It’s that “most wonderful time of the year” again. And we’re all pushing and shoving to get good gifts for each other. The malls are filled, although each year we hear gloom and doom about how they are not filled “enough.” The economic predictions are always grey and cloudy. I have to wonder who is in bed with whom when that happens.

LightHusband’s company holiday party was the other evening. The event happened to coincide with a need for having my hair done. Really. It did. So I went to my favorite hairdresser for just a cut and style this time … no color or anything fancy. The salon is in a mall nearby and on my way out, I paused in a department store to purchase a few items which were necessary for the evening. Okay, pantyhose. I hardly ever wear it anymore and I didn’t have any.

Once, I’d finally located the goods in the store in question, I made my selections and stood in line to make my purchase. I was third. Then I was second. At first I was slightly annoyed by this turn of affairs because I was all rushy and needing to be on my way. But then I started to breath and watch the unfolding event in front of me. I was fascinated.

She was a smallish woman in her early 30’s. There wasn’t anything very remarkable about her as she stood at the jewelry counter. Nothing except the stacks of boxes of cheesy jewelry which she’d painstakingly selected from the rummage of the final markdown table. I sighed and rolled my eyes at the dozen or so boxes of necklaces and bracelets; all of them cheap and none of them particularly noteworthy. All were on sale, of course. While each item didn’t cost more than $5.00, she ended up spending over one hundred and fifty dollars on cheap plastic jewelry. As the clerk carefully rang each item up and replaced the cover on the box, I noticed that she pulled a neatly folded sheaf of papers from her purse. Within the sheaf was a flyer from the store with coupons for $$ off in consideration of $$ spent. But the sheaf itself was a marvel to behold. It was an Excel spreadsheet of gift beneficiaries … one would assume for the cheap plastic jewelry. I studied the spreadsheet from the appropriate stranger distance and thought of all the questions I wanted to ask this very tidy woman over coffee. I peeked into her purse and noticed it was very organized as well.

I’ve found myself wondering about the very tidy woman and her jewelry gift purchases over the last couple of days. She and the clerk, and eventually me too were drawn into some minimal conversation. Those of us in line were gently admonished to have extra patience for long lines during the holiday time. I was fascinated, so I needed no patience.

I’ve been thinking though, about the gifts we give each other during this “wonderful time of the year.” And what we might really want from those we love. It seems to me that what we always long for from our friends, lovers, loved ones, and family is time spent with them. We don’t think we have that to give, so instead we’re willing to spend hours on Excel spreadsheets organizing our gift giving, more hours rummaging through final markdown tables for cheap, plastic jewelry, still more wrapping it up in funky wrapping paper and then boxes to send to it’s final destination.

Oh, what’s that you say? You’re not that organized or obsessed. You do not spend hours on Excel spreadsheets. You, or course, would never buy cheap, plastic jewelry for anyone. Oh well, then, I’m not talking to you, am I?

Or … am I?

How much time do you spend on your gift organizing and purchasing? We all have some method to our madness. We all do something to organize ourselves and plan in some way. So we do something. We all have the same 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year to our lives. Now this is not another mid-Advent polemic on doing away with Christmas gift giving, shopping, buying, or etc. Just wait to see where I’m headed, okay.

I was also thinking about this in terms of my recent Thanksgiving blowout extravaganza. It took me three days to recover from that. But as I look back over it, I realize it was a huge gift to my mother-in-law and father-in-law to have their family all together in one place for several days. They enjoyed it enormously and it was a blessing to them.

It was a blessing to all of us in many ways. It was to me, too. I had the gift of time with my nieces and nephew and my sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law. We all had that. My sister-in-law with whom the road has been rocky at times and I had a wonderful visit. She gave me the gift of her decorating abilities and I gave to her time with her family.

There were some funny moments though. One of the things I wanted to give my sister-in-law (LightHusband’s sister) was time to relax and enjoy her mornings. She works and gets 4 children out the door to school every morning. So I thought her time here might be a good time to sit, breath, and relax. Instead, every morning she kept after me to mop the kitchen floor. She wanted to know where the supplies and mop were. “I want to mop your floor!” was the declaration. “I mop my floor every day.” It was said without judgement or animosity, but with need. Finally, one morning in a tiny, pleading voice, “I need to mop … it’s how I wake up in the morning.” And, I burst into laughter; so did she. I told her that I had been trying to give her some time to relax; she, on the other hand, had been trying to give me free housecleaning (and she legitimately *does* clean to wake up). Her normal morning is so busy and regimented that sitting still just doesn’t make it onto her radar.

So I’ve been thinking about all the gifts we give each other. The tangibles and the intangibles. How we wrap them up with love and time and worry and care. Some people put theirs into an Excel spreadsheet and time spent rummaging through the markdown jewelry table. Others put theirs into carefully handcrafting gifts. Still others put theirs into hours spent in Google searches. But in the end I think it works out to the same time … or so. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Then we wrap those gifts up with paper and love, bows and care.

I wonder though about the good gifts we try to give each other and the good gifts from our Creator above. I’ve been pondering that. S/He gave us the gift of presence. The gift of God with Us, Emmanuel. It had never been done before and has not been done since. Or, really has been ever since if we consider the Holy Spirit. So those gifts, carefully wrapped and lovingly bowed, under our trees each year are like the shadows in Plato’s cave of the gift lovingly wrapped and given so long ago. It causes me to consider that the thing we truly seek after with one another and with God is not presents, but presence. We seek after each other’s presence, we long for it. Our children desire more of it, our spouses, our friends, our families. God even desires more of it from us and we from Him.

But that is not what we give each other. Sadly, we use up that time and energy on other things that we have declared more precious. I wonder what would happen if we began to give the present of presence? What other good gifts might come of that?

I watch television. I watch it sort of a lot. A more accurate statement would be that I listen to it.

Mostly, I watch/listen to “Law & Order” and its iterations. And Cold Case. And Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) and its iterations. And now, The Closer (on TNT). I blame this fixation on my Grampa Naylor … he first got me hooked on Ironsides when I was little. We watched it together in his livingroom on the black and white television. Yeah! Justice for the little guy! Hah! Me and Gramps.

LightHusband tolerates this fixation. He claims that he does not watch television. Although he is in the room at the same time as I am. The television is on. He is following the plot line. Hmmmm. Interestingly, whenever I am gone in the evening I come home and the television is not off. If he does not watch television then it should be off. But it’s not. It’s on. He watches the most vile, bad (as in poorly done) sci-fi you can imagine. It’s amusing.

So that’s the confession … I am a smart-ish, funny-ish, educated, Jesus-following, television watcher. You heard it here first.
Now, here’s the twaddle.

Our home was originally built as a builder’s model. So we have some upgrades. One of them is that we have a gas fireplace in our family room. That’s nice at this time of year. Another is that we have “eye” above the fireplace. That’s not so wonderful. By “eye” I mean this. When our house was built it was sort of vogue to build these huge nooks above fireplaces so that you’d have a built-in spot for a television or entertainment unit of whatever sort. I hate that “eye.”

When we first moved in it seemed like a really wonderful feature. A defined space for the television. No more need for the somewhat broken, yet handmade entertainment unit (by LightHusband many moons ago). A spot for all the crap stuff.

You see, for all the television I watch, I really could not careless what sort of television I watch it on. As long as the picture is not fuzzy and I can see it … as in it’s bigger than say my laptop screen. I don’t need surround sound. I really don’t care. Really. I don’t.

LightHusband, on the other hand, does. Yeah … remember him? He’s the guy who does NOT watch television. It bugs him to no end that our television does NOT fill up the hole in the “eye.” That it doesn’t fit. That our crap stuff looks ugly up there. And … he wants a bigger, better picture. He says we can stream YouTube videos from our computers onto the dang thing.

Six years now we’ve been having a running argument about that dang “eye.” You may of course understand that I have used several other more colorful words in place of “dang” over the years. I am completely functional. I say we build some shelves in the back of the “eye” for our crap stuff. He says we can get a television that will replace all of our crap stuff and will be aesthetically more pleasing. But he doesn’t watch television. It’s a senseless silly argument. And not one that we spend a lot of time on … we use it more to poke fun at one another than anything else.

I have threatened to make a quilt to cover the “eye” with. He was less than impressed. He has threatened to just go buy a television with “his” bonus money. I was less than impressed. We give each other the flat eye look a lot in that case. You know the flat eye look. It’s the cartoon look where their eyes get flat on top. Well, people get that look too. The flat eye look … you’re pushing the envelope, but you’re not in trouble yet and you’re probably being funny too. But … watch it.

So why am I telling you all this? Because it’s been an ongoing argument for six years and I might be losing. I hate that. It goes against all of my standards for myself and I just had to say it somewhere. Getting a television that big is simply wasteful, verges on sinful and really feels like I’m condoning and becoming a part of the commercialism and etc. that I just do not want to be a part of. And I hate being a part of it. I don’t care what all the good reasons are … so now I’ve said all that in my outloud voice and I can be done with it.

I’m crying, “Uncle.”

I have far too many unread items in my Googlereader.  Not nearly as many as some people claim to, but too many for my comfort level.

I have had an itchy rash for over a month.  It has been variously (and wrongly) diagnosed as a fungus and scabies.  Now it has been determined to be an allergic reaction of unknown origins … and I’m on steroids for it.  These interrupt my sleep.  On the other hand, this diagnosis seems to be correct and I’m no longer itching.  However, I’m concerned about the unknown origins part of that.  Because the allergen could still be around.  Then what?  Maybe it’s my children … they’ve been particularly reactive of late.  ;-)  Regardless, the constant itching has been making me extremely crabby … too crabby to write or think anything of substance.

I really, really want to make some Christmas presents.  Not out of any moral obligation or pressure.  But because I found a really cool idea and I have all the stuff already here and it would be so fun to do.  It just makes sense.  It is a case of all the planets lining up, except that all-important-one called “Time.”  Pheh.

In the middle of the night last night I began to write a beautiful post … in my head.  I’ve lost it now.  When I find it again, I will reconstruct it and post it.  I’ve been having some recall issues though, with the organic RAM that I use.  It’s flaky and getting flakier.  If any of you know of any add-ons that you use for your organic RAM, I’d appreciate the advice.  Mine only works on its own schedule.  Sometimes I try to boot it up and it takes a whole cup of coffee or more to get it going.  Then there are days when it refuses altogether.

So … we have more company coming (just for one night).  LightHusband’s company Christmas party is this evening.  My skin looks like battle terrain.  I’m not normally vain about anything except my hair, but neither do I want to look like a bubonic plague victim.  Our company are long-time friends and that will be fun.  My brain is refusing to work.  I just want to sew.  I do not want to itch.  Yep.  That about sums it up.

There will be something of substance here soon.  I promise.  I just don’t know when.  As soon as I can work out the bugs in my organic RAM.

I don’t like drawing those much.  But sometimes ya jus’ gotta.  I did that today with my son.  He asked me a question and I felt my stomach flop over in revulsion.  So I drew a line.  I made a boundary and set a new tradition.

He’s not happy with it.  But I suspect he will live.  I hope it will give us fodder for some conversation over time.

At the very least he will learn never to ask a question that you do not want the answer to.

He asked me if he could play a war game on the computer.  I do not like war games at any time.  At best I merely tolerate knowing that he plays them because he’s a boy and he loves them.  Someday he will have to make his own decisions about peace, violence, love and war.  I cannot make those decisions for him.  Neither can I just remove all of those influences from him now, because that will just make them more tantalizing and appealing … it will also make him more bitter and resentful of me.  So he plays them with some regularity.

He asked me this morning, morning number 2 of Advent, if he could play a war game on the computer.  I felt my stomach turn over.  It wanted to heave.  My brain flashed with pictures of guns, cannons, death, mayhem and madness.  I looked at him for a minute and said, No.  No, you may not play war games on the computer during Advent.  This is a time when we consider the coming of peace.  So … no war.

So, he will have a 25-ish day fast from war games.  I guess I’m going to think about how I will consider the coming of peace in my life in tangible ways too.

Sometimes a line in the sand cuts in more than one direction.

I know I should write something.  Anything.  Anything at all.  Quite a bit happened this weekend and most of it was really wonderful.  But my brain seems to have been sucked out my left ear and I am now a member of the walking undead.  Well,  the sitting undead.  I am not even walking, just sitting.  Staring.  With the occasional drool.

I could write about how the family gathered together and there wasn’t ever a cross word.  Well, there were cross words, but we spoke them to our children when they were beating each other about the head and neck, or had forgotten to brush their teeth.  Heinous moments such as those.

I could write about how wonderful it was to sit and talk with my sister-in-law with whom I have had many fights and disagreements over the years.  But now we can come together as friends and sisters.  Grace truly reigned over this weekend.  Without her presence and energy, I’m not certain I could have coped with all of the people who were here.  It was good to know she had my back.

I could write about the joy it was to prepare meals with my “special” niece, who became my sous chef for the weekend.  She has many delays and disorders, but the girl is a warhorse in the kitchen and my second set of hands.

I could write about the giggles and silliness from the children who we rarely saw.  They were off playing hard almost all weekend.  But the remains of the day are scattered all over the house.  I have found bits and pieces of artwork from all of them here and there; artifacts and treasures from a stratification of family history.

I could write about the relationships that were rebuilt and strengthened.  The sinews that were tried.  The new bonds that were bridged.  But first my own synapses must meet.  And that seems to be a problem this morning!  So, for at least a day or so more, I will be processing, tidying, reconnoitering and becoming again.  I’ll be back again soon.  In time for Advent with Brother Maynard and his wonderful new book, (which I still have to download), but soon.  I promise.

For those of you who have been waiting with bated breath … here are photos of the finished livingroom.

We finally got it all done and completed yesterday with the help of LightHusband’s sister and her husband. Painting was completed with the assistance and able consultation of BlazingEwe. The computer on my desk in the corner belongs to my mother-in-law. It will not remain on my desk. It is there for it’s annual check up from LightHusband.

You can find the before photos in this post … along with these words of boldness (written on Sept. 15), that we did not live up to:

It will be finished this week. Our goal is to have the entire downstairs and our bedroom painted by Thanksgiving.

Well … we did finish the livingroom. And we did get the kitchen painted. And the powder room. And the upstairs hallway. The house does look good. The livingroom, in particular, looks completely and utterly different than it did. This is good. I can now sit and relax in my livingroom again without feeling panicky and sad. It is no longer a place of pain and attack, but a place of sanctuary and rest once again. For that I am thankful.

Well then. I’m now keepin’ up with the Joneses and keepin’ on with getting ready for Thanksgiving.

Our first guests arrive today. The house is not ready. It will be. Sort of. Things will be fine and we’ll all have fun. It won’t go according to my original plan, but the necessary things will get done and the unnecessary things will drop away. Hopefully, I will remember to put the turkey in the oven on time.

It turns out that I do not have stress-induced eczema. I have a fungus that is causing the itching. Super! In what has become a standing pre-Thanksgiving tradition for LightHusband and I, we had matching doctors appointments yesterday afternoon. He has an upper respiratory infection and a sinus infection. I have fungus. Ewweth. Apparently we all have fungus on our skin, but if it gets underneath through a break in the skin then it becomes a problem. Bleh. Something I did not want to learn.
It makes having 16 for dinner on Thanksgiving and hosting a party for 35 the next day just another hoop to jump through. Keeping up and keeping on.

In other news, the grandparents will stay an extra day. We’re going to a Washington Capitals game on Saturday evening. This came up as a surprise yesterday afternoon. LightGirl has been chosen to skate with 3 of her team mates to help clear the ice between periods of the game that night. So while the rest of the thousands of fans will be there to see the game, at least five of the fans will be watching the cleaning of the ice! It’s very important you know 😀

Last, I’ve finished The Shack, by William P. Young. It was all the rage several months ago. I read several reviews of it all around the blog-o-sphere (including this one). It looked intriguing. So I threw it in my shopping cart in Amazon. Then one day it arrived. Such a miracle.

I know many (most) folks who read it sat down and did so in one sitting. Certainly, that is possible. And I wish I could have done so. But that wasn’t bloodly likely given my schedule lately. So I grabbed odd moments and before bed-time to read it. It’s a very powerful book packed into a small space. There’s a lot there.

I found it made an excellent companion piece to the book I reviewed here recently, It’s A Dance, by Patrick Oden. Having recently read that book gave me texture to bring to The Shack that I would not have had had I read it earlier.

I’m not entirely certain that every last jot and tittle of the theology is correct.  But then, I don’t know that anyone’s is.  Every one of us are making educated guesses.  Some guesses are more educated than others.  But not one of us knows the whole of what God is up to.  At best we see through a glass darkly; we see in part.  This book’s vision of the whole is winsome, captivating and certainly worth considering.  And certainly well worth the read.

We have family coming to town for Thanksgiving.  The first are scheduled to arrive next Tuesday (four days from now).  I’m stressing a little big damn lot about that and you can read about it here.  But the short story is that I probably won’t be posting too much between now and sometime after Thanksgiving.  Don’t give up on me or anything … and if you would be so kind, please say a prayer for me and my family when you happen to think of it.  We have big doings, and lots and lots of people going to be around.  For little old introverted me, this means I’ll be working from my weak spots, so I’ll appreciate all the help I can get.  Thanks …

I’ve been fumbling around lately. There’s a lot going on in my head (which may be dangerous). You’ve seen the results of some of it, but not too much. I feel torn though. I have a lot of different people who read this blog. Some of them (hi Mom) read it because they love me. Others read it because I’ve fooled them into thinking I’ve got something interesting to say every once in a while. But I find that I want to focus my scope here. So, I’ve been doing some building and creating. I’ve made a couple of other homes … this may make me feel slightly schizophrenic, I don’t know. But I made a blog to talk about my family life; hockey, homeschooling, etc. Like I can brag over there that LightGirl was named Player of the Week on her team last week. That blog is called Grandfather Ent and if you’ve developed any sort of interest in my kids and their hockey, you can follow them over there. I also decided that I needed a place to write about my adventures in quilting because not writing about it was making me a little bit nutty. I’m also going to post occasional photos of my WISPs (that is Works In Slow Progress). I called that blog Withywindle Counterpanes. I’ll be writing more about churchy, Jesusy things here from now on and keeping my children and design things for my “other” spaces. I’ll see how that works.

I’ve done some maintenance on my sidebar here too. I’ve split up my blogroll into two pieces. I wanted to call attention to the women bloggers that I follow and give them a special place. So I called that folder “Galadriel” for the leader of Lothlorien in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. She was a leader with power who focused on peace. The men that I follow are still under “Beacon-Hills” which I also think is fitting.

You may have noticed a trend here … I seem to find a lot of my nomenclature from MiddleEarth. Yep. I do. That’s because those stories have always spoken into my life and continue to do so. For instance, Calacirya is the name of a ravine. It’s mentioned only once in the books … but it’s known as the Ravine of Light, hence the reason I refer to my husband and children as LightHusband and LightChildren. I used to have a pseudonym which was Celtic and meant Lady of Light. I like the light theme and will be using it more often in the future. I’m not certain how that will play out, but it will.

I’ve also added a couple of icons to my sidebar.  One is for the new book written by Patrick Oden, It’s A Dance.  This icon leads to the website he’s created to go with the book.  Patrick’s got a unique vision for church that I’d like to encourage … so here’s my tiny, little helping hand.  Click on that link and explore his site.  Better yet, read the book! then go to the website.  I know Thanksgiving is nigh, but I now have a hunger for something better and not yet after reading it.  I’m fairly certain it’s not pie!!  The second icon will lead you to the Daily Office of the Northumbria Community.  I’ve been praying that off and on for several years now out of my book (Celtic Book of Daily Prayer), which can get awkward and cumbersome; flipping back and forth between bible and pages, etc.  I just discovered that the Northumbria Community has their Office on-line and it is sooooo convenient.  I even built myself a “gadget” for my Google Homepage … it will be available to the general public in about ten days if you’re interested.   This makes it fabulously easy to pray with the saints worldwide.  So you can get to it through the icon on my sidebar and wander around the island at Northumbria for a while.  Then stay and pray with me if you will.  I’d love it.

There you have it … I’m seeking some zen or other of blogging.  I’ll let you know if I find it.  We’ll see if this works out … or not.

Today we remember the saints who have gone before us. We remember the saints who were canonized by the church and wrote many books that we now endeavor to follow because they help to keep us on the path laid before us by Jesus.

Me, I remember my grandfather. He was a different sort of saint. Today would have been his 115th birthday. He would have been very, very, very old. I would have had a lot of time to get under his skin. I did that quite regularly and with abandon. We never quite got along when I was a kid. I never quite understood that when I was kid. I think I do now.

He was a very strict man with a bold twinkle in his eye. There was, you see, a large helping of grace in his heart. He never went to church for all the days that I knew him, but I know now that that doesn’t matter at all.

I was the sort of child who rarely stopped chattering. I had few, if any, governors on my thoughts. My grandfather was of the generation who firmly believed that children should be seen and not heard. To say there was a clash of cultures between the two of us would be putting it mildly. I got more than a large dose of stubborn from him.

I was famous for asking him pointed questions about anything that crossed my mind … including his anatomy. He was famous for being disingenous because he was not willing to hear my response. Yet, I probably spent more time with him than any of my other grandparents as a small child. I ended up driving around large portions of the western part of Massachusetts with him following fire trucks and parades.

LightHusband may lay it at my grandfather’s feet that we watch endless episodes of “murder” television. I learned to love it by eating dinner on a television tray and watching “Ironsides” with my grandfather. Don’t tell anyone, but I always snuck the ketchup on my grandmother’s Minute Rice because it was yucky! You can do that in the dark.

My grandfather did many things in his life. He was a teamster throughout most of his life. We found his journal a few years ago along with some photographs from his childhood. They came as a large surprise to me. The man who was so strict as my grandfather, was a large prankster as a child. It winked and twinkled out of his eyes. The same man walked all over Brooklyn and to and from New Jersey on his days off … just for something to do. He joined the National Guard to fight Santa Ana in Texas.  He also spent years caring for his elderly mother and more years caring for his wayward sister who was coping and recuperating from an abusive marriage and serial abusive relationships.  He never said much about it, it was just what he did.  As adults his children have put the puzzle together and passed the story along.

I remember him for his attempts to get me to eat my dinner.  They were numerous.  He would fix me with his blue eyes and tell me that it was more healthy to chew my food eighty times before swallowing it.  Then he gracefully put his chin in the air and commenced chewing.  I tried to chew eighty times.  HAH!  Try that sometime.  It’s impossible.  I watched and counted his chews one time … he couldn’t even do it.  So I gave up.  But I never told him.  Then he would tell me that children should be seen and not heard.  But I did not believe that and told him so.  Then at long last, he would fix me with his eyes and say, “Eat thy supper and let thy food stop thy mouth.”  And that would be the end of that.  Humph.

But I always knew where I could find him when I visited their house.  And I always knew that when I wanted a pencil or a piece of paper to draw that those could be found in his wonderful desk which was available to me at any time.  I still have the postcards from all over the world that he faithfully sent me all of my life til he died in 1974.  He loved to travel and see the world.  He loved to read.  Despite our clash of cultures, he loved me.  And I loved him.  He was a good man and a saint to be remembered on this day of saints.