STAVE I: CHRISTMAS

Returning unwanted gift might not mean comfort and joy

2010-11-18T12:43:00.001-08:00

Roy got up at 6:30 the day after Christmas so he could beat the crowds and get to the gift return counter as early as possible.

When he arrived at the store parking lot, he was surprised at the number of shoppers with the same idea. He parked, grabbed his unwanted gift and made for the return counter.

Quite a few shoppers had arrived ahead of him, but that was okay; standing in line would allow him to think about what to buy with his refund.

For Christmas, he’d really wanted the shiatsu massager with iPod dock and mug warmer, but no one thought to give it to him. Maybe he could have it after all.

Standing in line, he was cold. The return counter stood near the front door, and cold air rushed in. His neck ached from looking over and around heads to see the gift return clerks.

He heard the exchanges at the counter:

“Do you have a receipt?”

“No.”

Well, who did have a receipt for a Christmas present, an item someone else bought for you?

“What is the reason for the return?” a clerk asked one woman.

“It’s too big.”

He heard other voices give different reasons for their returns:

“It’s too tight.”

“It doesn’t match.”

“I have too much of this already.”

“It wasn’t what I was expecting.”

Knowing others were unhappy with their gifts made Roy feel better about returning his. He wasn’t the only one disappointed in Christmas. And it wasn’t that he had anything against his father for giving him an unwanted gift. He just knew he could do better, so here he was.

He began to dream about his neck being massaged with the shiatsu massager, while sipping cocoa and listening to Norah Jones on his iPod. His feet began to thaw as he thought of it all.

Up ahead was a small commotion.

“I don’t care if it’s an uneven exchange,” said a man. “I don’t want this gift. I want Guitar Hero.”

Roy noticed how unhappy the returners were. They scowled and muttered. Some kept glancing at their watches as if to signal the clerks that they were important, and in a hurry and needing attention.

Before long, only one customer stood ahead of him.

“Good,” he thought. Soon he would be able to discover whether he had enough to buy his shiatsu massager. Then he saw an ad for a Wii and began weighing its merits against those of the massager.

Whatever he decided, he would have to come up with a reason for his return. He looked down at his plain, simple gift and sighed. It was too big and too small. It didn’t fit his lifestyle. It was too tight, very constricting at times. It didn’t match his way of doing things. He had too much of it already, or, if not too much, more than he felt comfortable with. And it certainly wasn’t what he was expecting. He was expecting something fun or comfortable or entertaining or profitable.

Roy looked down dejectedly at his gift. He didn’t want this baby, nor this manger.

The baby started to cry as Roy approached the clerk. And then he noticed the other customers. They all, too, held babies in mangers and were giving reasons they needed to exchange them for something else.

Those babies began to cry a little, too, and pretty soon a soft, low cry reverberated through the whole store.

It was hard returning Christmas, but Roy knew that sometimes Christmas just wasn’t enough.

It helps to know what Christmas looks like

2010-11-18T12:29:00.000-08:00

I spent 30 minutes helping my son search for a blue folder containing sheet music. After turning the house upside down, my son finally remembered that the music wasn't in a folder at all, but in a plain manila envelope.

I had passed it dozens of times because I didn't really know what I was looking for.

In another fruitless search, my daughter agreed to pick up some blue replacement bulbs for an outdoor strand of Christmas lights. I wasn't sure the size: C-7? C-9? The bulbs didn't say. The cord didn't say. I tried describing them. A little bigger than my thumb. My daughter searched thoroughly and returned with C-7s – too small. They were smaller than my thumb, but larger than hers.
Searching for an overdue book is similar. What are we looking for? A red hardback about the size of a thick novel, someone says. No luck. A week later we find it: a tall, thin, blue paperback. We really didn't know what we were looking for.

   Too many times, after searching, I've found DVDs in the wrong case; it's disappointing to find Bing Crosby when I'm expecting Laurence Olivier. And when Hamlet turns up in a White Christmas DVD case, my kids are similarly miffed.
   Christmas sometimes seems like that kind of fruitless hunt. I don't do Black Friday, but earlier I tried to find a robotic cat featured in a store ad at a great price. I looked down every aisle. It wasn't there. I finally had to ask.
   "No. We're not getting those, and there's no rain check. But you can use this coupon online."
   I went online. The item was not listed for purchase, with or without the coupon. Fruitless!

It's also a fruitless search, sometimes, finding where you stored the special wreath, or the ornament Grandma gave you 3 years ago. And didn't you tuck away bargain Christmas cards somewhere?
I wonder if Christmas seemed like a fruitless hunt to the wise men. They traversed field and fountain, moor and mountain, following yonder star. Then, the only thing they found was a little kid and some pretty ragged-looking guardians. I bet if they'd used a GPS, they might have called the manufacturer's 800 number at that point. Or skimmed the online reviews.

This kid is a king? Next time we'll use the deluxe, super, mega telescope!
When the Christ-child grew up, others looked at him like he was some kind of wrong item, too. The Pharisees kept saying, "No, this can't be the Christ. The cover's wrong. This guy's from Galilee, and the Messiah's supposed to be from Bethlehem."

   Even John the Baptist wondered if he'd been part of a fruitless search. Sitting in a Roman prison, soon to have his head cut off, John likely puzzled over why the messianic deliverer was sermonizing on the mount and not overthrowing Rome.
   "Are you the One who should come -- or should we be looking for another?" he asked.
   We're all out "looking for another" Christmas.

Is Christmas about God zapping Himself into a certain location (+31° 40' 53.16", +35° 12' 0.70") on the earth at a specific point in history, to save the earth's people from themselves, or do we look for another, another kind of Christmas?

If we're always searching for "the real meaning of Christmas" we don't know what we are looking for, and likely as not, we're in for a big let down, kind of like finding the Chipmunk's Christmas CD in a Handel's Messiah case.

Time to stop useless searching and let Christmas find us.

Gluing together the Roman Empire for Christmas

2010-11-18T12:21:00.001-08:00

I don’t decorate. I have enough trouble keeping up with essentials. Right now, in a feeble attempt to decorate for Christmas, half a red garland hangs on our house, in lopsided mockery of décor.

No tree this year. You can’t imagine the time saved by not putting up a tree!

Decoration, I figure, is for people of leisure or taste.

Once, when visiting a home goods store on vacation, I admired the dainty, orderly and splashy looking items and saw what I was missing: a whole array of things to dust. But among the vases, pots, table linens and candles stood something different: a bust of Caesar Augustus.

What, I wondered, was this doing here? But there it was and at a very reasonable price, too. Imagine owning an emperor for thirty bucks! Since my husband Art teaches Roman history, what could be a better accessory than the head of a Roman emperor?

I mailed it home, carefully wrapped, and it made it without breaking. The bust sat regally in our living room -- among the clutter and laundry, books and dirty socks. The kids would dress Augustus in hats, sunglasses or earphones. After about three months, my husband took him to school to use in a class.

He then placed him in a gym bag in his office. Augustus remained in that bag on a chair. Weeks passed. One day, Art needed the chair for a student, forgot what was in the bag and tossed the bag to the floor. The early fall of the Roman Empire ensued.

The way Art described the shattering of Augustus, I assumed the bust was a permanent “bust,” but months later, the gym bag and ruins of Augustus came home, and I saw that he was in four large pieces, a little more than a triumvirate!

In no time, with ordinary Elmer’s, I had restored the Roman Empire, and Augustus now sits on a dining room counter next to our crèche, with only a prominent jaw line to show for his travails.

Augustus is the one Roman emperor mentioned in the Christmas story, with his plan to tax all the world, so I figure it’s appropriate for him to loom over the stable.

We don’t know much about this tax plan except it was typical of bureaucracy, forcing people like Joseph to go out of their way, at much inconvenience, for nothing.

From what the resident historian tells me, Augustus tried to unify Rome by encouraging emperor worship. So the people worshiped their emperor.

Meanwhile, another god/king slipped into the empire quietly one Christmas night. This one, though, was King of Kings and Lord of Lords; though weak and small, he came as God of all, into a little town in the far corner of the empire.

Years later, when the Christ-child grew up, he was trapped when asked whether it was right to pay taxes to oppressive Rome. If he said to pay, he was taking the side of oppressors. If he said not to pay, he could be in danger of treason charges.

He asked his critics to show him a coin.

“Whose image is this?” he asked.

“Caesar’s,” they told him.

“Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”

The saying has lasted more than two thousand years, and stands as a good rule, even for Christmas today.

When our tax forms arrive –- as they will pretty soon – that saying could serve as a prompt not only to remember what we owe Uncle Sam, but what we owe God, too.

Breaking Christmas, but not beyond repair

2008-12-05T10:29:00.000-08:00

Everything about Christmas is fragile, especially at a
2-year-old's eye level.

Shiny gold and red ornaments. Tapered candles. The
special crystal and glassware and dishes. Candy canes.
Colored lights.

All the Christmas paraphernalia cries out to be
inspected more closely, touched, handled and
experienced fully.

But they can break - so, no.

They sparkle, shine, tempt, invite. But - no! Too
fragile. Keep your hands away. No, no, no.

Laurie, 2, stands on tiptoe, gazing in toddler
adoration at ceramic Nativity figures.

"Could I play with the breakable people?" she asks.

Shepherd, angel and wise men are simply "the breakable
people." It's sad, but that is her name for them.

She has heard the Christmas story and knows "Away in a
Manger." She wants more. She wants to move closer, to
see firsthand the scene of the Nativity, to touch the
jeweled turban of Wise Man No. 1, to feel the glazed
wool of a sheep.

She also wants to know more about that "Lord Jesus"
she only hears about in stories and songs, the little
curious figure in a manger.

Do I tell her, "No! Too breakable. Stay away"? After
all, when her brother was her age, he threw the baby,
manger and all, across the room once. Do I reinforce
the idea that holy things are beyond reach, available
only for special classes to approach?

Though I don't want her to think of clay figurines as
idols, I also don't want her to think of God as some
cold, distant deity - untouchable, unavailable.

The last thing I want is for her to come away from
Christmas viewing God as unapproachable, an impersonal
force beyond the stars, or concerned only that she
doesn't break the rules. She should know that when
this God came, he brought the stars and the heavens
with Him.

I allow her to climb onto a chair for a better view of
the breakable people, against my impulse to preserve a
reasonably nice creche scene. She murmurs in toddler
tones to the cow. A wise man clinks against Joseph. I
cringe and resume washing dishes.

Laurie speaks gently to and for the breakable people.
In a few minutes, though, I see a guilty child
clutching Melchior and chattering about "pieces."

The wise man is intact, but I soon discover that a
shepherd's head is missing. We search.

The decapitated shepherd stands next to Mary, waiting
for his head. A pretty good place to be if your head
is missing. It has rolled a distance beyond the table,
and Laurie finds it.

"Can you fix this?" she asks. When you are 2, all
things can be fixed.

I glue head on body. In half an hour the shepherd
rejoins his party with only a ruffled hat to show for
his ordeal.

That problem solved, Laurie again peers into the
stable. "Lord Jesus is breakable," she observes.

I want to tell her that the figures are not idols,
that this baby is not "Lord Jesus," that the real Lord
Jesus is not breakable.

But I am stopped at the last point.

The real Lord Jesus was, in fact, very breakable.

One big reason for Bethlehem was for God to become
breakable on purpose.

He was not only breakable; He was broken.

This is my body, broken for you.

Broken for us and with us. We are the truly breakable
people. Always shattering ourselves and others, while
pretending we don't need glue.

We break away from what we know is right, crack into
sharp slivers, all the time pointing out the fractures
we notice in others, denying the severity of our own
splintered condition.

Lord Jesus wants to calmly apply red glue that hardens
clear.

Christmas breaks because only when it does can any
life at all be restored.

Broken for you.

But it's only Easter that provides the glue.

Donna Marmorstein 2002

Shutting the Door on Cold, or Christmas?

2008-12-05T09:58:00.000-08:00

Snow, or no snow, this time of year brings to kids those three words that mean so much.

Not "I love you," "How r u?" or "Ho, ho, ho!" (Okay. "Ho, ho, ho" is not three words, it's one word three times; and "How r u only qualifies for online chat heads.)

The words kids hear most often in winter are: "Shut that door!"

In our house we have two doors that must be closed upon entry. The front door leads directly to polar air flow. An entryway between the front door and the door to the living room mixes that icy air with house air.

The entryway serves as a buffer between Siberia and comfortable, living room heat.The kids rarely forget to close the front door. Somehow, frigid, arctic air jostles their brain cells enough to signal the door-closing response.

But after removing coat, hat and boots, and basking in the warmth of living room heat as they enter the living room, the kids fall victim to drowsy, warm influences on those same brain cells. The entryway door remains open, sending the gas meter ticking away at phenomenal speed.

"Shut that door!" When I was a kid, my friend's mom always shouted, "Born in a barn?" implying that barnyard animals are the only ones without sense to shut the door when it's cold. I never liked that expression, and I won't use it.

Besides, "Shut That Door!" has a nice, staccato sound to it, like nails pounded into memory. Usually, "Shut That Door!" is enough to stimulate the door-closing response, though not always.

Sometimes, shutting the door is nearly impossible. For adults, it's even more difficult than for kids.When you shut a door after a child first moves out on his own, that's hard.When you shut the door on a long relationship that has slowly unraveled, that's painful.

When you've sold everything you once cherished on the auction block, to move into assisted living, and shut your door for the very last time, that's agonizing.

Christmas is a door Sometimes it's wrong to shut the door. A neighbor needs help. Sorry. Slam.This Christmas, one large retailer decided to shut the door on the Salvation Army, forbidding bell-ringers.

Its corporate position statement cited the need for customers to enjoy "distraction-free shopping."Distraction-free shopping. There's the Christmas spirit!

A memo right from the desk of Scrooge and Marley. The charitable heart of Christmas ripped out and labeled a "distraction" from buying and selling.

Shutting the door on Christmas is probably no easier than shutting the door on a strong north wind. Still, some try. Some work to dilute Christmas with every Rudolf, sugar, tinsel, eggnog, Susy Snowflake mixture they can find.

Others stand at the doorstep, complaining about the welcome mat. Others rail against Christmas, citing their own bitter memories of past injustices, or predicting future ones. They refuse to go in unless they go in on their own terms at their own time, and try to block others from entering.

Disgruntled litigants apply legal pressure to shut tight any Christmas door left open to the public. But it's hard to shut a door on a door. And Christmas is a door. "I am the door," says the Christ child. "If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture."No more bolted doors. No more "Do not enter" signs.

You can be shut out of meetings, banned from white restaurants, corralled onto smaller and smaller reservations, locked out of board rooms, prevented from bell-ringing. But you can never be shut out of Christmas.

You can go in AND out. And find pasture. Rich, green, luxuriant pasture.And it won't matter if you leave the Christmas door open, because the Christ child himself was born in a barn.

Christmas is the door that faces biting, arctic air. But it's also the door that leads to warmth and comfort and welcome.Maybe every time a child comes home, I should accompany "Shut That Door!" with "Come On In!" because it somehow seems like a more Christmassy thing to do.

Donna Marmorstein 2004

Can Death Obliterate Christmas? Ask Herod

2008-12-05T09:54:00.000-08:00

Early in December, when stars seem sharper and bluer than at other times, Christmas music seems to sharpen them even more.

I unpack my age-old Christmas record collection.I'll put on “Goodyear's Great Songs of Christmas” with Mitch Miller and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I'll brew some cinnamon tea, light a mulberry-scented candle and write Christmas cards.

Usually, when stamps, return labels, address book and cards are arrayed before me, the carols swirl up together with the tea steam, and my toes turn warm. A deep, bone-radiating satisfaction takes over.Renewing contact with friends is one of the best parts of Christmas.

But this year something went wrong.It started when I tried to write a Christmas greeting to my aunt.

How can you wish holiday cheer to someone who just lost a husband to cancer?Her chance of merriment at Christmas is about nil.

My pen froze in midair as I tried to think of something to write. How jolly will her Christmas be, as she tries to mix celebration with grief?And his death will mar Christmases to come. My uncle's voice, singing every morning as he shaved, now stilled. His jokes, smiles and positive outlook - all gone.

And what do I write to warm the spirits of friends whose youngest child drowned in a lake this summer? Merry Christmas?Right.Every mall, every shop they enter where toys just right for a 6-year-old boy sit on display will become a torture chamber.

No message I write can convey joy without pain. There's no way around it.My address book isn't what it used to be either. Every page has abandoned addresses now.

My grandpa, long gone. My grandma, who every Christmas cooked up fudge, divinity and sugared walnuts, can't receive my Christmas greetings now.My other grandma - whose flashbulb ALWAYS malfunctioned Christmas morning - is dead, too, and I would love to feel her knobby, blue-veined hand on mine once more, and watch her “fiddle with” her camera now.

Her sister, wise, warmhearted Auntie Faye, died Christmas morning in her sleep at 97. Her address still echoes in my book.

All the expired addresses accumulate, and suddenly ripples spot my envelopes. The candle flickers out, the record player grinds to a halt. Stars blur and fall. The needles on the tree all turn brown and drop to the floor.

Death creeps into my address book. It grips my pen and tries to overpower my Christmas. No carol seems able to withstand its ugly claw.But then the turntable starts up again. The Coventry carol plays:By, by, lully, lullay/Herod the king, in his raging/Charged he hath this day/His men of might, in his own sight/All young children to slay.

The only carol I know that mentions Herod's slaughter of the innocents to destroy the Christ child and, consequently, Christmas. Pain, grief and fear riddled the first Christmas.This problem goes back a long time.

Herod, however, did not have this day.Death does not have this day.

In fact, the whole reason behind Christmas was to overthrow the power of death and sin and hell.So when death creeps up and grabs a loved one, Christmas kicks death in the teeth and says, “You can't keep that one. That's mine.”Death, where is thy sting? Stuck somewhere under the mistletoe, I suspect.

The needles fly back onto the tree and turn green. Falling stars rise and shine, resharpened. My cold tea steams up again. The candle relights. Appropriate, hopeful words spill from my pen onto cards. And Christmas, if not always merry, is always, always victorious.

Donna Marmorstein Dec. 2003

Sage advice from today's talk generation

2008-12-05T09:34:00.000-08:00

The woman was young enough that most people called her a girl, but since she was pregnant there was little doubt she was a woman in body.

Young, pregnant women are often sponges for advice, and this woman's difficult circumstances made her doubly vulnerable.
Morality expert Dr. Laura Schlessinger told her that her horizon looked bleak. Low income, newly married to a man much older than herself --- but not the father of her child --- she should seriously consider adoption. And it was Dr. Laura's opinion that women who married older men were setting themselves up for trouble.
Ann Landers also expressed doubts about the woman's prospects. "A man who first thinks of divorcing you, then makes you take a long trip near term without motel reservations is someone to watch out for. Ask yourself this question: "Would I be better off with him or without him?"
Radio doctor Dean Idell told her that since she was so young she ought to give serious thought before continuing the pregnancy. If she chose to go ahead, she should seek genetic testing and make sure to be under the care of a competent OB/Gyn.
Her friends agreed, saying she should stick with the husband, but dump the baby. "We'll help raise the funds you need to exercise your constitutional right to, uh, terminate the pregnancy," they assured her. Then she could get on with her life.
Oprah showcased four women in similar circumstances. One divorced the husband and moved in with her parents. She was making it. One aborted the baby and went back to school. She was struggling. One kept husband and baby but was miserable. Another "married" two women but kept husband and baby as well.
There was no right or wrong way of handling the situation, Oprah announced. Al Gore told the woman that all she needed was universal day care. She could work and let someone else look after the child at government expense. Her standard of living would improve eventually. Of course, listing gold, frankincense and myrrh as assets could make her ineligible for any such program.
Rudy Giuliani said she could stay at the shelter near the inn, but only if she peeled potatoes and scrubbed the floors of the inn kitchen.
The pundits told her that teen pregnancies in poor neighborhoods were a major cause of poverty and that government policies should not "enable" people in her situation. But the angel told her, "You are highly favored. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women."
And she said, "God has regarded the low estate of his handmaid. From now on all generations will call me blessed. For he that is mighty has done great things to me. His mercy is on those who revere him from generation to generation."

Donna Marmorstein 1999

Child's perspective melts cynicism toward snow

2008-12-05T09:27:00.000-08:00

The first magic flakes fell during church. By the end of the service, large, white flakes were dancing down from above.
Surprise. Snow.
The adults leaving church were properly awed, marveling at the first snowfall. That adults --- who very well know that they could be exposed to this cold, bleak material for five or six months --- still find it wondrous on the first day, is inspiring. Adults, who will rock cars out of it, slip and fall into it, tramp over it, writhe in pain after shoveling it, clean up after it; brush it, scrape it, salt it, shake it off; spend hours blowing it away and digging out of it --- still marvel on the first day of it, even in October.
But all adult amazement is nothing to the sheer delight snow gives to the smallest kids. I don't know how developed the memory of a 3-year-old is, but I know that some glint in Laurie's eyes, when she saw those first flakes, indicated a memory.
The sharp intake of breath and the smile that bloomed on her face as she considered the falling snow was enough to show that she remembered something from a third of her life ago. She knew enough to remember snow angels.
Last year, making snow angels was her favorite snow-related activity. Having to be confined to the house didn't dampen her enthusiasm. One day, after a session of baking left the kitchen floor littered with flour and crumbs, she flopped onto the floor, flipped over to snow-angel position and announced that she was making a dirt angel.
With adults, the initial awe gives way too soon to resignation. Yes, the snow is still pretty on the second fall and it is no less amazing, but the realities of dealing with snow creep in like rust. It doesn't take long before the routine of bundling up feet, hands, head and body, just to go outside, becomes aggravating. Dealing with cars in snow takes all the wonder out of Winter Wonderland.
There is very little sparkle and joy in scraping windshields or trying to turn over a cold engine. You don't enthuse at the falling glitter when your toes are chunks of ice and you are trudging knee-deep down a snow-clogged alley to reach your dead car.
Little kids, though, don't ever mutter angrily at late meetings across town when the roads are slick. They don't worry that their parents will be waiting in the cold for THEM, and they don't rush to stock the pantry when the forecast calls for a long stretch of isolation.
On the first real day of snow, when snow didn't just flutter down but actually covered the ground, Laurie was eager to get out into it. I had a hundred things to do that didn't include making footprints in snow. Somehow, though, her enthusiasm was contagious.
I took pleasure --- at least for this first of many times --- in snapping her into her coat and guiding each finger into its glove position. We ventured out and caught flakes on our tongues. She could have spent all day doing that. But there were snowprints to make.
I showed her how to form a snowball, and this year she was old enough to make one. We scraped just enough snow off the surface of our backyard picnic table to make a mini-snowman. Laurie wanted to jump in the snow and roll in it and cover herself in it. She hadn't yet realized the disappointing reality that soft and fluffy as snow is, it is too cold to enjoy on contact. I'm glad I've got Laurie around to keep me from sinking into hard snow cynicism. She will be a snow angel for many years to come, at least until she owns her first car. Without her fluttering spirits, I'd just be a complaining, grouchy dirt angel all winter long.

Donna Marmorstein 2004

Holiday haste syndrome ruins Christmas

2008-12-05T08:25:00.000-08:00

If I hear another person complain that stores put up Christmas displays too early, I’ll scream. It’s not the stores’ fault thatChristmas cards and wrapping paper make an appearance next to spiral notebooks and colored pencils at August back-to-school sales.

A certain shopper mentality drives stores to rush Christmas through Halloween and Thanksgiving. It’s holiday haste syndrome that does it.

This disorder causes shoppers to order gifts in summer, to buy ornaments a year ahead and array them neatly in specially manufactured ornament boxes.

Victims of holiday haste syndrome have dinner menus planned months in advance. Their Christmas cards -- purchased at last year’s closeout sales in January -- are addressed and stamped by Halloween. They spend hours on Christmas Eve searching for all the wrapped and ready presents they bought in June and tucked away safely.

They shop online with credit cards, never needing to touch, wrap or even see the gifts they send to loved ones.

If holiday haste syndrome simply allowed shoppers to get all the peripheral stuff out of the way so they could focus on the more meaningful elements of the season, fine. But it often seems like the point in all this early activity is to nullify Christmas altogether.

Christmas is a drag, such a burden, such a chore. Let’s deal with it now so we won’t have to think about it later. That’s the attitude projected by holiday haste shoppers.

I should listen to all my favorite Christmas carol albums in September so I won’t have to bother with them at the end of December. /

You can organize and schedule and plan all the fun and magic outof Christmas. One well-intentioned advent expert suggests prioritizing Christmas events as a way to get a handle on the holiday. But somehow,sitting down and methodically listing and checking off activities would seem the surest way to sap all the fun and meaning from Christmas.

The best way to enjoy Christmas is just to let it happen. If you like making cookie plates for neighbors and co-workers, great – do it. If not, don’t sweat it. If you love glitter and glue guns, go ahead and make that pine cone, ribbon, foam ball monstrosity, but don’t let magazines, friends or commercials pressure you into it.

Nothing helps you prioritize Christmas better than putting everything off to the last minute. Everything, of course, means shopping. The best Christmas memories are formed by seasons of peace, punctuated at the end by a day or two of panic. A little late December adrenaline does wonders for the Christmas spirit.

Gold, Myrrh and Censorship

2008-12-05T08:15:00.000-08:00

Christmas time in Aberdeen. Store windows, street displays, mall music all proclaim it.
It's Christmas time everywhere but in the public schools where Christmas has been censored. Christmas concerts will now be called " holiday concerts" purportedly out of sensitivity to those religions other than Christianity.
Calling Christmas " holiday " may seem to encourage diversity, but it really ends up doing the opposite.
When my family moved to Aberdeen eight years ago, we were delighted with the school Christmas concerts because they were full of everything our California schools had abandoned years earlier: traditional favorites, black spirituals, medieval canticles, all rich in color and meaning.
There were harmonized carols, rapped-up carols, jazzy carols and carols done with motions. There were sometimes Hanukkah songs, songs we enjoyed because they helped our kids remember their Jewish name and heritage.
In California, all that was left of Christmas were a couple of holly and snowman songs. Everything with a hint of meaning was tracked down like termites and destroyed. What was left was a group of songs that sounded alike and were virtually the same song in different disguises.
They had the same orchestrations and the same cliched message: We are the world (future, children, hope). We can do anything if we put our minds to it, and everything will be rosy after we do.
These were Pepsi commercial songs, Muzak songs, full of exaggerated sentiment. These pieces had all the texture of a sidewalk after an ice storm. None could be remembered two years later.
It's sad that in the name of diversity, we teach kids to all think alike, and compel them to swallow what's left over of a cultural dish that has been leeched of all flavor and spiritual meaning.
I don't like the idea of compelling kids to worship against their beliefs, but Orwellian name changes and religious fumigation tactics are extreme reactions.
A columnist once compared the deliberate secularization of our culture to a disagreement about clothes. Some, he said, would say that since people from different backgrounds insist on different clothing styles we should all go without clothes so that no one style is dominant.
Well, the last I looked at the cultural thermometer, the temperature was about 20 below, with crime, drugs and a general callousness toward life all serious problems. It's not a good day for casting off clothes, or for stripping spiritual content from school music.

Donna Marmorstein 1996 This was a guest editorial for the American News

Don't be ungrateful for hidden favors

2008-12-05T07:58:00.000-08:00

Harold grumbled when the alarm clock rang late. If there was a God, he thought, the alarm would never malfunction. Stupid clock. New one, too. But not made in America.
If the clock had rung on time, though, Harold would have missed a very important phone call --- the job interview appointment he had been hoping for.
After he hung up, he rushed to his driveway. Harold glared at the driver of the blue car across the street. Each morning that rude driver blasted his horn for five long minutes. If there was a God, this driver would have ignition problems weekly, Harold thought.
What he didn't know was that on this fall morning, the honking had frightened away a thief who was about to break into Harold's garage and steal his generator and mountain bike.
At work, Harold grimaced as Marsha the Chatterer cornered him in the corridor. Marsha began to bore him to death with tales of her aunt's latest illness.
If there was a God, Marsha would have been transferred to another department ages ago, Harold groaned to himself. What he didn't know was that the gross description of her aunt's cancer included the very information that three years later would help him save his brother's life.
Harold groused at airline ticket prices. He was too late for a decent rate. If there was a God, a good ticket price would be available, and he'd spend Thanksgiving with family. What he didn't know was that his dreaded brother-in-law would be a drop-in visitor, and that "Thanksgiving with family" would have been four days of heated arguing over the merits of tea-tree oil, hummus and Vitamin E.
Harold gritted his teeth as the office do-gooders passed the plate for a co-worker's going away gift. He hated forced charities. The co-worker wasn't someone he liked, and the office would be a cheerier place without him. Still, Harold couldn't be the only holdout.
If there was a God, Harold thought, the guy would have suddenly left, sparing office drudges the meaningless ritual of plate-passing.
What he didn't know was that the five-dollar shortage in his wallet meant he would not go to Burger Bayou that afternoon. Had he gone to Burger Bayou, he would have met Dinah, dated her, married her, been betrayed by her and later destroyed by her. He would not have met and married the terrific woman who really would become his wife in two years.
On his way home, Harold gasped at the price of gas. He was sure there was a conspiracy somewhere. If there was a God, Harold would be driving a sporty hybrid vehicle instead of his junker station wagon. He could only afford a few gallons.
What he didn't know was that if he'd filled his tank and left for the city that weekend, he would have contracted a lingering case of the flu at his favorite hot spot, developed pneumonia and missed Thanksgiving altogether --- spending more on medical bills than it would cost to fill his tank three times.
Harold griped at the chilly weather. It was too cold to clear leaves from his rain gutters, and it was too dry for any outdoor fun. He'd have to spend all weekend indoors, and he hated that. If there was a God, he thought, he wouldn't be home on a Saturday watching TV.
What he didn't know was that the top rung on his old ladder was defective, and if he had used the ladder on such a windy day to clean rain gutters he would have broken his arm and cracked his skull. Harold growled at Thanksgiving.
If there was a God, surely Harold would be able to get to work on time, he'd be free of honking drivers, he'd be able to bypass chattering ninnies, he'd be left out of office charity pools, he'd be able to afford the price of gas, he'd be able to visit family on holidays and he'd have clear rain gutters. Was that too much to ask?
And as he lugged three heavy bags of cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and frozen turkey breast into his heated house, he wondered what there possibly was to be thankful about.

Donna Marmorstein 2005

Waiting, weather serve higher purpose

2008-12-04T19:42:00.000-08:00

Holiday airline crowd crunch, faulty computers and difficult weather relieved terrorists of any need to disturb airline traffic this Christmas. One airline, Comair, canceled 1100 flights Christmas Day.

For the flying public, and worried relatives of the flying public, such delays meant frustration and waiting. And more waiting.

When my daughter's flight failed to arrive late Christmas night, I checked the online flight status page. The flight from Minneapolis to Aberdeen was supposed to arrive late, but after a half-hour still no plane appeared.

If it ever did land in Aberdeen, the flight was to continue to Watertown. The delay in that leg of the flight was due to "runway congestion." Runway congestion in Aberdeen? Perhaps there was an air show. Late Christmas night.

Suddenly, I suspected mechanical problems, icy wings, a sick pilot, a fiery mishap. If you have to wait, there must be a calamity. Nothing less than a calamity should make you wait in Aberdeen!

The plane arrived 40 minutes late. The flight status site had simply been neglected. Still, having to wait was difficult.

Urban travelers are accustomed to waiting. They wait 90 minutes to ask a motor vehicles department clerk for the right form, and another 90 minutes standing in line to turn in that form.

They wait three light changes at intersections and take 20 minutes to travel 5 miles down an interstate. At commute time, they add minutes, sometimes hours, to their schedules as a matter of course. Waiting is just part of the daily routine.

Here, though, waiting for three light changes is rare. Maybe minutes after a state tournament is over. Seldom are Dakotans forced to wait.

One great advantage of Aberdeen living is that crossing town takes 10 minutes or less. We have a great privilege in such mobility.

A friend once complained that it took too long to cross town. I was incredulous. I spent more time finding a parking space at my California college than I ever spent crossing Aberdeen!

Still, because we are used to not waiting, we are more ruffled when we do have to wait. We feel put upon when creeping through the fairgrounds after a show lets out on fair week.

We don't wait long in checkout lines. We don't wait long at the post office. We don't stand for hours waiting for tickets or paying bills.

Until this year, we especially never had to wait for snow.

This year --- in early November no less --- I overheard a guy complaining that there wasn't any snow yet.

"We could sure use some snow," he said. "Rain won't do. We need a good five inches of snow."

Five inches? Before Thanksgiving? Who would want that? He was either crazy or --- or he knows the best way to treat Northern Plains weather.

My first year in Aberdeen, snow came on Halloween. A fluke, I thought. After 12 years and many flukes, I gradually realized that late October snow was normal.

I began to dread winter. It lasted too long.

Then I dreaded fall because it was too short. Then I dreaded the end of summer because that meant no shirt-sleeve weather for nine months. After a while, the only time of year I enjoyed was the end of spring, and even that was poisoned by bitterness over how short summer would be.

But any freedom I lost moving to Aberdeen because of cold weather was balanced by reduction in waiting time. Visiting medical offices, registering cars, standing in checkout lanes, banking and getting around town --- take half the time they do in cities, or less. Each time I have to wait here, I know I am adding minutes of freedom to my lifetime tally.

It helps to remember that, and to foster the attitude of that snow enthusiast: Not just making the best of it, but cultivating a bring-it-on cheerfulness that melts bitter cynicism.

Hey, we could use a period of sub-zero temps, and none of this 5 below stuff. We need a good three weeks of 20-below days.

I'll keep practicing. Some day, maybe I'll even mean it.

Donna Marmorstein All rights reserved

CHRISTMAS STORY NEEDS NO INTERIOR DECORATOR

2008-12-04T19:26:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's because her best friend is a stuffed lamb that 3-year-old Laurie is drawn to the lamb in every book about the Christmas story. Maybe it's just because lambs are fluffy, cute and more interesting than mangers and shepherds.

She would like "Away in a Manger" much better if the second verse were "The sheep they were baaing, the baby awakes" rather than the cows lowing. She doesn't know any cows that low.

We know that shepherds were part of the first Christmas, but whether camels were present is an open question. And the angels scared the death out of those who saw them. I don't think any Precious Moments angels had a part.

The heavenly host was an army, not a cheery, smiling grouping of collectible figurines. Just about every angel involved started conversations with "Fear not!" Seeing one must have been petrifying.

We like to arrange the Christmas story in warm, comfortable groupings --- like living room furniture --- to give us a cozy, hot-chocolate kind of feeling.

Sure, the underlying message of Christmas is of joy and hope. But plenty of uncomfortable elements adorn the story.

When Mary realizes what God's plan for her is, her prayer vibrates with horrific warnings to the rich.

He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats . . . the rich he hath sent away empty.

In America even many of the poor are rich, by world standards. We feel poor if we can't manage to get little Susie the Britney Spears Barbie with karaoke ensemble or whatever the hottest new toy of the season is. Or if we omit someone on our ever-growing gift lists.

Somehow I don't think that "the rich he hath sent away empty" has anything to do with maxing out credit cards.

That prayer of Mary should send shivers down our Christmas cardigan-clad spines.

And have you ever looked at King Herod's No Child Left Behind act? Not a pretty part of the Christmas story. All the babies and toddlers of a town and surrounding suburbs are slaughtered in order to keep Bethlehem safe for incumbents.

So we stylize the story, like we do with much of the Bible. Tuck away the unpleasant parts, clean it up a little, avoid much direct contact and have it dribbled to us in homey little storybooks and "studies."

The Christmas story at full strength will humble and break us. That's uncomfortable. Much better to drape tinsel on it, repackage it, overarrange the songs that would take us back to it, so we focus more on harmonies and notes than on what the music points to.

The earthy, animal waste odor of whatever place held a manger for a crib contrasts nicely with the cinnamon-and-pine scent of candles on our rich, American sideboards.

The swaddling-stripped, makeshift garment Mary came up with is not featured anywhere in the latest L.L. Bean catalog.

Whatever Christmas Club bank account Mary and Joseph might have contributed to would have been emptied by the Caesar Augustus tax plan. They didn't even get a child tax credit! And no frequent-donkey miles were awarded for the long trip from Nazareth.

No, the story as it stands in its purest form is dangerous. It threatens to strike us down with the sheer force of wonder. We are likely to fall on our knees, as the carol says, or even on our faces, when we contemplate that the divine Word would so offer himself up in the human world.

"Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world," said John the Baptist.

The Christ child is the main lamb of the Christmas story, the sacrificial lamb that escapes King Herod only to be offered up later, in our place.

Laurie and I will keep the lamb in Christmas. As for angel cows, drummer boys and calico camels, well, maybe not.

Allowed to stand uncutesified, unwrapped and undecorated, the Christmas story is the most potent on earth.

Donna Marmorstein All rights reserved 2003

GEORGE BAILEY'S WONDERFUL LIFE CONTINUES

2008-12-04T19:24:00.000-08:00

You can tell who the Henry F. Potters are because they are the ones scoffing at idealists and prattling on about common sense, while crushing the weak and poor.

In Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life," the Bailey family's Building and Loan business helps families to live in houses of their own, instead of languishing in Potter's high-rent slums. The Baileys help struggling families get a foothold on the American Dream.

Henry Potter, "the richest and meanest" man in Bedford Falls, opposes the Baileys at every turn.

The spirit of Mr. Potter doesn't reside only in the very rich or just in Bedford Falls.

Potters everywhere hate people who stand for something. They don't like people who cannot be manipulated by money or threats.

They deride those with "high ideals" and decent character. You've heard them jeering at the George Baileys of the world, wrinkling their noses at "uptight idealists" and "moralist scolds." Anyone bent on doing evil hates to be reminded of his own selfishness, and nothing serves better as a reminder than the contrasting charitable activity of a generous and kind George Bailey.

To the Potters, people committed to doing good are chumps and suckers. They must be opposed, and if that doesn't work, they must be diverted.

Potter tries to lure George Bailey into his own corrupt world by flattery and the offer of a high-salaried, three-year contract. It almost works. George, Potter says, is no "common ordinary yokel," but bright and smart.

Potter appeals to the universal sense that we are better than others. Everyone wants to think they are smarter and cleverer than the next guy, that if only given the chance, we can show the world just how much better we are. It is a strong temptation, even for George.

And yet, George Bailey's father had been dedicated to helping those common yokels, even if it meant losing money occasionally. And George knows, the minute he shakes hands with the oily Potter, that he can't be on Potter's payroll if he is to help the hard-pressed families to whom he's committed.

Without George Bailey, Bedford Falls --- a healthy community filled with happy, hard-working families and tidy little businesses --- becomes a seedy dump. Bedford Falls becomes Pottersville and takes on an entirely different character.

Instead of a solid, thriving community of mom-and-pop establishments (Merry Christmas movie house! Merry Christmas Emporium! Merry Christmas good ol' Building and Loan), Pottersville is a place where sirens blare; fights erupt in the streets; bars, pawn shops and girly clubs flourish.

In Pottersville, even friendly people like George's mom and Nick the bartender become hardened and coarsened.

George Bailey gave up every dream he had, dreams of building skyscrapers 100 stories high and bridges a mile long, getting out of his "crummy little town" and stuffy little office and seeing the world --- all to live with Donna Reed and four whiny kids.

That's how the Potters would characterize it anyway.

Ann Landers would have urged George to put himself first, to abandon the burden of other people's expectations and live his dream.

That's how many who have unwittingly been Potterized see things today. Self should come first. Then others, if you have any time left.

But what made George Bailey so wonderful was that he repeatedly put the dreams of others ahead of his own. And it made the difference for an entire town. It kept Bedford Falls from becoming Pottersville.

If George Bailey had never been born, the town would certainly have become Pottersville.

Each man's life touches so many other lives. "And when he isn't around, he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?" --- Clarence.

But say George had been born, but his life was cut short from lymphoma or respiratory illness. The awful hole remains. That can't be helped.

But the lifetime of a man like George Bailey makes its mark. The influence of such a city father is an embedded and ongoing factor in the life of a town and can't easily be quenched by the scoffers.

Donna Marmorstein All rights reserved 2003

THERE IS TOO MUCH CHRISTMAS TO CRAM INTO A MONTH

2008-12-04T19:22:00.000-08:00

Rarely does December strike you just two days after Thanksgiving. This year Christmas was even harder to restrain than usual through the Thanksgiving holiday.

I've never been an early Christmas shopper. And I have secretly despised those who completed Christmas shopping before December. There is just something unseemly about rushing things, riding roughshod over Thanksgiving in the pursuit of some orderly, polite, organized Christmas.

In fact, until this year I have considered an unorganized, spontaneous Christmas to be mandatory. Organizing Christmas is like trying to organize a thunderstorm.

Shop early, plan well, address Christmas cards in October --- and there will still be nights when a recital suddenly appears on the calendar without warning, an unexpected friend drops by just when you are supposed to be baking bars for a program, or you suddenly remember that you are responsible for a relish tray and all you have on hand are radishes. Your child gets an ear infection, the car's radiator overheats, the ninth life of your cat expires.

But people still try to corral Christmas.

In early November I made the mistake of glancing at a calendar and saw the narrow window between Thanksgiving and Christmas. So I became one of those people I disdained, making Christmas purchases before Thanksgiving.

The trouble is, there are just too many good things about Christmas to cram into a month's time. I like Christmas too much to miss any of it.

If I have to shop after Thanksgiving, then I won't be home addressing cards while the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings Carol of the Bells or the Chipmunks chirp out Christmas, Don't Be Late.

I can't give up Christmas baking just to shop! I want to try those cranberry-macadamia triangles I saw in a magazine. It's utterly important that I make several batches of my traditional English toffee, too.

The kids would mutiny if I didn't roll out sugar cookies and let them lick the bowl. If Christmas lasted three months, I'd bake goodie plates for every neighbor, every teacher, every acquaintance. I always intend to do more, but I usually end up with a couple batches of toffee and some pretty unattractive frosted camels.

We have to have at least a couple nights of carol singing. If you can't sing the old carols, Christmas just isn't Christmas. It's winter holiday. What is Christmas without singing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen or Angels We Have Heard on High?

With a condensed Christmas, I could forget the tree, I suppose, but what would I do without the school-made ornaments with first-grade faces surrounded by red and green yarn? Those have become essential.

I suppose we could tell Grandma to stay home, not to come, smiling, with all the latest news. It would save time, not to bustle about, running up and down stairs, excitedly preparing her room.

Could we keep the creche unopened maybe?

Could we skip advent, forget the candles and the prayers, the songs and the scripture? Forgo the flickering child faces peering into the mysteries of Christmas, half in dark, half in light?

Would we give up church services that nail down the central Christmas message, that a Savior-God humbled Himself and became a small, human package, made flesh and living among us?

Never.

We would not cross off the solemn silences of congregational meditation or the ear-splitting, earth-cracking strains of Joy to the World, shoulder to shoulder with fellow children of Hope.

And we couldn't disregard that miraculous storm, the Eternal descending with the turbulence of angel wings onto the earth at midnight, uprooting an old world with an infant cry.

Just to get to the stores on time.

So I'll forget the shopping instead, or even, like this year, do it early. There is too much to miss any other way.

Donna Marmorstein All rights reserved 2002

The Last Christmas Prayer

2008-12-01T15:06:00.000-08:00

Opal Anne didn’t walk; she creaked.

She creaked across the parking lot and she creaked up the church stairs. She didn’t mind creaking. She was just glad she could still move after 92 years.

She had sat in the third pew at Church Street Fellowship for more years than she cared to count, and she had seen it all.

As she creaked to her place in front this Sunday, six weeks before Christmas, she smiled with satisfaction at the faces she passed and the lives she knew.

In the back pew sat Orville Plunk. Orville had a heart of gold, but rarely said a word. He’d arrive late, sit in the back and leave before the pastor finished. He skedaddled long before the last song and certainly before anyone could snag him and ask how he was doing, and only Opal really knew that he was doing fine except for his back.

Orville lived a quiet bachelor’s life. He worked at the stock yards and worked at a job few others would want to do, but he worked for the Lord and not man and put his heart into every shovelful of effort. His employer loved Orville and watched him work, sweat and smile over the years.

No one at church but Opal knew that one day Orville’s employer -- a crusty, old cuss of a man -- had asked Orville why he seemed to enjoy such a dirty, difficult job. Opal also knew that Orville had opened up and told a story that awed his boss. Orville gave him the gospel, in his own quiet way, and the man had listened.

No dramatic change happened at that point. But five years later, the employer’s wife died. The man, after a hard night’s drinking, had called Orville up. The two sat down and had a long, serious talk about life and death and what’s important and what’s not.

Even Opal didn’t know that the employer had peeled off layers of crust, began taking an interest in his kids and begun to go to church. Not Church Street Fellowship, but the church he’d grown up in. He stopped gambling and instead began to give to his late wife’s favorite charity. He slowly turned and softened in ways that Orville knew were signs that the Lord had made a home in him.
No one in church would have suspected that Orville had much at all to do with the gospel or its effects on the community. He was just the guy that came late and left fast.

On her slow way up to the front, Opal passed Thelma Little. Thelma was an organizer and made sure the church was well-oiled. Thelma was bold, and some would say a little brassy, but Thelma made sure that the gears of the church interlocked smoothly. If someone couldn’t fulfill a duty, Thelma would make sure someone else was there instead. Many times, she’d stand in herself. If the church ran out of paper plates, Thelma would provide them.

Thelma would not allow anyone to fade into the background. If someone didn’t show up three weeks in a row, Thelma would bring soup, even if the person wasn’t sick. Opal knew that Thelma had a good heart and was not just a busybody. Thelma liked efficiency and perfection, but she would step in herself to make things run smoothly whenever there was a need. She drove a lot of people crazy, but she did it with a warm heart.

Even Opal didn’t know that Thelma contributed to missions work substantially. For that matter, Thelma’s left hand didn’t know it. Thelma had a heart for those who risked all to bring the gospel to far flung places.

Opal creaked past the Firth family. Jon Firth was a ready volunteer whenever a church workday came, and was good at small, fixer upper jobs. He frequently “puttered” and quietly repaired broken parts of the church. His wife was good at the books and helped with church accounts. Their kids were polite and often brought friends to church.

Opal stopped for a minute to rest before heading up to her third pew. She stopped next to Juliet George, the main coordinator for children’s ministry. Juliet was never sitting for long, so Opal just smiled, gave a quick hug and continued on.

Juliet had no idea the impact of her ministry. She didn’t know of the child who grew up and became a nurse instead of a pole dancer or the one who refused to shoplift with her friends or the one who gave his life on a battlefield to lay down his life for a friend. Juliet did not know there was any fruit from the hundreds of Bible stories she had told, or that her teachers had told.

She did not know whether any of those stories anchored themselves in the hearts of kids. She just knew it was hard work and sometimes thankless work and, on rare occasions, even work she would rather not be doing. Juliet simply loved God and loved kids and wanted to join the two together as often as possible.

Opal rested a moment and then continued up the aisle.
She passed a deacon, Tim Savage, and knew that despite Tim’s persistent frown, he loved Jesus and would often help out the poor of the church, even beyond what was allotted in the benevolent fund. Though people thought he was rich, his pockets were frequently empty and empty on purpose.

Opal waved at Vince Botti who was standing by the side entrance. Vince was the potluck king and loved to cook. He’d volunteer for picnic duty every time. Vince was also good at small talk. He could, and would, talk to anyone, and though he had never felt comfortable laying out something like the Four Spiritual Laws in front of someone, he made many visitors feel comfortable and was largely responsible for new families fitting in and feeling at home at Church Street Fellowship.

Some of them would later invite friends. Some of those friends invited unbelieving relatives, and they found the good news of Jesus for the first time – all because Vince had chatted with them each week and set their minds at ease. No one in church would ever have called Vince a spiritual giant – except Opal.

Closer to the front of the church, Opal paused to talk to three of her friends: Mary, Jenna and Tom.

Mary Kerry was the women’s Bible study leader and loved the Word. Her passion for the scriptures overflowed, and she always had a scripture ready for any circumstance. Her cheerful outlook kept her from falling into a severe role, and Opal always enjoyed conversing with her.

Jenna Crocker was the social chairperson, and she enjoyed cracking jokes. No one took Jenna seriously except Opal. Opal knew that behind the jolly exterior was a woman who had seen a lot of pain.

Jenna had lost three babies in miscarriage. She had known a painful divorce. Her brother had died of a drug overdose and her mother struggled with alcoholism.

Through all of these hardships, Jenna had wrestled with God and had come out polished and glimmering. Nothing could shake her faith.

At work, she left many co-workers in awe and managed to joke her way into their hearts. When something hard was happening in their lives, they knew Jenna had answers and sought her out.

Tom Sarley was the men’s Bible study leader. He loved teaching and enjoyed seeing men come to a deeper understanding of the scripture. Opal found him good company and they often discussed issues of the day together.

When Opal finally creaked her way into the third pew, she felt at home. Next to her on the right were Louise and Roy Breckenridge, youth workers whose warm ways and open outlook helped a lot of kids see value in walking with God.

Kids who would have fallen into vapid party lifestyles saw instead a better way. Others who would have been “good church kids” became more than that and felt called to deeper commitments. The Breckenridges’ easy style and sincerity opened a way for many young lives to flow into a living, thriving river of joy.

Opal shook hands with the pastor. The church had seen many pastors over the years, and Opal knew that each one needed encouragement and prayer. This young pastor, just starting out, needed perhaps more than the others. She’d prayed that he would not become easily discouraged when he saw redeemed, yet still fallen, human nature collide with spiritual aspiration.

Opal hugged his wife, a small woman with an earnest face and a fierce need to defend her husband at all costs.

In front of Opal sat a new couple, young and poor with three rambunctious children. Opal spoke kindly to them and introduced them to Myrtle Tanner. Myrtle, a large woman, never missed church if she could help it.

She always sat in front. She went to Bible studies and events, but rarely said a word. Some weren’t sure she could read. Some thought she was a little sick in the head. But one thing Myrtle did have was a large, toothless smile, and she wasn’t afraid to use it.

Next to Myrtle sat the Evanses, a somber pair, always polite and proper.

Jeanie volunteered often and Paul sang on the worship team. Their faith was well-anchored, and they pitched in as often as their busy work schedules allowed. When they couldn’t help, they gave, and giving was a serious and secret ministry for them.

Paul had spent countless hours on the phone wrestling spiritual issues with his brother, trying to keep him from falling over a precipice. Jeanie took refuge in the scriptures and basked in their light daily -- and prayer was constant.

Also in front were two young couples, the Walters and the Von Warmerdams, newly converted and ready to go out and change the world. Their eyes were full of light and they oozed the fervency that many others in the congregation had experienced years earlier.

The women sang on the worship team, and the men led student Bible studies, visited nursing homes and helped at the local food pantry. Some of their friends, influenced by their witness, had begun to attend, too, though they sat in the back.

Opal settled into her favorite pew and took inventory of all the families and individuals God had placed in her church. She marveled at how different each one was from the others, and how God used them all, meshed them together, sprinkled His grace over them in intricate ways to achieve His ends.

But

something happened that Sunday to infect Opal’s inventory, and to sour her view. It was the opposite of fairy dust that dropped down that day. Call it devil droppings maybe. It was foul and it was fiendish. No one was ever sure where it began. You couldn’t point your finger at any one person.

It was a devilish operation, though, and the fallen angel in charge of it must have primed for the situation weeks earlier by planting a little doubt here, a little bitterness and regret there. Dissatisfaction with self became dissatisfaction transferred to the church and to others.

Someone didn’t get enough sleep. Someone else was not eating well that week. Another had stopped reading the word, and someone else felt he was too busy to pray. Together, the combination set the stage for the devil droppings.

The first Opal knew of it was that morning when Gwen Walter told her that she was not going to attend an out-of-town woman’s seminar event. “They are too staged,” Gwen said. “They are too artificial.”

Opal watched Mary Kerry’s face as Gwen said these words. It looked like someone had sucker-punched her.

Mary had arranged the trip and felt a need to defend it. Her defense included a mild accusation.

That day, and throughout the following weeks, two factions arose, propagated, spread and brought forth bitter fruit that rotted on the vine. The two opposing clusters of believers were - even after three or four weeks- mild factions, but factions nonetheless.

Sometimes, factiousness can simply fade away, but sometimes it accelerates. This time, it accelerated. Before long, women who had seen a few weak aspects of Mary’s personality pointed out what they had noticed, while her stalwart friends began to find fault with Gwen Walter.

By the second week before Christmas, personal affronts, long forgotten, revived and took on spiritual costumes. Someone had stepped on someone else’s toes. She was first characterized as thoughtless, then haughty. After a while she was seen as prideful and at last guilty of “spiritual wickedness in high places.”

Someone from the other faction was then characterized as first “forward,” then “arrogant and standoffish,” then a “busybody in other men’s matters,” and finally “divisive” and “heretical.”

Church members began squinting their eyes when looking at each other. Pretty soon everyone was on the defensive, having to produce Christian credentials at a moment’s notice.

Opal heard one exchange that made her cringe. Tiffany Van Warmerdam
demanded of Jenna a reason she wasn’t helping with the potluck preparations that week. Jenna sputtered for a moment and mentioned her help with the Easter dinner and prayer breakfast. She couldn’t help but mention that Tiffany hadn’t been around to help with the prayer breakfast.

Suddenly, Tiffany found herself on the defensive. She hadn’t helped with the breakfast because she had just returned from a mission trip! Everyone knew that a mission trip trumped a breakfast!

And on it went. The hallway near the nursery door became Checkpoint Charlie where you had to ruffle through your belongings and pull out the right Christian documentation or you would find yourself on the lowest rung of Christendom.

The fallen angel, accuser of the brothers, loved this scene. He was getting brothers and sisters to do his job for him, and all he had to do was lay back and watch, with a satisfied smile.

Instead of seeing the good, they saw the imperfect in each other. They looked to see what others were doing – or not doing – “for God” rather than seeing God in all His mercy and greatness doing wonders in men and women.

Juliet doesn’t attend women’s Bible study. She must have a spiritual problem. Orville doesn’t help out on workdays. He’s a shirker.

No one in this church cares about prayer. Prayer is so minimal, it’s pathetic. Why
isn’t there a women’s prayer group?

No one will help with the Christmas basket project. No one here is a true servant. This church is full of self-centered layabouts.

The fallen angel dropped even more devil droppings, and the complaining picked up: The pastor doesn’t support missions very much. The pastor purchases sermon notes online. The pastor isn’t serious enough. The pastor doesn’t have much of a sense of humor.

What’s wrong with the men in this church? Why do the women do all the hard stuff?

Unless the folks in this church understand the end times like I do, they are missing the boat. They need to open their eyes immediately.

I don’t understand why people here aren’t studying cults. Do they want their kids to fall into the pit? Be armed against the enemy! What’s the problem here?

The worship team never sings meaty songs. I liked what we used to do. When will
they sing something new? They only sing “Jesus-is-my-girlfriend” songs now. Not
enough hymns. Too many hymns. Not enough fast songs. Not enough slow songs. Not enough songs!

”Why doesn’t Vince ever attend men’s Bible studies? He must have no fervor for the Lord.

Why don’t the Firths ever help with Sunday school? What’s their hangup?

Myrtle won’t volunteer for nursery duty and she has no kids and plenty of time.

What’s eating the pastor’s wife anyway?

Why don’t people dress up more? Why don’t people dress down more? Why do
they keep showing off their fancy clothes? Can you imagine? Shorts? Heavens! A three-piece suit? The poor will turn around and walk out. Give me a break.

People aren’t tithing, people aren’t singing, people aren’t working.

If you’re not jogging, you’re not walking with the Lord, said one man. If you’re not sprinting, you’re not walking with the Lord, said another. If you don’t do handsprings, if you don’t do cartwheels, if you don’t form a Conga line…If you don’t walk on water like I do…

Opal began to wonder if people had to creak when they walked to serve the Lord, but just smiled at herself as that thought came and went and left for good.

Even the young pastor began to complain. The congregation, he said to his wife, is only concerned about itself. I don’t think I want to pastor a church that won’t see beyond itself. His wife agreed and looked with sadness on the rows of pews filled with ungrateful worshipers.

In short order, the machine with neatly meshing gears was gummed up. Gummed up so much that even Thelma’s patented church oil wouldn’t lubricate the workings.

The Sunday before Christmas, Opal was distressed. She had seen this situation arise more than once in her 92 years, and nothing good ever seemed to come of it. But she knew there was only one thing to do, and do it she would.

Opal managed to bend her arthritic knees.

It took some doing. First, she had to move the coffee table so she had a free path. Next, she had to pull the kitchen chair over to the armchair in the living room. When she was positioned between the two chairs she had to grip the arm of the armchair while pushing on the seat of the kitchen chair. Slowly, and painfully, she lowered herself into an excruciating, kneeling position.

“Father,” she whispered, and it had been months since she had whispered to her Good Friend in such a position, “Help us to see each other through Your eyes and not to be deceived. Let us all see the good and come to you. Help us all to be begging You to undo the evil. I beg you, Father, to have mercy on our little family. Keep me from seeing what isn’t there, and help me to see what is.”

Opal was fervent and she knew and believed strongly about the effectiveness of fervent prayer from righteous men. She wanted to carry the burdens of all the congregation but knew she was too small and weak for that. She knew who could, though. She knew who could.

When she was finished pouring out her words and fears and hopes and worship, she spent a good five minutes bending her joints and pushing hard to get back up.

Only one prayer. One prayer from a woman who didn’t attend a conference or help with Sunday school or wield a hammer at a work day or volunteer for the nursery. One prayer from a woman too old to go to the mission field and too weary to sing on the worship team and too wan even to serve at a potluck.

Despite its simplicity, or maybe because of it, God heard Opal’s Christmas prayer.
At the Christmas Eve service it was clear that all suspicion and blame and babble
had melted away.

Eyes were opened, weapons were dropped, smiles crept out from the somber faces -- and God’s own goodness residing in His people became clearer than the rough, uneven parts of their being that obscured Him.

Somehow, God allowed Opal, for her finale, to grab a broom and sweep up the devil droppings from between the pews.

Opal smiled in wonder at Mary and Gwen together removing ornaments from the tree in the foyer after the Christmas Eve service. She would have helped, but she was called elsewhere at that moment.

No one in this story is based on any actual individual. Similarities to real people are purely and totally coincidental. All characters in this story are fictional and not based on anyone currently living, except Art Hacker. :)

Merry little Christmas needs more than a little inflation

2008-12-01T14:59:00.000-08:00

Have yourself a merry, little Christmas, says the song.
What’s “little”doing there? Who wants a “little” Christmas?
No child wants a little Christmas.
Over-stressed parents might want a littler Christmas than usual -- after watching fifteen ads for the coveted, expensive, Christmas toy of the year – but even they, surely, don’t want a little Christmas.
When you think of little Christmases, you might think of the Cratchit family celebration from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Cratchit, Ebenezer Scrooge’s clerk, scrapes out a family Christmas on the skimpiest of wages.
Though the Cratchits’ Christmas goose is minuscule, the excitement over a simple, Christmas dinner in Dickens’ tale was massive enough to revive flagging Christmas traditions throughout England during Dickens’ time.
The Crachit Christmas was meager but it wasn’t small.
Dickens knew what a big Christmas was, despite his father’s stint in debtor’s prison, his mother’s failed girls school, and his own flirtation with poverty.
In A Christmas Carol, he describes in savory detail the street market, brim full of Christmas offerings: fruit, nuts, fish, coffees, teas, sweets and merry people -- as the excitement of Christmas ripples through the city. To read it makes your mouth water, and you can’t help but desire a big Christmas yourself.
I love visiting a hometown grocer at Christmas time. I might not find any Norfolk biffins, but displayed near the door are mounds of navel oranges; pastries arrayed to ensnare errand-sent husbands; frosted, sprinkled cookies. I see carts overflowing with cocoa mix, holly nog, clementines and julekage. Twinkle-eyed bag boys banter with smiling, check-stand girls. Stocking-capped, rosy-cheeked kids – free from school – hang on to sides of rapidly rolling carts. Bell-ringers heartily wish patrons a merry Christmas.
Americans strive for big Christmas, but sometimes that quest takes odd turns. Giant inflatable snowmen and penguins reflect our desire for the big. Soon, it won’t be enough to have one or two inflatables bobbing near the front door. The inflatables will grow larger and more numerous – as we look for the large in Christmas -- until our houses, whole avenues maybe, are smothered in inflatables. We won’t be able to pull out of driveways without being bounced back into our garages.
But while we’re overstuffed, we’re also small. Right in the middle of our Christmas planning comes bad news. A friend receives a catastrophic diagnosis. A sister divorces. A grandma dies, a neighbor has an accident, a loved one is caught in the legal system and can’t get out. A friend loses his job.
We shrivel.
Grief, pain, trouble. Christmas accentuates it all, shrinking hopes for “merry” into the smallest of “little” wishes. Just like in the song, we just “muddle through somehow” come mid-December.
Without Christmas, though, we’d still have the grief, pain and trouble, but what would we have for comfort and joy? Ten below temps? Sleet and ice? Shortest day of the year? Car trouble and furnace breakdown?
Without Christmas, midwinter is just plain bleak. Earth stands “hard as iron,” water “like a stone.”
Little Christmases are full of stoic muddlers. Big Christmases are full of visions for the future.
Whether your Merry Little Christmas version is the Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra or James Taylor variation, big Christmas seekers know that on that very big Christmas yet to come, there is a chance “we all will be together.”
That hope alone makes it possible to do more than just “muddle through” winter and all the pain of its discontent. It means that some of those “golden days” aren’t just “of yore.”

Who gets the rejects when Christmas cooking’s finished?

2008-12-01T14:36:00.000-08:00

The reject cookies – that’s what my husband gets: The lopsided star; the hunchbacked gingerbread man; the rock-hard brownie; the runny, chocolate chip blob; the overly-crisp, deeply “tanned” Santa; the peace dove, packing an A-bomb cinnamon candy.
My husband never complains.
The kids don’t complain either. They’ve learned to be grateful for small favors. If Mom’s making cookies, the good ones are going to someone else.
But the kids have cultivated ways to obtain rejects. They stand, expectantly, with big doe-eyes. Other times, they speak up: “That camel’s head fell off. Can I eat it?”
The family can always count on reject cookies because I rarely have time to be precise. After making just enough good ones for the potluck, prayer group or helpful neighbor, I’ll do a slapdash version with leftover dough, producing plenty of rejects.
Sometimes, the kids will try to convince me that a perfectly good cookie is a reject. They will point out small flaws that should disqualify the cookie from a neighbor plate. After all, there is no such thing as a perfect cookie.
At Christmas, I like to think of people as gingerbread kid dough cookies. No such thing as a perfect one. We grouse at each other, cheat each other, take from each other. Sometimes, as we’re baked, we become too brittle and snap at the slightest pressure. Sometimes we’re too soft and fall apart at a hint of criticism.
We love to point out flaws in other cookies while ignoring our own.
If our shortcomings were known, we’d be rejects, pure and simple. But the cook keeps us. We puff up too much in the oven, believing our own opinions are weightier and more important than the next cookie’s. We collapse and ooze all over the cookie sheet, then defend our oozing as just another perfectly acceptable lifestyle choice.
Even so, we’re not thrown out. The spatula is outstretched still.
The cook rolls us out, and it’s painful under that rolling pin. Then He cuts us into shapes. More pain. We’re baked, and it’s excruciating. We complain and object. How could we be treated in such a manner? What’s wrong with staying dough? Just leave us alone, will You?
After we’re baked, parts of us are chipped away and carved off and trimmed up. Ouch, ouch, ouch! Only then are we iced and decorated.
You don’t frost cookie dough.
You don’t frost half-baked cookies.
The cookies – rejects all – bellow about unfair treatment.
Once, long ago, after the dough boys grumbled and crumbled, the Cook decided to show them what the baking process was all about by becoming a cookie Himself. He allowed Himself to be rolled out, cut, reshaped, cut again, baked and frosted. Perfect cookie. Absolutely dazzling cookie. But treated as a reject.
This cookie -- said the experts of His day -- is only good for the garbage. Or for the open mouths of reject-beggars.
But as they were about to throw Him out, He rose up from the pan, hopped from the oven and started running. Then, some reject cookies began to follow. They’ve been following ever since, and that’s why we still have Christmas 2,000 years later.
Here’s Christmas in a nutshell: We should be rejected but aren’t. He shouldn’t be rejected, but is.
Despised and rejected of men. Came to His own, but His own would not receive Him. To those who did receive Him He gave power to become the Cook’s own gingerbread kids. Something like that anyway.
Peace on earth and mercy mild, cook and rejects reconciled.

Can’t tell presents by the wrappings, or Christmas by the trappings

2008-12-01T14:15:00.000-08:00

My son Richard suggested this week that we hide his younger brother’s Christmas presents and first give him several beautifully-wrapped, empty boxes. He would then unwrap gift after gift and find nothing. A variation on the box inside a box inside a box prank. Wouldn’t that be a grand joke?
No. It wouldn’t. Why would he think of such a thing?
Well, Richard remembered when we once gave him the stocking filled with coal. His real stocking was hidden away, emerging later. That year Richard, the King of Tease, earned a coal-filled replica because he was merciless in teasing others. It seemed fitting somehow.
For his more serious-minded little brother, though, to unwrap and unwrap and find nothing? That would be cruel.
But what if he opened package after package, and then found – buried deep in shredded paper – a check for $5,000? (Note from Mom: This will not happen.)
I know my son. After opening and looking over one or two empty boxes, he would give up. I would, too. You get the joke, and it’s not funny.
But real Christmas is worth digging. It’s worth the trouble and worth the seeking, even if it starts out with an empty box or two.
Suppose you buy a plastic Rudolph, but its nose doesn’t shine as brightly as it should. You look at the package. Aha! It isn’t a real Rudolph, but a wanna-be, off-brand Rudolph.
But even if it were a real Rudolph, it would still be fake; we know Rudolph was a late addition to the Christmas story. You won’t find him among Clement Moore’s Comets and Vixens. And even if he were among them he would still be a fake, since The Night Before Christmas is also a later tack-on to the St. Nicholas legend.
And though there was a real 4th century Nicholas, bishop of Myra, he didn’t have a whole lot to do with the real Christmas story, the story of Christ’s birth. A box inside a box inside a box. Is there a real present here somewhere?
One year my parents broke down and bought an artificial tree. I was as depressed as Charlie Brown. I mentioned in passing to my boyfriend of 6 weeks that I missed the smell of real evergreen needles. A week later, he brought a small, potted live tree -- a real and living Linus-style tree, just for me to keep in my room.
I later planted the tree and I kept my boyfriend (for about 32 years now). When he gave me the tree he also gave me something else – a small, used, dog-eared, Gideon’s New Testament that had belonged to someone else before he had it. Uh, thanks.
I’d never read a Bible before and I wasn’t exactly thrilled, but because he cared about the tree I knew I should care about this other gift.
Inside was real Christmas, but it took about a year of unwrapping to figure that out.
A year later, I stared out the window at glistening stars in the cold, empty night, knowing for the first time that of all the fairy tales with happy endings, this one was true. The real Christmas story was true.
I had to tear open chapters, dig through pages, think a lot and consider things I would have dismissed earlier without a thought. I had to ask questions, learn to pray, begin to listen to voices of people I once smirked at. I had to unwrap a very small, tightly-taped package called faith and rip to shreds the outer paper of smug superiority and polite condescension. More than once I thought of giving up and laying aside the boxes.
But there, in the last box was not $5,000, but a diamond – the star of Bethlehem. There it was again, in the sky outside my window, 5,000 times over in the night.
When you see a 20-foot inflatable Frosty, or a forest of cardboard candy canes in your neighbor’s yard, or a table-top, rotating, jewel-bedecked, Elvis Christmas tree complete with blue-suede shoes, lights and Blue Christmas tune, it doesn’t mean that Christmas has deserted you, or that it isn’t real. It just means you have a few more layers to rip through.

Freeze-dried Christmas locks in flavor, prevents time loss

2008-12-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

“I wish,” said Laurie, 6, “that the sunlight would freeze on the sidewalk.”
I could wish for a lot of things, but frozen sunlight would not be one of them.
“But why? Why do you wish that?” I asked her.
Her face beamed. “Then, I could scoop it up, take it under my covers and read in the dark!”
When sunlight melts it doesn’t leave sopping sheets, just a slight glow that fades to nothing by morning.
I’d rather find time frozen on the sidewalk. I’d scoop that up and keep it under my covers. Or maybe in the freezer so it could last longer.
If I could scoop up my own frozen stash of time, I could get everything done. It wouldn’t matter if I wasted an hour looking up a minor medical malady on the Internet. Or if half the day vanished while all I’d accomplished was undoing everything I’d done yesterday.
I could just open the freezer, take the frozen scoop of time from a Zip-lock bag and let it thaw. When the freezer ran out of time, I’d just go to the sidewalk and scoop more.
If I could freeze time, I’d finish half-started projects on hold for years.
Twelve years ago I bought fabric to make curtains for the boys’ room. The fabric is largely untouched. I only now realize that teen boys would not appreciate the cutesy space alien material I bought when they were toddlers.
This is the time of year I especially wish I could freeze time.
It hurts to visit toy aisles. All the toys I still like, my kids have outgrown. No more are they happy playing with Legos, or even remote-controlled cars.
Every year the toys get cooler, and every year my kids get older. Here’s a neat spy kit: binoculars, voice recorder, camera. I would have rejoiced to find this under the tree. But my kids would roll their eyes.
Even my youngest child is outgrowing the cute toys.
Freeze! Freeze now!
Some strange family appeared in a Christmas card photo. It was supposed to be my brother-in-law’s family. But the blonde cherubs were missing. Older, brown-haired kids replaced them. One niece looked like a stranger, just popping in from across the street to confuse us. The baby was gone. And who was this white-haired guy? If it weren’t for my sister-in-law, always disgustingly svelte, young and blonde, I’d swear we were slipped someone else’s family photo by mistake.
Our friends always send a Christmas photo of their boy. This year the boy was a man. I pulled out all the earlier Christmas photos. There he was: blond, rosy-cheeked angel. There he was again, still rosy-cheeked but now with glasses. Then, his face slimmed, but the twinkle remained in his eyes. Bigger, older. Now with contacts, the glasses gone. Then, one year, his hair grew long and dark, and the twinkle left his eyes. Too late, too late to freeze time now!
But the twinkle returned the next year, and now he is a big, strong, handsome young man, full of life. I still miss the rosy-cheeked 1st-grader, though.
This week, my own little boy sat on the floor pulling on his socks when I noticed a mustache. WHAT HAPPENED? How did that get there? The last time this happened to a son, he was off to college five minutes later. He’s supposed to be playing with Legos. Quick! The bag of frozen time! Before he heads out the door!
Christmas, at least, slows time down.
You take pictures at Christmas, each one a bookmark, a resting place, an anchor. You can’t remember the other 364 days of 1989, but you remember what you looked like that Christmas, because you are right there in the photo, clearing a path for the mail carrier, wearing your plaid jacket, waving, smiling.
But more than that, Christmas sits, fixed, like the North Star. Whatever changes occur over the year, Christmas is constant.
The intersection of human and divine stands firm on the time line of history, dividing AD and BC, ice and fire, life and death, now and forever. Christmas may not freeze time, but it certainly steadies it.

Donna Marmorstein Dec. 2006 All Rights Reserved

Isn’t ‘retro’ beginning to get a little old?

2008-12-01T14:05:00.000-08:00

Retro is back. Again.
What is it about old stuff that makes people return to it repeatedly?
Last year, we gave our daughter a 40s-style radio that also played CDs and tapes. It was clever and original. This year, it is one model among 50 designed along the same lines.
Retro gifts are hotter than ever. Hundreds of sites offer items to help you relive those golden days of yesteryear.
Remember Captain Astro? I don’t either, but he’s got a fish bowl on his head and you can order a lunch pail with him on it.
You can get that pedal fire engine your parents could never afford, although it’s a little late now to show it off to that spoiled, rich neighbor kid. For some, it must be worth the $289 to have the pedal fire engine they’ve always wanted.
For $80 you can get a Chatty Cathy doll. That’s $80.
The Easy Bake oven is back. Strawberry Shortcake and Hello Kitty are back. Cabbage Patch dolls are back.
I will not buy a Cabbage Patch doll. Last time -- 1985 – my daughter fed it popcorn. The popcorn lodged in Xara Fanny’s mouth and could not be extracted. Every attempt to pull it out only pushed it in more firmly. The popcorn grew nastier and turned a disgusting gray.
Eventually, Xara Fanny, none too lovely to begin with, needed to be turned toward the wall. Finally, unable to stand looking at her, I tucked her away in the closet. Fortunately, the folks at Babyland General Hospital never found out.
I doubt I could even sell her on E-bay now.
Because of the wonders of the Internet, you can search for nearly any toy you had as a kid. Someone will sell you their old version of Stratego or Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots – for a price. There is even a site called got2haveit.com that sells vintage toys. Another site contains nothing but the wistful ramblings of people fondly remembering their old toys.
Nostalgic items take us back to a time when things were warmer, brighter, simpler – and a whole lot less convenient.
No one really wants the clunky, old, slow, difficult product. They just want the nostalgia of the clunky, old, slow, difficult product.
Well, this year, if you want the look and feel of retro with the convenience of the modern, you are in luck.
You can get a King-Kong wall clock with the “original King-Kong” from the 1933 movie posters – but you won’t have to wind it since it runs on a single AA battery.
Old Atari-style computer games like Pac Man and Space Invaders are back -- but now plug and play on your TV.
You can order DVDs of nearly any old television series you remember – no longer needing to wait a whole week for the next episode.
I saw a 1957 model pay phone for sale this week at the mall. It looked very authentic – except for the push buttons in the dial.
The ultimate in merging of old and new has got to be the Phobile, found only on British sites, as far as I could tell, and costing about 24 pounds (41 dollars). Remember the old, black, Western Electric phones, standard in nearly every household? Well the Phobile is just the handset from one of those, made to plug into your cell phone. It has the coil cord and everything.
I guess it looks cool to meander around town talking into one of those awkward, ugly unmanageable phones, with the black coil cord emerging from your pocket.
But the idea behind the new old stuff is to balance that warm, fuzzy feeling of childhood with convenience. Some items are more convenient than others. Sometimes you have to pay a big price for the warmth, or give up some convenience to be kitschy. But judging from the popularity of nostalgia, I think before long we won’t have anything to reminisce about except the time we reminisced. It’s hard to get nostalgic about the good ol’ days when we were nostalgic.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe in 15 years, we’ll be saying, “Hey! Remember ‘retro’ ”?

Playing hide and seek with Christmas not new

2008-12-01T11:59:00.000-08:00

Kids are always fun to watch, whatever they sing at school productions. But something is shallow and tinny about a collection of songs missing the deep, rich cultural traditions of a society.
I recently attended a school Christmas concert in which no one sang old, traditional carols.
It would be one thing if we included Hanukkah or Kwanza songs at school concerts. But we don’t. Instead of adding to the rich texture of voices singing about important themes of a culture, we leech out the meaningful songs and replace them with superficial ones that will be forgotten in five years.
It’s like saying that instead of adding raisins, nuts and rum flavoring to our cookies, we’ll take out the sugar to make it fair. Though there’s nothing wrong with change, change lately has resulted in flavorless fare, to be frank.
Incensed, some groups take to boycotts while others use a blunt ax, especially on the wackier expressions of anti-Christmas sentiment.
Reaction to the slow censorship of Christmas isn’t simply a problem of folks with a persecution complex or overactive imagination.
Good communicators use specific, concrete examples. You don’t move from a good image or metaphor to something vague and general. Better to write about the flaky, lemon bars and steaming mocha than to say “hot drinks and desserts were served.”
So we’ve moved from “Merry Christmas” – and all the sensory delights those two words conjure up -- to “Happy Holidays,” a much more general greeting.
But it’s not the first time. Remember “Season’s Greetings”? When that expression came limping out to replace “Merry Christmas,” its use was roundly ridiculed, and it slowly disappeared except for times it was appropriate.
(If you’re wishing someone Season’s Greetings or Happy Holidays and you’re talking about all the holidays from Thanksgiving to New Years, there is no better way to do it. Or if you’re wishing someone Happy Holidays because you’re pretty sure they don’t celebrate Christmas and you’re not sure what they do celebrate, Happy Holidays, vague as it is, never hurts.)
But if you’ve got a black pen and just are striking out “Christmas” from your vocabulary, for fear of a bully lawsuit, or of offending non-celebrants or just because it seems to fit in with the spirit of the times, that’s a problem.
And though we’re far from suffering torture for saying “Merry Christmas,” we now could lose a job.
Christmas, if locked out, will, in no way, stay out.
When Nazis replaced Christmas with Yule, and substituted Teutonic deities for Christian imagery, Christmas did not disappear, but it did have to hide for a while.
When the Puritan leaders in colonial America ordered folks to work even harder on Christmas Day than usual, to fight the temptation of celebrating a “popish” holiday, Christmas reappeared in all its glory later on. (The ACLU, like ducks waddling and flapping over the latest appearance of yet another egg, has more in common with Puritans than they think!)
But even before the Pilgrims, Christmas was forced to hide.
After the wise men left, the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and stay there until I bring word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
I can well imagine that if the Christmas story were broadcast on network news, Joseph’s mug shot would be flashed over the airwaves -- and blame for the Bethlehem slaughter would swirl around this shadowy figure, who crossed the border into Egypt without a proper, government security clearance.
“Is he epicenter of some radical movement? Who in heaven is this guy?” the Herodians might ask, in lyric echos traveling through all Judea.
The wise men – a U.N. peace delegation – would be under investigation over a myrrh-for-food scandal and the shepherds would be told to tone it down, to hush things up, given to understand they should focus on the oxen, stable and donkey -- and not say so much about visions in the sky. And especially to back off from inflammatory statements concerning the babe in the manger.
Hidden in the column above are 11 Christmas words. The hidden words may span two or three words or be tucked within a word. For example, if the hidden word is “king,” it could be in the phrase “Put the pack in Gail’s closet.” Or it could be inside the word “asking.” Here are the hidden words: flock, camel, gold, sheep, inn, magi, angel, swaddling, star, frankincense, taxes. Have a merry Christmas.

I’ll be at ‘last known address’ for Christmas

2008-12-01T11:19:00.000-08:00

I’ll Be Home for Christmas is one of the few tear-jerker Christmas songs worth respect. Being away at Christmas is almost as hard as having your loved ones away.
When we first moved to South Dakota, we never left Aberdeen in winter. We couldn’t afford to fly, and we balked at crossing snow-encrusted mountains to visit family on the West Coast.
Now we have a different problem. Our kids are starting to move away. This year, we’re lucky to have all six home, but I know it won’t always be this way, especially as they start families of their own.
Being apart from loved ones on Christmas is not new to me. My little brother left home at 17 and never moved back. He got involved in substance abuse and disappeared for large chunks of his life. Every once in a while, he’d resurface and we’d see him for a while -- but then he was gone again.
I always thought he would move back, but my parents didn’t. Not long after he left, they knocked down the wall of his bedroom and expanded theirs.
This summer my family was together to scatter my dad’s ashes, and I saw a lot of my brother. It was great. He got to know my kids. He taught them how to hit targets with nails blown out of PVC pipe, and how to do the balancing fork trick with the lighted match: All those fun and dangerous uncle antics they’ve missed all these years.
I wrote letters to my brother at whatever his last address was, not knowing whether he received them or not. Turns out, he did.
“I may not answer your letters,” he told me, “But I always enjoy them. Don’t think I don’t read them.”
But this summer when it was time to say goodbye, he said he would no longer be able to get mail general delivery -- his last known address. And he was giving up phone service. So there is no way to contact him. And I haven’t heard from him since then.
I know I’m not alone. Many have relatives caught in one problem or another who disappear and reappear at erratic times. It’s hard to communicate, hard to get through.
Sometimes, getting through to God is like getting through to people like my brother. We know God’s there. But we don’t hear from Him a whole lot. We’re not really sure of His last address. We pray, but we can’t tell He hears.
Christmas is one time we do hear from Him. A nativity scene down the street, lyrics from a carol in a store. A silvery Christmas card in the mail. He’s checking in.
But I think it’s really the opposite. We’re the missing relative. He doesn’t hear from us a whole lot. He’s home for the holidays, standing there, and we’re fiddling with our personal DVD player. “Hold on a minute” is our permanent delay tactic.
We have more and more sophisticated ways of putting Him off and shutting Him out. We can iPod Him out, XM radio Him out, cell phone Him out, Nintendo Him out. We close our ears in so many cool and inventive ways. We keep the noise going -- and expand our own bedroom into his territory. We sure don’t want Him coming home and taking our toys!
But at Christmas, despite all the noise, His voice still manages to get through.
After this last ice storm, my daughter spent a week in a dark, cold apartment before the roads were clear and she could get the two inches of ice off her car. Finally, she was able to start on her way home. I worried about road conditions. I worried about her car. The temperature was 10 degrees. Cell phone towers were down. What if something happened?
The time came when she should have been home, and she wasn’t. As I walked around the corner of the house, there, at long last was my daughter with rosy, beaming face! I felt I should grab her and never let her go.
Because of the parable of the prodigal son, I know that’s how God feels when, after waiting and waiting, He gets a letter, a look, a prayer – and knows we’re finally coming home for Christmas.

Shutting the door on cold or Christmas?

2008-12-01T11:13:00.001-08:00

Snow, or no snow, this time of year brings to kids those three words that mean so much.
Not “I love you,” “How r u?” or “Ho, ho, ho!” (Okay. “Ho, ho, ho” is not three words, and “How r u only qualifies for online chat heads.)
The words kids hear most often in winter are: “Shut that door!”
In our house we have two doors that must be closed upon entry. The front door leads directly to polar air flow. An entryway between the front door and the door to the living room mixes that icy air with house air. The entryway serves as a buffer between Siberia and comfortable, living room heat.
The kids rarely forget to close the front door. Somehow, frigid, arctic air jostles their brain cells enough to signal the door-closing response.
But after removing coat, hat and boots, and basking in the warmth of living room heat as they enter the living room, the kids fall victim to drowsy, warm influences on those same brain cells. The entryway door remains open, sending the gas meter ticking away at phenomenal speed.
“Shut that door!”
When I was a kid, my friend’s mom always shouted, “Born in a barn?” implying that barnyard animals are the only ones without sense to shut the door when it’s cold. I never liked that expression, and I won’t use it. Besides, “Shut That Door!” has a nice, staccato sound to it, like nails pounded into memory.
Usually, “Shut That Door!” is enough to stimulate the door-closing response, though not always.
Sometimes, shutting the door is nearly impossible. For adults, it’s even more difficult than for kids.
When you shut a door after a child first moves out on his own, that’s hard.
When you shut the door on a long relationship that has slowly unraveled, that’s painful.
When you’ve sold everything you once cherished on the auction block, to move into assisted living, and shut your door for the very last time, that’s agonizing.
Sometimes it’s wrong to shut the door. A neighbor needs help. Sorry. Slam.
This Christmas, one large retailer decided to shut the door on the Salvation Army, forbidding bell-ringers. Its corporate position statement cited the need for customers to enjoy “distraction-free shopping.”
Distraction-free shopping. There’s the Christmas spirit! A memo right from the desk of Scrooge and Marley. The charitable heart of Christmas ripped out and labeled a “distraction” from buying and selling.
Shutting the door on Christmas is probably no easier than shutting the door on a strong north wind. Still, some try.
Some work to dilute Christmas with every Rudolf, sugar, tinsel, eggnog, Susy Snowflake mixture they can find. Others stand at the doorstep, complaining about the welcome mat. Others rail against Christmas, citing their own bitter memories of past injustices, or predicting future ones. They refuse to go in unless they go in on their own terms at their own time, and try to block others from entering.
Disgruntled litigants apply legal pressure to shut tight any Christmas door left open to the public. But it’s hard to shut a door on a door. And Christmas is a door.
“I am the door,” says the Christ child. “If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”
No more bolted doors. No more “Do not enter” signs. You can be shut out of meetings, banned from white restaurants, corralled onto smaller and smaller reservations, locked out of board rooms, prevented from bell-ringing. But you can never be shut out of Christmas.
You can go in AND out. And find pasture. Rich, green, luxuriant pasture.
And it won’t matter if you leave the Christmas door open, because the Christ child himself was born in a barn.
Christmas is the door that faces biting, arctic air. But it’s also the door that leads to warmth and comfort and welcome.
Maybe every time a child comes home, I should accompany “Shut That Door!” with “Come On In!” because it somehow seems like a more Christmassy thing to do.

Yuletide yourself over with this Christmas quiz

2008-12-01T07:12:00.000-08:00

Some people love the sacred aspects of Christmas. Others love the corny parts. But the true Christmas connoisseur loves every aspect of the holiday. A true afficionado is the guy whose yard features snowmen, camels and mechanical Rudolphs, staggered near life-size creches, flanked by candy cane pillars – under flashing, neon Bethlehem stars. Wise men and elves crowd below blazing trees bedecked with angels and stocking-capped penguins.
The connoisseur’s home echoes with Susie Snowflake AND O Holy Night, mixing loudly with Schroeder’s jazz piano notes from the Charlie Brown Christmas video.
This quiz is not for lukewarm Christmas fans but for diehard devotees. See if you fill the bill:
1. Which song does NOT include pumpkin pie? a. Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree b. Sleigh Ride c. It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year d. Over the River and Through the Woods
2. What Asia Minor city was St. Nicholas said to have been bishop of? a. Myra b. Caesarea c. Alexandria d. Sardis
3. Who wrote these not-terribly-memorable Christmas song lyrics, in 1975: “O little Zachary, shining light/You've set my soul to dreaming/You've given back my joy in life/And filled me with new meaning”? a. Elvis Presley b. Linda Ronstadt c. John Denver d. Richard Carpenter
4. Which of the following was a sign of the Christ child, according to scripture? a. camels b. swaddling clothes c. drummer boy d. wassail
5. In Santa Baby (Eartha Kitt’s, not Puff Daddy’s) which of the following items are NOT among the gifts the singer requests: a. convertible b. heart of gold c. duplex d. decorations bought at Tiffany
6. The names of which two kids’ TV personas come from minor characters in the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life? a. Rocky and Bullwinkle b. Fred and Barney c. Alvin and Theodore d. Bert and Ernie
7. The words of which Old Testament prophet does Handel use in his Messiah for the Wonderful! Counselor! passage? a. Jeremiah b. Malachi c. Micah d. Isaiah
8. What character does Lucy want to play in A Charlie Brown Christmas? a. Innkeeper’s wife b. Mary c. Angel d. The Christmas queen
9. Plymouth Colony’s governor William Bradford insisted that colonists work on Christmas. Nevertheless, some celebrants reveled in the streets, leaving the governor no choice but to confiscate their athletic equipment. What two sports are mentioned in Bradford’s journal account? a. pitching the barr and stoole-ball b. foote-ball and spin the jug c. cock-fighting and horseshoes d. kick-the-tin and capture-the-flag
10. What is “slowly dying” in Let it Snow? a. your smile b. the storm c. the fire d. car battery
11. Who was governor of Syria (Luke 2, KJV) when Caesar Augustus decided to tax the whole world? a. Herod b. Pilate c. Cyrenius d. Agrippa
12. Which of the following naughty acts did the kid singing “Nuttin’ for Christmas” NOT do? a. spilled some ink on Mommy’s rug b. gave the tablecloth a tug c. made Tommy eat a bug d. bought gum with a slug
13. Which of the following songs does NOT have mistletoe in it? a. Holly Jolly Christmas b. I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus c. I’ll be home for Christmas d. White Christmas
14. What does Tim Allen’s character use to put out the turkey fire in his oven in The Santa Clause? a. baster of gravy b. cup of Malt-O-Meal c. fire extinguisher d. Redi-Whip
15. How long has Marley been dead in A Christmas Carol? a. Fifteen long years b. a year ago Christmas Eve c. since Scrooge left the partnership four years and a fortnight ago d. seven years
16. Which Christmas carol includes these lyrics: “Beneath the heavenly strain have rolled Two thousand years of wrong; And man, at war with man, hears not The tidings which they bring” a. It came upon a midnight clear b. Angels from the realms of glory c. I heard the bells on Christmas Day d. Frosty the Snowman
Answers: 1.C, 2.A, 3.C, 4.B, 5.B, 6.D, 7.D, 8.D, 9.A, 10.C, 11.C, 12.B, 13.D, 14.C, 15.D, 16.A
Rate yourself: 3 correct – More Christmassy than most; 4-8 correct – You’re verging on becoming a connoisseur; 9-12 – True Christmas Afficionado (You deserve a candy cane! Tell your spouse); 13-16 – Absolutely nutty over Christmas. Get help now!

Donna Marmorstein
All Rights Reserved Nov. 2004