My FAVORITE of all holidays (and holy days), rich with symbolism and meaning. It is not only deeply spiritual, but full of meaning I get to publicly share during the season, my best witnessing days each year!
Andy Williams churned out Christmas specials regularly. They are part of the background noise of my growing up years, an easy-listening soundtrack to my life and times.
Obviously at some point I became too sophisticated and cool for Andy’s shows (she says rolling her eyes at her posturing silly-determined-girl phase, before real maturity set in). Apparently the whole world got over him, too. For the Christmas specials ceased.
He died a few months ago and I wrote about it {HERE},but I happened across this yesterday on YouTube (thanks for the suggestion You-tube-robots – you really do get me, it seems) and how delightful! 59 minutes and 17 seconds of pure, unadulterated red-and-green-over-the-top-joy-to-the-world-sacred-and-silly CHRISTMAS. Yes, CHRISTMAS in all caps!
There are appearances by the Williams Brothers Singers (Andy’s sibs) and the Osmonds started with Andy, ya know. Claudette Longet, Andy’s French and oh so very modern and extremely cool wife is a treasure. She sings. Lovely!
Hook it up to your giant flat-screen TV and get some hot chocolate and cookies and I promise you will have a Christmas experience like never before…unless you were watching in the 1960s and 70s…in which case you will do it because you KNOW it was wonderful and the best of Christmas times! A little hokey? Well, heck yes! That is why I LOVE it.
It’s the MOST wonderful time of the year! Just ask Andy!!!
While cutting some Mike & Ikes into “ornaments” for sugar-cone trees, I saw some one had taken a Sharpie to poor Mike’s name. I thought maybe a grandbebe, at first, but, no…it seems to be Ike.
Seems dastardly to me.
Meanwhile, sliced into thirds, Mike and Ikes do make cute little “tree” decor.
The sun is shining bright. All six of my grandbebes are in the backyard using their “outdoor” voices (loosely translated as “loud”), and they are playing, they tell me, “family.”
The trees are lit and sparkly in the sun, too and there are Nativity sets and Santa Claus’s everywhere. Dave has been playing Bing on the stereo, for we want them to know the music that will stand the test of time at Christmas.
The house is festive and Christmas is just 18 days away.
But the sound I am loving is not the music, nor the bells of Christmas. Not this morning.
It is the back door open wide and 6 little children I love like crazy just running like banshees and yelling and laughing and falling down and oops…some one did something that caused an abrupt moment of silence followed by, Oh noooo…but as suddenly as the break in the madness came, it dissipates into raucous laughter and banshee-running-hollering again. Music to my ears.
Ok, we did this. We had five kids and lived to tell about it. In fact, we had all five in slightly less than 7 years and at one point in our lives we had FIVE teen-agers in the house. This should not even be a challenge at all, right?
Tonight – tha annual grandbebe Christmas sleep-over. Ay-yi-yi. The oldest 5 came. They are 9-8-7-5-and-4 and faster than speeding bullets. Faster than a lot of speeding bullets.
One teensy-tiny drawback to listening to your music via vinyl (I love an LP, people), is that sometimes, since I have purchased some albums from a thrift store, there are records that are in less-than-pristine condition and there might a scratch or two.
Our countdown Santa
It doesn’t really bother me, though. Part of the fun of a record playing on the stereo is some of the crackly sound you get with it. I even digitize my favorite songs from my favorite albums because I love the sound of the needle dropping onto the record and the heightened anticipation of the crackling turning into the sound of a song I love on the surround-sound. {schckskrschkdkschhhh, not sure, but I think my spelling on that is right} ;)
Today, as I prepare for all the grandbebes to descend (for our annual Christmas overnight), I have gone quite traditional by listening to The Time-Life Treasury of Christmas.
And oops, it got stuck as Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops were performing {just for me} their medley of Here We Come A-Caroling/O Tannebaum/I Saw Three Ships. At the precise moment my steak reached perfection in the kitchen and I reached for a plate to enjoy it, the phone rang and there I was, plating and talking and in the background, the Pops, just singing away
And God bless you and send you a
And God bless you and send you a
They must’ve sung that line 37 times before I got to the stereo. So you know what I did? I received it as an early Christmas blessing from the Father of Lights. Yep. I think it was just a sweet message from God to me. I bless you and I am sending you a Happy New Year – don’t miss this message, busy-girl!
A scene from the family room
I didn’t. It may have taken 37 times, but I got the beautiful message. And since it is mine now to share, I bless you with it, too:
God bless you, BLESS you, and send you a Happy New (fresh as the driven snow) Year!
Over 70-degrees yesterday shopping**? Totally ruined my outfit + scarf, wrapped nonchalantly around my neck as though it didn’t care. Too dang hot. I actually saw the rare, but dreaded December fly out back.
Come on, sweet Colorado Christmas snow! Oh, but don’t ruin the Brighton Parade of Lights or “Merry Gentlemen” cast party on Saturday night. That would just be rude.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good-night.
Blue skies of Colorado over the green grass (covered with brown leaves) on a yellow-sunny December afternoon.
**I was a lucky girl, out with niece, Lori, and great-niece, Emilee, even if it was hotter than Hades. They did see some snowflakes this morning at their house up in Estes this morning, though. Good times!
On yesterday’s post, about the NYPD officer who bought boots for a shoeless, homeless man {click here, or scroll down}…I contemplated Jesus’ words in Matthew 25 and so when you look at the photo, you have to ask:
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 25
Ok, I have been thinking about one of my all-time favorite 1980s movies recently and I feel like I am having some amazing thoughts about the love of God from the movie. You probably have seen it a few dozen times: “An Officer and a Gentlemen” starring Richard Gere and Debra Winger.
So, I may be writing about that soon. And I had the thought I wanted to say to my single girl (the baby, whose shall remain nameless at this juncture), make sure-make sure-make sure if you get an officer (some wonderfully awesome guy who is at the top of game and powerful in his field), that he is a gentleman, too. I want that for her. :)
Then this!
The story of a police officer in New York City who came across an older homeless man who was barefooted on a cold, cold night. The police officer went to a Skechers store and bought him a $100 pair of boots and some nice socks and went back out to the man and gave them to him.
And a tourist caught the image of it and everyone is incredulous, surprised, warmed, taken off guard. We RARELY see these types of stories.
It is so heart-warming, it could practically be a storyline off the popular Friday night TV show, “Blue Bloods.” But it is a real life story of a real life NYPD officer who was on counter-terrorism duty in Times Square and he just cared. He was a flesh and blood caring person who took time to treat another human being with dignity, like we all should be and do.
I am ashamed to say there have been times and seasons in my life where I’d have been wary. I might have said, “The guy was sitting there trying to get people to buy him shoes.”
But the people in the Bible who needed healing sat as close to the healing waters as they could. It is where they needed to be. Or those who were so crippled they had to beg for a living – they begged at the gate where people walked by who could help them. It makes sense, now, sure.
In times of distrust of people’s hearts and motives, though, I might have wondered aloud if this particular cop, who has only been with the department for 3 years, would still have been so soft-hearted with a few more years under his belt, more scarred over time having been used, abused and lied to and fed up with those who can’t seem to help themselves? Because, haven’t all of us middle-America, middle-incomed types pretty easily reasoned aside the example of Jesus to see needs and meet needs (spiritual AND physical) among the people we pass daily? I know I have.
But this police officer, a couple of weeks ago, saw a man and was moved with compassion. He went to the store and got nice boots and warm socks and then he went back to the man got on his knees and put socks and boots on those cold, homeless feet.
Where have you seen that imagery before, you wonder? Something about Jesus tying a towel around His waist and getting on His knees and washing the disciples’ feet?
NYPD Officer Lawrence DiPrimo – he is an Officer AND a Gentlemen. And he was the closest thing to Jesus that man met that night, I will guarantee you! Bravo, Officer DiPrimo!
JESUS SPEAKING (Matthew 25) // “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
SOAPbox:
I keep seeing graphics all over Pinterest and Facebook and in emails where my spiritual-family, that big, crazy Family-of-God bunch, is admonishing people to “KEEP CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS.
I say: BE Christ in Christmas. That’ll keep Him there better than all your militant internet graphics and email forwards will.
‘Cuz hey look! A secular news agency called the policeman’s act “showing the Christmas spirit.” If he can do it and they can say it, we can live it, too!
They turned out pretty cute and were so easy. I am a total graphics novice, but I am going to show you how I created them in less than 3 minutes.
Step 1: I googled “white” and grabbed the first image of a white rectangle and saved it to my pictures. THREE SECONDS! Here is the image I got if you want me to make it easier [click].
Step 2: I opened www.picmonkey.com and uploaded the white image. Maybe 5 seconds? 7?
Step 3: I rotated the white image to vertical. 1 second.
Step 4: I opened the snowflake image (Winter Wonderland) from the tools to the left side of the PicMonkey screen.
Step 5: I selected a font from the ones they suggest in this holiday collection. In this case, I typed these words (2 separate word boxes) December, and 23. I resized the word and then the number and then selected colors for them. Maybe 30 seconds trying to decide.
Step 6: The longest of all steps, just because they have so many fun flourishes and branches and wreaths. You can do whatever you want. I used two different sprigs of holly on the bottom, then I use a sprig up top. Since I already knew that my sign needed to be simple, I didn’t play much and it was done in less than a minute.
Step 7: I saved my image to my computer. 2 seconds.
Step 8: I opened a blank page on Publisher and used the page-setup feature to make sure it was the 11 x 17 size I needed.
Step 9: I inserted the image I had created onto the blank (from my computer) and enlarged it to fill the space. The dimensions were not exactly correct and they didn’t have to be for this project. But please note that. This is why it took such a short time to design and finish. It is a casual sign. If you are going to be precise, your original background needs to be proportionately exact to the size you’ll be printing. :) Mine didn’t need to be, so: 5-10 seconds.
Step 10: Add a thin line around the edge with Publisher tools. SAVE IT! Print. :)
Three minutes or less. Seriously.
ALSO the cool thing with PicMoney.com is that after I originally saved the December 23 image to my computer (name it, of course,), I was able to just change the date to 24 for my second sign and save it without having to start over. So really, I made TWO signs in 3 minutes or less. Oh, yeah, baby!
These have been mounted on a piece of black foam core (cut in half) and will twinkle away onstage at the opening night performance tomorrow night.
A little bit o’ glitter.
I am trusting you all to NOT let Stormie know that while adding just a little glitter to the signs (for that extra sparkle every show needs) I accidentally may have dumped a pile of red Martha Stewart glitter on her camera. I am not saying it did happen. Just that it may have happened. So, don’t talk about it.
Dave’s first stage-performed play (that HE has written) is coming up soon – 5 days!!! We are so lucky and grateful for all the people who have worked to put this together. AND it is pretty exciting to see posters in store windows and on coffee shop bulletin boards! Have you seen them???
There will be 2 performances and a lot of our kids and grandbebes are involved and the niece and great-niece, too. Plus the greatest friends on earth, acting and taking tickets and building sets and helping us spread the word.
So if you see this and you are in the area, you should come! Friday November 30 at 7 om or Saturday December 1 at 7 pm. The cost is $5 per person (children under three are free) and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Adams County Cold Weather Care program (Mission: To provide life saving shelter and support to individuals and families experiencing homelessness in Adams County). You can buy your tickets online (www.callbacktheater.com) or at the door.
Be watching the local newspaper for an article this week!
The location is the totally cool Armory @ Brighton. Here is how to get here, 300 Strong Street:
Plus LIVE music by some pretty cool-awesome-amazing musicians, if we do think so! :)
FABULOUS way to kick off your Christmas season, I promise! Please plan to come and tell everyone you know about it. And LIKE the FB page and MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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