Weekly Update: 12.30.23
Almighty God, you have given your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born of a pure virgin: Grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and for ever.
Amen.
The Collect for Christmas Day -- The Book of Common Prayer, 2019
There are many fitting jokes that circulate this time of year. With the rest of the world, we've eaten too much candy, played too many board games, and struggled to keep track of which day it is. It has been surprisingly busy, as most of the family has been off work. Since we are still battling some sort of cold or flu, we haven't tried to work on the bunkhouse. With so many people not feeling like their best selves, there was plenty of work to do each day just keeping up with the cooking, cleaning, and laundry.
Despite the crazy, I have managed to open and close each day with prayer. I began using The Book of Common Prayer five years ago, after studying ancient Christian prayer traditions. Along with my regular extemporaneous conversations with God, taking time each morning and night to pray some of the old prayers -- including the Psalms -- has become a lifeline for me spiritually, especially when the busyness of life threatens to pull me out of focus. The Christmas Day Collect has felt like a daily bookend, reminding me of the why we are celebrating when I start to feel weary, and empowering me with the how when I find my patience wearing thin.
I love Christmas. I always have. But it has it's challenges -- heaping more to do on already over-busy lives. This year, the change in our work felt like such a gift. Even being sick felt a bit like a hidden blessing, as I think we would have focused more on the bunkhouse if people were feeling more healthy. It's easier to stir chocolate when you are sick than heft 2x4s, and so we had a more festive Christmas than many of us thought would be possible.
Our Christmas weekend was overflowing with fun. We had our Ozarks family favorite, chocolate gravy and biscuits (some cooked in the slow cooker and some in the air fryer) on Saturday, something we always have during the holidays. I went on to spend most of the day dipping chocolate. We have a pre-Christmas tradition of potato skins (we turn the insides into a casserole), but we didn't know if that would be possible without an oven. Then, we figured out that you can bake potatoes in slow cookers. We contemplated baking the skins in the little air fryer, but we opted to grill them instead -- and they were fantastic. We liked them so much, we may grill them next year.
We followed my Dad's family tradition and had our dinner on Christmas Eve. We made a full Christmas dinner in slow cookers and a pressure cooker -- ham, green bean casserole, potato casserole, and corn casserole. It was so easy, I actually had time to work on a puzzle for an hour -- something that never happens with so much cooking to do. Two cream pies and homemade eggnog was more dessert than we had room for.
Our little wall tent has felt like a north-pole outpost, with the table covered in candy and the tree surrounded by presents. With such a large family and such a small space, most of our gifts overflowed to the shelf above our door. It was actually quite decorative that way. Big families often come up with gift systems to make the holidays doable, and our system for the last several years has been for each person to give one gift for the whole family to enjoy (though we all spoil the kids with gifts of their own). This year, I bought our family a book: Brooks Blevins' A History of the Ozarks, Volume I. Other gifts included some games, a latte maker, and a popcorn maker for the tent. My folks blessed everyone with a lighted shelf for starting plants this winter. Jeremiah spoiled all of us with supplies to get honey bees this spring, as well as a home brewery kit to make our own mead (a nod to our Scandinavian heritage). We left these bigger items safe in their boxes, but I included some images from Amazon below. It was quite the haul, and I felt humbled by all the generosity.
In so many ways, it was a better Christmas than I thought would be possible during this crazy life season. But as the weather turned colder this week, the family spent most of their time in the wall tent. Despite the beauty of falling snow, by the middle of the week, it wasn't just the kids that were starting to feel fussy. As much as everyone wants to have a Hallmark worthy holiday season, the fallenness of the world has a way of diming the Christmas lights. It was our first Christmas without my grandma, who though she lived in a different state, was always only a daily phone call away. The holidays always have a way of dredging up old memories, and those more bitter than sweet put a strain on the merry making. The process of sanctification is never complete in this life, and sin has a way of showing up when it is least wanted. We had a really good Christmas, but it had it's difficult moments, and I found myself meditating on the request of the Christmas Collect: "Grant that we (...) may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit."
After all, this is what we celebrate at Christmas. We celebrate the Baby who would be King, who daily does for us what we could never do for ourselves. He gives us Life, not least of which is the ability to push through both big crises and little doldrums, renewing us each day with His Spirit. That is something worth celebrating, especially when we feel tired. His strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
And we will continue to celebrate. It is only the 6th Day of Christmas, and we observe all 12 Days called for in the old Christian calendar. Perhaps it started with our family interest in Advent, but we found that acknowledging the whole season of Christmas seemed a more fitting end to all the preparation. To add to the fun, years ago, my mom surprised the family by giving a gift each of the 12 days. I will never forget my confusion walking past the tree the day after Christmas, and having to do a double take when I saw the space around it was once again populated with presents. With such a big family, my mom rarely pulled of surprises without someone knowing something, but that year, she did it. And all these years later, my folks still insist on the tradition. Each gift is for the family as a whole and is usually both modest and practical. The festivity each day continues with board games and festive food. This week, we got a shipment of Wisconsin cheese, something we fell in love with on a road trip a few years ago. Yesterday, we sampled our first muffuletta sandwiches after picking up a jar of olive salad from Costco earlier in the month. They were delicious.
While we are still reveling in Christmas, we are getting ready for another round of festivity ringing in the new year. It is an exciting time of life, and I am so proud of how far we have come in 2023. We built a whole house from the ground up all by ourselves. Sure, it's not totally done on the inside, but it is there, an actual building. And it is ours. And through the process, I can say we have all grown as people. The harder life brought character weaknesses to light, and while it hasn't always been pleasant, it has been good for all of us to face our flaws. We are better than we were a year ago, and I have faith, we will be better than we are now next year. This is a good adventure, calling each of us out of ourselves and into something bigger. I can't wait to see where we are when I draft the last blog post of 2024.
