Cardboard Boxes

Finished with your Christmas shopping already?  Are you 100% sure?  Did you miss anyone?  What about those unexpected guest that seem to appear out of nowhere every year? Got something tucked away for them?  Hopefully there will only be ONE unexpected guest. 

Children do not count the money spend on presents, they count packages.  They put them up in piles of “mine and yours”.  Watch the war if one sibling has one more present than the other.  Pouting, tears, and “Santa loves you more than me” starts immediately even before opening any presents.  So count presents and make sure there is an even amount and save loads of trouble.

 Depending on the children’s ages, all the empty Christmas present boxes hold a fascination for children that cannot be ignored.  New toys laid aside the children build a town, fort or store out of the empty boxes.  For hours and sometimes days (as long as the parent can tolerate the empty boxes) new toys will ignored.  Either Mother’s cleaning or the cardboard finally going flat will revive the new toys that Santa brought. 

 May everyone have a wonderful Christmas, full of love, old hurts forgot and forgiven.

Indoor Plumbing and other blessings

Do you really like the hustle and bustle of holidays like Christmas? In a way it is still so fun, but more so when the children were little, their excitement infuses the whole house. The awe of shinny new presents – so explain why they play with the boxes instead of the new toys! That is a mystery of childhood and the freedom of their imagination. Wonderful, sometimes as we grow in age we lose our imagination and that is sad. Just compare a 5 year old and an 18 year old at Christmas. Wow!

Do you serve traditional Holiday food or something altogether different? I’ve tried for years to something different and get resistance from all sides. “It will not seem like Christmas without ____.” Oh Well, I do know that the local grocery store will cook the main meal for me. That makes it easy and good too.

Now about presents – what can I say – they all have way too much. And the electronics, as hard as I tried to stay up with times it seems impossible. They change daily and the young seem to have an automatic instinct of how to use them.

Seriously, we must think about people in other lands that live in conditions we would not accept. Think about living without running water, hot and cold water. I personally am so thankful for indoor plumbing. Think about not have electricity – can you just imagine how that would change your life? Or heat or cooling for our homes and what about transportation. No car? Horrors. Give thanks to the good Lord above for supplying us with all blessings.  Thank you Lord!