I was Santa Claus' driver last night. Yep, Joe was asked by a friend to show up at her daughter's wedding reception with candy for the kids, and one dance with the bride. He was made a bit uncomfortable by the mad rush of children upon him as he entered the reception hall. They were hugging him, and yelling, "he's real! Feel how soft he is!" (The layers of sweaters and the two pillows felt authentic I guess). They followed him around adoringly, and he didn't quite know what to do. This santa phenomonem is foreign to us. Yes, we have three children, but we never did the whole santa and Christmas story. When Johanna was little, people would ask her if she was ready for a visit from santa, and in her little voice, she would reply: "Santa isn't real, but Jesus is real!" To this people would look puzzled and then a light bulb would seemingly go off in their heads, and they would say to us the parents, "Ooooh, your Jehovah's Witness, right?!" Then they would be, what's that word Heidi? Verklempt. Yeah, verklempt. We were perceived as grinches, and told we were stealing Christmas from our kids. Do you remember what happened when the Grinch took all the gifts? Christmas still happened. I think I need to be reminded of this yet again. I should be conscious of God's gift to me year round, and not just between Thanksgiving and December 25th. I remember one powerful Christmas eve service I attended was when "Watch the Lamb" was sung, and then a man dressed as Jesus came in and did the Beattitudes. I was weeping. So many times I forget that the precious little baby, became a man who's blood would later be brutally shed for me. For you. Kinda puts the holiday into perspective for me again. Oh come Emmanuel.......
About Me
- tomirose
- I'm a wife of a wonderful man, mom to three awesome children. I like to laugh, encourage, and I would love to write. I think community is a wonderful thing, and I'd like people to be less cynical about church, not THE church, but the institution that we call the church. I think soul patches, piercings and tattoos are kinda cool; attitudes are not. Sometimes I lie in bed and think about weird things.. like why I like the taste of bubblemint gum, but despise the taste of our youngest son's bubblemint flavored toothpaste, or if our older children have already met their future spouses, how amazing it is that I've been married to the same man for thirty-two years, and why dryer lint looks the way it does. I hate having cold feet, being too hot, and stubbing my pinkie toe. I like to read pretty much anything but angsty poetry, well no I lied..not about the angsty poetry, but I don't much like to read biographies either. Laundry is the bane of my existence, along with cleaning out the refrigerator, and just plain cleaning.
1 comment:
Exactly how we felt. We thought about putting our own whole spin on the Santa thing by saying he was one of the wisemen along with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, but thought we might make baby Jesus sad if we did that. We used to have Happy Birthday Jesus party's with the older kids. They would invite friends over and everybody would dress as royalty (it was their opportunity to wear a costume as we didn't "do" Halloween either). All the kids would make a gift for their parents, decorate a birthday cake, sing happy birthday to Jesus, and play a few games. It was fun. I feel sad, cause' Isaiah hasn't had the benefit of a youthful, inovative momma. I had thought about doing a party this year, but no go. We've been too busy planning my mom's wedding. She's getting married on the 27th. That has kinda preempted Christmas, sadly. I'm glad that we canned the Christmas gift giving thing a couple of years ago, cause' I would so not be ready. As it is, Epiphany (January 6th is when we exchange a gift with our kids, and the 12 days between Christmas and Epiphany we try to ding dong ditch, or give gifts to different people. This year we're taking goodies to various gas station attendants in the area. They need some lovin'. They sit like veal all day and watch people pump their gas, and hear them crab about how expensive it is, like it's their fault!) looks to be charging forward, while I'm in slow motion.
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