Hip hip horray it's Christmas Vacation...

For the past several years my wife and I have hosted her family for a big, extended and usually exhausting good old fashioned family Christmas.  Air mattresses are inflated, beds are given up, and usually at some point feelings are hurt.  It is just part of the fun.  

I grew up in the same town that both sides of my family had occupied for at least 4 generations, so this was all a very new and frightening experience for me.  As much as the Griswold family is part of my Christmas tradition, the past few years have resembled the Christmas Vacation movie just a bit too closely, minus the SWAT team and kidnapping. 

We knew this year going in that this was sure to be an interesting one.  21 Days before Christmas Granny-in law fell and broke her hip.  2 days before the event Dad-inlaw has surgery on his wrist and shoulder.  Brother in-law and family leave Tennessee only to run headlong into an ice storm on the way to Ohio...my thoughts were that "hey, for these guys it can only get better from here on out."

As it would turn out, it got a whole lot better for us all.  This is the 4th Christmas we have hosted my entire in-law side for Christmas.  This is the 4th time we have had 10 extra people and a dog at our home for several nights.  This is the first time that I can actually say on record that everyone had a good time without fearing coal in my sock for telling a lie so close to Christmas.


It could be that I finally have the hang of hosting a big old-fashioned family Christmas.  It could be that I finally have learned to embrace that sacrifices it takes to turn your home into a full service all inclusive Christmas themed resort.  I actually enjoyed myself.  I loved it to be honest.  I even got the chance to try my hand at cooking the roast beast, turkey to be more specific.  And it was actually delicious.  My fear of the dried out shell of a bird that Clark cut into was replaced by the joy of receiving several compliments from the group, even though they are quick to remind me that they are "ham people."

The children actually played great together, there were no broken bones or stitches, just a few broken toys and some mysterious shards of glass.  Not bad considering there were 7 kids running through the house for 3 days.

 

Meals were all edible and most were even memorable.  New recipes attempted were all a hit.  Absent were the usual arguments about how much nutmeg is necessary here or who's recipe this really is or who spent more on their respective contribution to the feast.  It was all laid out before us like a well oiled catering service and was just as scrumptious.  The leftovers will surely carry us well into the coming week, one of the spoils of hosting. 

All in all it was a great weekend.  The house has now been all but put back together, the beds stripped and towels washed, and it actually seems a bit too quiet around here to be honest.  

Maybe next year we'll go for 4 nights...or maybe invite more of the extended family...we were sort of missing the "Cousin Eddie" aspect this year...

Then again, there is something to be said for tradition, and sanity. 

Just a clown at the party...

I finally heard it this year. Usually I hear it much earlier in the season, but I've been buried in work recently and haven't been out and about as much as usual. The phrase that I am referring to is this...it can be put in many different ways...but when boiled down the jest of it is:
"Santa is Evil and has stolen Christmas from Jesus."

Now, I grew up, Thank you Mom and Dad, in a Christian home. I went to Sunday school voluntarily (most weeks) and I now have an active and relatively mature Faith. I have a healthy respect for God and a very real relationship with Jesus Christ.

I also, admittedly have a thing for Santa.  Kris Kringle.  Father Christmas. I love the history, the story and the magic that he represents. I love the memories from my youth that he conjures up and the sparkle in my own children's eyes when they see him now. I believe that Santa adds to the celebration and that he represents the love and giving nature of God, who, after all gave the very first Christmas gift Himself 2000 plus years ago.

I liken Santa at the birthday celebration of Jesus to a clown at a kid’s party. The clown ads to the excitement and makes the party more special and more memorable. The clown does not take away the focus from the "birthday boy/girl", he ads to the festivities.

Santa is merely a clown at the party. The tree is like the cake...and the gifts, well that really isn't a stretch; except that because of the ultimate sacrificial love for us, Jesus has allowed us to receive the gifts at His birthday party. Try to talk a 6 year old into that and they will learn very quickly just how special Jesus' love is.

So, I guess I am just trying to justify my Santa fetish. I do understand the point of the argument. I do see the danger in focusing on the commercial Christmas. I guess I am of the opinion that anything that helps to make the biggest birthday celebration in history a little more magical is a pretty good thing. Giving generously to remember the Greatest Gift of All is not a slap in the face of Christmas...and Santa celebrating Christ's birth by building an army of Elves in a secret workshop somewhere North of the Arctic Circle and then delivering the fruits of said Elves’ labor via a herd of airborne reindeer to the homes of sleeping children who have worked for the previous weeks to be more nice than naughty doesn't bother me a bit. Santa, like me, is just trying to add to the celebration of Jesus.

Happy Birthday Jesus! Bring on the clowns!

Tis the season to be merry...

It may just be me...but the lights seem to be a little brighter this year, and no, it isn't because some of them are LED.  Maybe it's the economy; people are looking for a positive distraction from job loss and foreclosures.  Maybe it's the build up; retailers have been pushing Christmas since the 5th of July. Maybe it's that everyone saw "Christmas with the Kranks" or read "Skipping Christmas" last year and realize now that there is no use avoiding it...and if they have to do it they might as well throw an extra strand on.  I honestly don't know what it is.  I cannot deny though that when I drive around town there just seems to be more twinkle.  And that my friends, is a very good thing.

In my 3 and a half decades milling around and tripping over the bumps on this planet I have never experienced a time when the world could use a good Christmas as much as we all can now.  I'm not talking about a big Christmas.  We had plenty of those in the 80's.  I'm not talking about an extravagant Christmas.  We had those through the 90's.  I'm not talking (although the retailers would argue otherwise) about an expensive Christmas.  We have those every year.  The Christmas I am talking about is the magical... children singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, cut-out cookies and hot cocoa, red and green everywhere, send out some cards to distant relatives, plan a family dinner (and invite ALL the family), get your butt to church, find an advent wreath and learn which candle to light first, Twas the Night Before Christmas reading, celebrate the fact that this IS Jesus Christ's birthday party... good old fashioned Christmas.

Don't worry about fancy, worry about family.  Don't worry about re-gifting, worry about giving.  Don't worry if you can't afford to give a lot of gifts, worry about giving the gift of time and a little of yourself.  Bake cookies and deliver them in person to some neighbors or relatives you might not see often enough.  Have some people over for coffee and cookies and enjoy their company without worrying if you have dishes in the sink or laundry that needs folded.  Call someone whom you love and share a Christmas memory you have of them from years ago.  Find an "angel tree" somewhere and buy a gift for a complete stranger...you get where I am going with this.  Do the things that make you sigh when you accidentally flip to a Holiday movie on the Hallmark Channel.

Remember...Santa is watching.

It just seems like the world is crying out for a good, wholesome, homegrown Christmas.  Where Christ is the center of attention and there is more joy in who you are with than what you will get.

There is a heightened sense of urgency this year...we are already 2 full rows down on the advent calender.  I have already watched Christmas Vacation...twice.  Jingle the Elf has already fallen off the wine rack atop the fridge and had to be placed ever-so-carefully to a safer place, on the Christmas tree with tongs... as not to touch him and spoil his Christmas magic...

...the game is afoot...the clock has started...time is running out...

But the lights... you must admit ...they are shining brighter this year.

Only 15 days left until Christmas.  And I plan to make the most of each one.

It's the most wornderful time....

Ahh...the days are brisk and sunny, the nights are cold, and the mornings are downright freezing...it must be December in Ohio.


We stayed true to our tradition and put up the tree and all the trimmings on Black Friday. Enjoyed Orrville's Home for the Holidays later that night and spent the rest of the weekend enjoying family and lots and lots of food.

The kids welcomed our Elf, Jingle, back from the North Pole and run downstairs each morning now to see where he's hiding. He flies back to report to Santa on their behavior each night while the boys sleep and then repositions himself in a new spot around the house upon his return. It’s amazing the lengths that adults go to just to prolong that Christmas magic for their children. I love it.

With a 9 month old who is mobile and into EVERYTHING we are passing on the ceramic village this year that usually gets built under the tree and are waiting to set up the model train until the boys downright beg for it. Keeping little G from pulling the entire tree down on top of himself is work enough for now.


We did set up a Playmobil Nativity under the tree...really cool, part toy, part teaching tool to help the kids keep in the forefront that amidst all the twinkling lights and make believe, Christ's birth is the reason for the magic, and the greatest gift ever given.

I enjoyed my first viewing of the classic Christmas Vacation this week...I'll watch it at least 4 more times before Santa takes his big ride. For some reason I relate all too well with Clark Griswold.

23 more days until Christmas. Time to break out the red sweaters and eggnog...