Dec 26 2008
Among the many fine and thoughtfully-chosen gifts I received this Christmas was the Domo-kun on the left of this photo. I had coincidentally brought the right-hand Domo (purchased at Target at Halloween, when he was their spokesmonster) home for Christmas photo shenanigans. And then on Christmas morning I unwrapped this lovely hand-crocheted Domo that Meg made me!
Are they not awesome together?
Dec 25 2008
It’s been a quiet Christmas here at Hacienda Bridge. After a strenuous Christmas Eve filled with cooking, cleaning, an emergency client visit for Tom, having to learn quickly how to cook a prime rib while Tom was out on said client visit, and a post-church dinner that went on well past midnight, we spent pretty much all of today in Christmas Coma.
I’ve been in my jammies all day, watching The West Wing with my husband and enjoying the peace and quiet.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Dec 02 2008
Tom and I are staying home for Christmas for the first time, which means it was time to get our first Christmas tree. We had never gotten one before, because we were always traveling at the holidays and it seemed kind of pointless to put up a tree for a holiday we weren’t spending at home. Of course, that also meant that without the big, room-dominating symbol of the season, I always felt like Christmas snuck up on me. Yes, I’ve been putting out the Nativity as long as we’ve had it, but it takes up one shelf while a tree takes up some floor space.
We went to our CSA farm to get our tree- they have a section of their property devoted to Christmas tree farming- and cut it down in the rain. Lisa brought a Zipcar pickup so we could transport both her tree and ours in the truck bed. It sat outside Sunday and Monday in a bucket of water, but we wanted to get it inside before it got cold enough to freeze the water overnight.
We added white Christmas lights to it, but we’re going to hold off on decorating it until the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. That’s Tom’s family’s tradition; my family always decorated the tree on the 17th, which is my parents’ wedding anniversary.
So between now and then, we need to get the ornaments out and see how many we have (and look for a few more if necessary), and I am in charge of finding the tree topper. We’ve been sorting out and altering our individual families’ holiday traditions into “Our Family Traditions” pretty much based on who has a stronger opinion about what. Tom has an opinion about when the tree should be decorated. I have an opinion about the kind of tree topper I’d like. So far, it’s going well.
So my living room smells like fresh pine and my cats are really, really confused. And I’m so looking forward to Christmas Eve- I’ll get to attend Christmas Eve services at our church, and then sit quietly in my home, with the soft lights of our Christmas tree, drinking egg nog or mulled cider and listening to Christmas music.
Nov 30 2008
From ages past no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who works for those who wait for him.
Isaiah 6:4
It’s the first Sunday of Advent, and the theme for this week is Waiting. Because of the late date Thanksgiving fell on this year, we are in the uncommon position of having our season of giving thanks for our many blessings running right into our season of anticipation of the great blessing of the Incarnation.
It may seem strange to say this, but I find this happy coincidence of the calendar to be especially fitting this year, since we lost my grandfather a couple of weeks ago. His funeral was yesterday. For a variety of reasons, I was unable to attend, but my mother tells me that it was a lovely service, a true celebration of my grandfather’s life. I say that the intersection of thanks-giving and anticipation is appropriate for the weekend of Granddaddy’s funeral because those are two principles by which he lived.
Granddaddy was from a long line of pastors and missionaries, and served God himself his whole life, sometimes as a pastor (usually of fledgling churches just starting out), sometimes as a chaplain in a federal prison, and sometimes as a counselor. He served in the RAF during WWII, stationed in London. His obituary has more biographical details, but in my own life, he served God by being an example of gentleness, grace, and good humor. I struggle, as many Christians do, with exactly what it means to be a follower of Christ, and Granddaddy’s example is one that has returned to me again and again.
By the time I was born, he had long since lost his British accent, but always retained his precise British diction and cadence, and certainly his dry wit. He always wrote amazing letters in the most unusual handwriting. He used to wear English Leather cologne, and my dad had a bottle of it on his dresser, that I would occasionally sneak into their room and smell because it reminded me of him. The Christmas they were visiting and my brother got Tetris for his NES, I remember that he and my parents would stay up late playing it. As his health slowly failed him and he lost a leg to diabetes, he took to referring to himself as “some one-legged old geezer.”
I know that my grandfather, always thankful for his many blessings, anticipated death not as something to be dreaded, but as a home-going. Our faith teaches us that in death, we are united with our Lord, and I know that he was ready to welcome it.
So it’s in his memory that I run my Thanks-Giving right into my Waiting this year.
Sep 16 2008
Attention, Associated Press:
Senator and Mrs. McCain have four children together, not three-plus-the-adopted-one. Lack of a shared genetic heritage does not make her less than the daughter of the people who raised her.
Morons.
Aug 13 2008
My brother is in town this week for some training stuff. Since his company offers what is, in my not so humble opinion, a barbarically inadequate amount of vacation time, he tries to schedule his annual training sessions in areas where he has family, and I try to squeeze in some family time while he’s in town. Since it’s Restaurant Week, it seemed like an excellent opportunity to try Dino, which I’ve been wanting to check out for a while. (Short version: We loved it. Detailed dinner review at We Love DC.)
As the younger brother, Ben gleefully enjoyed taunting me about my height from the moment he grew even a scant few millimeters taller than me. He’s got about 6 inches on me now, and still enjoys teasing me, as the little-big sister. And that’s fine. He can tease me all he wants about my height…
…at least I’ve still got all my hair.
