December 25 - Random Christmas Musings

Merry Christmas All!

We celebrated family Christmas a week early, minus the whole Santa fantasy. Because Santa is pretty accommodating, but really couldn't round up the reindeer in time to make a trip to just our house. I hope the kids understand.

Anyway, here are some of the awesome advantages of that:

-1st dibs on present-opening excitement, before all the other kids get their latest & greatest.

-Somehow, even with having to be ready earlier, it was less stressful. If we needed something last minute, the grocery store lines weren't quite psychotic yet. Everyone's expectations seemed more reasonable. (With the possible exception of Skyler, who had been campaigning for ridiculous present for weeks.)

-We had more snow then. All you weather-haters can shush, because White Christmases are lovely.

- We get to enjoy tapering off Christmas carols, without abruptly launching into Auld Lang Syne & "The Year in Review".

- Dale has given me permission to transition the holiday decorations to "winter lights" & leave them up longer. ;-)

- We got Christmas dinner leftovers for over a week. Yum.

- We get to stay in jammies all day today, eat junk food like caramel chocolate popcorn & nachos, & watch Grey's Anatomy & West Wing re-runs. No agenda, no pressure, no guilt.



I'm campaigning for early Christmas every year now.

December 15 - Halving Holidays

'Tis the season, so for my mental health I needed to take a moment and acknowledge some of the crummy realities of broken families this time of year. If you're still busy caught up in the magic of it all, feel free to skip this post.

- When parents split, kids get bounced back and forth. We end up competing for time. We have to keep track of who gets which holiday day, and the schedule is a complicated matrix of hours and overnights and who-had-what last year.

- We compete for present pizazz. It ends of being a value comparison in my family. We value time together & experiences, but what kid doesn't want tons of stuff under the tree? Or the latest electronic wonderfulness (which I'm too cheap to buy)?

- We compete for family memories. We no longer share extended family, so all the shared family traditions like celebrating Grandma's birthday and haystacks for Christmas Eve dinner and family from out of town staying all week no longer apply. We try to develop new traditions to replace what seems to be missing. We hope it compensates for the loss.

Through all this, kids get to play the game of loving both families separately, alternating allegiances, when they really long for everyone to be together. I know, we're still in transition and learning in my family. This will seem less painful as the scabs become scars and continue to fade. I just wanted to go on record pointing out that broken families are just that. Broken. And even though people are resilient, and can adjust to lots of yucky situations, this wasn't God's design.

All that being said, we really did have a lovely Christmas celebration with the kids last Sunday. I'm very proud of their positive attitudes and smiles. Aren't they cute?

December 7 - Snow Day!

Woke up to over a foot of snow covering the world and cancelled plans (school, therefore work). It's like a little gift of breathing room except for the trickiness of patient and co-worker expectations.
Here's what NOT to do on a snow day: try to be productive outside the house. I was able to re-schedule most things, but I had one local guy who needed a quick evaluation, so I tucked the kids in with snacks and thought I'd run over there. Except it's a snow day for a reason.

I eased out of our driveway, but promptly slid off a few miles down the road. Like, totally stuck in a country drive with only a sickly woman and an infant close by. After over an hour of shoveling, hacking at ice, rocking back & forth in the van, shoveling more, the woman called her boyfriend who sent a guy with a strap & a truck. It still took 20 minutes of doe-si-doe with the pick-up, but whew! We made it out.

My charming husband called about then to tell me the roads didn't seem too bad this morning. Right. Unless, of course, you have to stop. Or turn around. Or pass someone. Other than that you're good to go!

So rather than blaspheming the beauty of a snow day, I'm repenting and tucking in for the day. Here's a better plan:

Please excuse me, now I need to go make hot chocolate...

December 6 - The Prevention Plan

'Tis the season for open enrollment, for examining your benefits and making adjustments to 401K contributions and insurance premiums. Technically that was last month for me, but I'm just now getting around to writing about it.

I'm thankful for an employer that provides many great benefits, and has a whole team dedicated to finding good deals for the members. Really, in today's world, I'm lucky to have health insurance that doesn't cost me my firstborn child.


So I'm grateful. But also leery. In addition to a significant increase in premium costs this year, our plan is requiring a Health Screening self-assessment and mandatory blood tests. As a health care provider and proponent for preventive maintenance, I totally get this. What a great way to help people understand their risks and coach life changes that will save valuable time and money and improve quality of life. Right?
However, as an independent-minded individual who hates being micro-managed, this grates on me. I'm responsible about my regular check-ups, and I'm pretty sure the whole process will just make me feel guilty for eating stuff I shouldn't and not exercising enough. Duh.


Then there's the subtle sense of impending doom, like someone is going to make us all exercise 30 minutes a day or they won't pay for Pap smears and flu shots anymore. Oh I know, they promise that's not the intent, but as health costs rise and people keep getting sick, all manner of cost management measures start. When we move from rewards for healthy choices to mandatory blood tests, I feel the stage being set for all kinds of elitist or exclusionary policies. Regardless of what the current administration is promising.

God forbid if you're genetically pre-disposed to cancer!

December 1 - Advent & Seasons

Tree's up, house is decorated, cookies in progress, 1/2 the presents wrapped, practicing carols on the piano, and it's only the 1st of December. I'm ahead of the holiday season game for once, and it feels great!

Typically I'm a hum-buggy kind of girl. I'm a cheap-skate, and the commercialism is cuckoo. I want to give, give, give but really I'm a save, save, saver. I love to volunteer, but the perceived obligations (food banks, soup kitchens, adopt-a-family, snowflakes for seniors, perks for the garbage guy, the mail lady, the bus drivers, the teachers, the co-workers, the bosses) overwhelm me. I worry about everyone's expectations, and get my own expectations all twisted up in the mean time. Ick.

Somehow, this month's positivity is actually winning over all of that. I know, it's early. But today I read this insightful and moving post by Rob Bell (via my friend, Tim Burkey). He talks about how the church sets aside seasons for breaking up our tendancy toward monotony or being overwhelmed, to focus our attention and hearts.

The life of the spirit is a dynamic reality, taking us through a myriad of emotions, experiences and states of being. What the church calendar does is create space for Jesus to meet us in the full range of human experience, for God to speak to us across the spectrum, in the good and the bad, in the joy and in the tears.

And Advent, the season leading up to celebrating Christ's birth, is about expectation and deep longing for what's to come. Because something is missing in this world. Something isn't right. Advent confronts our cynicism about getting our hopes up, our chronic expectation of betrayal, and whispers, A better day is coming...

So, while part of me suspects I'm ahead of the game because I have to split holiday time with ex's and celebrate whenever we can, I find I'm a little hopeful in my heart. Because I heard a soft promise that what is "not yet" will be worth it.