Six days 'til Christmas

 

We have visible snow!  And you can take my word for it, at 34℉, just above freezing, you should practice your duck walk in the grocery parking lot, especially as you approach the doors, where they have spread salt, too.

I went there this morning after breakfast, because the temperature predictions for later in the week are on the frigid side.  Would you believe we have a predicted high for Thursday that is below zero F?  I brought home yogurt and cottage cheese and bananas and blueberries... items I run out of regularly.  This should keep me OK through the end of the week, anyway.

Now I am tucked inside.  The cats went in and out at various times, being cats.

Earlier, in the dark of the morning, The Prisoner jumped into the middle bin of my recycle stack.  He got huffy when I laughed, though, and jumped back out before I could snap a photo.  Cats!

The parade of schmaltzy Christmas movies continues.  Today I tripped over one on Tubi where Mr. Scrooge gets time-traveled into the future of 2013, where he's tasked with working on helping Tim Crachett the sixth reform.  Twisty.

I'm recognizing that there are, as always, some folks who are struggling through everything this particular Christmas season is throwing at them.  A friend's father had a stroke out in the western half of our state... the half that was in the midst of a blizzard.  She feels as though she's being a bad daughter because she is not there (she lives and works here), but her brother does not want her driving on the roads.  He had to drive halfway to the hospital with his dad to meet the EMTs.  

We are under a Winter Storm warning and a Wind Chill warning pretty much statewide through the weekend.  My friend hopes it will clear enough for her to drive out on Friday.  I hope that she stays safe whatever she decides.

Everyone is dealing with their own problems and challenges.  A friend in the ministry posted a lovely reverie on three kinds of Christmas spirit (she originally wrote it in 2018, and re-shared this year):

"Yesterday was the Christmas Program at both my churches. I also went to the Abendmusik “A Weary World Rejoices” event at First Plymouth. It’s been a tough year and my Christmas spirit has been pretty weak. I think in all those events I was hoping to find some of that Christmas spirit. I think I did, but I learned there are different kinds of Christmas spirit.

There’s the Joy to the World spirit:

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let Earth receive her King;

let every heart prepare him room

and heaven and nature sing!

The spirit of Joy, seen in the sparkling eyes of a child or the joy of a really fun Christmas party with friends…at least the idealized ones.

Then there’s the Silent Night spirit:

Silent night, holy night,

all is calm, all is bright.

Round yon virgin, mother and child

holy infant so tender and mild,

sleep in heavenly peace

That’s the more sentimental Christmas spirit – a spirit that evokes visions of families gathering, soft snowfalls, candlelight worship and chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

And then…well, then there’s the spirit of the third verse of It Came Upon a Midnight Clear:

And you, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are

bending low

who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow:

look now, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the

wing:

oh, rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing

Not the first image that comes to mind when we think “Christmas.” And yet, some years it fits. This year is one of those for me.

But yesterday, in three different places and in very different ways, I got to rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing."

Author: Kristie Johnson Bohac

14

I found it meaningful.  May the Christmas you are having fit the Spirit of your life at this moment.

Life is Good.  Spark on.