Christmas As a Learning Project

Or things I never learn over the Christmas period.

1. It goes so fast. Christmas is over in almost the time it takes to say "Is a mini ironing board an acceptable present for Aged Parent?"
2. I will always achieve less than ten percent of everything on my to do list.
3. I will always underestimate (a) The amount of time it takes to be hospitable (b) How shattering being hospitable is.
4. This does not mean that I don't enjoy being hospitable.
5. All talk of Christmas Lunch really just being a large Sunday Roast is nonsense. Despite trying manfully to pare the whole thing back I still end the day feeling something like I imagine the cook felt at the conclusion of one of Henry VIII's most jolly weddings.
6. New Year's Eve could make Pollyanna depressed. Even the dog got upset (Fireworks give him bad nerves)
7. If chocolate is in the house, I will find it and eat it - almost unconsciously. (Almost)

So bloodied but unbowed, we tick another Christmas off, having discovered, controversially, that a mini ironing board may not have gone down that well with the Kardashians but it makes an old lady with a bad back a very happy. 

Happy Christmas

Hello. Just to let you know that the blog will be going quiet over the Christmas period and I will be back with deep insights for living (or failing that lots of inane observations) in the New Year.
And, bowing to huge public demand, all that remains is for Martha Towers and especially Aged Parent (with assistance from FOW1) to wish you all a Blessed Christmas and an Amazing New Year

Nativity Overkill

It has been suggested to me that Five Nativity sets may possibly be a little over the top. I am not sure about that and I'm not taking any notice of anyone anyway but I thought I might just introduce you to them. (This is nothing like introducing you to my children either) The set above is the newest addition and this is cool and elegant Jesus with a free Bethlehem background. 

This is cute Jesus and has the advantage of having the whole stable shenanigans attached. No blu tac needed. Real straw too, therefore highly authentic

This is "I've No Idea Where This Is From Jesus" so called because I have no recollection of buying it. Still, all are welcome here.

This is Inca Fairtrade Jesus AND you can put a tealight in it. That is all.

And this is my oldest child Nativity. If you look closely you can see that most of them are propped up against each other because they have a lot of bits missing. A great deal of the damage was caused by FOW1 doing secret death match fights using them as action figures when he was little but I sort of thought if Joseph wasn't man enough to take Spiderman then God would never have chosen him to look after Mary and Jesus. Five? Too many? Nah.

A Pause in Advent #4

Gari Melchers

I wouldn't claim to know anything about good art or bad art. I just think this is amazing. Not because of the draughtsmanship which I know nothing about but I love the sentiment. Mary and Joseph are in a dirty back room. Mary has just given birth and is exhausted. Joseph looks as though he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. No angels yet or shepherds or wise men. Just a quiet moment of wondering - is this it?
Maybe sometimes miracles have very unprepossessing starts. Not every answer to prayer comes with an angel bursting through the door playing "In The Mood" on his trumpet. Sometimes we have to screw our eyes up a bit to see exactly what this seed can become. Like the tiny cloud, the size of a fist, when what the people need is a huge deluge of rain. Sometimes we have to nurture the answer, which comes quietly and without fanfare and believe that this is God, starting to answer our prayers. Seeing with the eyes of faith I think they used to call it. God may be sending us the answer we need already, we need to respond to his prompting and ask and see if he wants us to do anything to develop his miracle in our lives.  Mary and Joseph had to do it. Out of a very unpromising start came the miracle they had been promised. But it  must have looked very dark there for a while - even when things had started to move. 

This is my last part of A Pause in Advent. There are some great blogs out there about Advent. Always a blessing - never a chore. Please feel free to link in and take a look

Pause in Advent #3

Mary. You know, I think she was quite a person. I was thinking about her last night as I was blu-tacking my newest Nativity set on  to a shelf. (That makes five in total I think. NO ONE can say that they don't see anything of the original Christmas story when they visit this house at Christmas) 

I re-read the beginning of Luke and was amazed to see how much of her early journey with God was so counter intuitive to what would usually be expected.

When the Angel first visits to tell her of her pregnancy, she asks how, but once she's told, there's no "I don't fancy this, think of the trouble it will cause" Or "Are you sure? Because I will need some kind of proof - otherwise - you know - what will Joseph think?" She is certain of what she has been told, and full of praise for the miracle she is about to witness, sets her face forward to meet head on anything that is about to happen.

She leaves with Joseph when heavily pregnant. Leaves her mother - and the women who would certainly have been her birth partners behind and ploughs on alone; possibly with a man who was still eyeing her sideways and wondering if he had really heard the whole truth. Yet she is still determined to see this through. He own personal hardship does not dim the vision she has been given.

When the shepherds came, all full of stories of angel choirs and confirmation of all that she had been told, she could have stood up and shouted - "See, I told you so!" but the Bible says she kept it all in her heart - not to needing to justify herself. 

It was, obviously, a special and different time. God would see his plans come to pass and Mary would have his protection. Sometimes when I look at her and what was already within her - it seems that God saw something in this woman and picked her out - something neither she nor those around her were maybe aware of. There are maybe lessons here for all of us about what God sees in us and what we see in ourselves. What we feel is achievable and what God knows is achievable. It's switching from one track to the other that is the challenge for us.

Part of A Pause In Advent 2015.
Go here to link up to some great stuff.