At Home in Wyoming

Taking Back Christmas

Not all Christmas trees have to be green!  Sometimes in December I spray paint bush or tree branches white, and hang some dollar store snowflakes on them.  The best part about snowflake trees is that they don't have to disappear once Christmas is over...they can stay up through January, which is good because the house looks so drab without all the Christmas lights and decorations.

I attend a church that is called a Bible church...basically the doctrine is Baptist.  BUT I was raised a Methodist, and still somewhat follow the Protestant liturgical calendar as a way to order my days and as a tool in my Christian walk.

(You can take the woman out of the Methodist church, but not the Methodist methods out of the woman).

I have been thinking a lot about the 12 days of Christmas, which starts on Christmas Day and ends on Epiphany ( the celebration of the gift of the Magi...or the Three Wise Men) on January 6th.  It seems a bigger deal in the European cultures and the Catholic church, but not so much the Protestant western churches.

Why?  Because our church calendar morphed into the commercial calendar...that says once the Christmas shopping season is over, Christmas is over.

So what's up with that?

During the advent, we prepare our hearts and home for Christmas.  We spend a lot of time getting ready.  But when Christmas Day arrives, it is over so quickly...you are left feeling a little exhausted and a little deflated...which is exactly what rampant and unchecked commercialism will do to you. 

So this year I observed the full 12 days of Christmas.  I took the tree down, but left everything else up.  I still listened to Christmas carols, read Christmas readings (both spiritual and secular) and really pondered what the birth of that child in the manger means to my life, today. 

And for the first time, I felt that I fully experienced Christmas.

Whether you follow the Protestant liturgical calendar or not, consider separating the commercial from the observation of Christmas.  I have tried doing that before Christmas...and in our culture with our traditions it is dang near impossible. 

But if you take the time to fully observe the 12 days of Christmas, STARTING with Christmas day, you will find that the commercial fades away, and the joy will kick in. 

And that, folks, is how you take back Christmas!

 

 

356 And Counting...

A western Christmas tree, made out of sagebrush.  Kinda pretty, isn't it?  Just the thing to grace one of the cabins at Old Trail Town...

Have you bought your datebook for 2012 yet?  If you are super organized, you probably bought it in November...and because you are so organized this post will be useless to you.

BUT...if you are poorly organized, absent minded or just plain a mess, you were probably standing in line at Walmart buying one today.  Like me!  If that is the case, I am going to give you some advice that will have you loving me next December.

Flip to December 2012, and jot down what worked and didn't work for you over the holidays, before you forget.  For instance, my sister found that going through her spice cabinets and pantry in November saved her time...she was able to stock up on her holiday baking needs before the rush, and didn't waste time running back and forth to the store. 

BUT her boys gobbled up all her cut out cookies before Christmas (as teenage boys are prone to do), and she ran out of cookies Christmas Eve. She ended up missing Christmas Eve service to roll dough, because Christmas wouldn't have been Christmas without the cut out cookies for one of her sons.  

NOW we now why our mother baked her cookies in quanity in November, and bedded them down in the deep freeze.  Next year she is going to try that...and join a Christmas Club at the bank.

OK, now you get the picture.  What worked, what didn't...and what you will change next year.

While you are at it...what were you out of that you need to buy next year?  Did some of your Christmas lights burn out?  Did you deplete your wrapping paper stash, or need more hooks to hang bulbs?  Whatever it is, jot it down. 

As you are out and about this month, you will find that stuff for 75% off...I know it is hard to have the stomach to buy more red wreath ribbons in January, but come December 2012 you will be happy that you did.

So that's it, that's my advice.  Take it or leave it, but remember...

It is just 356 days till Christmas!

 

 

Relax

The day after Christmas...nothing more to bake, to buy, to mail, to trim, to deck...enjoy it folks!  Just think, in just 365 days, we are going to have to do it all over again!

Hope your Christmas was Merry!   DLB

Old Things Done New Ways

The last couple of years I have gotten into table top sized trees for Christmas.  Mostly because I am lazy...but also because I bought a 1940's tree stand at a garage sale, and it only holds small trees...and fake trees. 

Otherwise I would electrocute myself.  These things haven't been in vogue since Eleanor Roosevelt was First Lady.  My husband says it is a fire hazard, but we haven't gone up in flames.  Yet.

The thing about table top trees is that they are so easy to decorate.  You don't have to reach down or up too far, and if you put a little village under the tree, like I do...you don't have to get down flat on your belly to see it.

The disadvantage is that husbands will invariably stick their empty coffee cups under the tree, like mine did in this picture.  (Sigh...).

Sometimes I miss those big old trees we used to chop down in the mountains.  They smelled so good and were just so pretty.  But people get older, children grow, things change.  There is no sense sticking to tradition if you are too pooped to get out of bed Christmas morning...all because you tried to do what you did when you were 20, and are now 56.

(Who, me?).

Anyway, if you are finding it harder and harder to keep up with tradition, rethink some of the ways that you do things this Christmas.  Try doing old things in a new way.

You may find that all you had to lose for extra energy... were just a couple of branches!    DLB

Slowing It Down

I love doing puzzles over the holidays.  My son got me hooked on them a few years ago...not the big thousand piece ones that he likes, I don't have the patience. 

I like the little one hundred piece puzzles that the dollar store sells around Christmas.  Like the holiday one above that I have been working on this week.

It has glitter on the snow.

(There is nothing that I don't like about glitter!)

Working on a puzzle is relaxing.  You are doing something, but not doing much.  You can think about things, or follow one of those sappy Christmas movies on TV.

(There is nothing that I don't like about sappy Christmas movies!)

We are in the final sprint folks...Christmas is just a little over a week away!  If you are feeling the stress, try a puzzle, a sappy Christmas movie, or whatever works for you. 

Just try to slow it down enough to enjoy this very special time of the year!   DLB

 

 

Tick Tock

Perched on the top of our living room mantel sits a crescent moon Santa...watching the seconds tick down until midnight, Christmas Eve.

I wanted to post today, but I have nothing to say.  So I thought I would hang a picture and be done with it.

But just so I don't leave you with nothing for tuning in, I am going to share something that Father Tim in the fictional town of Mitford said:

"Knitting, he thought, was a comfort to the soul.  It was regular, it was repetitious.  And in the end, it amounted to something."  (At Home In Mitford by Jan Karon)

I will leave you with this thought...are we doing anything today that in the end 'amounts to something'?   DLB

Keeping The HO!HO!HO! This Christmas

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Cody.  This picture was taken outside my house last week...it snows, melts, snows, melts.  Typical December.

Inside, I have been decorating.  I may have overdone it.  (My husband said it's 'Christmas until you puke').  I can't help myself...it wouldn't feel like Christmas if I didn't deck the halls (and the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the porch, the kitchen, the dining room...ok, maybe my husband has a point).

But I do it because I enjoy it.  It is something that I love doing at Christmas.

Did you ever notice that during the Christmas season everyone uses the talents that God gave them to celebrate?  Decorators decorate, writers write, bakers bake, cooks cook, and shoppers shop.  It is an expression of love.

So I suggest this year that in order to get the most out of the season, focus on what brings you joy...and scale back on all the rest.  (For instance, I love to decorate but hate to bake...so I can simplify things by buying my cookies from Peter's bakery). 

Before things get too out of control this December, pour yourself a cup of hot chocolate, and sit down and figure out how to make it a merry Christmas instead of a stressful Christmas.  What can you eliminate that you don't particularly enjoy...that would free up more time for what really DOES make you happy? 

What can you scale down...and what can you devote more time to?  What makes you smile, what makes you crabby?

(I decided that my new rule is no Walmart after 8:30 in the morning.  Before 8:30 it is quiet, no crowds or crying children.  I can think...after 8:30 the crowds thicken, the canned Christmas carols on the loudspeaker get on my nerves and I begin to get grouchy.  I remember telling the woman at the checkout counter last year that all I wanted for Christmas was not to have to come back to Walmart!  Humbug!)

So how about it, folks!  Before things get hopping, let's figure out how to keep the HO!HO!HO! in Christmas this year!

 

 

Storm Warning

I heard on the news this morning that there is a new trend in America.  It seems that many women are going back to the old ways of what the newscasters referred to as domesticity. 

Women are canning again (the sales of canning jars leaped 37% this year), and knitting things.  Actually cooking.  Growing their own food and stocking up their pantry.

The news reporters were aghast.  What happened to feminism?  Were women losing everything that they gained?

I can argue the gains and the losses of feminism until the cows come home, but that is not what I want to talk about here.  In fact, I think that the news report is missing the point entirely.

I think the trend is more toward self sufficiency then domesticity.

It is getting a little spooky out there.  Gas prices are rising, food prices are skyrocketing...and unemployment is running rampant.  As I heard a preacher say a few weeks ago, the party in America is over, we just don't know it yet.

What part of broke doesn't America understand?

But if the trend toward gardening and canning is any clue, then I think that American women are beginning to figure it out.  Storm clouds are gathering.  The winds of change are whipping those clouds around.  And many women are turning back to what their grandparents and great grandparents did during the depression.

They scrimped, saved and worked.  They PREPARED for uncertain times.  They saved in good times so that they could survive the bad times.  They did what they could, and I believe that God honors that.

Proverbs 31:21 states:  "She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come."

Do you know why she could laugh?  A little later in that chapter it states that she 'fears God'.  She is not out there going it alone, she is seeking His counsel and wisdom.  And the rest of the chapter bears out that she is not sitting on her behind, waiting for the sky to fall.  She is busy at her task, or as verse 27 says, "She watches over the affairs of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness." 

We can't control the future, but we can prepare the best we can as God leads us.  Then we too can 'laugh at the days to come'.

The storm clouds are gathering.  Have you prayed and asked God is there is anything that you should be doing to prepare?

 

Silence Is Golden

About 6 weeks or so ago, I fell.

It was a silly thing really...I was getting into my husband's diesel truck that is a few feet off the ground.  I grabbed the handle to boost myself up, and it came off in my hand.  I pitched over backwards, and landed head first into the asphalt below.

It was a hot day, and the asphalt was warm and had some give.  That is what saved me.

Anyway, I ended up with a severe concussion.  At first I felt fine, but as the swelling went down I started noticing that I couldn't remember things.  I wrote my return address on an envelope, and was surprised to see that I wrote down the address that I had as a child, in Virginia.  I had trouble typing, couldn't concentrate on my driving.  And I found out one important thing.

Your brain is very important.

I was told that you have to give it time to heal.  To help it along, you have to reduce the amount of things that stimulate it. 

Your brain needs peace and quiet to heal.

So I turned off the television.  No radio when I was in the car.  I got to tell my husband to lower his voice. (I liked that!).  I took a lot of naps.  I didn't read much. (I didn't like that!).

But do you know what I found out?

Peace and quiet is good for what ails you.  I felt calmer than I had in years.  Stress was all but eliminated.

My brain slowly recovered, and now I am back to normal.  But I find I am not so quick to turn on the TV, or radio.  I have started to protect myself from too much noice.

We live in a technical time.  Hundreds of things are trying to grab our attention, all at once.  But only we are the gatekeepers of what we allow in.

And that is what I want to pass along to you.  It is a good things to protect the peace of your mind.  And you can do that by eliminating some of the background noise in your life.

Someone much smarter than me said it best long ago...

Silence is golden.

 

Day Of Rest

 
There is just something about the transition from summer to fall in Cody. The light becomes amber, the air is softer, and the day just beckons you to sit, relax...read. 

But this time of year whispers 'Winter is coming'.  You want to rest, but you feel compelled to freeze produce, chop wood, make jam and see if the furnace is in good working order.  So many chores, so little time.

That's ok...because I decided a while back that I am taking back my Sundays, and really using them for a day of rest.  It is God ordained, and who am I to argue with that?!

Some commandments from God are hard to obey...but refraining from work on the Lord's day is one I have no trouble with at all.  In fact, I delight in it.

And to God be the Glory!