Third Day of Christmas
****So often at this time of year we have such great expectations of how we want the season to unfold. We envision finding the perfect gift and cooking the perfect feast. We want our decorations to put Martha Stewart to shame and the kids to be well behaved. And, of course, we want to look smashing at midnight Mass.
*****The reality is usually different. No matter how carefully we plan, something always seems to go wrong. By the time Christmas Eve rolls around we are exhausted, nervous, and probably have an upset stomach.
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****I did hair for many, many years and I remember well the ladies and their laments before Christmas.
*****"I haven't even started my baking, my cards aren't done, and I still have so much shopping to do," they would moan.
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****Never one to keep my mouth shut (what fun is that?), I would say, "if you don't want to do all that baking why don't you just buy some cookies and, while you're at it, why not skip the cards?
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****"Oh, I couldn't do that."
*****"Well yes you can, my dear. Just try it, you may like it."
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****Meantime the husbands are being directed by a frantic wife to make sure the lights on the house are straight or worse, you're one of those guys that really, really gets into this light hanging thing. John across the street has 25,000 lights so you, by God, are going to have 50,000, and on and on, until your neighborhood looks like 2001: A Space Odyssey.
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****This year, because of the record snowfall, we had no tree. There were no lights and the wreaths were not to be seen. We were so busy moving the snow around that all I had time to make was a couple of loaves of cranberry-orange bread. I found some old chocolate almond bark in the cupboard, melted it, threw in some pecans and raisins. Dropped by the spoonful on a piece of foil it hardened and became candy blobs.
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****On Christmas Eve we had to hike out to the main road to be picked up by a dear friend to get to Mass. I was dressed appropriately in jeans, boots, sweaters, and a parka. No high heel boots, cute skirt, or sparkly earrings. So who does Father want to bring the gifts up? My hubby and me. That'll keep ya humble!
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****But you know what? It was all fine. Christmas was still Christmas.
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****One of my favorite books by C.S. Lewis is "Letters to an American Lady" and this is my favorite quote.
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****"Don’t be too easily convinced that God really wants you to do all sorts of work you needn’t do. Each must do his duty “in that state of life to which God has called him.” Remember that a belief in the virtues of doing for doing’s sake is characteristically feminine, characteristically American, and characteristically modern: so that three veils may divide you from the correct view! There can be intemperance in work just as in drink. What feels like zeal may be only fidgets or even the flattering of one’s self importance...By doing what “one’s station and its duties” does not demand, one can make oneself less fit for the duties it does demand and so commit some injustice. Just you give Mary a little chance as well as Martha."
My mother always told us the story of her childhood when there was no sign of Christmas in her home until Christmas day. Her and her siblings were not permitted to come downstairs on Christmas morning until my grandma put a Christmas record on the gramophone and called for them.
