I Choose Joy.

This is a deliberate choice on my part.  It does not come easily.

The week before Christmas, my relatives came down with the flu.  This was the same flu virus that, a few days earlier, had five of my family members sleeping in the living room, flopping over all the couches and chairs and cushions so I could check on fevers in the night.  I am hoping we are not the reason they got ill, but chances are, we shared our germs.  So sorry!

The week before Christmas, there was also a car accident.  No one died!  But one car was totaled, and several ribs were broken.  Thank God my loved one will be all right.  The car can be replaced.  The ribs will mend…  

The week of Christmas, in a separate incident, the brakes went out in our big truck.  Not just a mild squeaking, but an all-out, light flashing, shrill beeping, call-a-tow-truck-your-brakes-are-out kind of thing.  The thing went sliding backwards down a driveway.  In true super-hero style, Doug let out a loud “Whoa!” and galloped into the open door and saved the day.  He doesn’t even own a cowboy hat, but he wrangled that twelve year old, nine-passenger Suburban into submission, singlehandedly.  I was impressed. I saw the whole thing happen, and I stood there slack-jawed, looking at the looming fence about to be squashed.  I didn’t move until after it was all over.  

Did I mention I have a large family?  When one gets the flu, many more soon follow.  Poor One with cracked up ribs had to go into seclusion to avoid the flu, as the cousins fell with fevers, one by one.  Most of us missed Mass on Sunday.  Missed confession.  Missed band concerts, missed parties, missed school.  Were we prepared for Christmas?  Well, some of us even missed that.  

But you know what?  Christmas still came.  

There was no snow to be seen, so for supper, Superman grilled deliciously marinated steaks outside.  My job was to fill the oven with 23 large potatoes, and turn it on to bake while we went to Mass on Christmas Eve.  It is not my forte to cook for a crowd.  I’ll clean and smile, but please don’t put me in charge of a Christmas dinner for 20!  My only job was potatoes. 

Halfway through Mass, the panic button in my head rang out.  I had forgotten to turn on the oven.  My one, stupid, lowly job!  Twenty three mammoth baking potatoes, and they would be raw.  I knew my phone was in my pocket.  A couple of quick clicks, and I could have texted someone to help me out.  But what was I thinking???  This was Christmas Mass.  If the Christ Child himself came to Earth that night, would I be present?  Would I have been like the shepherds, leaving all worries, running to greet the Savior?  I was so ashamed.  I took my hand out of my coat pocket.  I would not have been a shepherd, I would have been hanging out in the back fields, texting about potato emergencies.  Caught up in a web of worry.  Didn’t I think that the Savior of the World would watch over us, and help us in our troubles?  It didn’t matter if those troubles were car accidents, broken bones, eleven cases of the flu, or even something as small as 23 raw potatoes… It would all be okay.


When the last “Joy to the World” had rung out, we left church to go dashing through the snow, over the river and through the woods.  

And guess what?  The ones who stayed home had seen the negligent error of my ways, and rescued the potatoes by turning on the oven.  Christmas dinner was saved.  The children improvised a (slightly sarcastic) song about all our troubles and our own Christmas Miracle of the Potatoes, which ended in peals of echoing laughter.

We ate our deliciously marinated steaks with spuds, enjoyed each other’s company, gave each other gifts, and had a lovely time.  

Late at night, we left with presents piled high in the car, along with all the kids and the leftovers from supper.  

A discovery was made the next morning.  Somehow, in the pile of presents and leftovers,  that stock pot of meat marinade had spilled in the back of the car. 

Our car has literally been soaked in meat marinade.  Used meat marinade.  A salty concoction of fragrant garlic, soy, and ginger, made to tenderize and break down the meat, infusing it with unforgettable flavor and smells. Oh, we won’t be forgetting this smell.  It billows out in an overpowering, smelly cloud when the car doors are opened.  Thank God everything is frozen outside, or we would be driving an Evil, Raw-Meat Stenchmobile.  

As I think back to the ruckus of this Christmas season, I have a choice to make.  Choices like this one define our lives.  What will I choose to remember?  Will I cherish the bad times, becoming resentful and even envious of the picture-perfect Christmas photos I’ve been sent by others, the ones where all the kids are smiling together on a beach in the sunshine?  Will I  dwell on the negative, remembering the only difficulties?  Or will I choose joy?  Tough call.

But the choice is mine. 

A:  I can choose eleven cases of flu.  Four broken ribs.  Illness and pain.  One totaled car.  Twenty three forgotten potatoes.  The failed brakes.  And the spilled meat marinade still brewing, rancid in my car.  

or  

B:   I can choose the moments of Joy.  

They were there, you know.  

Moments of Love, Joy and Peace. 

Did I forget to mention those?  Sometimes they are easy to overlook.  Troubles are loud and demanding, but moments of Love, Joy and Peace are soft and sweet.  They are the quiet candles, flickering in this dark world.  These are the moments for which I am thankful.  The gifts I want to cherish…

No alarm clock.

The dog wasn’t sick.

After Mass, in the hustle and bustle of evening darkness, some kids ran to the outdoor creche.  The golden light shone around their silhouettes,  gleaming warmth and radiating hope.  They were the modern day shepherds, seeking the Child in the stable.  They found him. 

During the busiest week, my twelve year old made supper for me.  He didn’t only cook “for me”, he did my cooking chores for me.  That means supper for nine hungry people.  It was delicious.  

The children were all loving and kind to one another.  No fights, no squabbles, only joy in being all together, out of school.  Pure bliss.  

One of the kids helped me wrap presents.  Even her own.  I enjoyed her company so much.  She is infinitely better at details and decorating, being careful with corners and matching patterns.  She made us all laugh by her choice of Disney Princess wrapping paper for the most obviously masculine gifts.

The school aged kids each gave us a beautifully glittered and glued Christmas card.  One said “Merry Crhistmas. Thanks for being such a good Mom and Dad.”  They will decorate my Christmas tree as long as the construction paper shall survive.

Stella perched on the couch next to me, and read me The Twelve Days of Christmas.  All by herself.  It is impossible to know which one of us was more pleased and proud. 

On a quiet walk through the woods, the giant snowflakes fell slowly, melting fast.  I came upon a  grove of small trees, covered in glittering jewels of melted snowdrops.  A thousand sparkling branches stretched out, adorned as royalty, hidden away off the path.  A gift just for me and the raccoons.

Small One gave me a hug for a Christmas present.  She wrapped her soft little arms around my neck, then gently touched my cheek. 

 “You’re the best Mommy I ever had.  I love you.”

These are just some of the moments I choose.  

They are everywhere, you know.  Those seemingly elusive moments of Love, Joy and Peace.  They are all around you, waiting to be noticed, treasures like the glittering jewels I found in the woods.   Like the soft touch of a child’s hand in your own.

Despite the loud circus of troubles we encounter, Christmas has come.  It has come, bringing gifts of Love, Joy and Peace.  They quietly wait to be noticed, to be chosen, to be remembered.  

And I search for them, very deliberately.  

I choose Love and Peace.  

I choose Joy.

A kind neighbor left this beauty on our doorstep last summer.  It's for you!

Click on Santa to see today's full comic strip at downsideups.com.  

May your hearts be as crowded with Love as this stable is.  Panda bear and all.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve...

Gingerbread, Anyone?

I thought gingerbread was simply an offshoot of the story of Hansel and Gretel via the Brothers Grimm.  

I was wrong.

A Wilton baking website, boasting that they made 2,000,000 gingerbread houses in one year alone, credits an Armenian monk with bringing Gingerbread to Europe in the 10th century.  Gingerbread became a staple of Swedish nuns, and then of European monasteries in general.  Later, gingerbread came to be sold in markets and pharmacies.  

Only then did it make its way to Jolly Old England, to be displayed in shop windows as gingerbread houses.  So the origin of the gingerbread house is actually England, via the Brothers Grimm, European monasteries, Swedish nuns, and one Armenian monk.  Whew!

Thank you, One and All.  We have had much fun with gingerbread!

Many people create amazing gingerbread houses.  People set up a dreamscape of sugary goodness, organized like a painter’s palette, ready to be assembled into beautiful structures.  I have seen pictures of tidy red cinnamon dots in orderly rows on rooftops…pretzel and licorice fences, flat suckers designed into stained glass windows.  In my imagination, they look just like scenes from the Nutcracker, dripping with sweetness and happiness.

This is not what my children imagine.  Not quite.  

We used to bake our own gingerbread, and cut it into our desired architectural shapes before baking.  This is a day-long process.  We even do it gluten free.  But now, there are just too many of us.  It would take all my free time for a week to bake enough gingerbread.  So this year, we bought many boxes of gluten free crackers in different shapes, and those were our foundation.  It didn’t sound enticing at all to some of the kids, 

“After all, Mom, a gluten free cracker is still a gluten free cracker even if you cover it in chocolate!  Ew!”

But the rest of us were thrilled.  Here are a few gems from our annual Gingerbread House Decorating Day.  Not for the faint of heart…

Though the hobbit house was made of brownies and buttercream, the sweetness ended there.

Check out the lovely, Lord of the Rings chocolate-coated Barad-dûr, Fortress of Sauron.  Just what you’d like decorating your Christmas table, right?  Anything can happen when you pull out the gluten free crackers, chocolate chips and gummy bears!  The gummy bear army is assembled, ready for an Orc battle.  

The funny part is that the Eye of Sauron disappeared before it could be attached.  We blamed the dog.  But how could anyone resist the gummy bear covered, frosted cookie the kids had made?  So a second Eye was prepared.  We made it from the only transparent goo left in the house:  Fiber Gummies.  Five of ‘em, melted into a round bottle cap, peeled out after it was chilled.  

Everyone was warned not to eat it.  Really.  Who would want to eat something as evil as they Eye of Sauron anyway?  If they did, they were warned of the consequences.  What does five times the normal dose of fiber do to someone?  How much of a laxative could it be? 

Anyway, it’s gone.  Someone ate the evil Eye of Sauron. 

Merry Christmas, One and All!

It’s Almost Christmas…

Is everything ready?  

No!  

Will it be perfect, everything set up, wrapped, prepared beautifully, ready for the big day?  

Not even a chance.

But Christmas will come, whether I am ready or not.

I have a friend battling cancer right now.  How do Christmas and chemo go together for her, I wonder?   Another friend just had surgery…  How does he celebrate if he doesn’t feel happiness? 

Five of us have had the flu this month.  If I counted the days of coughing and chamomile tea and missed class,  even the health department would be impressed.  

What about the hospitals and the Holy Land and Haiti?  What of the sick and the dying and the fighting and the oppressed?  

How can we celebrate Christmas, when the world is such a dark and painful place? 

I think that’s what the songwriters miss when they pen their poetry about Silent Nights and Fa La La La La’s…  Christmas has nothing to do with happiness and safety, the perfectly cleaned and decorated house or even well-fed visiting cousins.  

It didn’t happen that way.

That one moment when Heaven touched Earth, and Jesus took his first breath, it didn’t happen in a perfect world on a perfect night, all wrapped up in a perfect bow.  It was messy and dark and scary and crowded.  Weary, displaced persons, wandering and searching for peace.

It was a dark and dreary world.

I’ve given birth enough times to know that Mary would not have chosen a drafty, faraway barn as the perfect place to deliver, among the cows and sheep.  Yet that was what she got.

Nor, in the wee hours after her baby’s birth, did she probably want dozens of local shepherds popping in for a meet and greet.  Doesn’t sound the least bit helpful.  

And King Herod?  Are you kidding?  The slaughter of many Innocents because King Man wants your baby dead?  How could that horror possibly be a chapter in a story of Hope?  

And yet, this is how it happened.
In that darkness and pain, in the throng of crowds,

Hope Arrived.  

So if today, your world is not perfect… If you cannot find peace, or health, or joy…Do not despair.

He came to bring you Hope.

That is the real gift of Christmas!  For you, for me.  

Hope.

Today's Sunday Flowers for you are unopened gifts.  Oooh, the anticipation!  Waiting is so difficult...

A major event happened last night at Down Side Ups!  Click the giant OW to link!

See this little guy’s footprints?  He hopped up the snowy steps and onto my porch this morning.  It was pretty cold out, and the world seems encased in ice.  What does this poor little bird eat?  He hasn’t planted a garden.  He has no grocery store.  I don’t understand where he finds shelter, or what he does when the wind blows bitterly.  I worry about these little ones.  

There are so many of them, and only one of me.  I can’t solve their problems, I can’t control their world.  

I worry. 

But anxiety about the little vulnerable ones doesn’t help me.  Anxiety won’t add one minute to my life, or theirs.  

I have to trust.  

Trust that the One who made the exquisite little feet that left these footprints will also love them enough to care for them.    

Yet I still worry.  

Have you ever seen anyone clothed as beautifully as this Lily?  She is regal, silken, glorious and pure.  Her aroma fills my garden, attracting butterflies from miles around.  

But she doesn’t shop. Not even on Black Friday. Yet here she is, the most beautifully arrayed of all.

I need to consider the little sparrow and the lily the next time I start to worry about things I cannot change or control.  

I have to trust in the One who created the little ones…I need to let go, and trust in His love for us.

I recently had a most enlightening conversation with Small One.  I was painting, she was painting.  She likes to do what I do.  

We were enjoying working side by side, watercoloring the cloudy sky and some cartoons.  

“Small One, please pass the Kosher salt.  Want to watch as I sprinkle it on my wet paint?”

“I know, Mom.  I do that too.  It makes snowflakes in the paint.  See?”  She proceeds to take a pinch of salt with her dainty little fingers, and gently drop the grains into her wet paint.  

That’s my girl.  Her ‘snowflakes’ are exquisite.

We continue painting.  I paint a cartoon character pregnant, looking like a globe.  She paints her character round like a piece of candy.

“Hey Mom, do you want a tootsie roll?”

“We don’t have any, Dear.”

She smiles a knowing, secret smile of delight, and puts down her paintbrush.  “Yes, we do!  Hiding way up in the cupboard.”

I stop working.  “Oh really?  How do you know that?”

“Oh, me and Sis found it.  Don’t tell!  It’s Halloween candy.  No one  else knows, so they can’t eat any.”

Ah.  A secret stash of candy, hidden away from many siblings... Do tell.  If you want to eat something in a house with many siblings, you have to learn to either A., eat really fast, or B., hide stuff.  

At this point, she climbs up a chair, onto the cupboard, and reaches up above the toaster.  She returns victorious, with a half-empty bag of Tootsie Rolls, leftover and forgotten from Halloween.  She is so happy to share this secret with me.    

“But please don’t write about it on your blog, Mom, because then everyone will find out and it will be gone tomorrow!” 

Good thinking, Small One.

Some of my kids are obsessed with “Olden Day Stuff”.  

I’m a history major, I get that.  Old Stuff is intriguing.  I spent my childhood absolutely longing to search my grandparents’ attic.  That secret half-door leading to mysteries under the rooftop was a forbidden zone.  Filled, I was certain, with dolls and Christmas ornaments and treasures and photographs of my Great Aunt Marie, the flapper girl who cut her hair short and played the piano at the silent movies downtown.  Mysteries and Secrets and Christmas!  They were hidden away, just like Narnia in the old wardrobe.

As it turns out, I saw the attic and its contents when I grew up.  The angled roof underbelly had exposed fiberglass insulation, and the floor had empty spots where a kid could fall through the plaster and into the living room below.  I’m glad it was off limits, even though they stored the Christmas stuff there.

We decorated our Christmas tree this week, and it has lots of Olden Day Stuff on it.  Some people have stylish trees, pretty trees, even decorator-themed trees.  

We are not those people.  

Our tree is a veritable cornucopia of memories.  At the top, there are ancient breakable blown glass ornaments from my grandmother’s tree.  They are out of reach of little ones.  They are accompanied by all the candy canes that the older kids want to keep away from the little ones.   Below the candy cane contraband are the sentimental wonders that only a mother would keep and cherish.  

One of the ornaments was given to me by my oldest daughter, the very first Christmas that she could talk.  “Look, Mama. A ‘ormament’ for you!”  She had crumpled up a napkin from coffee and donuts time after church.  Masking tape held on a coffee stirrer that she said were antlers, and she drew two magic marker spots for eyes.  “It’s a reindeer!”  My very first Mommy gift.  It’s been on my Christmas tree for twenty years.  Really.  A crumpled brown napkin with a coffee stirrer taped to it.  I can still see the sparkle in her eyes, all pleasure because she had made it for me.

The rest of the tree is covered with memories.  Finger painted things and jingle bells strung with beads on yarn, and many tin-foil-covered-cardboard Stars of David. There is a pipe-cleaner assembly that used to say “Merry Christmas”.  Now it is just tendrils, but I remember the nimble little hands that made it for me.  Olden Day Stuff.  

Probably inspired by all the old stuff on our tree, all this week my daughter has been asking me to make her an “Olden Day Lunch”.  

“Please make me an Olden Day lunch, Mom?”  

What she wants is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, cut in half, with a tangerine, in a brown paper bag.  Sound exciting?  

Olden Day Lunch.

It got me thinking…

“Did you know, Small One, that when I was your age, there were no cell phones in my house?”

“Where were they?”

“They hadn’t been invented yet.”

Her eyes widen.  

“Did you know, Small One, that Netflix hadn’t been invented, either? No Amazon, no Netflix, and no DVDs.”

She looks at me in wonderment.   “Oh, you watched movies on the VCR thing?”

“No.  Actually, when we got to watch a movie, we got into our footie pajamas, My mom and Dad made about 5 batches of buttery popcorn, packed it in a brown paper grocery bag (Ooooh, real Olden Day Stuff!) and we piled into the car to go to the drive in movie theater.  We watched a screen the size of a house.”

Very impressed.  I could see the wheels turning in her little mind.  

“What else didn’t you have, Mom?”

Let me think…No microwave.  No dishwasher.  Wait, no.  We were the dishwashers.  We sang songs and harassed each other while we did the dishes.  No remote control gas fireplace.  No remote control at all.  No carseats, no seatbelts in the back seat.  No answering machine, no cell phones, no cordless phone, no pager.  No computer…No credit cards…no carpool, no playdates, no daycare, and my goodness: no disposable diapers.  

“Did you have food?”

“Yes, but we had to grow much of it in the backyard, Small One.”

“Did you have clothes?”

“Yes, Dear.  Mostly hand-me-downs from my sister and the neighbors.  One was a pretty pink dress, but I only got to wear it to church on Sundays.”

“What else did you have, Mom?”

“A sled dog.  And a sled.  And a big hill.  And dirt.  We played in the dirt a lot.”

Actually, this is not a lie.  The neighbors on the next street over had loads of black dirt hauled in for some landscaping plan that was never implemented.  They had a literal mountain of black dirt in their backyard.  It grew wild with magnificent weeds that were taller than me, and we made trails and forts and wove great rooftops of blooming clover that swayed over our heads, populated by butterflies and bees.  We lived on that hobbit-hill, summer after summer.  Games of tag, scavenger hunts for pupae and caterpillars and ladybugs and beautiful garter snakes, basking in the sun.  We were so filthy at the end of each summer day.  Trudging home through the weeds, we’d pull the dandelion fluffs and prickers out of our tangled hair and compare scrapes on our knees.  After a bath, we’d take a wet washcloth to bed, to keep ourselves cool while we listened to the crickets chirp through the screens. Because we didn’t have air conditioning.  

But we did have a Christmas tree.  

“And guess what, Small One.  Our Christmas tree was covered in Olden Day Stuff, too. Your aunt once squirted out a blobby blue patch of glue, and stuck a bunch of sparkly beads in it and tied it with a golden ribbon.  If you look closely, you’ll see it is on your grandmother’s tree again this year.  Because that was my sister’s Christmas gift to my mom.  And moms are sentimental about stuff like that.  We can’t quite keep it, can’t quite throw it away…but we can decorate our Christmas trees with the Olden Day Stuff for forty years or more…  

After I tucked everyone in bed tonight, I took another look at our frumpy old tree.  I had to smile.  Maybe it’s something about the lights twinkling in the darkness, winking at me, reminding me of the magic of Christmas and childhood.  I see my grandmother’s ornaments, and my great aunt’s ornaments, and the decorations my own children have made through the years.  

Some good years, some not so good years.  

But you know what?  We always had each other.  Someone was always hiding the candy canes at the top of the tree, where the little ones couldn’t reach. 

And even now, with all our modern conveniences and electronics, we are still harassing each other while we do the dishes.  And we’re still singing the same “O Come O Come Emmanuel”, captivated by the same flickering Advent candles, lighting up the darkness.  Waiting for Mysteries and Christmas and Secrets.

These are the Olden Days they’ll remember tomorrow.  

And they are magical.

Wildflowers are the sweetest.  Here is some wild Columbine for you.  Hope you like it as much as the butterflies and hummingbirds do.  

I blog at downsideups.com on Fridays...  Click on the picture to see today's 'toons!_

Something amazing happened today.

But you will not read about it in any news headlines.  

Most people will never know about it.
Yet, today, this really happened. 

I saw it. 
I was there.

If I had been in a hurry, I would have missed it.  But I wasn’t.  
Today, I had time to breathe.  
Time to look.  
Time to see.  

Oh, in your busy, stressful day today, I wish you could have the chance to see this.

In the foggy gray expanse of the Northlands, the Canadian wind brought in fog, which kissed the tops of the branches in spikes of hoarfrost and chilled the woods.  And this very day, a simple, frozen field and forest were transformed into gleaming acres of Silver and Gold.

I shivered, captivated by the silver frost and the golden fields.  

Sometimes, when I see beauty like this, nothing seems the same.  It seems that God himself reaches out and gives me peace.  And that changes everything.  My troubles disappear, and stress melts like snow on a roof in May.  Dripping fast, gone for a long, long time.

I can’t solve the world’s problems.  I can’t fix a broken world.  But instead of adding to all the pain and sorrow, the troubles real and borrowed, I can give you, and the world, this silent moment: 

Silver Frost and a Golden Field.

Because this really happened today.  I saw it.  I was there.  

Maybe it will melt some of your troubles away, too.

Click on the above link to read my Very Vegas Christmas story published by Guideposts Magazine...  If I could find Christmas Peace in Vegas, you can find it where you are, too!

This was one of my first blog posts....  Happy Getting Ready for Christmas!

Christmas Eve.  

Snowflakes swirled softly, descending on a peaceful scene of Mary, Joseph, and newborn Jesus, cradled in a manger.  Peace and serenity reigned there in the snow globe, on the shelf.  But that was just a snow globe.  I turned away.  Lights flashed, blinking Christmasy red, green, blue, yellow.  These lights emanated not from a Christmas tree, but from a heart monitor, I.V. drip, bili blanket, feeding tube, oxygen tent.  My newborn baby laid in the neonatal intensive care unit of a downtown hospital, cradled in an incubator.  Rather than peppermint and gingerbread, I smelled only my own fear.

 We named her Stella Lucille.  Born just a few days earlier, her name meant “Star Light,” for the star of Bethlehem that showed the wise men the way to Jesus.  But our little star couldn’t breathe or eat on her own.  I held her flaccid, tiny body in my arms, after her birth.  Though she was swaddled in a warm blanket, her head flopped back like a rag doll.  She was cold, so cold.  Her fingers and mouth slowly turned purple, then blue.  Within minutes, a small army of specialists and nurses had whisked her away from me.  We now knew that she had three holes in her heart, and Down Syndrome.  

Merry Christmas, right?  My other small children waited for me at home.  We’d planned it all out, this baby was the biggest, most exciting Christmas present for our family.  Everyone waited for her.  There was a dolly cradle under the Christmas tree, where we’d planned to lay our newborn for a Christmas family photo. We would light the candles in our Advent wreath, sing carols by the warm glow of candlelight and Christmas tree lights, and celebrate the births of baby Jesus and baby Stella.  Then, off to Christmas Eve Mass with my extended family.  After Mass, we had planned to crowd into Grandma’s house with all the relatives, eat Christmas dinner, and enjoy the celebration with cousins, aunts, uncles and siblings until late into the night.   Even an old family friend would make his annual Santa Claus appearance, after supper.  He’d come in his stuffed red velvet suit, bells jingling, handing out gifts to all the children, laughing his Ho Ho Ho’s, calling each child by name and surprising them with the tidbits and details he knew about their antics.  This was how we wanted Christmas to be.    

But, Stella wasn’t coming home.  I had been discharged from the hospital that morning, but I couldn’t bear to go home without her.  Like Santa, I wore my own whale-sized, post partum velvety green Christmas outfit.   My other children waited for me.  But I didn’t go home for the family photo.  The cradle under the tree remained empty, and my heart remained filled with fear.  My husband arrived, the nurses assured me my baby would be safe and cared for.  But I just couldn’t do it.  I just couldn’t leave my helpless, weak daughter alone without someone watching over her.  

“The other kids need you,” coaxed my husband, Doug.  “We have just a little more time here, then you have to leave, for their sake.”  

My heart felt torn in pieces.  I caressed Stella’s soft exposed arm with my finger.  

“God,” I prayed silently.  “help me to trust you with her.”

Doug gently loosened my fingers on my baby’s arm.  “It’s time.”

My tears welled up inside, as Doug escorted me out of the NICU.  The fear of the unknown, the fear of abandoning her when she needed me, the fear of being abandoned by God surged in my heart, threatening to burst through as we approached the hospital’s security exit door.  I forced my legs forward.  “God!  Send an angel to help me through that door!”  I pleaded.

Doug’s hand rose to push the locked handle, when suddenly, a familiar, smiling face loomed close on the other side, peering through the window into the unit.  Startled, we opened the door to find our very own Santa Claus, standing sheepishly in the hall with his wife.  “I don’t want to intrude on your privacy,” he began, “But I came to see Stella so I could tell your other kids that Stella got the first present on Christmas Eve.”  

How quickly God can turn our sorrows to joy.  “Come and see her!  You’ll be her first visitor ever.” My smile was genuine, and we ushered Santa back to the NICU.

“Family only.”  The nurse at the desk arched her eyebrow at us.

“That’s all right, I’m his brother!” Santa replied, patting my husband on the back.

“Oh, I’m so glad!” the nurse smiled.  “Welcome, Santa!”

“Ho, Ho Ho!” Santa chuckled, as we magically walked back through the doors.

Once inside the NICU, he sat in the rocker, next to her incubator, whispering hushed Christmas secrets that only Stella and Santa could share.  Catching a glimpse of the snow globe behind them, I beamed.  In sharing the joy of her birth with Santa and his wife, a bond was forming.  A bond of trust between God, who answered my prayer, and Stella, a child who never would be alone.  

God had sent me his angel for whom I prayed, dressed up as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.  I began to realize that even though the circumstances were grim, even when nothing goes as we planned it, and we feel abandoned and alone, God is still with us.  He watches over us, and He has a plan.  

A little later, we left the hospital.  Real-life snowflakes swirled, softly descending on Doug and me as we made our way through the starlit parking lot.  The hush of a Silent Night surrounded us, enclosing our family in a circle of trust, just like that snow globe.  Peace and serenity grew in my heart, like the newborn faith I felt.  I was ready to celebrate Christmas Mass with my family.

Stella Lucille, our little star of Bethlehem, began to lead us on a journey toward trusting God.  She truly was our family’s best Christmas gift, though perhaps not in the way we, ourselves, had planned.  

And that Christmas Eve night, when I felt so afraid and alone, God sent Santa Claus to help us find our way.

Whew.  It’s over, that’s all I have to say.  But it will happen again, it always does.  I’m talking about the fallout after a holiday.  Thanksgiving was wonderful, and it has taken us more than a week to recover.  Now we’ve had our fun, we’ve had some germs, and we have overcome.  Just in time to prepare for Christmas.

So, let me tell you a little bit about my week.

A virus came home, a stowaway in one child’s backpack along with his leftover lunch.  He shared the virus with his sister.  She shared it with me.  No big deal… it was just a cold with a cough.  It came, it went.  But then it got the Three Musketeers, my littlest ones.   

Bing, Bang, Boom.  

Two stayed home from school all week, coughing like barking sea lions.

By the time Small One started coughing, I was pretty worn out.  Poor thing.  She sat on the couch on a makeshift throne, not wanting jello or tea or soup.  Without a voice.  And sad.  She only wanted to be “On Mama”.  I don’t get much done when a child is “On Mama”.  Eventually, we pushed the couch and the love seat together, and all of us just flopped there with a pile of Christmas books and Kleenex.  They looked at books, I snored and drooled.  The rest of the house fell apart.

Sick kids seldom sleep at night.  Neither do parents of sick kids.  My house is a mess and we are tired.  By the end of the week, everyone got cookies for breakfast.  

Did I mention that the dog just had surgery?  He had a lump on his eyelid that had grown to the size of a marble, and we didn’t want him to lose his eye.  Right before Thanksgiving, he trotted into the vet’s office with his beloved tennis ball in his mouth, and had his surgery.  When I picked him up that afternoon, he came home without his precious ball.  We didn’t give him a new ball until we were sure his eye was healing.  So he was without beloved ball until Friday.

Old dog + antibiotics = you better let Dog out when he wants out.   

Dog went out a lot this week.  

Late, late Friday night, all kids finally slept.  Dog began to whimper in his sleep.  He twitched and he moaned a bit.  But he still was sleeping.  What to do?  Let him sleep… he must be having a dream.  Twenty minutes later, Doug was wide awake, staring at the ceiling, and Dog was still whimpering and fussing in his sleep.  

Doug began to worry about the whole Dog + Antibiotics = you better let dog out when he wants out equation.

So, in the wee hours of the morning, Doug stood at the door, waiting for Dog to come back.  Waiting.  Waiting.  Dog had disappeared into the woods.  Doug waited quietly for fifteen minutes, not wanting to wake anyone up by yelling at Dog to come back.

Then, he came.  Start the Chariots of Fire soundtrack… Picture Dog running, slow motion, jubilant, and victorious, out of the woods.  Back towards the house.  

Ball in mouth.  

He had found it in the woods, where he had inadvertently left it that afternoon.  He was joyful.

He hadn’t needed his woodsy bathroom at all.  Not a bit.

He had just been worried about his ball. Worried enough to have an anxious dream.

But now, Dog was filled with glee.  With his happy, click-y toenails on the floor dance at 4 a.m., Small One woke up.  Here we go again…

When I got up Saturday morning, there was a note on my kitchen table.  It said this:

“NO WON WOTS T BE WES O SEK PRSEN”

Translation:  “No one wants to be with a sick person”. 

Poor Small One.   She had gotten up and written that note in the night, when I was sleeping.  Oh how that little girl can twist my heart up.  She can spend all week “On Mama” if she wants to.  We’ll bake more cookies, batches and batches of cookies, and she can have them every day for breakfast.  Poor Sick Small One on the couch.

Some day soon, she won’t have this virus anymore.  She will get her little voice back, and there will be no sibling chorus of barking sea lions on the living room couch.   The dog will be well.  The Kleenexes will be cleaned up.  

Maybe just in time for Christmas.

You are loved.

Click on the picture to see this week's comic at Down Side Ups.

Since I wrote about my love of the woods yesterday, it got me thinking…

I have lived in cities, I have lived in the desert.  I have lived in a field, I have lived in suburbia.  For a short while, I lived above a pizza restaurant.  No matter where I live, I always seem to long for the woods.  

Once, all alone in Ireland, I walked a woods that I’ll never forget.  It was a planting of trees, up a steep climb, on the edge of a salt marsh.  I climbed the hill, and stepped out of the sunshine and into a magical, soft shadowy place.  Parallel rows of a thousand trees surrounded me.  They were ancient spires, reaching up to heaven.  The cushion of thick pine needles gave a spring to my step and hushed all sound.  

I was alone… until the song of an unknown bird sparked the air, electrifying it with musical notes that were echoed far up into the branches.  I only saw the shadows of their wings flitting and darting away.  I watched the tide come in from the cliffside. It flooded the salt marsh with energy and life, but soon would leave again.  And the marsh would sleep once more, at the edge of the wooded hill, yellow blossoms bobbing their heads in the grassy places.  

This day, I am far from Ireland.  

Snow blankets my present world in a quilt of peace, and I want to share that peace with you.  If you had the chance today, I know you would leave the bustle and noise of the city and the desert, the field and even suburbia to share in this peace.  

So, these photos are for you…Peace.

It’s December.  The wind has been howling for a month already.  The lake is frozen over…  it was minus 4 degrees outside this morning.  It must be time to get a tree. 

Because that’s what we do around here, for fun and merriment in the Winterlands.  We chop down a tree, and bring it in the house.  Things aren’t claustrophobic enough, being cooped up in our homes all winter.  We have to bring a tree in, too.  And then we decorate it.  Sparkly things, odd ornaments and do-dads from generations past.  Gifts, mostly, from one friend to another.  They are made with beads and noodles, paint and glue, sequins stuck on by preschool fingers.  Every gap in the branches is then filled with plastic, glittering icicles, and we plug it all in to the electrical socket.  Bling!  We are happy.  We have a tree.

I love Christmas trees.  I do.  But I love them before they come into my living room.  

I love Christmas trees when they still grow, soft and silent, in the woods.

I can’t resist a walk through a forest after snowfall.  I always find something beautiful there, in the halls of the Snow Queen.  Ice crystals on spruce needles…a forgotten, now glittering robin’s nest tucked into a branch…pink circles of peppermint candy cane melted and refrozen on my child’s cheeks… As I trudge, making a path where no one else has been, snow creeps into the gap in my boot where it doesn’t quite cover my ankle.  I don’t mind.  A red cardinal sings to its mate in the treetops.  A thermos of hot chocolate is waiting in the truck.

You can tell that I am no help in cutting a tree down.  None.  I am entirely captivated by the forest’s beauty.  The trees are majestic and whispering, hiding rabbits and owls in secret spots.  I like to be with them.

Cutting the tree is Doug’s job.  He is reasonable and practical, and can definitely tell if the tree is three feet too tall to fit in the living room.  Also he can work a saw.  Just another of those mechanical things that I don’t do.  One of my favorite family photos is of Doug, showing off with a tree for me.  

“I don’t need the car brought down here,”  he boasted.  “I’ll just carry the tree.  It’ll be faster that way.”  And off he went up the snowy path to find our car.  He’s a strong guy.

But one year, he wasn’t there much before Christmas.  A work deadline loomed over his head, and he just didn’t have time for tromping in the woods.   

“I can do this.”  I thought out loud.  “How hard can it be to cut down a little old Christmas tree?”

I bundled up four kids in their warmest outdoor gear, and piled them into the minivan.  Off we went, to a tree farm.  The pre-cut trees lined up in the driveway in neat rows, tightly tied in twine.  The beautiful ones.  The best of the crop.  For sale.

I didn’t want them.  

I wanted a different tree, a scrubby, not-quite-a-Charlie-Brown-tree.  I wanted the kids to tromp through the woods with me and choose their own, unique Christmas tree.  They would remember this their whole lives.  Of this I was sure.  This was one of those moments.

The tree farm man waved at me as I slowly pulled off the main drive.  “Can I help you choose a tree?” he asked.  “No, thanks.  I’d like to choose my own.”  I began to roll up my window and drive, when I heard him say “Ma’am, do you need a saw?”

Well I guess I did.  

“Thanks,” I said.  He pointed the way to the shed where I could choose a saw and a cup of cider.  “We have a few saws to choose from.”  

I knew he smiled.  I could feel his grinning amusement as I heaved myself from the van.  

“Ma’am, are you sure you want to go out and cut your own tree?  Cause I could do that for you.”

“No, thanks.”  I pulled myself up to power posture stance, my enormous belly protruding from my tightly stretched coat.  I was nine months pregnant. “I got this.”

I was determined to make a memory for my kids this day.  Not the kind of memory where mom gives birth in a forest.  That couldn’t happen.  I delivered long overdue with every one of my kids.  Even though my due date was technically here, I knew I would still be pregnant for weeks.  And sawing a tree down just might be the hard physical labor that it might take to get me into actual labor.  Or not.  

I drove carefully down the bumpy hill toward the first grove of trees.  Every bump hurt.  I began to realize that tromping through the snowy forest was perhaps not going to be possible.  I bet this first grove of trees was the one I really wanted, anyway.  No need to go further.  

“All right, kids.  Everybody out!  Let’s go find our Christmas tree!”

Tears.  Someone was sobbing.  No, two Someones were crying.  Remember that hot chocolate I mentioned?  Well while driving over bumps, the whole thermos had spilled on one of the kids.  It had been big enough for five, and now it was emptied in her lap, and dripping into her boots. Her sister said she felt like she had to throw up.   And the Little Guy was sound asleep.  

“Change of plans.”  I moaned.  “You all stay here.  No one is going outside in the woods in December soaking wet or sick.  You’ll get pneumonia before Christmas.”  The oldest child offered to stay in the van and make sure there was no mischief.  Wise choice.

“Okay then.  I’ll take my saw, and I’ll choose a tree.  Rub the frost off the window;  can you see any tree you like?  Which one?”

They pointed to a large blue spruce, about twenty five feet off the trail.  Through virgin white, unmarred snow.  I’d have to tromp, chop, and drag that thing all the way back to the van myself.  No. 

“How about this beauty right here?” I pointed to a giant spruce right next to the trail  It was huge.  Glorious.  

I tried.  I really tried.  The branches were thick and large, and growing low down into the snow.  Spruce tree needles are sharp and they hurt when they scratched my face.  Never mind the needles.  I couldn’t fit my large body under the low branches to get near the trunk.  I rolled and pushed with my boots to get leverage, but I couldn’t stuff myself under that tree.  Too pregnant.  

Now I was covered in snow and my belly was cold.  My hands were cold.  Someone in the van was crying again.  I went to the next tree over, one with obvious bare spots.  I didn’t even look to see if I liked it or not.  It was a tree, and it was going to be my Christmas tree.  I thumped down in the snow and crawled under that tree.  I sawed.  I sawed and sawed and sawed some more.  I was tired.  I laid down on my side like a bloated hippopotamus wearing wool, and sawed at that tree with frozen fingers.

“Ma’am?”

He had followed me.  

“Ma’am?  Can I help you now?”

“Yes.  As a matter of fact, you may.”  Suddenly quite self conscious, I tried to sit up in the snow, under the tree, and crawl out with a scrap of dignity.  I found none.

He helped me up from the snow, and I sat in the driver’s seat, huffing and puffing and cold.

“Ma’am?  Is this the tree you were trying to cut?  Because I don’t see any saw marks at all.” 

“Anywhere.  Doesn’t matter.  Just cut it down and throw it on the van roof, please.”  I was defeated.  And sick Child wanted a bucket.  Wet Child was cold.  Toddler was waking up.  Tween was embarrassed.  Perhaps mortally, as in forever.  This was definitely a memory making day, yessir.  

The man cut down the tree like slicing butter, bundled the tree with twine and tied it to my roof.  

Twenty bucks and a memory to cringe about for years to come.  

As I drove home, we sang Jingle Bells at the top of our lungs, laughing all the way.