It is THE best, hands-down. Funny, charming, silly, great wriing, perfectly cast (including their best friends) and Meg’s hair in the deli scene (yes, that scene) is my dream hair.
I wish I could have found one of my fav scenes, which is when they each call their respective best friends, who co-habit, and the four of them are involved in 2 separate but over-lapping conversations. Genius writing and great timing.
But instead: the ending. :)
Kinda why I bought the Rod Stewart Christmas album this season. Ya know, for the good {old} times. I tried to like John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John’s 2012 Christmas collection, but it may be the worst Christmas album (and accompanying video) ever.
We are leaving 2012 in a few short hours and will meander into 2013 (some more quickly than others) with a few circles of a clock’s hand. Though I have tendencies towards setting grand resolutions and starting revolutions and always wish to eschew all I haven’t loved about the year just past, though you know me to leap headlong into whatever is next – really, today is Monday and tomorrow will be Tuesday.
And Tuesday will be as fresh as Wednesday will be and Thursday and every day we are given, so let’s not put too much pressure on it. Let’s not expect everything awful to suddenly be better, but let’s do remember that the mercies of the LORD are new every. single. morning. Every one of our mornings, fresh!
The start of a New Year is really available to us every single day of our ever-loving lives. Is that not amazing? :)
Lamentations 3.22-23 Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
I found this print recently and “pinned it” because it really does give us perspective:
In 2013, I will fall. I will get back up. I will make mistakes. I will try to do better next time. I will cry. I will laugh. I will feast. And I will fast. I will have times of sweet peace and security. And I will have to trust God in vicious storms and not lean on my own understanding. It will be good and it will sometimes be bad. There will be high points and probably some devastation along the way. I will scribble out things I had inked with great certainty and erase penciled-in plans when the wind blows a different direction. I will rejoice and I will trust and I will sing and I will believe and sometimes I will also totally want to throw in the towel.
Many years of living tells my the preceding paragraph is a true and certain prophecy. But those same years also give me the unapologetic and unmitigated confidence to declare: He will be faithful. God’s faithfulness will not take a hit at all, ever. And one year from today, I will be able to look back at 2013 and say with no reservation: He remained faithful, as always. Just like I can say about Him today – at the end of 2012.
I was reading from an 1893 school book today (I am weird like that) and came across Daniel Webster’s eulogy for John Adams called “In Favor of Independence.” Though there had not been a recorded or written record of John Adams’ speech concerning the Declaration of Independence, Webster shares what he says was said during those crazy days for the revolutionaries.
It begins:
Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote.
And ends with:
Sir, before God, I believe the hour has come. My judgement approves this measure and my whole heart is in it. All that I have and all that I am and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I have begun, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the declaration. It is my living sentiment and by the blessing of God, it shall be my dying sentiment, – independence now, independence forever!
I have decided to adopt his impassioned and whole-hearted oration for my journey into 2013:
Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to 2013. By the blessing of God, great will be the faithfulness of the LORD. This much, I already know to be true!
How about you? What are your plans for the New Year? Join me??? :)
So many snippets to remember. So many frames I’d like to freeze.
Christmas morning – Stormie bringing us breakfast so we wouldn’t be lonely on our first Christmas ever without the whole family in the house, raising the roof with creative gift-giving and happy-noise. That is a good frame…it worked.
And then guess what? They all came later and stayed late and it was messy and wonderful just like always. :)
Ryan’s family from Florida joined us for Christmas, too. Then 2 days later, Steph and Tris went for an anniversary celebration and we got the kids and Tuppy-the-Puppy, which made for very merry and bright days, too.
Just for added fun, we invited over Hunter and the 2 Rhoades baby girls.
Using 145 different photographs to fill this 54-second film, we present “Magi This!” It would have been a longer story, but their parents showed up early.
Christmas lights are twinkling through bedroom windows as nightlights and I pray over cherub faces and tuck each child in with the requisite two stuffed animals and/or squishy toys. We whisper our good-nights, the boys in one room, and 4 little girls next door.
I give the regular if-you-wake-up-before-everyone-else-please-just-read-a-book-and-don’t-wake-your-cousins speech, though I know with 100% certainty that it will be ignored at 5:54 am sharp tomorrow. Still, I go through it and ask one more time: Did you go pottie? Brush your teeth? I add more blankets so they won’t get cold. They kick them off, “I’m hot, Nonna.”
Everyone is tucked. I can’t help but pray over them again and again for God’s anointing on their little lives and for peace and joy and for good restful sleep and a smile in their hearts and for God to heal little sniffles and keep them safe from evil, who lurks near our babies – this, we know. I pray and I pray and they let me. They make their requests known and soon, if I don’t say amen, we will be up all night praying over every detail in their universes…
More hugs, more kisses, more one-last-drinks…whew. We made it.
I walk into the hallway and through my house. O.my.goodness. There are globs of toothpaste in every sink, toothbrushes teetering on counter edges. There are overcoats and outer-wear and underwear strewn about in bathrooms, entry, living room, family room, and yes, even in the kitchen. Every couch pillow and cushion has been used otherwise and our floor is covered with blankets and baggies of cheese balls and water bottles with names written on them. Are there any toys left in the playroom, I wonder?
Is that a marshmallow gun target on our front door? Why, yes, it is. Why do you ask?
Evidence of a family feast-night and a disco dance and watching the Turtle Man- Christmas episode and a couple of Gilligan’s Island re-runs (to my great dismay) and my house is in utter, complete and total jumbled, snarly, tangled, topsy-turvy, chaos and clutter, with a side order of full-blown dishevelment. Yep. It is a mess.
Still basking in the glow of the holy days of the holidays. Merriment continues…
Did I really, actually whip up a feast of pork chops and applesauce for 6 little grandbebes?
I mean yes – there were LOTS of other dishes, too because we were eating off those giant school-cafeteria trays and you must fill every section. But the main thing was porks chops and applesauce.
Because of The Brady Bunch, silly. I want them to be exposed to the classics, for sure. ;) Porks chops and applesauce for dinner. That’s swell!
But I bet you’re surprised to know mine is black! I don’t want to be too flakey, people. Just a little flakey.
I hope you never forget, Tristan, how pleased we were to get YOU as our first son by marriage. I know it had to be terribly overwhelming to join this humongous, loud bunch, but we loved you instantly and thought you had amazing taste to marry our daughter! I hope I have let you know often enough. We do thank God for you.
And I hope you will never forget, Stephanie, how pleased we are with the choice you made and how you have chosen to love and grow with Tristan. And are making a family of love. We could not be prouder of the woman you are, and our daughter, too! It is all further proof of your keen sensibilities and superior perspicacity in so many many areas, including love and marriage.
You two chose well. You have done well. You are doing so well and we love you.
Christmas Eve 1970. The light is dimming and it is brisk outside, snow on the ground in Davenport, Iowa. It has been a year of big changes for the Moslander family. We’d left my childhood home where relatives lived on every block nearby and moved to a new city to start a church. Nothing like being the new kid and late to start the school year. Yes, big changes for us. In fact, we had gotten a TV in October so my dad could watch the World Series (and possibly to cover the sound of lonliness for our family until we could meet people). A 16″ black and white portable sits on a stereo rack.
As the daylight fades and turns blue then silver-gray, dusk pushing its’ way in, mom busies herself in the kitchen making Christmas Eve snacks.
Of all the Christmas Eves I have lived through (a lot by now), that one in 1970 somehow became the Christmas Eve by which all others, both before and after, would be judged.
We’d moved so far from family and friends and familiar places and things and I was struggling to adjust (and as a kid, these things are hard to express – so you just don’t), but on this night, as it fell, a familiar safeness and warmth settled in around me like a heavy old, rag quilt, the kind of quilt that would have built secret forts and been lots of fun but also wrapped you around in times of sickness or sorrow – you know – a quilt with which you had history. That is what settled in – that kind of peace and warmth and hope and all-is-right-with-the-world….
It was nothing fancy, this particular Christmas Eve. It was just us – my mom and dad and 4 younger siblings. But mom made snacks for dinner. There were the annual Bugles (you couldn’t just have those everyday, you know) and a wondrous delight called Pizza Spins (why-o-why can’t I get them today??), chips and dip and hot cocoa – the real kind, the kind that kept my mom stirring at the stove for at least 30 (to 100) minutes as she perfected – a little more whole milk, hmmm, some vanilla, more sugar now…Hershey’s cocoa powder being stirred and stirred into creamy, frothy submission. When, oh when would that cocoa be ready??? Then of course my mom always whipped up a big batch of her amazing popcorn.
Oh, I think there were sandwiches, too and candies and various Divinities (there is a reason no one makes these anymore) sent by my Great Aunt Jenny and my dad’s customers on the milk route (he was a bi-vacational pastor before that vogue termed was coined). But the hot cocoa and popcorn, the Bugles and Pizza Spins and chips and dip – these were what signaled that this was a special night.
And she served us as we settled in, cozy on the couch, tree lights twinkling away while tinsel fluttered at the slightest provocation, watching the Davy & Goliath Christmas Special. Then the Peanuts Christmas Special, and who knows what all else? We loved our TV watching after having gone without! Haha.
Yes, we were far from family and friends that Christmas, getting adjusted, the big move having changed everything about life as we had always known. But on that night, all was well. It was cozy and sweet and I am sitting here writing – so many years later, as I watch the daylight turn blue and ease into silver gray and I swear I can almost hear my mamala in the kitchen popping some corn and stirring away at that rich, hot cocoa. If I turn on the TV, the Davy & Goliath Christmas Special will be on, right?
It is funny, isn’t it, how one shade of light, or an ornament twinkling or a certain scent will trigger a gold-spun thread in our hearts to pull us back? My heart remembers…
Guess what??? It just now started to snow…it’s Christmas Eve. It’s magic!
Luke 2.10-11 A Savior! How simply wonderful is that? And so worth the celebration!
Front.
Inside, left.
Inside, right.
Back.
That “greatest fact” is worth receiving as a reminder that Christmas’ celebration never need be argued against because “it costs so much.” Decorating and celebrating—giving and receiving gifts at this season—are not unworthy practices (as though “spending” at Christmas was merely “commercial”).
It’s not so, loved one. Never let yourself become snared in that cynical trap! Christmas has always been costly—from the very beginning, in fact. It cost Heaven everything!
Bethlehem‘s barnyard cradle wasn’t the only sacrifice. It was simply the original packaging for the treasure that Heaven’s heart was giving us. The Cross was the real price of Christmas, for it was wrapped in the Gift from the start—a Gift that was marvelously and mysteriously provided for and pre-paid from before all time! (1 Peter 1:20; Revelation 13:8).
So it was, the Christmas Child came to us. And in light of appropriately evaluating that costly gift, everything in me wants to answer a call I hear the Spirit whispering this season. He’s summoning me—can you hear Him too? He’s calling us to “spend big” this season—to do so in a dynamic and holy way…in the light of Heaven’s gift of the Child.
Join me in “spending” whatever needs to be “laid out or laid down” for God to find in me another “child of Christmas.” I want the willingness of His only begotten Son—a willing readiness to go, to love, to serve, to give, and to care for human need and brokenness—to be replicated in me. –Jack Hayford
Jack so gets it, doesn’t he?