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!

 

 

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!

 

 

A Thing About Log Cabins

I have a thing about log cabins.

They are rustic, they are cozy, they are reminders of a simpler time.

If I were Queen of the Universe I would command that everyone spend Christmas in the mountains in a log cabin.  It would be a rule......sigh.......so not happening.  Which is why I never miss the Christmas Open House at Old Trail Town in Cody.

For the uninitiated, Old Trail Town is a collection of cabins that were rotting around the state of Wyoming, and someone (I think it was Bob Edgar) brought them to Cody to do their rotting here.  There are quite a few cabins...it looks like this.

My favorite cabin is the saloon, because it reminds me of the one in the western Lonesome Dove.  Every kid in Cody will say that their favorite thing is the stuffed mutant two-headed calf. 

Kids like weird things.

Anyway, at Christmas they throw open all the cabins, and decorate them for Christmas.  It is worth braving the cold to check them out.  I took lots of pictures, which you will see peppered throughout this blog over the next month or so.  Until then, I will leave you with another picture of the cabin at the top of the page, which was once a one room school house that I think was near the Wood River outside of Meeteetse.

If I had been a student there, I would have prayed to get the desk by the woodstove, wouldn't you?

 

Birthday Presents

 I am lucky enough to have a birthday in March...right before the Easter holiday.  For my birthday present, I always request "Easter Somethings", which has netted me a collection of rabbits and spring items that I always dig out before Easter.  One of my favorite rabbits is the one above, so ugly that she is cute, draped in Easter grass next to a sidewalk chalk egg.  I discovered sidewalk chalk eggs at the Dollar Store a few years ago, and they are great to decorate with...they last from year to year, come in a variety of colors and can always be used to decorate the sidewalk!  She had more jelly beans in her little basket...someone has been raiding her Easter basket! 

As we prepare for Easter dinner tomorrow ( I have a broccoli salad and a banana cream pie to make today) let's keep foremost in our minds the One who took the burden of our sin, that we might have life eternal.  DLB

Easter Egg Trees

Every year since my son was small (a long, long time ago) I have made inexpensive Easter Egg Trees to decorate the house over Easter.  I cut branches from my old lilac bushes, and stick them into whatever I have on hand (old bottles, garden urns, etc).  I collect old fake birds at garage sales, and usually perch one or two on the branches, and hang eggs that I either blew out and dyed, or bought at half price sales.  The following are a few pictures of some of this year's Easter Egg Trees, so if you are interested in this sort of thing, enjoy!  DLB

  

 

 

For, Lo, The Winter is Past...

Easter bunnies and carrot lights liven up the kitchen dining room.

Finally, after dreary days of snow and cold...it warmed up a little.  Upper 50's, and the rest of the week is looking pretty good too.  Now, I know that we will get more snow...but somehow or other I think that maybe Spring, might have finally Sprung!

The Bible says it better...

"For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of the birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." (Song of Solomon 2:12)

Here's hoping it is warm where you are!  DLB

 

 

A Little Bit of Spring on a Blustery Day

 It has snowed, off and on, all last night and this morning.  The wind is howling, and the temperature is in the 20's.  So I occupied myself this morning by making a little Easter Egg tree out of an antique Clorox bottle...a touch of Spring for a blustery day. 

While I whine a lot about the long winters in Wyoming, it isn't all bad.  Last night I was tucked snug in bed, listening to the soundtrack of the movie "Little Women".  My husband was sound asleep beside me, and the dogs were downstairs snoring peacefully in the library.  I opened the shade and watched the bushes dance to the wind, and the snow pelt the window.  There is something so comforting about being snug and cozy in bed, while the storm rages outside your window.  And I thought to myself that winter...well, it ain't so bad!  DLB

 

Surviving Winter Doldrums

 

Let me tell you a thing or two about living in Cody, Wyoming.  The first is that whichever way you gaze, there is breathtaking scenery to look at.  Which is good, and partially makes up for the fact that winter is about 6 months long.  Maybe longer, because most of our snows come during the spring.

My sister lives in Laramie, Wyoming, and the winters there are much worse than what we endure in Cody.  We were talking a few weeks ago about the long winters, and brainstormed mental survival strategies!

One thing that I came up with was using Christmas lights to brighten up those long winter evenings.  I picked some strands up for a quarter at the after Christmas sale.  I bought white lights for January, red for February and green for March.  The picture above is of my fireplace mantel in January.  I made a little snowpicture in the base of the clock, and used white lights and deer to make a little winter scene. 

Now I'm not saying that little white lights will banish the winter doldrums...but half the battle of surviving the long winters is mental, and at this point any little thing helps!  DLB