Waste Your Time on Me

Yesterday I had to go to the post office to get stamps.  The place was a zoo and I had to wait in line behind four people which doesn’t normally happen in Smalltown, USA at 2:30pm.  I was already running behind but I waited patiently.  As I was standing in line, I saw a little old lady come in with who must have been either her daughter or her care giver.  She was all bundled up, even though it was a balmy 60 degrees in southwest Virginia yesterday.  She had a stack of Christmas cards in her hand secured with a rubber band.  I watched her meticulously place the stack of cards in the outgoing mail slot.

As she turned around and walked back out, it made me think of the tradition of Christmas card exchanging. 

According to THIS article I found, it seems that the idea of Christmas cards go all the way back to the middle ages. 

Who knew? 

In the 1800’s, hand-made cards were the trend and were made by hand and exchanged by hand.  So many cards were exchanged in 1822, that sixteen extra mailmen had to be hired.  According to a couple of my friends who work for the USPS currently, they need to take a page out of THAT book and hire some help for our poor postal workers today!  Ok, off that soapbox for now.  Ahem.   

A few more years passed and in 1875, Christmas cards were being mass produced and that’s the way most of us grew up participating in the Christmas card exchanges—buying boxes of mass produced cards, taking them home, signing them, perhaps writing a note inside and then hand addressing each and every one for friends and family. 

Christmas card exchanging has been declining since the 70’s when making a long distance call became reasonable.  Since then, we have ushered in the subsequent decades with one new fancy schmancy new form of communication after another. 

So is Christmas card exchanging obsolete in our digital age?  Twenty years ago, a lot of my friends and family only heard from me once a year when they received that Christmas card.  Today, there’s a good chance they know what I cooked burnt for dinner last night.  Times are a changing’!  I can send a 'Merry Christmas' email, Facebook message, tweet, blog, Instagram, text…well you get the picture (no pun intended.)

So why waste your time?

Because that’s the whole point people!  It’s nice to receive a piece of paper from somebody who wasted their time on you!

It’s nice to stop for a half hour in our busy lives and sit down with a box of paper cards and that ole quill and hand write something to someone to let them know that they are thought of. 

We do a Christmas Card exchange at our church each year.  I have thought this was very silly in the past.  Most of these people we see every Sunday, after all.  A couple of years ago, someone in our church took the time to sit down and write a personal note to everyone in our church—a note specifically for that person or family to let them know what they have meant to her faith walk.  It was inspiring and humbling and just right down awesome.

So this is my point…
Umm yes, I do actually have one.

I don’t care if you are pro-Christmas card or anti-Christmas card.  I don’t care if you think it’s a treasured tradition that must be carried on or an archaic caveman ritual that is obsolete. 

Social  media gets its fair share of bashing, but the truth of the matter is that I am far more connected to my friends and family today than I EVER have been in the past.  And to me, that makes sending an archaic, cavewoman Christmas card via snail mail all the sweeter to me.

However you decide to send your Christmas greetings this year, just be sure to waste spend your time telling your friends and family what they mean to you.  I promise it won't be a waste.  

Merry Christmas!  Flicker on!

~A

Tradition straddler...

Being a Gemini has it's up sides...yep.
Well, there's the versatile and communicative, the witty and the liveliness, the curious, charming and creativeness...
Ahem.
Notice consistency, follow through and decisiveness didn't quite make the cut.
I can 100% decide what I'm going to do...the way I feel about something because of my innermost morals and values and I can defend it to the core and then the wind will blow and I can be convinced (or just change my mind) and I totally go in the opposite direction.  This probably seems so strange to non fence straddlers.  
I understand.  
I don't like this quality either, but it is who I am, and try to play defense most of the time just to counteract my impulses for change.  
You can imagine how this personality deficit affected me during the recent elections.  Sheesh.  
This is NOT about the country's leaders however...nope...this is WAY MORE IMPORTANT...
this is about whether to display and/or partake in any Christmas decorating before Thanksgiving.
There.
I said it.
I have these morals that tell me I should wait to turn on Jingle Bells and start making peanut butter balls...party mix...fudge.  Crap.
I don't have morals concerning food.  
Let me try again.
I have tried very hard to make it a tradition at Casa Griffith to wait until the evening of Thanksgiving or the Friday after (depending on what DaddiO is working) to put up the glorious Arbol de Navidad (that's Christmas tree for my non espanol amigos.)  Some years I make it, some years I don't.  Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  That drives me BONKERS.  Traditions are supposed to be the SAME, year after year.  Hence the word tradition!  Will my children grow up and say...well...sometimes we put the tree up on November 18...sometimes Thanksgiving night, one year not until December 1.  What kind of horrible mother am I anyway??

Well, I'm a mom that thinks I can feel strongly about relishing one season for the amount of time that feels right and then moving to the next.  And maybe that's not the same every year.  
When first born was in 1st grade, he developed a scary rash and inflamed knee and after rushing to UVA Hospital, a failed attempt to drain non-existent fluid from his knee in the ER, and about a dozen different opinions, the doctor of infectious disease finally identifies as Henoch-Schonlein purpura (HSP) Click here for description and visual (scary, right?)

We were supposed to have Thanksgiving at Momaw & Papaw Griffy's that year, but it didn't happen that way.  Sometimes life doesn't happen according our idea of tradition even though we give it our all.  Sometimes we just have to play the field and adjust our traditions to what life throws our way.  We decorated the tree downstairs that year with Riley on the sofa with his leg propped up.

I have felt rage over the last week or two at the sight of Christmas decorations filling the stores and hearing some of my friends speak of putting trees up and Christmas shopping.  

While I can't defend Walmart because I think they are mostly motivated by dollar signs and not the holidays in their hearts, I will stop judging the rest of you all and say, by all means, if you have Christmas in your heart on Oct. 14 and want to cocoon yourself in the warm and glow of Christmas, then by all means, do so.  What does it hurt?  Furthermore, I came home from work today to an empty house and thought I'd clean a little.  I turned on the music channel and landed on Holidays & Happenings and Christmas Music was playing.  I started to turn it but thought...What the heck...
Then I realized I hadn't had lunch and I decided to have an orange.  I peeled the orange and it reminded me of Christmas Eves past at Church when I was a little girl...candlelight services and then over in the fellowship hall for oranges and candy canes and Santa would stop by.  
Now I want my tree up.  
Tradition straddler.  

Mustard Seeds, Feathers and Sailor Mouths...you know...Christmas...Duh.

Many of us are familiar with the parable of the mustard seed found in the New Testament gospels.  We have been studying the gospel of Mark in Sunday School and I noted a few weeks back that I always think of our children when I hear this parable.  I think of planting these tiny seeds of faith, kindness, and love and praying that one day the seed will grow into something greater than any of us can imagine. 

I didn’t realize how quickly I would see this parable smack me upside the noggin.  It was only but a week later when my nine year old daughter, Natalie said, “Hey mom, listen to this.”  She began to read me the following paper that she had written for a contest at school.

Christmas

By Natalie Griffith

Christmas is not about getting new toys or getting gifts.  It’s about giving and Jesus’s birth.  Yes, you might get toys and other things and that’s fun, but that’s not as important as giving and Jesus’s birth. 

Jesus loves you.  Not everybody goes to church and not everybody loves him.  It’s sad how many people don’t love Him.  He came to earth and then he died for you. 

I go to church and I will always love Him more than anything in the whole world.  Nobody will ever come between me and Jesus.  Some people would do it in a heartbeat, but I don’t know why you would not love Him.  He died for you!

On Christmas when you are opening your presents, don’t forget to think about Jesus’s birthday.  You like your birthday celebration on your birthday.  Don’t you think Jesus likes his birthday celebration?  He will love you no matter what.  He wants you to love him, but he loves you even if you don’t.  Nothing will come between me and Jesus!

Did I mention she is 9?  Yeah. 

When she looked up from her paper, I’m pretty sure you could’ve knocked dear ole Mom over with a feather.  Sure, I take my kids to church.  We pray, we read our Bibles, we try to help others as much as we can.  But then there are times when we’re mean and ugly.  Mom and Dad argue, siblings argue, and we all are just looking out for Number One.  I have a mouth like a sailor when I choose to use it.  I’m not proud of that or the many less than ideal things I have done or said.  I’m just a poor sinner who has fallen off of more wagons than Carter has liver pills.  Aren’t we all though?  Haven’t we all?  “I won’t cuss today.”  (Then I drop a can of tomato sauce on my toe and scream things that would make an entire fleet of sailors get red in the face.)  “I won’t play with this fire or that fire.”  Then we do.  We are all human.  We try, we fail; we fail and we try.  And God loves us through it all, even when we say or do the most bone-headed things we can possibly think of. 

When Natalie read her words, I couldn’t believe what this little person had come to realize.  You can hear the revelations in her writing.  It’s as if everything she has been taught since she came into this world is finally coming together.  Each Sunday that I took her to church…each Sunday School teacher…each Children’s Church teacher…each grandparent, aunt, uncle, and friend—all had planted a tiny mustard seed in this child.  Natalie is going to fail a bazillion times over throughout her life.  She is going to do and say things that I don’t even want to think about.  She’s human.  But I know these seeds are in her heart.  Keep on planting, friends.  You never know what you say or do might take root in another human being.

Natalie Gray Griffith…you inspire me, kiddo.

“Train a child in the ways of the Lord and he will not depart.” ~Proverbs 22:6

Come Thou Long Expected Jesus...

"Come Thou Long Expected Jesus" is one of my (newly) favorite Christmas songs.  I'm not sure if my kids (or my husband) even know this IS a Christmas song.  I've know this song for a very long time, but wouldn't have categorized it in the top 10 (or 20 or 30) list of my favorite Christmas carols until recently.
"Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, born to set thy people free.  From our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in Thee."  Ok, so it's written in "Old English" but the message is still so very clear.
Click it on and listen to it...

It gives me chills.
I think that's the feeling we're SUPPOSED to get as Advent and Christmas approach.  I think we are supposed to feel the profound feeling of ANTICIPATION of the Christ Child!
I have had Christmases where I didn't put Christ at the center of Christmas.  I focused on gifts and hustle and bustle and cooking and baking and decorating...I forgot the real reason.  I didn't anticipate "Thou Long Expected Jesus" the way I should have.  I have let the days zoom by and I have felt downright depressed on December 25 after everything was over and done! 

Depressed?  Really?!  "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus..."  I am supposed to be CELEBRATING the anticipation of a baby who came to earth...not born in The Hilton, but born in the backwoods...in the ghetto...with the lowest of the low.  Why do you think that was?  You think God couldn't have made room at the inn if he would've wanted it that way?  One of the songs that the kids at church are singing in the Christmas Play is called "Part of the Plan."  It was all a part of the plan. 

Have you ever gone to dinner someplace super fancy?  I remember my dad coming home from a dinner at the Greenbrier one time--it was either a retirement dinner or a work-related dinner...something like that.  I remember us laughing as he described the food that was served..."and then there was something that looked like green beans, but there were only four of them."  Ha!  Sometimes "royalty" has a way of making us feel inadequate...not smart enough...not skilled enough...not good enough...unworthy.  Rarely have I ever thought I was lower than cow dung though :)   
Jesus was born next to cow dung.  I bet you never thought of it that way, huh? 
"Come Thou Long Expected Jesus"...anticipation of what was to come...hope and excitement and eagerness.  I never remember seeing anything in the book of Luke about throwing elbows on Black Friday or anxiousness and stress over the the holiday season.

As Christmas fast approaches, don't forget to be in anticipation!  That's what makes this season so alive and full of wonderment!  I plan on doing plenty of decorating and baking (burning) cookies and making all kind of crafty goodness, but I will make sure it's all in anticipation of "Thou Long Expected Jesus."