Christmas Decorating

     It is just the first week of December and I am proud to say that I have my house completely decorated for Christmas. I would also like to say that it is done in an elegant, sophisticated, minimalist style that would draw raves from the interior designers I used to work with. I would LIKE to say that, but the truth is that it looks more like Mrs. Santa threw a wild party with about forty-three rogue elves and they did not clean up after themselves.

     I don't know what happens to me at Christmas but I can't seem to stop myself. Every after-Christmas sale for the past forty-five years had me stocking up on bargains I couldn't live without and when we downsized from a large eight-room house to our present five-room bungalow we downsized our Christmas decorations not a whit.

      Of our five rooms, three of them have decorated Christmas trees. The one in the living room is tall and glamorous. Okay, tall. And the one in the grandkids' room has all the ornaments my kids made in past years of out of Popsicle sticks, toilet paper cardboard and cotton balls and such with their own little hands. The cotton balls have worn away but we still remember what they were supposed to be. The reindeer whose bodies were made of Lifesavers melted in the attic one year, but the reindeer made of clothes pins still hangs proudly on the tree.  My very favorite ornaments for that tree are made of cut-out egg carton foam  and adorned with pictures of Josh and Jake by some very clever preschool Sunday School teachers back in the 'seventies.  Every year I ooh and aah when I take them gently out of the box. They were so cute back then!

          In the same spirit, but classier maybe, the living room tree has ornaments that are tiny picture frames with photos of each of the grandchildren, four for every year since the youngest was born. If we keep this up, by the time the youngest is a senior in high school there will seventy-two picture ornaments. There is a whole set of teeny Thomas Kincaid houses, sixteen, I think.  It's a good thing the tree is nine feet tall. Some of the other ornaments may have to go.

     There is a tree squeezed into the kitchen with cookies, my kids silver baby spoons, and kitchen-y things on it. When I say squeezed, I mean if you have to get back between it and the table before the meal, you must then wait till your food has worn off before you can get out. No loosening your belt for third helpings back there.

     And there are more trees scattered about, ten, with and without ornaments, from eight inches up to the nine foot living room one. We won't talk about the trees outside. And, of course, I've never met a Nativity scene I didn't like. There are about eight of them, but to give a nod to Santa Claus, there are fifteen Santa figurines. I've always worried a little that Santa would overshadow the real meaning of Christmas, so just to combine the two, I collect figures of Santa kneeling at the manger and there are six, not counting the three foot tall wooden cut-out Santa that is kneeling before Baby Jesus and lit up with a spotlight on our front lawn. Plus multiple wreaths, inside and out, snowmen, sleighs with little presents the size of a pack of gum, the thirty-four piece Victorian village...you can see inside the shop windows!...plates and candles and Wise Men and various and sundry flotsam and jetsam of the Christmas persuasion that we have come across over the years. And remember, there have been a lot of years. Oh, and fake poinsettias, the kind with fuzzy leaves.    

     My mom was the Anti-minimalist when it came to decorating her home.Year round there wasn't a surface in her house, including the spaces between the stairs rails, that wasn't home to some figurine, and the shinier, the more bejeweled, the better. That may be why the eleven months of the year that aren't the Christmas season I favor a less-is-more style, but yesterday, when Dennis spotted (and remember he is nearly legally blind)  the Christmas pillows on the couch with the big gold bows tied around them  he said "I think your mom would have liked those."

      It was code for "gaudy". I didn't even care. It's Christmas.

Sam

I'm not feeling much like blogging today.  My heart is too heavy with the loss of our nephew, Sam, who was killed in a car wreck yesterday.  Just a few thoughts about his short life.

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Sam was a kid that the Lord really wanted to be born.

When I first started "going steady" with Dennis in my senior year of high school people at school would say "You mean OWEN Carey's brother???"  My future brother-in-law, was, how shall I say this?  A hell-raiser.  He was constantly in trouble with some authority or another. Even after he did a tour in Viet Nam and returned, when you thought he might have matured, he finally wound up fleeing to New Hampshire a few steps ahead of the cops.

He got married there, had a couple of kids and then one day we got a phone call from him. "Guess what!  I'm a Christian now!"

We turned to each other and said "Sure.  Wonder how long that will last."

But we were amazed and thrilled to find that God had done the changing, not Owen, and the guy who never did anything in a small way became an evangelist, a preacher, a church planter and is still, despite our  initial doubts, so "Radically Saved" that anyone around him wants what he has.

Along the way there were more kids born, five, in about ten years time.  Owen was gone a lot and Esther, his wife, was worn out!  In fact, there were difficulties with her fifth pregnancy and she had to be hospitalized for several months. It was time to stop.  No more kids.  Of course I was very discreet in my suggestions.  "Stop!" I said.  "You're crazy!" I said. "Owen, you need to take care of this." I said.  Not that I ever interfere in anybody's private life.

Owen just smiled and instead of telling me to mind my own business, said "I'm waiting on God."  And God wanted Sam to be born.

He was the last, the baby. He had some learning challenges so Esther spent more time with him than she had the others because she both home schooled him and drove him several hours a week to special classes.  Owen was able to spend more time with him as Sam's basketball career took off.  Did I mention he grew to be six feet, eight inches tall?

Sam was recruited to play basketball for the local college, then he played a season in Uruguay, a season in Germany, and then this year, with the NBA sitting out and Canada still going strong in basketball, Sam was recruited to play there.

In between basketball seasons Sam met Kayte and this summer Brayden was born.  I've been following them on Facebook and you've never seen a prouder daddy.  Brayden had some severe health problems when he was born, and Sam was constantly with him. When Brayden finally got to go home from the hospital and Kayte went back to work, Sam was a stay-at-home dad.  Brayden was no bigger than the palm of Sam's big hand at first, but Sam changed diapers, gave baths, rocked and fed, the whole nine yards.  Or is that full-court press?

The basketball season started and Sam left to go play basketball in Canada to support his family.  He couldn't be home every day but the communication was constant.  They Skyped so Sam could see Brayden and Brayden could see his daddy. Then on Tuesday Sam had a few days available and he was headed home to his family.

We'll never know what happened next.  Was he hurrying too much?  Probably so.  Did he try to make the trip on too little sleep because he was so anxious to see Kayte and Brayden?  Maybe. The emergency crew did all they could do.  The doctors did all they could do.  It wasn't enough.  No matter what the cause here on earth, God was ready to take Sam home.
 
Twenty-six years is such a short time. Sam packed them full of life.  Our hearts are breaking here on earth but we are grateful for those twenty-six years.  They were exactly the length of time God planned for him.