Tag: hot cocoa

Conflict and Emmanuel

The upcoming Christmas season has me conflicted. I have decided to not host our annual Christmas Party. And a lot of that has to do with trying to be sensitive to others. But, when I made the decision to not host this year, I admit, I felt a big sigh of relief. Which is why I feel conflicted. I love our annual Christmas party. It is almost better than Christmas morning itself. A time when I get to see all my friends in one place, share our house and all the Christmas decorations. A time to bake a ton of treats and cook yummy savory things to munch on. A time to just celebrate. A normal year, I would be devastated to not have our party. But this year, I’m not. 

I’m tired. Stretched thin. 

Every year is challenging, but then throwing in covid, quarantines, school shutdowns, a horrific election year, riots, more covid, a giant host of conspiracy theories to sift through…yeah, that kind of tipped the scale to Insanely Hard Year. I know I’m not the only one tired. Everyone seems to be in a race to get to January 1st. Like somehow the turning of the calendar page will make all the troubles go away.

So, tough year, no party. No concerts. No big events. Despite all that, I am trying to make this Christmas as meaningful as possible for our family. We did our traditional Decorate-for-Christmas the weekend after Thanksgiving. Got a nice tree. Put up our nutcrackers. I made myself a Christmas Stick. We’ve got music playing. We’ve started our nightly Advent Readings with the kids. I got everyone a new Christmas mug and we’ve been having lots of hot cocoa and hot tea and hot apple cider. We’re off to a good start. We watched a Christmas movie. 

The kids are sad about things being different this year. Why?? They want to know. Umm. Covid. That is the answer for everything nowadays. But I secretly feel a little guilty because I am relieved to have an excuse. Yeah. Covid. Or, Mom is too tired to interact socially with other people this year. 

Fortunately, all my inner conflict and guilt is solely centered around social stuff. The real meaning of Christmas has my heart singing. This year it is hitting me even harder, a rush of joy, relief, awe, that Jesus chose to come to earth to save me. Save us. 

If anything, this year has been a good reminder of just how fallen and messed up we are. Our division, our fighting, our selfishness, our violence, our constant leaning towards evil. We are desperately in need of a Savior. Someone who can wipe the slate clean. Someone who can actually get into our hearts and change them. Someone who can rescue us from our self-destruction. 

I sat down to my hymnbook yesterday and turned to the Christmas section. My hymnbook is arranged by theme, so it has an Advent section. I played through the song “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”. My husband came and sat at the piano with me and we sang together…

O come, O come, Emmanuel,

And ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here,

Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free

Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;

From depths of hell Thy people save,

And give them victory o’er the grave.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,

And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come

And open wide our heav’nly home;

Make safe the way that leads on high,

And close the path to misery.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Adonai, Lord of might,

Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,

In ancient times didst give the law

In cloud and majesty and awe.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

As we begin this Christmas Season, this is my prayer. Come Lord Jesus, Come. Make all things new again. It’s been a rough year, and we have no guarantees that next year will be magically better. But, it doesn’t matter. Jesus has come. We now have hope. We have a future with Jesus to look forward to. And no matter how our circumstances and traditions change, Jesus doesn’t. His promises hold true. He came, he died, he rose again, he has given us his Holy Spirit. And one day we will see him face-to-face. 

And so we rejoice. Christmas is here. We celebrate Emmanuel, God with us. 

Snow Day: Expectations vs Reality

Snow Day. I remember the joy those words used to cause when I was a child. Back in those olden times, we wouldn’t know it was going to be a snow day until we woke up early in the morning. Our parents would check the closings on the news or the radio and then come quietly say the words at our bedroom doors, “Snow day! No school today!” We would of course then jump out of bed and race to the window to see how much snow there was. Forget about sleeping in, it was a Snow Day!! Must get outside as fast as possible and play with the snow for as long as possible!

Now I’m on the other side of the equation. Nowadays I hear the night before that school is cancelled for the next day. I receive an automated phone call from the school board. They make their decision based on all the weather reports and predictions. Forget about waiting to see what actually happens. This of course has resulted in us sometimes having a snow day and no snow as the weather refuses to cooperate with the weather channels’ forecasts. But, that’s alright. I like knowing in advance. Being forewarned means that, in theory, we should be able to switch off the alarm clocks and sleep in. In fact, my mind conjured this really great image of a Snow Day.

It looked something like this..

fireside#1

And maybe some of this…

fireside#2

So the reality is my kids were in my room at 7am, before sunrise, asking to go outside. I made them wait till it was light enough that they could at least see their hands in front of their faces. Then we had to dress everyone in snow pants, coats, gloves, hats, snow boots…we didn’t even attempt scarves as that just seemed one thing too many. All of these items had to be pulled out of storage. (We get snow maybe two or three times a year.) Then someone dressed the two year old for me, trying to be helpful, except the baby had a poopy diaper, so I then had to completely undress him again to change him first. And of course, since my kids like to use our gloves for things like storing dirt; or making baby doll hats; or storing a marble collection, we didn’t have enough gloves for everyone which then resulted in this…

noahgloves

 

After finally launching all of them out the door, I stood at the doorway in my slippers and took the obligatory Snow Day Pictures…

phoebenomisnow

judahjoshsnow

 

The teenagers of course tried to sleep in as much as their younger siblings would let them. When they did finally emerge, they looked out the window at the snow, grunted, and went back to their lairs…I mean bedrooms.

Little children ran in and out of the house in soaking wet, snow-covered clothing, complaining about wet gloves, snowballs in the face, and the most interesting one: the claim that the eleven year old had stolen all the snow. My pointing out the window at all the white stuff on the ground was not convincing enough evidence for the seven year old making this claim. Apparently all that white stuff didn’t count, he had stolen the “good” snow.

I did make an attempt at being Pinterest Worthy. And told the kids I would make them hot cocoa. I got the water boiled, cups laid out, children gathered around, then opened the hot cocoa tin and found out that we only had a tiny bit of hot cocoa powder left. I divvied it up and everyone had a little bit of weak cocoa. Without marshmallows.

The house got trashed. The kids watched a lot of TV. I may have “raised my voice” a couple times. Ah yes. Snow Day.

Finally late afternoon I got hold of the situation and had everyone clean a section of the house. Turned the TV off, played scrabble with my daughter. Enjoyed a cup of tea. Made a nice hot supper. Had a chaotic, but family centered evening.

Tomorrow the kids go back to school, one hour delayed. That sounds so much better. One hour to sleep in a bit later, not be so rushed, but we still have a schedule to cling to. I think that’s going to be my new plea to the Weather Channel, Let’s have a one-hour delay!! That works for me.