Christmas Highlights

by Anna

Someone once asked me what my favorite holiday was and, after much deliberation, I chose Christmas. It may seem like a given, but you know how much I like my birthday. :D I remember explaining that it was a month-long celebration of my favorite things: good food, spending time with my family, giving to others, fun traditions, and honoring the one who made it all possible.

So we've been having a great month filled with multiple advent calendars, cookies and candy, paper chains, crafts, holiday movies, Christmas stories, carols, and reading the Christmas story. I had good intentions about a lot of things and haven't exactly been able to do them all, but whatever. We've had a good time. Here are a few of my favorite parts thus far:

• I purchased one of these advent calendars a while ago (although the Christmas story version—I don't know why they didn't have a picture of it, as we don't feel that strongly about The Nutcracker) and have been enjoying our morning ritual as we read part of the Christmas story each day. Each little book is an ornament that Anna and I hang on a little Christmas tree in my room. This one sticks to the book pretty closely, but it must be the New International Version or something because they seem to have named the wise men. That was a bit weird. And I don't remember reading anything about Mary and Joseph stopping for the night at an oasis.
• I've tried a variety of things to teach Anna about the importance of being selfless and giving to others, but here was my favorite event. Back on Halloween, a neighbor boy came trick or treating and nearly grabbed a peanut butter cup but pulled his hand back and said, "No, I don't want one of those because my mom will take it and eat it. They're her favorite." We laughed about this, and then I mentioned it to his mom later that night when we were out trick or treating. She laughed and admitted that peanut butter cups were her favorite. Anyway, I didn't even know Anna was listening to any of this, but as we were doing some shopping a few days ago (nearly two months later), she saw some peanut butter cups and asked if we could buy them so she could give them to this woman for Christmas. I said of course. I am happy to support that kind of thinking. So we bought a pack of two, and then Anna wrapped it and tied it with ribbon all on her own and delivered it a few days ago. It was simple, but I absolutely loved that it was Anna's own idea and that it was something she was excited to do for someone else.
• My sister sponsored a cousins trip to the movies for her nieces and nephews. Anna and I went along to see The Muppets. (Pretty great movie, by the way. Anna loved it, but I think a lot of the jokes were intended for an older crowd.) A highlight of the movie was getting to see Chris Cooper rap. (What in the world?) A lowlight (or highlight, however you want to look at it) was having to define and then demonstrate what rapping was to Anna on the way home. She was not impressed. In fact, I think her words were, "Stop that. I hate it." Poor sport.
• Anna begging me to and then watching the She-Ra and He-Man Christmas special.
• In one of Anna's prayers, she talked about how she has learned that it's more important to give than to receive (a small success this month) but that she's glad we still get to celebrate and she hopes they get to have a little party in heaven too.

And it's nice knowing that the fun's not over yet. I want to wish a merry Christmas to all of you. I hope it's filled with all of your favorite things.

Tis the season . . .

. . . to be baking. I present to you the results of Cookie Day 2011:

(clockwise from the top: chocolate caramel thumbprint, raspberry shortbread, chocolate-caramel-peanut-butter-covered pretzel, a caramel, and apricot and black raspberry rugelach)

It sort of looks the same as last year, but that's because we have some returning favorites. Cookie Day would not be Cookie Day without the rugelach and the caramels.

It was a good day. It's always exhausting (I swear I was stirring that caramel for an hour), but it's also such a fun tradition. And there are more sweet treats on my list that I didn't even get to. We might need a Part 2 this year.

Normally a fan of anything sweet, Anna was feeling under the weather today and she wasn't really into eating nine pounds of sugar. But we did get an excellent quote out of her: Mid-hug, she said to Stephanie, "You know what the best kind of sweet is? Love and kindness."

A Christmas Story

This is one of those stories, the kind that you hear around Christmas, the kind that makes you cry and feel guilty for spending your time posting about the ridges in your fingernails. This is the kind that makes you want to sell your car, because you'll somehow get by, and give the money away to help these girls and their family.

These adorable girls are the nieces of my dear friend Amberly.

Natalie and Alice have an extremely rare disease and are going in for chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants next week. One of their brothers is even one of the donors! None of their family will be able to leave their home for the next year, meaning the dad will not be able to go to work for the next year. You can READ MORE about their story here. Do it. It's overwhelming and amazing and beautiful. (There are also instructions on that site for how to donate via PayPal.)

Their story is amazing. I normally don't love passing these things on because they tend to seem somewhat sensationalized. But this one is the real deal. And, probably a bit selfishly, it means more to me because it's about people I know; I've been hearing about these girls and their hospital visits ever since they were born. Theirs is the kind of story that really puts things into perspective, especially when I think about how the last time Anna went to the doctor for being sick was two years ago.

I love that this is a story about faith and hope and family and selfless giving. A perfect Christmas story. And this won't just help them out for Christmas, it will help them for the next year. So if you're looking for a way to give this Christmas or at any other time or for any other reason, here's a great one.

Click here to read more about Natalie and Alice and to donate.

Before and After

This is the kind of before and after in my life right now.

Waiting for playgroup: the calm before the storm.

Time well spent.

If I could convey to you just how many sprinkles made it out of the container but not onto a cookie, I would. I felt like I was trying to walk on marbles.

I have ADGD.

It's a new condition. It stands for Attention Deficit Google Disorder. When I am writing or doing something else that's "work" on a computer, I seem to be less and less able to focus on what I'm actually doing and more and more able to come up with any reason to pause and google something. I love Google, but I don't like my new disorder.

It goes like this.

Writing, writing, writing. Something about a movie theater pops into my brain and, before I know it, I think, "Hey, I wonder what movies are playing this weekend." And off I go.

Or I read the word sports, which makes me think of warts, which makes me think, "Hey, I should find out about these ridges on my fingernails. That's vitally important to research right now." (By the way, vertical, orderly ridges are pretty common. Nothing to see here, except another five minutes gone.)

I am grateful for Google. I am. It's a wonder. You can find pretty much anything you ever wanted to know about anything on there. A recipe for homemade taco seasoning? Check. The reason why your thumbnails keep growing in bumpy? Check. The reason why that random person in that one show looks familiar? Check. (That's mostly thanks to IMDB, which is another favorite time suck.) A video of that song that you really liked from that random movie you saw but haven't thought about in years but are now bound and determined to find the soundtrack to that will then lead you to the video so you can listen to that song again? Check. ("Plainsong" by The Cure, by the way. Great song.)

And this is all fine and good, but I was trying to get some work done. This is how much Google has taken over our lives, for good and ill. (I think I really just hate that I don't have more self-restraint. But I'm not about to blog about my own faults, for heaven's sake.)