Can I Just Say...

Sometimes at Christmas, Christians make me crazy.  Myself included.  Christmas becomes this crazy-train that I can see the crazy, and yet can't find a way off of it.  So I just keep on riding...even though I literally feel the motion sickness settle in...which is a nice way of saying, I want to barf.

I'm not sure this post is going to make any sense, to anyone other than myself...but that's the genius of having your own blog....it doesn't even matter if anyone else gets it.

I dread Christmas shopping.  If I only had a few presents to buy, I might enjoy it...but by the time I even get through half of our huge list I am less than jolly.  This year, thanks to my new bff Dave Ramsey I'm happy to report we've budgeted in every last penny for Christmas.  And instead of looking at the budgeted amount and rejoicing that we have enough money to make it work, I feel sick to my stomach that it costs so.much.money.  I can't help but feel like it's really sort of a waste.  A big waste.

We celebrate the birth of Jesus by spending a bunch of money and time on material things.  

We can put whatever spin on it that we want to, and trust me, I'm the Queen of justification, but it really boils down to the above sentence. 

As a believer, what message am I sending?  Because I have to tell you, I feel like a hypocrite.  Because what I believe to be true, and what my actions are do not match...it's practically the definition of a hypocrite. 

Maybe I've forgotten what I really truly believe.  Maybe it's time to take a few steps back.  Back to my source of truth, which is not tradition and/or consumerism but God's Word.

As I look through the Bible, I can't help but see that God himself didn't command me to make a huge ginormous yearly celebration over the birth of his son.  No matter how many times, well meaning Christian people tell me, I will still not think it's biblical to give each other gifts because God gave us the gift of his son.  Is it wrong?  No.  But can it be?  Yes.  

As Christians, do we really see what we're doing?  We're offended when people and shopping malls say Happy Holidays rather than Merry Christmas, because how dare they take Christ out of Christmas!

The world can't take Him out of it, they never had Him in it in the first place.  But believers...lets at least be honest with ourselves.  We love the tradition of Christmas.  We love the church services, the programs, the Christmas carols.  We love reading the Christmas story.  Some of us even enjoy the crazy schedules, parties, and lists of wants.  There's nothing wrong with any of those things, what feels wrong, for me at least...is doing it all in the name of celebrating my savior.   We love to try to make traditions into something holy.  And the world, it sees us better than we see ourselves sometimes.  They see behind the facade. 

God wants us.  In the hustle and bustle of a holiday that we've created, where's our heart?  In the massive amounts of time and money it takes to prepare for the holiday, where's our heart?  Is it thinking about all Christ has done for me?  Is it ministering to the emotional and physical needs of those around me, is it doing what God really has asked...being still and knowing that He is God?  

Mine is not.  Mine is too busy.  Mine is explaining and rationalizing to my heavenly father that it's totally ok, because after all...I'm celebrating his birth!  Think he's pleased?  Think I've convinced him?  He's not impressed by my justification skills...in fact, he's trying to crucify them.

The past few years, we've tried to do small things to back out of the craziness, so to speak.  Interestingly enough, at times it made me feel like a huge party pooper.  It's easier to go with the flow...turns out, being a hypocrite is super easy! :)  But I long to do something radical about it.  It doesn't matter how many times I try to tell my kids that Christmas isn't about presents...because if presents are involved, ITS ABOUT PRESENTS! 

I guarantee that my boys love their birthday because it means gifts, not because they're celebrating their birth.  

I long to say that the true meaning of Christmas is about Jesus, and have my actions and life mean it.  I'm not so excited about being the weirdo scrooge who poops on the party that is Christmas.   

Maybe next year.  

Any radicals out there?  

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Old Lady

My five year old, Jake, is always listening.  He doesn't miss a thing.  And the memory this kid has is ri-dic-u-lous.   Let us all pray he grows up to use it for good and not evil.


The other night Ben and I were chatting in the kitchen.  Somehow we got onto the topic of a friend's age.  Ben informed me that the person was in fact younger than me, and I just couldn't believe it!  Certainly I was not their elder?!?  Really, I used those words.  


I was wrong.  I am their elder.  Barf.


I went on to explain to Ben how it's not that I feel like 32 (almost 33) is old, it's just that it seems like highschool was just yesterday!  There is some disconnect in my head.  Or I need there to be.  I need to feel the gap from 1996 until now.  But alas, I do not.  


Anyways, fast forward to this afternoon...I'm in the living room changing Lucy and hurrying Jake along to get to afternoon pre-k on time and I hear him yell from the mud room...


Hurry up old lady, you're gonna make me late!


"Did he just call me his old lady?"  I thought to myself.


I gave him the chance to re-phrase his question.  He declined.  He fed me back my own words from the conversation the other night...where I mentioned that I am in fact an old lady.


He kills me.  However, he will now refrain from using the term "old lady" when referring to me...or any other woman for that matter. ;)

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My Big Glasses...

About a month ago I went in for new glasses.  Maybe I've told blogland this already...I can't remember.  If I have, just humor me and do that nodding your head thing like you've never heard the story before even though you have...like you do with your grandma.  Only I'm not your grandma, I'm only 32...weeks from turning 33 and already my mind is going.  Speaking of that...my grandma had a sister and brother that both had Alzheimer's...but that's for another post.


Back to my point.


Glasses.


I wanted big ones.  B-I-G ones.  I've wanted them for a couple years but my eye doctor is a tad behind the times.  And by "the times" I mean "me."


As soon as we walked into the glasses display area I spotted the frames.  I said, "I want those."  The sweet glasses-helper-gal (I'm sure that's her official title) chuckled...she may have thought I was kidding.  She said that lots of people try them on, but no one had been brave enough to go with them.  


Little did she know, I was wishing they were bigger.  


But they'll do.  For now. 

Happy

Happy

Blissfully Happy

They ride the thin fine line between "has she just not gotten glasses for so long that she doesn't know they're so big?" or "are big glasses making a come back?"


When it comes to glasses, I have to say....bigger IS better.

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Of Course They Did...

I guarantee you, that this is in fact not how I meticulously arranged my nativity set.

I have a certain eight year old to thank for this lovely display of the baby Jesus' birth.  


Which led me to to sigh my most favorite expression as of late...of course they did...


Boys...they keep life interesting.  Everyone should have at least three.

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Welcome to Crazy

Lately I been thinking that enjoying life means celebrating the crazy.  This is not a new concept for me.  It's a big chunk of the reason I started blogging in the first place (597 posts of crazy, by the way!)  


And boy, do we have plenty of it.  Crazy, that is.  Yesterday I started a list of the most current crazy.  I was gonna hit ya all with the list, bullet form, and then I thought waaaiit a second.  I need to spread this stuff out...people can only take so much at a time.  


Let's start with Halloween...


Halloween fell on a Sunday this year, and tiny-town chose to trick or treat that evening.  We have church at night, so we knew we'd be able to hand out candy for an hour and then we'd head the 27 steps over to church.  In order for kids to come to our home to trick or treat, I put the boys on pooper scooper duty.  Armed with the new scooper, gloves, and a plastic bag and bin they were ready to pick up poo.  I supervised out the window for awhile and they seemed to be doing a good enough job.  


I went back to my business of eating all the kit kats before trick or treaters came.  


Later on, Ben went outside to see if they'd got it all.  They'd missed some.  They'd missed a lot, actually...mostly the old hard ones.  Gross, I know.  But Life in the Parsonage involves dog poop.  Anyways, Ben and I looked at each other sort of dumb-founded.  Because, really...wouldn't you pick those first because they're kinda easy to get....rather than the new, slimy fresh piles?!?   


Not our kids.


Oh, it gets better.  


Turns out, after they'd picked up all the "fresh" piles and put them into the cheap garbage bag I'd given them, they headed through the parking lot of the church on their way to the garage bin.  


Of course they did.


That route is completely unnecessary by the way.


The poor cheap garbage bag never stood a chance as the boy swung it back and forth over the gravel parking lot of the church, where our lovely church family would be coming shortly to park and innocently walk through in order to get to their place of worship.  


I blame myself really.  Who in their right mind stops supervising three boys while they're messing with dog poo?  


That would be me.  


Some people never learn.  *wink*

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It's What We Do...

Dear Little Lu,

It's hard to believe you're already 6 months and 3 weeks old.  Even crazier, is that for the past 6 months, we've only been separated a handful of times.  


Truthfully...I can't get enough of you.  I'm pretty sure you feel the same.  


Your smile is infectious.


I breathe in the smell of you, feel your chubby little cheeks against mine and seriously believe that this must be what Heaven smells like. I have those same thoughts when I enter Starbucks and the Aveda Salon...but we'll discuss that when you're older...


I look at your pictures hanging on the walls, and can hardly believe how fast you've grown.  It makes my heart ache a little because it seems no matter how much I savor every moment...the moments are still just moments.  Gone quickly.


Yesterday, as we waited to pick up your brothers from school, I sat and watched a mom walk with her young toddler daughter, hand in hand.  I pictured you...no longer a baby, but walking along holding my hand.  It made me smile.  I think it was God's way of reminding me to enjoy today, but to look forward with joy to what is ahead, rather than long for what will have passed.


But for now, I will treasure our almost-every-day dance together.  It usually happens in the afternoon, when your brothers are at school and the house is quiet...just you and me.  You fighting going down for a nap, me, swaying and rocking and shooshing you to sleep...to this song.




I wonder if you'll remember...I will.


Love you, Miss Lucy.  

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My Find...

It's Friday morning, and I am sitting here at the computer having NOT yet watched the newest episode from The Office that was on last night.  That pretty much never happens.

You know what I was doing last night?  Sitting on the couch with my husband working on Monthly Cash Flows, and Allocated Spending Plans, Calculating, Planning, Zero balancing the budget.  We did it.  And loved it.  Thank you Dave Ramsey.  

And, that being said, I just realized that I haven't shared with you my latest thrifty find.  

It's such a good one.

So, for the past several months I've been dreaming of this:

At the rate I'm saving for it, it will be mine in approximately 5 years. ;)

Last week when I was in the local thrift store, trying to find Halloween costumes, I came across this little green beauty on the shelf.

$7.50.  I drove straight to my grandma's house to show her.  She sweetly admired my find, and then asked me what I was going to use for the bowl.  I smiled, and then opened my mouth with my answer (proving that I am indeed, a mixer moron beginner.)  My bright idea was just using my pyrex bowl I already had at home!  (Why I thought that would work...I have no idea) Grandma's are the best.  Instead of making me feel like an idiot, she leads me inside and says, I used to have a mixer just like that, when it broke, I kept the bowls.  

Of course she did.

Sure enough, she walks over to the pantry and and pulls out the mixing bowl, marked Sunbeam on the bottom.  It's a match.  

It's old and has a story.  Now it has an even better story, just like the parsonage.

It was absolutely necessary that the first item of business for the avocado mixer be the famous pumpkin bars.  She runs great.  

It looks just as cute on my counter as the orange one would, and it will totally do for now!

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