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Talking about Christmas on the internet is hard for me because I do not desire to offend anyone. I know that for some people any discussion of God, Christ, or religion is painful. I know for a fact that many of my readers and online friends have belief systems that differ from my own and I try to make sure that my blog is as friendly a place as I can make it. Sometimes this desire leads me to self edit. I change the shape of the things I want to say to make them as generally acceptable as possible. Sometimes that is a good change, because it forces me to look at my thoughts from other angles which opens up new ideas. Other times it means that entire posts don’t get written at all because I don’t want to offend someone else or open up for comment a subject that is sacred to me.

But then I remember how happy I was to receive the Eid al Fatr card at the end of the fast of Ramadan wishing me “Eid Mubarak.” I was delighted that someone with a different religious tradition than mine would reach out to me and ask me to share in the joy of their holy day. That card still hangs on my wall amid the Christmas Cards. If I ever receive Hannukah, Kwanzaa, or Solstice cards they will all receive a similar place of honor in my home. I love being invited to participate in the celebration, even if the celebration in question is one outside my personal belief system.

This experience makes me re-evaluate my expression of my holiday beliefs. Is my effort to not offed really depriving people of the chance to participate in a celebration I enjoy? Because I do believe in Christmas. I believe in, Baby Jesus, manger, angels, the whole thing. My Christmas celebrations try to center around love, acceptance, and giving. I also believe in the later stories of Jesus, crucifixion, resurrection, and salvation. Sometimes my logical brain argues with me about these beliefs. Sometimes I ponder and analyze and even doubt, but whenever I search my soul and ask myself if I truly believe these things, the answer is yes. This faith has given me strength in the dark times of my life, it has given me courage to do the things I know I must, it gives me hope that everything which is not right in this world will eventually be made right. I do believe, and because I believe Christmas is truly a holy day for me. I love it. I love sharing it with my children and watching them grow to love it as well. I know how I feel about my holy day, which is why I am so honored when others open themselves up to share their holy days with me. Because I expect they feel the same way about their beliefs as I do about mine.

And so I hope that all of you will take it in the spirit I intend when I say:

In this season of giving I am grateful for the gift of attention and caring that you have given me. Merry Christmas to you all.

From the moment the alarm rang this morning and I dragged myself out of bed, I’ve felt the march of time toward Christmas night. Being a grown up, that march chanted to me about Things Yet To Do So We Can Be Ready. Thus the day of Christmas Eve becomes hecticly full of cleaning and food preparation. I moved from one task to the next while hearing the echo of marching time in the back of my head. Must move faster to get it all done. The kids had a much different experience. For them, the time between Now and Christmas Morning moves slowly, one dragging footstep after another. They’ve been counting those slow footsteps since before Thanksgiving.

But fast or slow, somehow we all arrive in the evening. Prepared or not, the time is here. Time to visit with relatives. Time to laugh. Time to look at each other. Time to light the candles. Time to read the Christmas story. Time to set aside thoughts of anything outside this little bubble of experience that is our Christmas Eve celebration. And then it is done. The kids are in bed, trying frantically to sleep as fast as they can, so morning can arrive. Soon I will fill the stockings and lay out the surprises for Christmas morning. Then I too will sleep.

And while we sleep, time will march on with measured steps, carrying us further away from the birth that is the source of Christmas celebration and into a future that I hope will be made better and brighter by people who care about each other. May we all allow Christmas to make our hearts grow a few sizes, so that we are forever after more able to love and less prone to hurt.

There is a calendar on the wall next to my desk. For the past few years the calendar has been supplied as a freebie from the company who sells me shipping supplies. There is a selection to choose from and I’ve been in the habit of choosing the garden or landscape calendars. Last winter I noticed a problem with these calendars. The winter months feature pictures of snow. If I want snow in January, all I have to do is look out the window. What I really want in January is sunlit flowers. I want pictures that cheer me up and remind me that spring will be back, not pictures that remind me it is cold and gray outside. I had a similar difficulty with the warmer months. I don’t want pictures of lilacs when lilacs are in bloom. I’m really longing for lilacs a month or two earlier than that. In May lilacs are everywhere, but in March a picture of lilacs is like a preview of good things to come. I realized that I was going to need to make my own calendar. Fortunately my friend Janci takes the most beautiful flower pictures I’ve ever seen and she was willing to share some of them with me. You can see her photos over at photophish.

In the dark months of the year, I crave sunlight and bright colors. So I picked the most sundrenched photos I could find, like this one Janci took of a yellow iris.

For me a big part of spring is watching the succession of blooming flowers. Crocus first, then hyacinths, forsythia, daffodils, tulips, spring iris, flowering trees, and by May the lilacs and roses have begun. I’ve planned my calendar so the flowers appear a month or two before they will actually bloom. I’m hoping this will help me convince my psyche that spring is coming just a little bit early and we can pull out of that winter mood-slump. By the summer months, flowers are everywhere and so I don’t need them on my wall. What I do need is calm cool images to help combat the heat of the summer. Janci has some of those too.

Fall needs flowers again, but I don’t mind if they feel fallish. My psyche is still buoyed up by all those sunlit flowers over the summer.

By December the weather is back to being cold and I need sunlit flowers again. I’ve put my 2009 calendar together. I think it will really help. Even if it doesn’t, I’ll still have a calendar full of Janci’s beautiful pictures and those always make me happy.

Coming home from an evening out to find four upset children is not ideal. Link was crying because Kiki had yelled at him. Gleek was crying because she had a sore on her chin, and also Kiki had yelled at her. Kiki was crying because she felt guilty about being a bad babysitter and yelling at the kids. Patch was not crying, but he was obviously unsettled about everyone else crying.

Howard and I gathered all the children and let them all talk. Kiki apologized profusely. Link and Gleek gave her hugs. Patch gave hugs to everyone in turn. We fed them all hot chocolate on the general theory that chocolate is comforting. During most of the 30 minutes it took to settle down, the kids were more concerned about helping each other feel better than about airing their grievances. Tears and hugs were plentiful. I love that my kids love each other. Then with tears dry and cups empty, we settled them all into bed.

Kiki stayed up at little bit longer to talk with me about how things went wrong and what she intends to do differently next time. She told me I don’t owe her any money for this babysitting gig because she doesn’t feel like she earned it. Next time will be better. So Howard and I got a dinner out without paying for babysitting, and the kids all got a lesson in getting along, and I got to snuggle all my kids when I got home, and they all got a chance to see how much they love each other.

Perhaps it wasn’t ideal, but it was still pretty darn good.

I had a wonderful idea for a blog post. I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes as I planned wonderful turns of phrase to support the wonderful idea. The next thing I knew I was waking up and I can’t remember what the idea was. Sigh. Either it will come back to me, or it won’t. I have far more ideas that I could possibly write anyway.

Today was a day for cleaning. We’d been running short on bookshelf space. I took a good look and realized that this was because a significant portion of space was given over to books that have lingered past their usefulness. I no longer need reference books on infant care. Nor do I need books about toddler craft projects. I might as well admit that I am never going to take the time to sew curtains from that book on window treatments. And those garden catalogs are at least 5 years old. I now have three boxes of books ready to donate to either the library or to a thrift store. Even better I have the space to sort the kid’s books in a much more useful way. We have a shelf for picture books, one for oversized books, one for easy readers and first chapter books, and one for YA books. Hopefully this will help the kids find the books that interest them instead of them constantly complaining that there is nothing to read. Now I need to do the same sort of cleaning out for my office bookshelves.

One of the realizations I’ve had to make as a parent is that my kids may not love the same books that I loved. Some books carry across generations very well, others I loved just because I found it at exactly the right moment in my life. My kids will find other books to love for those “exact right moments.” Some books just don’t get read until someone other than mom recommends them. I kept trying to get Kiki to read Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey. She just wasn’t interested, so I gave up. Then one day she hauled it home from her school library and devoured it. Apparently a librarian had recommended it to her. I have piles of books that I kept from my late childhood and teen years. They’re sitting quietly on the shelves waiting to be discovered by the next generation. But I can’t predict whether they will catch a child’s eye. All those Black Stallion books may remain to gather dust, but I’ll bet that A Little Princess and The Secret Garden get some more love. I hope that the Chronicles of Prydain are rediscovered. Shelved next to my old favorites are some of my new favorites. I did not have Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians, The Princess Academy, or Wee Free Men when I was young, but both I and my kids love them now.

Howard calling me while driving from the Mall to Dragon’s Keep: “I just had a moment of insight. Sometimes I call you because I’m bored and I don’t want to listen to the radio.”
Me: “You just now figured that out? I figured it out years ago when you always called me at conventions while you were headed to or from your hotel room.”
Howard: “Yeah. I just figured it out. You don’t mind?”
Me: “No. I suppose I could be offended that you only call me because you’re bored. Instead I choose to be glad that when you’re bored you want to talk to me.”

My friend Janci and her husband Drew have launched a new line of miniatures based on the Mistborn books by Brandon Sanderson. I got to see these little minis in all sorts of stages of development and I’m very impressed with the sculpting job that Drew did. Drew also did all the painting in that picture. His paint jobs are professional quality, because he is a professional who can be hired to do commission paint jobs on any mini the customer provides. The Misborn minis are available in Ready-to-paint, Finished Pewter, and Hand Painted varieties.

If you’re a fan of Miniatures, you should go take a look at Garden Ninja Painting Studio.

The book blogger She is Too Fond of Books wrote a lovely review of Hold on to Your Horses.

Yay!

Yesterday would have been a good day to run errands. There was no snow and the roads were clear. But yesterday I got the kids off to school and went back to bed because I was hoping to feel better when I woke up. I really wanted to plunge deep into sleep and wake up refreshed. Instead I skipped from dream to dream across the surface of sleep until I dragged myself out of bed on the other side of two hours. The rest of the day was better, if not exactly bouncy.

Today, not so good a day to run errands. Unfortunately many of the errands had reached urgent status. So I spent 90 minutes sliding my van across snow packed streets to get things done. Snow driving requires far more attention than regular driving. It also requires me to adjust my instinctive reactions to driving stimuli. I need to remember that when the brake pedal jitters, pushes back, and makes a grinding noise, that means the van is skidding and the anti-lock brakes are trying to help, rather than AGGH! Brake Failure! The correct response is to ease up and pump the brakes, not to smash the brake pedal harder. After 90 minutes of practice I think I’ve trained myself to remember that. Also using empty roads to practice skid management is a good idea. This way when I skid on a crowded road I can remain calm and I know what to do. Sledding down a clear hill on a sled is fun. Sledding down a hill in a van with obstacles to avoid, not so fun. Also, I don’t like ice that freezes to the windshield wipers. Never hurry while driving in snow. Hurrying in snow ends with CRUNCH. No crunch today. Yay.

Next up, the joys of snow removal.