Journal: Wishing You A Joyous Christmas

I meant to mention in last week’s letter that the Kimball grand piano in Lydia’s great room is the one my father got for me when I was 13 years old – on the very day Jacksons came to town.

Jeremy cut and curved the wood for that staircase himself.

Tuesday, I started quilting the Atlantic Beach Path quilt.  Over a period of three days last week, I’ve spent ten hours on the top two borders, and I’m still not done.  Here’s what it looked like after the first four hours:

I turned on the radio (online) as usual Wednesday morning to listen to the news as I took a bath and washed my hair – and discovered that, instead of news, there was a rash of Christmas music.  It was Christmas Day, after all.  There were stupid Christmas songs sung by people who would probably sound just fine on decent music, and there were lovely old Christmas songs totally slaughtered by those who cannot sing.  I mean that:  they cannot sing.  Aarrgghh.  The latter is worse than the former.

Okay, I thought The Grinch was funny, and I didn’t mind Meet Me Under the Mistletoe.  Much.

Following that, the stand-in female meteorologist gave us the weather – but I can never think what she’s saying, on account of how she’s saying it:  she starts in a very high-pitched tone, sounding like an excited kindergartner.  As the sentence goes along, her voice gets lower and lower, until, if said sentence is very long at all, she winds up growling like J. D. Sumner, and if the sentence still doesn’t stop, it’s finally so low and raspy, one can barely make out what she’s saying.  Then with a gulp and a looong, wheezy breath, she starts the next sentence way up in the stratosphere again, in that piercingly shrill little-girl tone, and works her way down from there, with no inflection, modulation, nuance, variation, or accent, just a steady drop in that monotonous tone until she gets to the basement register.

Why do they hire people who read like that?!  And does she talk like that, too?!!  Reading that way really must be caused by a lack of brain cells, or from being dropped on one’s head as an infant.  What else can it be???!

I hastily clicked ‘Pause’ and read the weather on AccuWeather.com.

At noon that day, we had our Christmas dinner at church.  On the menu was roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and bacon, chef salad, strawberry salad, buttered slices of French bread fresh out of the oven, pickles and olives, milk or juice, coffee or tea, ice cream, and such a variety of cheese cakes and pies I couldn’t possibly remember them all.

Here I am holding Violet in the front church vestibule by a tall, tall Christmas tree.  Violet is pointing at the big red balls.  “Pretty ball!” she informed me a moment later.

Keira, too, was transfixed by that giant tree with its huge balls and bows and snowflakes.

After the dinner, we delivered a few gifts to several friends, then went to Kurt and Victoria’s house to exchange gifts.  We’d planned to go to Teddy and Amy’s house later, but learned that several of the children were sick (and still are), so we’ll go another time, hopefully this week.  

Andrew and Hester had invited us to their house that evening, but upon finding out we were going to Teddy’s house, they made plans to go to Kurt and Victoria’s house instead... so, when I got the note from Amy telling me the children were sick, Victoria invited us back to their house that evening.  We scurried home, refilled our sleigh with gifts, and then dawdled around for a bit, since the little girls were all taking naps.

Just thinking about all this wore Larry plumb out, and he meandered into the living room to take a quick nap, Teensy cat hot on his tail to nap with him.

At 5:00 p.m., back we went again to give Andrew, Hester, and Keira their gifts.  Keira, Carolyn, and Violet are good friends; it’s such fun to watch them play together.

Can you tell Carolyn is happy with the coat we gave her?

Next, we went to Loren and Norma’s house and gave them their gifts.  They fed us chicken noodle soup and crackers.  When we came home around 8:30 p.m., we were laden with the leftovers, which we saved for supper Friday night.

In the midst of all this Christmas bustle, we found out that Susan, my sister Lura Kay’s daughter, has breast cancer.  It’s an extremely aggressive type.  Susan is 46.  You’ll recall that her brother David, John H. and Lura Kay’s second son, was killed in 2002 at age 34 when a drunk driver rammed into his home in the middle of the night.  Kelvin, their oldest, has been fighting colon cancer for over three years.  

Robert, our pastor, is their third child.  Susan is the youngest.  She has been our church pianist since I quit in 1995.  Susan’s husband Charles (Seadschlag) is the manager for Walker Foundations.

Chemo or surgery – more likely chemo – will start this week, they think.  They are waiting on the results of a genetic test, which will help them determine which route to take.  The doctors they have talked to believe she will beat the cancer.

A cancer diagnosis is always a blow.  But God so often sends a ray of sunshine through the clouds:  Susan and Charles opened a Christmas gift from their daughter Danica, who was married earlier this year.  It was a baby t-shirt, and on the front was printed, “Congratulations, you are going to be grandparents.”  Cheered everyone up, hearing that good news.

Thursday, Larry went to Burwell and Broken Bow out into the Sandhills to get some parts for his pickups and a big sandblaster he won on a Purple Wave auction for $77.  When I say ‘big’, I mean part of it fit on his long flatbed trailer, and another part of it filled his pickup bed.  It’s the kind that reclaims the sandblasting materials.

As he headed home from the west, Joseph and his children, Justin and Juliana, were heading here from the east.  Joseph got here first. 

Supper was a bit odd, as they arrived hungry, and I knew the meat – a large turkey breast and two thick sirloin steaks – and spicy baby bakers (potatoes) wouldn’t be done for quite a while.  So I quickly cooked some corn on the cob, doled out a fruit mixture (peaches, mangoes, strawberries, and pineapple), and baked some of those big, fat pretzels, then buttered them and sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on them.  That was the first course, and they devoured it like hungry baby birds.

Then I took the kids upstairs to the little library and let them choose some books and a stuffed animal apiece to take back downstairs.  They thought that was pretty neat.  More photos here.

I gave the Lonestar quilt back to Joseph a couple of years ago; I made it for him when he was 9 years old. 

On the bed now are the Americana Eagle quilt and pillow I made for Larry last year.

While we waited for the meat and potatoes to get done cooking, we handed out their gifts.  Justin was thrilled with his little red drone and his red pickup (like his Daddy’s truck, other than the color – Joseph’s is dark blue).  And Juliana loved her doll.  Now I will have to make a wardrobe of clothes for that doll!  😊 

Joseph is laughing, because he just got through saying, “Ohhhh!  You’ve ruined me!  Have you ever looked at the aisles and aisles of doll accessories in Wal-Mart?!”

By this time, the meat and potatoes were finally done, so we all launched into Course #2.  Cinnamon applesauce was the chaser.  Poor Justin; he’d been looking forward to cookies!  Every other time he came, I baked chocolate chunk/peanut butter chip cookies.  But he still gave me a big hug before they left. 

Friday, I quilted for a couple of hours, and then Bobby and Hannah and the children came visiting, and we gave them their Christmas presents.  As expected, Joanna and Nathanael’s watchbands were much too big.  I don’t know about Aaron’s; I forgot to ask.

Somehow, I didn’t get a picture of Nathanael!  What in the world.  🤔

Saturday, Larry went with a friend to get a loader the friend had bought.  Larry sent me this picture after they got it loaded onto his trailer.  That thing is BIG.  I’m glad he didn’t have to haul it over Wolf Creek Pass!  Remember that?  😲

Sunday morning as I got ready for church, the cats were scampering about in a bit of pique and vexation, frustrated because we had the blocker in the pet door in order to keep out a whole raft of new-to-the-neighborhood cats, including a couple of really cute half-grown ones, that someone evidently dumped out here.  Again.  That’s soooo aggravating!  I don’t want more cats!  And the Humane Society will not take them, because we’re out of the city limits. 

There is the off chance that the cats live nearby, and came into our garage on account of the weather (snowing, sleeting, raining, cold, and windy).  That happens sometimes when the people they really belong to don’t give them proper shelter, and won’t let them into the house.

This creates problems for us, because these cats start coming into our house, following ours right through the pet door.  They then get into fights, the male cats spray, and they use our cats’ litter box out in the garage, which is an excellent way of spreading all kinds of germs and diseases.  Ugh, ugh, ugh.  I extremely dislike people who won’t take care of their animals!

By the time we got home from church, we had a couple of inches of snow or so.  Hard to tell, because the wind was blowing it away and into drifts here and there.  The snow picked up in the afternoon, giving us another inch or more.  A wet snow was still coming down when we went back to town for the evening service. 

That afternoon, Larry shut the back walk-in garage door after making sure all the stray or dislocated cats were out of the garage (or at least trying to make sure they were out) by running the leaf blower in there and walking hither and yon until they’d all run out said door, theoretically.  I think they’re out; I haven’t seen or heard any since.  They can hide from the weather in our shed or in Larry’s big garage that’s under construction.

I removed the pet door blocker, so Teensy and Tiger can now go in and out as they wish (though they can’t get outside, only into the attached garage). 

Since what they really wanted was to go outside, they were soon back, telling us exactly what they thought of this dirty trick.

So... we let them out the front door.  It was snowing hard and the wind was blowing up a gale, so they got their fill of that right quick-like.  Tiger came back in the front door, but I had to go call for Teensy; he was huddled somewhere in the big half-done garage.  Boy oh boy, did he ever come on the gallop when he heard me calling.

Meanwhile, a poor little cute half-grown black cat was all squunched into a shivering ball of cold, damp misery at the closed garage door.  This makes me want to find whoever dumped those cats and wring his stupid scrawny neck.  Aarrgghh.  

But...  if there’s the slightest chance they actually live somewhere around here, maybe keeping them out of the garage will force them to return home.  I can’t save the world’s population of cats!!!  Four of the six cats we’ve had were dumped.

Victoria and her little girls were not at church today; the children were sick.  Jeremy and Lydia’s entire family has been sick.  Influenza is running rampant in Nebraska, and particularly in Columbus.  I think it’s starting to pick up steam with our friends and family now, because of all the family get-togethers.  The students were out of school the week before Christmas; that helps control the spread of germs a bit.  But one after the other have been getting sick in the last few days.

We took a box of gifts to Lura Kay and John H. after church, and they handed us gift bags in return.  We exclaimed to each other the customary ‘you shouldn’t have!’s, and Lura Kay said, “Well, you have to quit first!” to which I said I couldn’t possibly, because I had a lot of years to make up for – all those years when she got me something, and I was too little to buy her anything.  “And I kept tabs!” she informed me.  hee hee

After we got home and ate some supper, we opened our bags and discovered... a book of Ira David Sankey’s story!  I love his story... but I’ve never my own book about him.  I promptly read the preface, which tells how he survived the Great Chicago Fire, putting his few belongings into a rowboat and rowing out to where the water wasn’t covered with ash and soot, so he could get a drink, for he was terribly thirsty.  Ira Sankey was a gospel singer and composer of music for such hymns as Faith Is the Victory, Trusting Jesus, Under His Wings, and The Ninety and Nine.  During the last three decades of the 19^th century, Ira D. Sankey partnered with Dwight L. Moody in a series of religious revivalist campaigns, mainly in North America, but also in Britain.

Lura Kay also gave me a large tin of tea varieties, and the niftiest little teapot with an infuser for loose tea leaves.

I’m still playing Christmas songs from my big Christmas notebook.  I’ve been playing several songs a day for the last month, and still haven’t made it all the way through that book.

I so love the beautiful old Christmas hymns!  I have collected Christmas hymns for 45 years or so, especially the old ones by favorite authors such as Charles H. Gabriel, Haldor Lillenas, Philip P. Bliss, etc.  Some of my favorites:

No, Not in Vain

Down from His Glory

From the Starry Heavens

O Beautiful Star of Bethlehem

Bethl’em Lowly

O Bethlehem of Judah

He Became Poor

Light in the Stable

In a Lowly Stable (though it was more likely a shallow cave)

... and hundreds more, including the well-known ones in our church hymnals.

There are only a few of which I am not especially fond (speaking of hymns, not those idiotic secular songs, such as Do You Hear What I Hear [which Larry invariably sings as ‘Do You Smell What I Smell] or The Little Drummer Boy, Pah Rum-Pa-Pum-Pum, which I particularly despise).  Here are two of my least favorite Christmas hymns:

We Three Kings

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

I about 12, maybe, when I realized that the comma in the latter title makes all the difference in the world.  It’s ‘rest ye merry’, and not ‘rest, merry gentlemen’!  I liked it better (but only a little better) after that. 

And then there’s this one:

♫ ♪ Linus got run over by a snowball ♫ ♪

♫ ♪  playing in his yard on Christmas Eve; ♫ ♪

♫ ♪ You can say there’s no such thing as Lucy… ♫ ♪  

♫ ♪  but as for me and Snoopy, we believe! ♫ ♪

Peanuts, by Charles Schulz    12/24/72

We are caring for the neighbors’ goats and chickens while they are gone, and the eggs are multiplying like bunnies.  So I boiled a dozen of them and made deviled eggs this evening.

The Schwan man came today.  We shall eat well tonight!

It’s 27°, with a wind chill of 15°.  The wind is howling around the eaves.  But look what a spectacular sunset I suddenly noticed outside my windows!

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn          ,,,>^..^<,,,