On the Third Day of Christmas...
A freebie and a sneak peek
Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. During the holidays, their house morphed into an experience: the family room had the cowboy Christmas tree, the sunroom had the big angel Christmas tree, the kitchen had a small strawberry Christmas tree, the basement had the grandkid Christmas tree with cartoon character ornaments on it, and the bathroom had a small sea-shell tree in the corner of the vanity. Now, when I share these things with you, you must not think of the adjective gaudy. No, before Joanna Gaines there was my grandma. Now, let us continue…
I was always there to help. There was something magical about this morphing. I learned how to layer the bulbs in the tree, wrap the ribbon around it just so, and hang the ornaments so it looked like something out of a catalog. A well-decorated tree is a piece of art to behold.
But these things have remained only a memory. I have held onto some traditions and have let go of others. While I have tried to pass down my decorating expertise (ahem) to my children, they have had their own ideas. I try my best not to ruin it. I haven’t decorated a Christmas tree myself in years, there is no coordinated rhyme or reason to what is in the corner of my front room, but we have ended up with our own tree-decorating tradition just the same.
It starts with my precious 1983 Merry Twismas vinyl. I was obsessed with Conway Twitty when I was a kid, and this vinyl includes all the Christmas songs he sang with none other than Tweety Bird. It’s a little obnoxious, but it is also fun. Sometimes, I can forget to have fun. My children and Conway help.
This year, while my boys (their older sister was busy adulting and doing her own thing) put all the ornaments on one section of the tree (some of them just lay on branches or my personal favorite: three all hanging on the same branch), I busied myself with putting the record on and making hot chocolate. We laugh, and the kids always ask me who in the world Conway Twitty is. I tell them about Gigi’s Christmas trees and how I’d walk around as a kid singing, “I don’t know a thing about love.” The whole house comes alive when I set that album out. While this isn’t as fancy as my childhood experience and only includes one not-catalog-worthy tree, it has become just as special.
: ) Mariah
Coming Up in CPQ
Our first issue of the new year is already in layout and will head to print in January.
Its theme is Fortitude, and we have some excellent articles to help us keep on keeping on:
From Celeste Cruz:
The tools we use, the books we read, and the boxes we check are the means of education. But we treat them like our aim when we look to them to measure results. Our aim should not be to read a certain number of chapters or finish a certain number of lessons. Our aim should be to support our children as persons made in the image of God. And—this is key!—faithfully completing those chapters or lessons is our means toward that aim. It may seem like splitting hairs, yet this distinction can significantly affect our approach. A clear understanding of means vs. aims helps us know where our efforts are best spent and what kinds of results really matter.
From Morgan Conner:
Miss Mason then turns to literary characters. These figures show us fortitude in poverty, undeserved treatment from family or neighbors, and cheerfulness in troubled times. In fact, she recommends keeping a ‘notebook recording the persons and incidents that give a fillip to conscience in this matter of Fortitude.’
Why? In Ourselves, she says, “The roll of persons notable for their fortitude is, in fact, the roll of our heroes.” Those heroes aren’t just found in the Bible or literature. The pages of history are teeming with examples of those who bore “pain or adversity without murmuring.”
From Lara d’Entremont:
In her book Home Education, Mason guides parents in teaching their little ones how to obey God in their actions and hearts. She believed our inner lives were composed of three parts: the will, the conscience, and the divine life (the Imago Dei).
In discussing how to train our wills in accordance with Scripture, she wrote that when a slight affront calls up resentful feelings, the person with a strong will doesn’t go to battle immediately with those thoughts, but rather diverts his thoughts. “He does not fight it out with himself, and say, ‘This is very wrong in me. So-and-so is not so much to blame, after all.’ He is not ready for that yet; but he just compels himself to think of something else—the last book he has read, the next letter he must write, anything interesting enough to divert his thoughts.” By doing so, he can later return to the issue with a cooler mind.
From Mariah Kochis:
Back when I was a younger mom, I went with my friend to a bible study at her church. It was a small gathering, we were the youngest ones in the room, and if I remember correctly, there was wood paneling and shag carpet. I can’t remember exactly what the bible study was on, but I can remember one evening when those older women began talking about the Proverbs 31 woman. As a young mom in her early twenties, the Proverbs 31 woman was overwhelming and intimidating. How was I supposed to do all these things when I was still trying to figure out how to squeeze in a shower at naptime? But that night, my perspective shifted. As I sat there listening to these older women, I remember one in particular who spoke up and said, “Proverbs 31 should be viewed like a scrapbook of an older woman. This is what her life looked like over many years and through many seasons.”
Third Day of Christmas Freebie
