In the bleak mid-winter

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

-Christina Rosetti (1872)

 

What if it were always winter and never Christmas?

Merry Christmas, dearest darlings!

What would be nice today...

That was the morning prompt that I sent my little writing group today. My goal in sending it was just the simple thought of what you could do that would make today a nice day. I was hoping to send my friends a little nudge to make them write down (or just think about) at least one thing that they knew they could finish today. It might be exercising, it might be getting at least 4 presents wrapped, it might be hanging the picture in your son’s room that was taken down two weeks ago when his room was painted, or perhaps it was even finally removing the un-carved pumpkin that never found its jack-o-lantern soul from the front porch. It would be nice today if I could...


I think sometimes we all expect a little too much of ourselves. The overwhelming feeling of being ever on a treadmill and always moving without actually getting anywhere can be just plain discouraging. So, I decided this morning to write just ONE thing I had to accomplish that would allow me to be able to look back when I got in bed tonight that I could say, “well, at least I got that done!”. As it turned out, over-achiever that I am, I jotted down a mini to-do list of about five things which by the way included something involving both a picture and a pumpkin. If those got done, I could call it a day and a nice one at that.

At the end of the day, here’s where I am on the list. I ran 3.5 miles on the treadmill AND I got several very important work items done (including showing property and setting up my new iPhone e-Key – by the way to whomever put the instructions for that behind the cutting board in the kitchen, you are not my friend). In addition, I have finally cleaned my kitchen from last night’s family gathering, washed sheets, made beds, drove my parents to doctor appointments, picked up my parents from doctor appointments, helped Mary Rollins find an ugly Christmas sweater for a youth group party (tip for finding those: Grandma’s closet, total treasure trove of amazing options), picked up two boys from the mall (that took an HOUR), dropped a boy off, picked up another boy for a sleepover, learned that my parents think there’s nothing wrong with putting strawberry syrup in milk that’s gone bad to make it more palatable for drinking. Oh yeah, did I mention I went to buy some milk for my parents at the grocery. I also threw away a perfectly good frozen pumpkin…so sad. I really wanted to get the pumpkin seeds out but wise daughter said, “Mom, let it go”. No longer is a pumpkin mingling with the Christmas décor.

It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you start your day with achievable expectations. And, sometimes you can even make a blog post. Total bonus!

So what would make a nice day for you?

A Hope Center morning

Snow. Beautiful snow Monday morning, still and silent, and even with the inconveniences of no school, it was a morning reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell Christmas card.

Gifts for the Hope Center and Harrison Elementary

And cold. Bitterly cold.

I confess, it was not with a fully joyful heart that I left sleeping children in bed yesterday morning to deliver the Christ Church Angel Tree gifts to the Hope Center for men -- our homeless shelter. But two friends and I had agreed that this was the day and 9:30 a.m. was the time – the only time that fit our busy schedules for the day and week. I left several early morning messages with Heather, our Hope Center contact, trying to determine if with all the snow it was still a good morning for our delivery for them. Hearing nothing, Priscilla and I decided to head out anyway. As I pulled out of the garage, my phone rang and it was Heather. This morning was fine, she said. She had a long-standing meeting so she wouldn’t be available when we got there but she had left word at the desk that we would be arriving at 10 a.m. Then she apologized for being a bit frazzled and said, “Remind me again what your church is bringing.”

“Cold weather things – gloves, hats, sweatshirts, long underwear for 75 of the men plus we have several new coats as well.”

“Oh yes,” Heather said, “the items for our Christmas party at the end of the week. Thank you SO much!” And then there was a silence for a moment. “Do you think your church members would mind if we didn’t wait to give them out? If we used them today? I have men standing here at the desk waiting for anything warm that might come in. It’s so cold and normally it’s not this cold until January. With this weather…”

I really didn’t think anybody who brought those gifts would mind.

“Your gifts couldn’t have come at a better time. We’ve been desperate for long underwear. Your church is such a blessing to us.”

I’m home now and warm. MR and Will had been sledding while I was gone and I was a little bit sorry that I hadn’t taken them with me to help deliver the packages, but frankly, there wasn’t room in my car, or Lissa’s or Priscilla’s with all the packages our church had been so incredibly generous in providing. I am thinking about how grateful I am to have been part of our Angel Tree and what a small but meaningful difference we made. Today you helped keep someone warm. Today, when it was so desperately needed, we got to be God’s hands. I heard one man say as they scrambled to help unload my car, “oh my, she’s even got stuff on her front seat!”

Of all the gifts that will be given this Christmas will there be any better?

Sunday 25 gift cards were delivered to Moveable Feast, today at noon, we’ll deliver gifts to the children and families of Harrison Elementary. And, we will share with them much-needed gifts that you provided. If you’d like to help deliver to Harrison, please let me know. In the meantime, thank you my friends for being Angels.

You forgot my water...

I'm shopping for Angel Tree today (which will shortly be a separate post) and I get a call from the middle school from Will who says, "did you put a water bottle in my lunch today?".

 I realized I had not (please note that I NEVER forget this and why I did is a semi-complicated story in which Will has some accountability). 

So, he says, "where are you?".

"I'm across town at the mega-Kroger in Beaumont shopping for Angel Tree."

"So can you leave and bring me a water bottle?".

"Ummmmmm....no.  Are you crazy?"

"Seriously, Mom.  You won't bring me a water bottle?".

some postlings at Bluegrass Moms...

Hi my darlings...I have some new postlings on the Bluegrass Moms blog.  Please feel free to make comments there also.  And, to my faithful readers here, any suggestions on how to manage both spots?  Isabug, anyone? 

xoxo--g

On getting ready...

I love Advent.  I love the whole idea of Advent being a time to get ready to celebrate the mystery of Christmas.  It's the time in the church when the colors change from the ordinary-ness of green to the majesty of purple or the peace of blue.  A time to wait for the wonder of Christmas.  And while we wait, filling the days with decorations, present shopping, gift wrapping, parties, nutcracking and cooking.  As well, as a quiet moment or two for reflection.  I love Advent because unlike Lent, it's not so serious after all we're getting ready to celebrate birth not a death.  And, not that I don't deeply value Lent but Advent is such an expectantly happy time when we can all be together on the road to Bethlehem.   

Over the weekend, I did most of my Christmas decorating.  We still have our real tree to put up.  We're redecorating the family room so the living room is full of that room's furniture and there's no room for the tree but most everything else is more or less out and almost everything is in a place. 

I like to think of Christmas decorating as a part of our preparations and looking at our decorations is a great visit into the land of memories.   Growing up, I can remember the boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations that we had at the Williamson house.  I vividly recall some of my favorite decorations as a child:  three wise men my mother had made out of coke bottles brilliantly clad in exquisite velvet robes with carefully crafted felt, bed and sequin faces sitting on a nest of fiberglass "angel hair" and and entire Christmas village that was erected under the Christmas tree that I set up every year.  I particularly loved a white swan that sat on a large round  mirror to look like a pond.  An electric train, that never ran in my lifetime, wrapped around the town and it took hours to arrange everything in its exact place under the tree and in our living room. In my memories it took all 5 of the Williamson children plus my dad to get the job done.  As a teen-ager, I think I did the decorating all by myself as the youngest child.  My older sisters were married with their own homes and my brothers didn't get into the decorating.  But, I couldn't wait for everybody to come home and the house to fill with people.

Today, the Mathews are waiting expectantly for Christmas and the gift of family and our house is ALMOST ready to welcome them.  They won't come in one huge bunch like when I was growing up.  On Christmas morning it will be just us four --  our little family we like to call it (we're looking forward to that -- our sweet Christmas morning) but over the next two weeks we can't wait for the arrival my BFF Stacey (Friday) and of the Selby girls next week.  All I can say is "yeah, yeah, yeah!" 



One of our favorite ways to count down the
days until Advent.  Oh look...it's a Nutcracker.

 So, there's probably no real point of this blog post except to say, I love getting ready to celebrate Christmas and I'm so thankful that wonderful friends and family are coming to visit.  Yeah, yeah, yeah!!!

Bluegrass Moms Blog

You can finally find my BluegrassMoms At Home in the Bluegrass blog at Kentucky.com under featured bloggers.  It's actually not going to be entirely a duplicate of this blogspot blog as I'm not sure the whole world wants to read about Williamson girls.

Williamson girls...

 Mary Rollins was telling me about a new high school friend named Sophia.  She said she was so glad that Sophia was in her German class because she was like a "Williamson girl".  She reads books all the time, loves the Shopaholic, talks about art & music and she gets our humor -- "I think she might even speak our language." 

I don't know about you, but I think we need to meet this girl!  Wonder if she plays Scrabble?

I hope when/if Will and John get married, they find nice "Williamson girls!"