elf. And snacked all day....


Several of Tim's Taylor friends came over in the evening...

It was a lovely day.

And we still have two more celebrations to go!!

Memorable Holiday Meals

Mary Schmich is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune who also writes the Brenda Starr comic -- but that's another story. Anyway, on Wednesday, December 6, she had a column that really resonated with me. Apparently her mother and I have quite a bit in common. Cooking. Or rather, the lack of it.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0612060051dec06,1,391967.column?ctrack=1&cset=true


If I haven't mentioned it before, I will now. It runs in my family. My grandmother, born and bred in the south with plenty of servants, never really learned how to cook. Even though she and Granddaddy ended up being missionaries to China and Korea for many many years, there was always someone else around to do the cooking. Lao Lao (Chinese for "old old" -- or "the mother's mother) claimed she only "applied heat to food."

My mother, born and raised in China, also did not cook, though she certainly did better than Lao Lao. After our family returned from the mission field when I was six, she HAD to cook or we'd not eat at all. She mastered about 4 basics and we had them over and over again, including at least 17 different ways to eat Spam (the canned variety....) She never did master the art of the broiler.

Unfortunately, my daughters also do not cook. Fortunately they married men who love to cook and do it well.

I'm hoping Tim finds someone who cooks, because if not, he'll be left in the same sort of spot my husband finds himself -- a wife who applies microwave to food and can do the same basics -- over and over again. He's hoping to find a wife much like his Aunt Rosie.

My sisters cook. They are really very good. Rosie can whip up meals for millions -- she has to on Wednesday nights for family night at the church. Lyn too, is a wonderful cook.

But this is why I resonated so much with Mary's column the other day. It was most excellent. I wish I had met her mother. She opened cans and heated -- I defrost and microwave. Same principle -- different generation.

I think Bob might rather have had a Baker than a Blogger for a wife...

Sorry, honey.

Refrigerators and Ice Makers

The first time the ice maker quit functioning was 5 days after our year long warranty expired.

Of course.

A bit of history. The only ice makers we have ever had up until last year were square and made of plastic which you had to remember to fill periodically. We'd fill 'em, and when we would remember, we'd put the ice cubes in the egg tray we kept in the freezer for that purpose. We didn't have an automatic ice maker -- let alone one that opened on the door where you could get ice AND fill your glass with filtered water. Such an amazing thing!

But I digress. The refrigerator repairman showed up with the cheerful news that one should always have an extended warranty because ice makers were THE most common reason for service calls -- and they were likely to go out on a fairly regular basis.

This was not good news.

We got the new part that was needed, the ice maker was fixed, we paid for the service and decided we would opt for the extended warrantly -- yet another way for Sears to make more money.

Sigh.

Since then -- about 9 months ago, the ice maker has stopped working on average every three months. It happens only on Mondays when we are about to have our Life Group over and we need ice for the soda (also known as pop or Coke, depending upon where you hail from).

Now, of course, that we have paid for the extended warranty, I've figured out how to fix the problem.

My hair dryer.

Nothing like taking a hair dryer to the ice maker and shortly thereafter hearing the satisfying sound of ice cubes dropping into the appropriate receptacle.

I may be the last auto-ice-maker-owner on the planet that doesn't know this -- but for goodness sake, why isn't it written out in the troubleshooting portion of the booklet that comes with the refrigerator?

Oh yeah. Money. I forgot.

Silly me.

...Here's Tim fixing the icemaker...

Happy First Anniversary to the MC!!

And a very happy birthday to Christopher as well! And -- happy first Sunday of Advent! What a day for celebration!!

All weekend I've been mumbling things like "and a year ago at this time we were..." and "I'm sure glad the big snow waited for THIS year instead of last year..." and at this very moment, 5:27 pm, Torrey and Chris had just been pronounced Mr & Mrs and were walking back down the aisle. What a wonderful wedding! What a wonderful year!

Then....



I think this will forever and always remain my favorite picture because I think it says it all.

And now....(at Erin & Matt's wedding -- Erin was Maid of Honor at T & C's wedding)




Happiest of days my sweet ones, and happiest of years to come.