Category Archives: Seasonal

Advent awareness

Posted on by

This past weekend we celebrated the 1st Sunday of Advent.

According to the dictionary, the word advent comes from the Latin “adventus,” which means arrival or coming. Basically, we celebrate two important arrivals at this time of year — the birth of Jesus Christ in a Bethlehem stable more than two centuries ago and the anticipated Second Coming of Jesus at a yet-to-be-determined time in the future.

While most people are running around shopping, or busily addressing Christmas cards, or planning holiday gatherings, the Church asks us to prepare in a different way.

We’re to prepare our hearts to receive the greatest gift ever given. We’re to sweep clean the old, making way for the new. We’re to quieten our spirits, immerse ourselves in prayer, do penance for our failures, and focus on others’ needs through charitable giving of time and possessions.

That’s a lot to ask for in four weeks’ time!

But we don’t have to go it alone. Some churches conduct a one-week mission, in which a special presenter challenges us to more fully live our faith. Others offer a variety of Advent-related literature or activities, including the popular Advent calendar which counts down the days to Christmas, as well as the Advent wreath, with its symbolism of Light coming into the world.

So the mad dash to the mall for “just one more present,” the frantic sending of cards, the elaborate outdoor decorations designed to “keep up with the Joneses” — none of these should be on our agenda. Yes, we have to prepare for Christmas, but no, we don’t have to over-prepare.

As the slogan goes, “Jesus is the reason for the season.”

What happened to Thanksgiving?

Posted on by

Anybody notice how many stores are doing their Christmas push early this year?

It’s bad enough to walk in the malls and department stores and find them filled with glittery trees and Santas, but even the grocery stores are getting into the act — and you’d think they at least would be concentrating on sales for the Thanksgiving feast!

No, as soon as Halloween was over, everybody started gearing up for Christmas. Charitable organizations are flooding mailboxes with address labels, calendars, cards, whatever in hopes of a donation. Sales fliers that come with the daily newspaper offer specials on everything from coats and mittens to jewelry, bedding, and luggage. Hardware and do-it-yourself stores are touting Christmas lights and decorations. Toy stores are — well, you get the idea!

It won’t be long before retailers start pushing gift cards, targeted toward those who “have to give something but haven’t a clue,” and the various groups set up their tables to do gift-wrapping (for free or a donation).

People, doesn’t this seem a bit soon to anybody but me? I mean, when did Thanksgiving — being grateful for what we have, sharing with family and loved ones, giving to the needy — become the “forgotten” holiday? Shoot, some of us look forward to eating too much, watching hours of football and parades, and drifting off for a guilty-pleasure afternoon nap!

This isn’t to say I’m opposed to Christmas — far from it! I love Christmas (always have!), but really, do we need two full months to get ready for it? I don’t think so. Besides, all this scurrying around and marketing is getting in the way of what Christmas is about, namely, the birth of Jesus Christ.

I know stores are struggling to find a positive in this depressed economy. I understand most folks want/need to get the best “deal” they can with the amount of money they have to spend.

But come on! Twenty-four hour-a-day Christmas carols, screeching sales ads from the TV and radio, and a blitz of “buy now, stock limited” promotions are making my head spin!

Christmas decorating early

Posted on by

OK, so I succumbed!

I had absolutely no intention of putting out the Christmas decorations this early, but here in the Midwest, we take advantage of mild, pretty days when we get ’em.

Today’s temperature was flirting with the 60-degree mark, the sun was shining, and thankfully, the wind was only a puff, so I dug the Christmas lights from the storage boxes in the garage and decorated a few trees in the front yard.

I know the neighbors thought I’d lost it; shoot, y’all probably agree with them!

Sorry, but I’ve gotten caught more times than I care to admit, waiting until it’s “proper” to decorate — and then having to wrestle a stiff 40 mph gale right out of the North, not to mention having to string lights with mittens on!

No, sir, that’s NOT my idea of fun.

Maybe I spent too much time down South, where folks can pretty much decorate whenever the “spirit” overtakes them. Probably my blood thinned out while I was there, too.

Regardless, me and frigid weather don’t gee haw.

So whoever wants to be “proper” can have at it. Me, I’m finished with this chore and happy as a clam.

Of course, I won’t be turning the lights on until at least after Thanksgiving, just to keep everybody happy (and then I’ll be praying for another pretty day in January so I can get them boxed up again!)

Winterizing

Posted on by

This is the time of year when we Midwesterners prepare our homes, and ourselves, for the coming Winter months.

We browse through the Farmer’s Almanac, hoping to learn whether we’ll be in for lots of snow and ice, or whether it will be a mild Winter. We service our cars so we won’t get stranded on some lonely road in the middle of nowhere. We get our flu shots (or take our chances without!), load up on canned goods, and mentally prepare ourselves to dig in and hibernate, perhaps with a cup of hot chocolate and a good book!

When I was younger and living in an apartment in the South, it wasn’t a big deal to winterize. Weeks wouldn’t go by when you couldn’t get out of your own parking lot. All we had to do was hang a few Christmas decorations, and we were ready for the season. Not so living in a house in the Midwest.

One thing on the “must-do” list now is to call the heating/air conditioning company and have your furnaces checked — you don’t want to be without heat in sub-freezing temps!

You’ve also got to pull up the remains of the garden (it’s no longer producing veggies anyway) and look over the outside flowers to determine which (if any!) can be brought inside and babied until Spring.

Then there’s the outside furniture and grill; they’re cleaned and relegated to storage. And, once the farmers have harvested their corn and soybeans, you might want to wash the dust off the windows of your house. I say might because, while my mom is a firm believer in this practice, I rank it up there with leaf-raking (a pointless waste of time!)

Which reminds me — you do have to do something with all those leaves. Some communities have huge leaf vacs to suck them from curbside (where residents have raked them); others recommend bagging them for citywide pickup and disposal. You also can run them over with a mulching mower and let them naturally decompose. Whatever, it’s just not neighborly to let them blow from one yard to the next and hope somebody else’s fence row will catch them!

You’ve got to get out the storm doors, clean them, and put them up in place of the screened ones, which then must be stored. Oh, and don’t forget to clean the leaves out of your gutters before they turn into soggy, nasty, black things that nobody would want to touch! If you have a fireplace, you’ll probably want to have it checked (yes, there are such folks as chimney sweeps, and they do even get rid of unwanted animal nests!)

I like to give my Sheltie a nice bath while it’s still sunny and warm enough to dry him outside. With all his profusion of fur, no way do I want to be drying that coat of his indoors — and making more work for myself!

After all this, then you can hang the Christmas decorations, toast some marshmallows, make a pot of tea, and snuggle down with a thick novel!

 

Daylight Savings Time

Posted on by

Daylight Savings Time officially comes to a close at 2 a.m. tomorrow, meaning we’re supposed to set our clocks back an hour. Most folks do this before they go to bed, rather than waiting up (or worse, setting an alarm!) for that early-morning activity.

I have mixed feelings about this practice, as do most people I imagine.

On the one hand, it’s wonderful having extra daylight time in the Spring and Summer — time for outdoor activities when the weather is nice, time for commuting and running errands under safer conditions, time for kids to play outside and get good and tired so they sleep better. It kind of lengthens the time you have to wait for the July 4 fireworks shows to start, but that’s just a minor inconvenience.

With Winter’s shorter days, regular time means most of us awake in darkness and go to sleep in darkness, with just a few hours of real daylight sandwiched in between. That’s pretty difficult, unless you have one of those daylight-simulating lamps (which I don’t!). Then, too, with shorter hours of sunlight, the days don’t get very warm (and when the snows fall, there’s little chance of true melting).

I guess it’s all what you get used to. My Favorite Domer has only been living in South Bend for two months, but since returning to Central Time (for the ND vs. Washington State game in San Antonio), he’s complaining Central Time feels later than the clock shows. That’s always a problem with these twice-a-year time changes, too. You no sooner get used to living under one zone than you have to change to another.

Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it — What time is it really???

Rainy days

Posted on by

It’s been another dreary, wet day in the Midwest where I live, the kind of day where I don’t dare send my long-haired dog outside to play and chase squirrels. Wet fur just plain stinks; besides, it takes forever to blow-dry and brush out his luxurious coat!

Days like this remind me of countless Halloweens, though, when, as a child, I’d have to bundle up in a winter coat over my clever costume and race between houses doing the Trick-or-Treat thing. Somehow, by the time I got home — dripping wet, freezing, with a ruined costume — the whole thing paled in importance. Perhaps that’s one reason Halloween has never been one of my favorite holidays.

Oh, I know other people love it — love the dressing up, love the parties, love the decorations, love the candy — but I really could care less! I don’t like being wet, I don’t particularly like being cold, and I hate the feeling of “begging” for candy from neighbors (some of whom don’t even talk or wave to you any other day of the year).

When My Favorite Domer was little, I can remember only one Halloween that was beautiful — perfectly clear sky, big ole glowing moon, temperature just right. I think I had as much fun as he did strolling from house to house, visiting with the neighbors, and watching them pretend to guess who the little guy was behind the mask!

But when your kids outgrow Trick-or-Treat time, you have two choices. You can either put your porch light on and distribute candy to other kids, trying to guess who they are, or you can hole up in the dark and wish the entire scene to just go away. Neither sounds very appealing, does it?

Maybe I’ll just put a costume on my dog and see if we can’t find a party instead!