Dear Christmas Sisters,
Oh! Yesterday afternoon my friend Jill, who I often write about, and her husband Jerry came to our home to wish us a Merry Christmas! Oh, we had a jolly time. Jill and Jerry brought many presents and we had so much fun. Jill had made candy. On a lovely Christmas plate, she laid the dark fudge with walnuts Jerry had cracked. As a couple, they go out to the woods and find walnuts in the fall. Also, Jill brought a delicious pumpkin bread with the walnuts in it. They also brought 4 different kinds of Christmas candy. The dark fudge, peanut butter fudge, toffee, and caramel peanut clusters.
I had made potato cheese soup and a hot spicy chili for our little Christmas party. Then we had coffee and, last but not least, we had the Cherry Raspberry Christmas Cordial. So anything that was funny, anyway, just got funnier. Jill and I serve our men hand and foot. Jill said, "Jim is still your king," as I served him his soup. Well, she is the same with Jerry.
We laughed and had a joyous time. And, oh mercy! Jill made a lot more too. I will tell you about it. She and Jerry made these dipped pretzels. Oh, I hope I can describe how cute these are. You get the long thick pretzels and dip the ends in almond bark and then nuts or the Christmas sprinkles. You dip them most of the way down so you can hold onto them at the bottom without getting sticky. Jill bundled them up in plastic wrap with a simple Christmas string gathered at each end. It's the cutest bundle of candy sticks you have ever seen. I want to eat one but I don't want to mess up how cute they are wrapped. Then, also, Jill brought me some red pepper candles and another cute pumpkin candle. Also, hand lotion and a bar of a Lavender Camay soap. Very fragrant. Oh, it smells lovely. And Jim and I got Jill and Jerry a Poinsettia Christmas flower. Jim had bought eight of these flowers for Christmas and has given many away.
Oh, also Jill gave me some Christmas potpourri. I just opened it this morning and put it in this old fashioned homemade basket. I had pine cones in it on my old buffet. And Jill's potpourri, spread in the basket, makes it look all the more woodsy. The basket smells homey ... like it should be deep in a forest cabin home at Christmas time!
But, oh, we laughed and had fun. We rejoiced over Jill's sister coming to Christ in the past month. What a testimony she is! She will write a book someday. Jesus delivered her from the gay lifestyle and, oh, how we rejoice over that. She tells it like it is, too. That gays aren't born like that. You can imagine how we rejoiced over her conversion after 30 years of praying for her. Well, Jill did most of the prayin'. Oh, Jesus is so wonderful. He is our Savior and Lord.
And Jill is just like a wind up toy. So Jerry tells her to start winding down as it was almost time to leave. They had other presents to deliver to friends. Jerry looked so handsome at 74 years old. His curly, thick, pure white hair just glistened in the candlelight. And Jill, as pretty and brown eyed and full of sparkle as ever. Watching Jerry and Jill across the table is entertainment enough, without any presents.
As Jill paused at the door and looked at the house one more time, just before our last goodbyes and hugs, she said, "Well, Connie, you talk about my house having the presence of the Lord in it. Yours does, too." I looked at the house after she left and tried to see what she saw.
Old familiar friends are such a blessing at Christmas. As iron sharpens iron, old familiar friends sharpen our inner man. We find a stream of still living water in our wilderness. It washes us of the dust and dirt of the world, and refreshes and restores us at Christmas time.
A Christmas Home
This morning, I got an email from a friend of many years. She said that she and her husband wouldn't be cerebrating Christmas that much. Just going to stay home, as it is such a sad time of the year. What with all the sadness in the world, who would feel like celebrating Christmas. Well, I know her husband to be full of fun and could kid a grasshopper into a belly laugh. I thought of him and how sad he must feel about his wife not making a Christmas for the family.
I know there is so much sadness in the world. I see it very keenly, too. But we as wives are not to take on the burdens of the world. We have homes to be keepers in. And when our families see others having a happy Christmas, then they want to have fun and joy, too.
The Mothers in the Depression times had many parties and celebrations. Families gathered at the family home and brought homemade Christmas breads and cakes. They barely had the staples to cook with. They had ration stamps because of the war. So the old time Mothers would save up their ration stamps for a few months to make sure they had plenty of sugar for Christmas baking. The government gave out boxes of raisins to poor people and often the mother used raisins in a recipe to make it sweet.
Dear Sisters, as the times get harder, the Mother's heart should get merrier. There is strength in Joy. When the family sees Mother in her Christmas apron, rolling out and baking cookies, they, too, take heart. Mother's faith shines like a shooting star in the middle of the darkness around us. Her smile and her sparkle is water to a dry and parched soul.
Jill has brought me Christmas candy for 30 years. And she first started making it all when her husband left her. She made sure that she had a Christmas for her children in the midst of much heartache.
If Jill had her husband at her home as much as you do, Penny, she would have thought she had died and gone to heaven. She was abandoned by her husband. But she made the most lovely Christmas home that anyone could imagine. She had food stamps, as she was determined to stay home with her children and care for them. She told the welfare board that she wasn't looking for a job. She told them her children had been abandoned and she wasn't going to leave them, too. And her little boy thought they were rich, as his mother always made such wonderful meals and crafts at Christmas. On the coffee table always laid shutoff notices for the lights and water and gas. Jill hardly had the money to pay for these utilities. But her children didn't know that. It was Christmas time and mother made a lovely Christmas. Not with a lot of presents and expensive things. No, Jill made a Christmas with the Joy of the Lord.
We all got a lot of free government cheese, etc. We were embarrassed -- sure we were. But we didn't let our kids know. They needed food and the peace of God upon their homes. They didn't need a stingy whiny mother telling them that if their Dad wasn't such a jerk, they would have a Christmas. Well, children don't need that garbage. Things are hard enough without hammering the children about not having any food at Christmas. I mean, go get some free food at a church if ya have to. When ya bring it home and it is behind closed doors, the children won't know where it came from. For their sakes, make a happy Christmas.
The old time Mothers always made a Christmas. Maybe it was all homemade, but they made a joyful time. And sometimes a family would invite friends over for a dance. The family would move everything out of the living room and then roll up the carpet to make a place to dance. And folks brought their fiddles and played music to dance to. And in the dining room was a big table and folks brought food to share and eat together. The old time families made their own entertainment. And then, too, they had many church activities at Christmas. And all the children got presents.
Mother's Poinsettias
Oh, the old time Mothers loved their Christmas cards, and they saved them all from year to year. They decorated the whole house with Christmas cards. They put special cards in the kitchen, taped on the wall where they could look at them as they baked their Christmas cakes. And they taped some on the window in the living room or on the door. The cards meant so much to them. Sometimes they made homemade cards out of lace and ribbon and butcher paper from the meat market. Mother saved every bit of paper ad string that came into the house.
And one year, when my children were young we hadn't had any snow. And it was getting near Christmas. So we made snow flakes and taped them on the window to pretend it was snowing. The children made many Christmas pictures and we hung them in nice places in the living room. Right on the wall in prominent places. I considered my children great artists. And they are to this day. We would take a blue piece of construction paper and put cotton on it for snow and for a snow man. Then we would put drops of Elmer's glue on the picture and put silver sprinkles on it for the snow falling.
One Christmas when the children were babies, I was feeling especially dry in my soul. So much work to do and so little comfort. You know how it goes sometimes. Husband is working hard to keep the family in shoes and winter boots. And somehow Mother's needs go unnoticed. I had prayed and asked the Lord to restore my soul. I asked the Lord for a poinsettia flower to put on my table. I didn't know how I would get it. So I made a picture of it with the children's crayons and taped it on my window. I didn't want to ask Jim for it as I knew he was burdened enough at Christmas. So I didn't tell anyone about it, just Jesus.
Well, pretty soon, Poinsettia flowers began to come right out of the sky. My neighbor Trudy brought me one over and has for the past 10 years now. Jim found one on sale and got me one -- it was gorgeous. He was working at a hotel and, on Christmas day, Jim brought me home about five poinsettias. After Christmas, I found white poinsettias on sale for a buck and I got one. My home was awash with gorgeous scarlet red and snow white poinsettias that year. And every year since that year, Wild Man has bought me and others poinsettias for Christmas. This year, he also got me a nice potted bouquet of white roses. I put them by our little grandbaby's picture in the living room, as we love to think of her as our little girl in heaven.
Well, duty calls.
