Sweet?

So here's a thing I've been thinking about since..a few weeks before Thanksgiving, I guess.

I had been thinking I'd like to be doing more for other people, and not just worrying about my own, and my family's, concerns so much. I was starting to feel really self-centered, and a little down. And it was hard because I'm not really in a position to do much for people. Or, the things I  can do... I may not be aware of the need.

One day, in Relief Society, they sent around a sign-up for people to cook once a week for an older couple; they had recently discovered that the wife had congestive heart disease, and would probably die within six months. The husband was taking care of the cooking, and didn't feel like he needed help, but they were glad to accept the offer of having someone bring them a meal once a week and visit with them a little, on Wednesdays. And I thought, "I can do that." So I signed up for a day that was still free.

And then I thought, It's easy for me to cook a meal for another person, or even for a whole other family. I have food in the house; I like to cook. This is something I can do for other people. And I decided to volunteer to cook for people whenever I heard about that particular need. So whenever a sign-up sheet went around, I put my name on it.

And pretty soon people started telling me, "It's so sweet of you to do that!"

??

OK. Next scenario.

I found out about a family who needed some Christmas. The only thing I did was put a bug into the right ears, and Christmas happened. And it was wonderful to be a part of it—to see how people just jumped in to help. That was truly the best part of my Christmas this year. But, again, people were telling me, "It's so sweet of you to do this for them!"

And it was weird, you know? That's not what it was about.

One more.

A few weeks ago a friend, an older lady who lives by herself, called us on a Saturday night around 9 p.m. because she needed a ride to the emergency room. Bruce and I were glad to take her. And we stayed with her until 2 a.m. and gave her a ride home.

The following Sunday I was telling another friend about this and she said, "It was so sweet of you to do that for her."

And I am really puzzled.

I'm not doing these things, or telling people about them because I want a pat on the head. I told people about the Christmas thing because I  needed the help. I was telling about my Saturday friend in the E.R. because my Sunday friend wondered why I was so tired that day.

I wasn't being sweet. It's just...  These things needed to be done; people had a need. And I was there. I didn't do anything amazing, I just did what anyone would have done.

So how should I react—what should I say—to people who want to praise me for these things? Because the polite—and even kind—thing would be to graciously accept their compliment, I guess. I mean, if someone praised my skills as a pianist (which is not likely with the amount of practicing I do), that's what I would do; I would just say, "Thank you." But that is really a different thing.

I guess this is why we do our alms in secret; why, when we do a good deed, we try to do it so that our right hand doesn't even know what the left hand is doing.

I don't need anyone to say anything about this; I'm certainly not fishing for more compliments. I'm just trying to process it, I guess.

Organ Transplant

Today I need to talk about something really important.

Just kidding!

I'm really going to talk about Christmas some more!

Despite all the extra stuff we were doing all the way up to Christmas Eve, we managed to get the house fairly clean and our traditional dinner all cooked by 6:30. (Michael asked, "How long has this dinner actually been a 'tradition'?"  He did say it with the extra quotation marks—I could hear it. Well... Only about three years, I guess. But it's yummy, so now it's a tradition.) We used paper plates, so clean-up was easy. Hooray!

Then we watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas while we hid in our respective corners, behind large pillows and piles of wrapping paper, and finished wrapping all our gifts. For the rest of the evening we played some games, ate snacky things, and then wrapped up the evening watching The Christ Child. 

I guess I got to bed before midnight—which is saying something on Christmas Eve.

But then I had to visit the bathroom at 4:00 a.m. I went back to bed, thoroughly intending to continue my long winter's nap, but I was still awake at 5:00. So I got up, figuring there was no sense, or kindness, in tossing around and keeping Bruce awake too. I went and sat at the computer, and played dumb solitaire games. Then at 5:30 I heard an alarm go off. Really?!

My three stinker girls all got up, went down the stairs and into the great room where they sat looking at the tree and the presents, and talking and giggling together. (Actually, I think this is their tradition. 😊 )  I thought for sure they'd go and "wake me up" at any minute. But by 6:00 they hadn't made their move, and I was tired enough to go back to bed, so I did. I waited for them to come get us, but  I just fell asleep again pretty quickly.

The girls finally did start knocking on bedroom doors at 7:00, and I woke up more groggy than I had at 4:00. Ah, well.

Breakfast went into the ovens to bake while we opened gifts. My kids with jobs had gotten gifts for everyone, and we had the things I got, and a couple of things that Santa brought us—including a banana chair! It was nice. But we couldn't open the home-made sibling gifts because Jason and Adreanna spent their Christmas Day with her parents; that tradition would have to wait a couple more days.

Bruce got the first gift of the morning: nestled among twelve
pairs of socks was a book of Dad Jokes (from Lindsey).
And then we had to listen to him read out Dad Jokes for a while before we could get back to opening gifts.

We had our lovely—traditional—breakfast around 9 a.m., and when breakfast was done I would have gone back to bed...but we were expecting Daniel to come and help Bruce unload my giant surprise from the van. Daniel showed up around 10:30 with his brother-in-law, Nick, and his older kids, Thomas, Ruth Ann, and Hannah. I prepared our afternoon/evening meal for the oven—with my back to the goings-on—while I heard the grunts and clunks and movings of fate. Or a Christmas present.

They had to remove the door from its hinges
in order to get my gift into the house...

And the entire time I was hoping that I would be sufficiently excited and pleased after all the build-up of the past couple of weeks. (Oh...wow. You got me a mechanical bull. Thanks...?)

They did finally wrangle it into place, but to do it they had moved the table so it blocked my path from the kitchen directly to the great room. I had to go around, through the hallway, through the living room, through the dining area, and then in to where my gift sat. The paparazzi were there with their cameras along the entire route.

I walked into the great room and saw...

This cracks me up—look at all the cameras pointed at me! 😃

An organ!

A full-size, performance/church organ (32 foot pedals and two keyboards...registers), in a really beautiful wood console. Wow!

I also got a box of organ music, and about ten old music magazines called The Etude, which were printed in the early 1930's. I may copy a couple of the covers of those, frame them, and hang them in the great room, near the organ. Maybe.

It didn't take me long to start wondering if Bruce, who is a terrible liar, actually lied to me when I asked if he'd gotten me an organ, or if that was one thing where he just said, "That would be cool!"  What do you think?

Anyway, the man who called Bruce way back on the ...third?... day of Christmas was a guy in our ward. His brother-in-law wanted to get rid of this organ that he's had for about thirty years, but he wanted it to go to someone who would use it. He got it from a lady who had it for around twenty years, and she got it from the old Ashley Ward Building, and we didn't know how long it had been there. And now it belongs to us. Wow. (Actually, I'm still trying to wrap my head around this.)

We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting with friends. The Ray kids and our kids exchanged gifts and played a game together. We ate more snacky stuff, and in the evening we watched a movie; End Game, I think (which is when I fell asleep). Then we played some of our new games—Big Boggle, and Splickety-Litt. Fun!

So we had a great Christmas Day—really nice. But our holiday still wasn't over...

Days Eight through Twelve...

On the Eighth Day of Christmas (Friday, the 20th) I learned that a young family with a handful of little kids probably wouldn't have much of a Christmas. That really bothered me, and I thought I would have to try to do something—at least come up with one little gift for each child.

Then I got an idea; a wonderfully...wonderful idea! I asked Lindsey if she thought that the Young Single Adult Ward that she attends would be willing to help out. And she immediately put a post on their facebook page. And she immediately got responses:

"What do they need?"
"What do they want?"
"Can I help?"
"I'd like to do something."
"Are gift cards OK?"
"This is what Christmas is all about!"

This was looking to be fantastic!

On the Ninth Day of Christmas we still hadn't even started on one of our favorite holiday traditions: The Gingerbread House. So I spent that morning baking the house; we'd build and decorate it together on Sunday.

baked and ready for the next step

On the Tenth Day of Christmas, after church and after lunch, our family built the house—even Bruce helped with it! I had already contacted a friend and asked if her kids would like to have a "pretty fabulous gingerbread house." (I don't think she was expecting it to actually be as "fabulous" as it was. 😉)

The girls put in the colored "glass."

The windows are glazed, the frosting is made, and Kaylie is
putting the decorations candies into dishes. The sugar-wafer
cookies are for shutters—an innovation this year
—and we used them to make the front door, too.

And construction is under way!
And this time around we didn't drop or knock over any pieces. Yay!

The kids bricked up the front of the chimney with PEZ; the bricks on the side were more of a precision job. If you look closely you can see that Jessica is using curved tweezers to place a brick here.

Bruce and Kaylie put on the finishing touches.
The roof design was new this year, too. We pressed the criss-cross pattern onto the roof pieces before we baked it. Kaylie added most of the frosting and candy.

We finished the house just in time for dinner. Of course, we had to take pictures before we ate.

front

left side

back
(One of the kids (the little kids we gave this to, not my kids)
was really excited about the candy canes on the back.)

right side
(The Christmas tree is made of sugar-wafers smothered in frosting and green sprinkle-sugar.  Yuck. I mean, cute, but yucky.)

We delivered the house right after dinner; I don't think we even cleaned up first. When we arrived, our chosen recipients had guests over—including two more children.  😊  The grown-ups couldn't stop talking about how amazing the house was, and asking questions about the making of it. But the little kids were the real delight—they were so excited! As soon as they saw their house they flocked to it, and hardly left it the entire time we were visiting. Their oldest boy, who knows me, hugged me and said, "I didn't know you did this!"

Such fun!

Also, by that Sunday, the Tenth Day of Christmas, we had already received some snuggly blankets for each child of the little family we were helping, and a few hundred dollars in gift cards and cash. This was looking to be more than fantastic!

On Monday, the Eleventh Day of Christmas, Lindsey and I were out shopping again—this time for another family than our own. Gifts were still arriving at the house, and we were packaging, wrapping, labeling and boxing them up. That, along with our own family holiday preparations, kept me up until midnight. But, although I was tired, it was just fun to be part of the excitement and generosity of everyone who had helped out.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas I was still running around helping my kids with their projects. We were cleaning house, making the ciabatta rolls for dinner, and making treats for Christmas Eve. I put a message out to my ward to see if anyone would be willing to deliver a ready-to-cook Christmas dinner and the wrapped and boxed-up gifts to our little family; I had a response within minutes. And then another, and another. Since the second and third-in-line helpers missed out on delivering what we already had, they offered to get more gifts, or give cash to this family. Almost as soon as the first big delivery was out the door, another big box full of gifts and treats arrived! Fortunately I was able to send that out with my second-in-line elf (who also kindly offered to wrap all of these new gifts).

I soon received a text from Elf Number One saying, "Thank you so much for letting us help with this. The kids [of the little family] were so excited!" And later Elf Number Two sent a text saying that the box of gifts had been wrapped and delivered. Yay!

Although it would have been delightful to see the reactions of our family when the gifts were dropped off, or to have pictures of Christmas morning, that obviously would have defeated the purpose. I trust that they did, indeed, have a Merry Christmas.

It was so exciting to see all the eager love and support that the young adults (ages 18 through 30) and my own friends were sending to a family of strangers. Everyone who participated in the gift-giving and in the delivering of the gifts thanked me for letting them be a part of this. It was truly wonderful, and it filled my house—or at least me, my own heart—with a glorious happiness.

Whoever said it was right: This is what Christmas is all about!

Our Twelve Days of Christmas

There's a thing that people do sometimes around Christmas: for the final twelve days before Christmas, up through Christmas Eve, they will prepare gifts for another family or friend—one for each of the Twelve Days, and deliver them secretly each day.

So many things happened for Christmas this year that it's hard to know how to tell it, and it will definitely take more than one post. This, today's post starts with our twelve days.

But first, a word from our sponsor: I really, really love Christmas!
I listen to Christmas music year-round. I love to see the Christmas decorations being put out in the stores in October—the pretty things just make me happy. I publish my ridiculous Christmas wish-list on November 1st. And I probably start anticipating my favorite holiday about the time school gets out for the year. I love Christmas!

That said, this Christmas season started out feeling a little bit stressful. To begin, with Thanksgiving being so late in the month of November, it seemed like Christmas was coming up fast! And I didn't how I would get gifts for my family; I was wracking my brain trying to think of things I could make for them that wouldn't cost a lot of time or cash, and attempting to think of things we could do together to make up for an empty Christmas tree. I needn't have worried.

On the First Day of Christmas Bruce spent the day and the night helping a friend of ours get to Wyoming for work. Al had hit a deer, and needed someone to take him on the six-hour trip. His wife, Jodie, was planning to do it, but we didn't want her to leave her family here (with her sister, but still...) and we especially didn't want her to make the drive with her two-month-old baby. So we were happy to send Bruce.

On the Second Day of Christmas my kids started talking to me about their homemade projects for their sibling gift exchange. Even though they drew names in August, and some of them had even decided what to make way back then, most of the Christmas projects started to happen in the last two weeks before Christmas.

On the Fourth Day of Christmas (the 16th) I found myself with a little cash in hand...enough to get at least one or two things for each of my kids. And so Lindsey and I were scrambling around to get some Christmas shopping done. (Thank goodness for Amazon Prime!)

By the Ninth Day of Christmas I got all my shopping—including groceries for Christmas Day—and a lot of my gift-wrapping almost finished. I very nearly did it! But on the Eleventh Day of Christmas (Monday, the 23rd) I realized that the Cool Whip never got picked up, and I wondered if there'd even be any left in the stores—same for marshmallows and milk chocolate chips. And I was still waiting for a couple of packages from Amazon.

That Monday there was a log-jam in the baking aisle of Smiths; I'm pretty sure the whole town was getting mini marshmallows and milk chocolate chips, too. There was one lady, surrounded by shopping carts, on her hands and knees, peering into the very back depths of the bottom shelf where she found the marshmallows! And then she handed them out to everyone else who was looking for them with a, "Merry Christmas!"

Then I was looking for the milk chocolate chips, but there were none to be found. I was standing there looking, and listing off, "Semi-sweet, dark, 70% cacao, semi-sweet, mini-semi-sweet..."  No milk chocolate. Then a lady a few carts behind me said, "I found some milk chocolate chips!" and handed them to her husband, who gave them to me, saying, "Merry Christmas!"

Another man helped me out by getting me some things that I couldn't reach from the back of the top shelf. "Merry Christmas!" he said.

Everyone was so cheerful and friendly, despite the last-minute shopping, and a store parking lot—and a store—with absolutely no empty spaces. Good will was abounding; people did, indeed, "seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely" —so much so that I wondered, Why can't it always be like this? All of that  jolly, cordial helpfulness were things I really noticed this year that made Christmas marvelous. Like the reformed Scrooge, I'm sure it would be good for us to "honour Christmas in [our] heart[s], and try to keep it all the year."

Anyway, intermingled with the shopping and good cheer were the kids' Christmas projects. On the Eighth through Twelfth Days of Christmas I was literally being pulled in about five different directions whenever I was at home: cleaning house; preparing food; wrapping gifts; running from one room to another to help the kid who was calling for me. (Fortunately, there were only two sewing projects this year; that made things a lot easier.) Despite all the running, and my sore, sore feet, everyone was happy and getting things done in decent time.

Then there was Bruce.

On the Third Day of Christmas Bruce got this mysterious phone call (two Sundays before Christmas.) And then he just started acting kind of goofy. I would catch him grinning over nothing, or chortling to himself. He had something up his sleeve. He quickly confessed to me that he had a special Christmas gift for me; in fact, it was BIG, it would be delivered to our house, and I would get it early because there would be no way of wrapping or hiding it.

Well, it didn't turn out quite that way. On the Seventh Day of Christmas (Thursday, the 19th) Bruce ended up having to make a one hour drive  in our van—minus all the seats—to go pick up this mysterious present. He took Michael and Ryan with him, and they told me how heavy and awkward it was to load into the van, and that it took five guys to do it.

Bruce drove around with my big gift in the van clear up until Christmas Day. And, to my credit, I will tell you that I did not peek even once! (Who had time for that?) Every time I caught him grinning, or looking like he was thinking about his favorite things, I'd ask, "What?" and he'd tell me how excited he was about my present, with a "tee-hee!"

So I started making guesses: A hot-tub?

Nope, but that would be great!

New double-ovens to replace my dinosaur ovens?

No.

Is it something I've ever mentioned wanting in the house before?

Nope!

Hmmm. A pool table? An air-hockey table? An organ? New kitchen cabinets? (Well, I have mentioned kitchen cabinets before...)

The answer was always a variation of, "No, but that's a great idea," or, "That would be cool."

So my funny, giddy husband made our Twelve Days a lot of fun.

And a lot more than that happened in those Twelve Days, but it's time to stop for now. You can continue to anticipate our Christmas over the first few days of the new year...

The Meaning of Life

This morning, at the breakfast table, we were talking about chili (chile?) peppers—which seems to be a hot topic for us at mealtimes.

Bruce said that chili peppers go against the rules of evolution. And Ryan was saying that mammals can't eat chili peppers—only humans. So I quickly formed a conclusion and rudely interrupted both of them:

"If chili peppers evolved so they would not be eaten, and therefore survive; and mammals evolved into humans who do eat hot peppers... Then chilies and humans must be in a fight to see which is the superior race!"

Bruce asks, "Which one is winning?"

And Ryan says, "Chili peppers."

As the conversation continues, Ryan says that humans are actually breeding peppers to have more capsaicin (the stuff that makes peppers hot) in them. In fact, the hottest pepper currently known, the Carolina Reaper was bred by humans.

To give you an idea how hot this pepper is, a Jalapeno pepper measures 2500 to 800 Scoville Heat Units (SCH), pepper spray measures 2,000,000 to 5,300,000 SCH, and the Carolina Reaper measures 2,200,000 SCH.

And someone created it to be this inedibly hot.

Yes, the peppers are winning the race for supremacy, and we humans are helping them!