A New Years Tradition

Happy New Year! Randy and I are proud to say that we watched the ball drop this year. We went to friends' home to play games and stayed until after midnight. It's been an unusual day. The temperature got up to about 58 degrees today (although it was raining most of the day). It will only get up to 26 tomorrow, so Randy decided when we got home that tonight (now, right this very minute) was the perfect time (or at least the warmest time)to take down the outside Christmas lights. Unfortunately, he's having a hard time raising much enthusiasm on my part to help out for two reasons -- I put them all up by myself and it took me a whole day. Now I don't want to spend a whole night taking them down. The other problem is that the most magical part of Christmas to me is the lights. I am going to miss them big time!

Anyway, I decided to blog instead. Randy's brother married Jennifer in 1981. I think their very first Christmas they had our family's name for the gift exchange. Lucky US! Jennifer must have still been worried about being accepted into the family because she actually took the time to make these adorable counted cross stitch stockings for each of our children. The children put out their big stockings for Santa to fill, but these gifts of love were always hung from cup hooks mounted underneath the fireplace mantle. Santa would put a small treat in them -- sometimes it was the gold chocolate coins that have been a Christmas tradition in Randy's family for five generations.

These little stockings became a part of a simple tradition. On New Year's Day we would have each of the children write down their goals (or New Year's Resolutions, if you will) for the coming year. Then they would fold the paper up and put it inside their little Christmas stocking, which would then be packed away until the next year. When we got the stockings out again, it was a perfect opportunity for each of them to take the paper out and evaluate how they had done in achieving their goals for the year.

Here are a few things to think about as we begin a new year:

Winners have lots of solutions.

Losers have lots of problems.

Winners plan to succeed.

Losers fail to plan.

Winners think in terms of rewards.

Losers think in terms of risks.

Winners believe the future is now and will get better.

Losers believe the good old days are gone forever.

Winners look forward to every new day.

Losers would rather stay in bed.

Winners put in 110% effort.

Losers are satisfied just to get by.

Winners say it may be difficult but it's possible.

Losers say it may be possible but it's too difficult.

Winners associate with winners who are disciplined, energetic and productive.

Losers spend time with losers, time wasters, talkers, and complainers.

Winners are willing to work for nothing in the short run knowing that reasonable compensation will come over the long term.

Losers expect their employers or government to support them.

Winners believe every day you waste is one that can never be made up.

Losers waste days and hope they do not have to be made up.

Winners inspire and lift you.

Losers leave you feeling low and drained.

Winners always find time for the important things.

Losers are always too busy.

Winners do things right the first time.

Losers never do things right.

Winners accept criticism and are always looking for ways to improve.

Losers avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and are nothing.

This year I want to be more of a WINNER!

The Bounty of our Lives

Does every family have a "junk drawer"? Randy and I have one in our armoire. It is mostly filled with old wrist watches, boxed cuff links, old wallets and coin purses, discarded cell phones, foreign coins, old buttons, safety pins, hotel sewing kits, peppermint candies picked up on the way out of restaurants, etc. But when I was a kid the "junk drawer" was a very important source (or resource) -- the first place you looked for things like scissors, string, a rubber band, scotch tape, a nail file, a pencil. Today we buy pens or pencils by the dozens or by the 100s, but if we couldn't find a pencil stub in the junk drawer (naturally the eraser had long since been used and we would bite on the metal band to try to get a tiny bit of eraser to poke out for one last erasure) we could spend an hour and never find a pencil. Today I keep a pair of scissors in almost every room of the house, including the bathrooms, TV room and garage, but if the one pair of scissors we owned didn't happen to be in the junk drawer you were pretty much out of luck.

Combs were another issue. We had two. One of them was always stuck in the sisal comb holder that hung next to the mirror in the bathroom. The other was on mother's dressing table. That's where we sat every morning while mother combed our hair and then either braided it or brushed it into wringlets. Removing either of those combs from their designated locations was a serious matter.

One of the things that Clarissa got for Christmas was a whole package of combs. Now I suppose that the combs were really for the benefit of her mother, as I don't know too many four-year-olds who write Santa for a package of combs. Lucky Tiffany. While my sister was raising her six children it seemed that "the comb" was always missing. Many a morning there was a minor crisis as the entire family searched high and low for the comb (which, of course, no one had seen or touched). A few weeks before Christmas on just such a morning my sister was fit to be tied by the time the children were out the door for school. When my brother-in-law said, "Sweetheart, what would you like for Christmas this year?" my sister replied, "Just a comb that I can find when I need it." That Christmas morning when she opened her gift she found a brand new comb. Harl had drilled a hole in it and attached a light-weight sixteen-foot chain which he then fastened around the leg of their king-sized bed. She got exactly what she wanted. Never had to look more than sixteen feet to find that comb!

Reverence

I think the funnest blogs to read are when people tell about the cute things their kids do or say, especially if it is one of my own grandchildren. I watch Randy like a hawk, but he seldom does anything really cute or funny. It makes blogging difficult. But, I was sitting next to Quinn and four-year-old Clarissa at Church on Sunday when this exchange took place during the sacrament.

Quinn: Clarissa, hold still!

Quinn: Clarissa, stop wiggling!

Quinn: Clarrisa, stop moving!

Clarissa (sitting very very still and statue-like): Dad!

Quinn: What?

Clarissa: Is it okay if I move my tongue inside my mouth?

When Joseph Went to Bethlehem

The Christmas Sweater

Didn’t Glenn Beck write a book called The Christmas Sweater? Well, this story won’t be nearly as dramatic, but it’s possible that it could have taken place the very same Christmas. I’m getting way ahead of myself.

When I was a Bluebird (in primary) one of our requirements was to learn how to knit and to complete a knitted project. Have you ever hear of baby soakers? Well, actually, neither had I, but that was one of the projects you could make, and it probably looked like the simplest project, so that’s the one I chose. This way WAY before disposable diapers, but we did use plastic pants over the baby’s cloth diaper, so baby soakers preceded the invention of plastic. They were intended to be worn over a cloth diaper to . . . .well, I’m not sure. But I did knit one and learned how to knit, purl, cast on, and cast off. Now I was certainly ready for sweaters. I started a pink one. I think I finished two sleeves and one side of the front. A few years later I started a brown pullover. I finished the front and half the back. Knitting is a long, slow process.

Randy and I married in August of 1967, and almost before we had the pots and pans arranged in the cupboard it was time to think about Christmas. What could I do for Randy? I would certainly not do something so “un-special” as buying him a shirt or a tie. I know, I could knit him a sweater. Perfect! Trip to the yarn shop – pattern book, knitting needles, skeins and skeins of yarn. I’m set! But wait, how am I going to make it without Randy knowing? Our apartment is as big as a postage stamp! Have you ever known anyone who knitted an entire sweater in the bathroom? Well now you do!

If you’ve ever made a gift you may have experienced what I did. During the hours and hours I sat on that toilet knitting that sweater I was envisioning how much Randy was going to love it. I pre-lived the opening of that gift so many times, and it was always an amazing event full of joy and surprise. I think I was so excited about it I may have even cried when he opened it. Randy? Well, he didn't cry. I think he may have been a little bit unsure what he would do with this gigantis sweater that was bigger than any drawer in our apartment. I’m glad I have this picture. I think it may have been the only time he wore it.

Christmas Program1974

Today I was adding a little memory to my personal history. It is a section in which I talk about things that were kind of unique to my childhood -- things that don't exist today like xray machines in shoe stores so mothers could see how their kids shoes fit, and grocery wagons (miniature grocery stores on flatbed trucks that drove around town to accommodate mothers who didn't have cars), and two-piece nylons with garter belts. The one I was remembering today happened to include a Christmas story, so thought it might be fun. Here it is:

"Another thing that you never see today was that our chapels had “cry” rooms. They were small rooms separated from the chapel by glass and were usually at the back of the chapel or sometimes on the second floor looking down into the chapel. It was a place where mothers could take crying babies or noisy children and still see and hear what was going on. When Randy was a Sunbeam in Junior Sunday School our chapel in Provo had an upstairs cry room. Heidi was a baby, and the week of the Christmas program must have been the one time in her entire life that she was fussy. I was sitting up in the cry room with her when the Junior Sunday School children marched in to sing their songs for the Christmas program. They all walked in reverently with their arms folded – all but Randy, that is. He followed directly behind his teacher who was one of the elderly (and more rotund) sisters in the ward. He was wearing his little red sweater shorts with the matching red and white striped cardigan and entered with a high-stepping march, keeping perfect time to the music being played by beating the rhythm on his teacher’s rear end. Oh dear, I was too far away to do anything about it. All the children lined up on the stand, and the Sunbeams were lifted up to stand on the small wooden pews that had been carried in from the Junior Sunday School room. Randy was front and center. Having already caught the attention of most of the congregation upon entering the chapel, most of them were still looking at him when he happened to look up and saw me sitting in the cry room. Not realizing that there were speakers in the cry room he belted out a greeting to me that was loud enough to penetrate the glass, accompanied by exuberant waving. Everyone laughed out loud which startled Randy. He tried to step back, but the back of the little pew caught him just at the knees, flipping him right over the back of the bench. The only thing that could be seen of him was two little legs sticking straight up in the air. It caused quite a commotion. That may have been the very week that the church decided to do away with cry rooms."

And before you say anything about my hair, just remember that "The bigger the hair, the closer to Heaven."

Insecurity

It seems silly to use up a day right before Christmas to talk about something that isn't a wonderful Christmas memory or thought, but something is bugging me, and I think it is my insecurity. I just came down to my computer to check my blog and noticed that 23 people read my blog today, but there was not a single comment. What does that mean? Was my post (or my behavior) lame? inappropriate? embarrassing? boring? I've tried to imagine that I just stumbled across this blog and what kind of a comment I might make. About all I could come up with was "Oh." So I'll just assume that's what all of you were thinking, but if it is actually one of the possibilities listed above, would someone please let me know.