Merry Christmas!

I made this for my younger son, who had written in his letter to Santa (a school assignment, now posted on the classroom wall) that he wanted toys and games, a sweater, and “most of all, a nativity scene, because that’s what Christmas is really about.”

It started out in a smaller stable, which I had used to pack the set as a Christmas present to my son. But this stable was rather crowded:

Of course, the original scene (two thousand and some years ago) was pretty crowded too. Stable, cave, or lower level of a crowded house (the room traditionally translated “inn” more likely means “guest room”) where the household’s animals lived, it was far from the accommodations one might want for any newborn baby, let alone this special One sent from God.

May your Christmas be blessed with His presence today.

Merry Christmas from anonymous

Yesterday I received a Christmas card with no return address and no signature. There is no personal greeting on the card – other than the pre-printed holiday greeting there is no writing on it. There is nothing on the envelope to indicate where it came from, except that it was postmarked in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. My name and address are computer-generated on an address label, no doubt from some large database.

What database, though, I have no idea. I sometimes get Christmas cards from organizations I have donated to, but they always identify themselves, usually both on the envelope and the card itself – trying to appear personal even if it is all done by a computer. I have heard of anonymous Christmas gifts, but this was just a card.

The card itself was made by Heifer International, as I can tell from the back of the card. I was at one point a community representative for Heifer, so I wondered if maybe it came from them. But they’re headquartered in Arkansas, not Wisconsin.

The only time I can think of  that I’ve ever been to Wisconsin was when I was flying from Moline, IL to Traverse City, MI, and I changed planes at the Milwaukee airport – which is a very nice airport, but it could have been anywhere else and I wouldn’t have known the difference. My husband thinks we know – or have at least met – someone from Wisconsin, but he can’t remember who, and I can’t imagine that whoever it is would send an unsigned card with a computer-generated address label.

If I chose to, I could reuse the card, since it is essentially in brand-new condition. But there is something about receiving a completely anonymous Christmas card that seems to have some message hidden in it, even if I’m not sure quite what it is. After all, for everyone except his family and some shepherds, Jesus came into the world pretty anonymously some two thousand years ago.

With most cards I receive, I barely take a look at the card itself, as I’m more interested in the personal greeting inside. This one I examined more closely, because there’s nothing else to look at. It shows a profile of a person, against a starry sky, with one bright star shining down near the horizon. At first glance I assumed it was a shepherd with some sheep, or possibly a wise man with a camel.

But on closer inspection, I see that the animals are varied, including a goat, a cow, a goose (or is it a duck?), a hen, and I think a sheep and a pig – all animals that Heifer gives, through the donations of people like you and me. And the stars in the upper right form a most interesting constellation – I’m pretty sure it’s the shape of a heifer. Perhaps the card is after all from Heifer, a reminder of the gift given to all of us at the first Christmas, and how we can pass along the gift of love we have received. Though I can’t imagine why the envelope wouldn’t identify the organization.

Gifts given through Heifer are essentially anonymous to the people who receive them. Even if some poor villager somewhere knew that the ewe he was caring for had been given in part by someone somewhere named Pauline, my name wouldn’t mean a thing to him. And that is the best way to give gifts, according to Jesus, with no expectation of being repaid.

So thank you, whoever you are in Wisconsin, for making me stop and think a bit more about gifts and giving. And a Merry Christmas to you!

Movies: Shrek the Halls

Our local Family Video seems to think I haven’t been there in a long time (they apparently don’t count the free children’s DVDs I’ve “rented” recently), so they sent me a coupon for a free rental plus half price rentals for two weeks. My husband had suggested the other day that we watch The Santa Clause, and we discovered we don’t own it, so I figured I’d go get it as a free rental. It was already out, however, so Al suggested we take Shrek the Halls.

I wasn’t expecting too much from it – Shrek the Third had been so-so and this looked like just another way to milk the Shrek franchise. What I was expecting was something longer than a 22-minute program. If we watched TV, I would probably have realized that this started out as a half hour TV special two years ago (including commercials, of course). I had only seen it as a DVD in the stores.

My reactions are mixed. It has some pretty funny moments, particularly when the gingerbread man and Puss in Boots each tell their version of “The Night before Christmas.” The story itself – Shrek trying to give his family the “perfect” Christmas, and finding it very hard to do so – is a good idea but could have been developed a lot more. Within the confines of the TV-special time frame, I suppose they did what they could. And if they had made it longer, perhaps I would instead be complaining that they drew it out too long with too little to say.

My real problem with it is that it’s about Shrek wanting to know what the meaning of Christmas is, and there’s no real answer given. He learns that it’s about family (including extended family, who may not celebrate Christmas the way you’d like them to),  and that it’s never perfect because no family is — those are good lessons but they are not “the meaning of Christmas.” 

Getting ready for Christmas (part 4)

The most common way of getting ready for Christmas seems to be buying presents. At least, that’s the question I’ve been hearing since sometime in November: “Have you done your Christmas shopping yet?” By that standard, I’m not ready yet, but I’ll finish what little shopping I need to do on Wednesday.

When I was driving downtown to the Elves Workshop (a Christmas arts & crafts activity for kids, sponsored by the local parks & rec dept), I noticed the message on the sign outside the Vineyard church: “Raise your hand if it’s your birthday.” I can only assume that it is supposed to be a reminder that it’s Jesus’ birthday we’re getting ready to celebrate, not our own, and the gifts we are preparing to give should reflect that.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with giving gifts to each other on someone’s birthday, instead of giving all the gifts to the “birthday person.” Not all cultures celebrate birthdays the same way, and giving gifts is a legitimate part of a joyful celebration. But of course the celebration should still be the main focus, not the gifts.

Preparing to share these thoughts with my son Al, I tried to think of what kind of gifts we can give Jesus for His birthday, before asking Al for his suggestions. One good discussion of this points to giving our time as one of the best gifts we can give Jesus. I was expecting this to be about giving time in acts of service, but instead it was about spending time with Jesus, developing our relationship with Him. This is always a struggle for me, so I need to think about how I can give the gift of my time to Jesus.

The main way I usually think of giving to Jesus is to give to those in need. In discussions on this topic at worldmagblog, someone usually points out that Jesus talked about “the least of these my brothers,” meaning fellow believers. I don’t know whether that interpretation is correct or not, but I’m sure Jesus is pleased both when we help others in our faith communities and when we help people in great need regardless of their own relationship to Jesus.

There are a number of great organizations to give to. Heifer International, Samaritan’s Purse, and the Salvation Army are usually at the top of the list of organizations I trust to use donations effectively to help people in need. This year, I’ve added Water for Christmas and charity:water. And of course, they all need support throughout the year, not just at Christmas.

Getting ready for Christmas (part 3)

I hadn’t really finished getting ready for this week’s getting-ready- for-Christmas theme, when Al asked me about it on the way home from church. But I had thought about it, and explained that it was about how we get ourselves ready. To get ready in the morning, we get dressed, and comb/brush our hair, and I put on a little makeup. The Bible talks about “putting off” and “putting on” not clothes but character qualities.

But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. … put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. (Colossians 3:8,12-14)

I asked if there were qualities that were especially important to “put on” for Christmas. Al suggested givingness. I never heard the word before, but I like it. We need to put on givingness. He added love and thankfulness, and I suggested joy. Another I would add is patience, as this season often raises stress levels, between bringing together family members who don’t always get along, keeping people busy with many activities, and just the fact our expectations are for Christams to feel wonderful, and sometimes we just don’t feel that way.

This evening we watched A Charlie Brown Christmas. It’s been one of my favorites since childhood. I remember in seventh grade, for a social studies assignment, listing it as my favorite movie, and Charlie Brown as the character I most identified with. I don’t think any of my classmates thought I was a blockhead – being a straight A student earned me some measure of respect – but outside of the classroom I didn’t feel like I did anything well in their eyes.

I don’t remember what I thought then about Charlie Brown’s specific problem in this movie though. I had forgotten until we watched it this evening that he was so concerned about not understanding the meaning of Christmas. He didn’t understand why he felt so unhappy at Christmas, though clearly the commercialization bothered him. (And if it was bad in 1965, imagine what he’d think now!)

The truth about Santa

You may be interested in knowing a bit more about that guy in the red suit who seems to be everywhere this time of year. It can be statistically verified that Santa …

• has blue eyes
• is about 5′ 8″ tall
• weighs a little over 250 lbs
• is about 60 years old and has been married about 25 years
• has a real beard

His favorite …

• cookie is chocolate chip
• beverage is hot cocoa
• holiday song is “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”
• holiday movie is Miracle on 34th Street
• book is The Night before Christmas
• reindeer is Rudolph

What if Santa’s workshop were run by computers?

Every year there are internet posts regarding the physics of delivering toys to a few hundred million children in one night. But I don’t recall seeing one on the logistical complexity of ordering, manufacturing, packaging, and preparing all those toys for shipment. Having worked in manufacturing companies for over twenty years, I have some idea of the difficulty involved.

Even using what appear to be the relatively conservative figures I have seen, of only 15% of the world’s population of children celebrating Christmas, and only allowing one toy per child, by my calcuations that still requires manufacturing over 1 million toys every day (not counting Christmas, which we assume is a day off for the elves). If they run 24/7 (either working in shifts, or else elves don’t need to sleep), that still means over forty thousand toys an hour, or about 700 every minute.

Now, those elves may be very good at making toys, and perhaps they can keep up that run rate all year long. But where do they store all those toys? How do they keep track of how many fire engines and dolls and skateboards and Lego sets they have made so far? How do they ensure a steady supply of plastic, paint, wheels, and – for today’s electronic toys – resistors, memory chips, LEDs, and so forth?

Manufacturing companies have been struggling with these issues for decades. Raw and finished goods inventories, once tracked on paper (one of my first jobs was in purchasing, where every part had a large index card, even though the actual purchase orders were entered in the computer), are now computerized. Keeping that computer inventory accurate is quite a challenge. But that’s nothing compared to the challenge of keeping track of what you need to order, when, and how much.

Getting ready for Christmas (part 2)

Today my son and I talked about another aspect of getting ready for Christmas. Last week I had mentioned that one way we get ready is by studying for tests. Christmas isn’t a test, of course, but there’s lots of stuff to know about Christmas. Some of it is very interesting, but not necessarily important.

I think I finally remember all the verses of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” I usually have trouble keeping them straight once we get past the seven swans a-swimming. But this year I made Al a game, based on Candyland, that includes some cards that let you go forward some number of spaces. I left blanks for the numbers, so you have to remember how many reindeer there are, how many days of Christmas, how many geese a-laying, etc. And after playing it several times, I think I finally have the lords, pipers, and drummers in order.

But Al agreed that knowing those numbers wasn’t all that important – unless you want to sing the carol. (As it happens, his fourth grade class will be singing it for their Christmas concert, and he will be one of the lords a-leaping.) So I asked, what about knowing who brings Christmas presents in different countries? He knew that Santa Claus has different names in other places, but he was surprised to hear that in some countries it’s someone completely different who brings the presents.

For instance, in some countries it is Baby Jesus who brings presents to children. In others, it is the Three Kings. (This seemed very wrong to Al. Baby Jesus and the three kings belong to the Christmas story, not the fun-and-games-and-presents part.) One characters I hadn’t heard of before looking at wikipedia is Olentzero. He is a traditional figure among the Basque people of northern Spain and southern France. According to tradition, he “was a pagan coal worker who went to adore Jesus in Bethlehem. Nowadays, it is said that he brings presents to all good people at Christmas Eve.”

I was interested in learning about what traditional meals are on Christmas. We usually think of turkey or ham, or maybe goose (think of A Christmas Carol). I always liked it when my father served duckling. But if I lived in Estonia, I would probably eat pork with sauerkraut, baked potatoes, white and blood sausage, potato salad with red beet, and pāté. In the Czech Republic, I’d be eating fried carp and potato salad.

And of course there are all sorts of side dishes and desserts – casseroles with liver and raisins in Finland, pickled herring and Janssons frestelse (potato casserole with anchovy) in Sweden. When I lived in Spain, I enjoyed sampling turrón, a nougat candy made of honey, sugar, egg whites, and toasted almonds. (When I think nougat I think Snickers, but traditional turrón is very hard and crunchy.)

Al agreed that was interesting – but not all that important. What’s important, he stated, is knowing that Jesus was born, and why. He eagerly explained that this is what the Christmas play he’s going to be in next week (at Winfield Presbyterian Church, where my husband preached today) is all about. So I’d have to say that, if there were a test for Christmas, I think Al would pass it with flying colors.

Getting ready for Christmas (part 1)

You wouldn’t know it from the Baptist church I attend, but today is the first Sunday of Advent. As a child, I thought of Advent as a time to light Advent candles, sing Christmas carols, make paper chains and popcorn chains for the tree, and put up the Nativity scenes. It was a time of preparation, but mostly doing fun things in preparation for more fun things. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned about Advent being a time of spiritual preparation.

Past years I have tried to do a family Advent devotional using an Advent wreath I had made (for our first Christmas together, twenty years ago). As the boys get older (and less excited by the simple act of lighting candles and blowing them out) and my husband’s work schedule has made family get-togethers infrequent, we’ve gotten away from it. This year I decided to try something different.

Al loves to play games, and he is always wanting a new game to play. (Today we made a “Christmasland” game, modeled after Candyland, with red and green squares, plus some special squares showing items such as ornaments, a nutcracker, a candle, etc.) So I talked about Advent being a time of getting ready, and how we get ready in different ways for things. He gets ready for school by getting dressed and eating breakfast, and he gets ready for a test by studying. If we go on a trip, we get ready by packing.

So if you were going on a trip somewhere for Christmas, what would you put in your suitcase to make sure that you had a wonderful Christmas?

I said I would pack

• a camera, to take pictures of people and the wonderful times we would have
• a Bible, so we could read the Christmas story
• a songbook of Christmas carols
• a warm jacket, hat, and mittens so we could go Christmas caroling

Al said we would need to take gifts to give to each other and to other people, and we would want to be sure we had food to eat (he suggested apples and bread).

Note that these need to be items that can actually be put in a suitcase. It might be handy to be able to pack sufficient patience to deal with the people and situations that often cause stress during the holidays, but patience isn’t pack-able – you only get it as you use it. Besides, I’ll deal with character traits later in Advent.

So what would you pack?

Thanks giving

I ran out of tiles and room on the board, or I would have added GAMES such as Scrabble – particularly since it gave me a way to creatively express some of what I am thankful for.

I was going to make it a crossword puzzle, and give descriptions for each word, telling why I am thankful for each. But I know some of you are not aficionados of word puzzles the way I am. Plus that would have taken a lot more time, and I still have to cook corn casserole and green bean casserole and sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes.

Most of these are self-explanatory, but I will add notes on a few of the words. Speaking of words, I was going to write WORDS, since I have so much fun with words, but I had no more S tiles. Then I realized it could mean the Word of God, so I was happy to leave it in the singular.

WIT can refer both to intelligence and to humor; I am more gifted in the former than the latter, but I greatly appreciate others whose humor enriches my life. (Note that WIT is linked to LAUGHTER.)

I am thankful both for the FREEDOM I have as an American, and the FREEDOM I have in Christ.

I am thankful for the opportunity to communicate with GOD through PRAYER. And for the PRAYERs said by other people in my behalf.

PIZZA seems a bit out of place with the other, more profound things I am thankful for. But I wanted to use every tile, and I do appreciate pizza – both for it being a delicious one-dish meal (if it has lots of toppings including vegetables), and because when I am tired it is so easy to prepare dinner when I have a pizza or two in the freezer. (In case you have noticed that there appear to be two Z tiles, while Scrabble only has one – I used a blank tile, and digitally copied the Z to the blank tile.)

The final “word” in the puzzle, OXO, represents hugs and kisses. The kisses are for family members, but to all friends and family, I extend a warm hug and wishes for a blessed Thanksgiving.