What I'll Remember ...

The fire is quietly crackling behind me ... in the fireplace, that is.

The tears that brimmed, as they always do, during the final scene of It's a Wonderful Life still feel salty on my cheekbones.

Most of the suitcases have been carried to the car in anticipation of tomorrow's long drive.

Here's what I want to remember about today:

- Our gift time, and in particular the kids' enjoyment of each other's handmade gifts. Ian was genuinely excited about the tie-dye socks, and the girls were tickled pink by the embroidery kits. They'll be stitching away the miles tomorrow.

- Our discussion, over coffee cake and omelets, of what it means to bring gifts to Jesus today -- how to give Him our hearts, first thing every morning.

- Driving around this afternoon with Ian, just the two of us, looking for some homeless folks who might like some bags of homemade cookies. Before we left, he said to me, "I don't really want to go, because I just want to stay home, but I know I SHOULD." Yup. Welcome to life. Thirty minutes later, after a surprisingly difficult quest, we were both giddy and cheering out loud upon delivering our last bag. THAT is the best gift I could give him today.

[Related digression: On vacation, I read four books. The best one, one of those you finish and want to buttonhole every hapless individual within fifty yards and shove it into their hands, was Same Kind of Different As Me. Here. I'm shoving it into your hands now. Read it, preferably with your Puffs with Aloe (TM) nearby, and see if you're the same afterward.]

- Eating tamales and chocolate cake with Aunt Kristen, Uncle Allen, and Adopted Aunt Acacia tonight. O the yumminess of homemade guacamole! O the legacy of terrible garlic breath!

My goodness, I can't end this post by talking about garlic breath. How about this instead? In the next couple days, while we are driving driving driving and I am whining to the Professor about the state of my tailbone and saying "Is that kind?" at regular intervals toward the back seat, I hope all of you are spending lots of time sitting on the floor in your pajamas, playing with the wee folk and letting your list of Stuff to Be Done recede far, far behind you. Enjoy the moment, whatever it is for you, and be blessed.

xoxo,

me

Homemade Gifts

Unlike everywhere else in the blogosphere, I haven't really done any Christmas-related posts around here, and that's for two reasons:

1. The Mexico trip and graduation sort of obscured everything else.

2. We have a complex relationship with the holiday. One that brings us to think and pray things through every year.

In the interest of being straightforward, I'll try to explain it like this. We don't do certain things that are commonly accepted as Christmas traditions in our culture. For example, our family doesn't have a tree, since the Professor and I have issues with the pagan origins of that tradition. We don't do Santa either (although my four year old is a Santa fan, and that is something that falls squarely into the category of Not Worth Making an Issue About as far as I'm concerned. Childhood is the time for childish things. We grow. We move on. We discover silver hairs, far sooner than we would like). We try to fend off the predatory vultures of commercialism that love to hover at this time of year (don't we all!).

Let me be clear: I have no problem with what YOU do or what is important to YOU. Really! Life's too short for legalism of any kind. In fact, I'm only sharing where we are in our journey since it seemed sort of glaring NOT to address it. Shall we consider the issue addressed?

Here's what we DO do.

We do family traditions, taking advantage of the many ideas and opportunities for making special memories together (gosh, that sounded so sappy I just can't bring myself to reread what I just wrote).

We do send out cards and eagerly check the mail every day for those hand-addressed missives from relatives and friends. Thanks, guys!

We do gifts, among ourselves and some relatives.

We do look for ways to reach out to people around us.

We do listen to, and sing, carols. Not so much "Santa Baby" (ew!) as "Hark the Herald Angels" or perhaps my favorite, "O Holy Night." (What's yours?)

And of course, we do Jesus. (Always.)

For our family, we do a combination of bought and made gifts. This year, Ian is making learn-to-embroider kits for his sisters. He'll decorate mini canvas totes with fabric markers, and then fill them with goodies as inspired by maya*made here.

He has been wanting to make a wildlife album for a while, as place to collect his photos of various animals we run across. So I'm giving him a blank album, a pile of photos, and some cards made in Photoshop:

Some time in the next two days, I need to help the girls tie-dye socks for him without his knowledge. Good luck, self!

The Little Engine that Could Windsurf

... in which our hero, the fearless Professor, decides to teach himself windsurfing among the waves of the dynamic Gulf of Mexico. Being the self-sacrificing sort, he provides free entertainment for the resort guests lounging on the beach. I love that man. He's just noble noble noble.

OK. I'm on the board. Now I just hafta grab that sail like so ...

Or not.

I am of courage undaunted! Back onto the board I go!

I want my Mommy.

Maybe I need a little lesson? Señor?

Aha!
Now I get it!
Yeeeeehaw!
OH yeah!
I AM WINDSURFER! HEAR ME ROAR!

We are back

Back to home sweet home. The trip exceeded our expectations. Not to say everything was 100% perfect, but certainly close enough for every person in the family to have a fantastic time. The kids were all in mourning about leaving the friends they made, which is something I didn't foresee happening. Here's what we discovered: in December, Mexican resorts are chock full of Canadians! Seriously, it's like the entire continent just tilts a bit like the sinking Titanic and spills some frostbitten refugees into the much warmer southern lands.

We made friends with one super nice family from Calgary with FIVE kids. Just like my family of origin. Guess how long they were staying? Fifteen days! What happened to camping in the rain? I wondered (knowing that's just what my dad would say).

More later.

Trip blip

I bit the bullet this morning and paid my $12 at the front desk so we could have 24 hours of Internet here in the room. It was bittersweet, because as much as I like being connected and feeling like the world cannot possibly go on in my absence (kidding!), there is also something quite delightful about being DISconnected for a week and knowing that the world is trucking along just fine in my absence, thank you very much.

But anyway. I had a brief reflection about the nature of Travel versus that of the Vacation that I thought I'd blurt out. It came to me this morning as we bumped along through the neighboring village of Puerto Morelos, crammed into a vintage, un-airconditioned Mexican minibus with various native persons, my children being quite conspicuous in their a) blondness and b) loud speaking of the English language.

Here's the thing. With a vacation, one should be able to relax as much as possible. This excludes the activities of cooking and cleaning for one's family. The principal decisions to be made should involve, say, "Pool or beach?" or "lemonade or iced tea?" I thank my friend Kate for pointing out this essential element back when we were considering our options. Also, a beautiful setting and at least a decent degree of customer service help quite a bit. (Have I mentioned that we love the Marina El Cid? Because we do. Being unspoiled folks, we feel it's almost paradise. As soon as I find that winning lottery ticket lying in my driveway, y'all are all joining us on a return trip here.)

Travel, on the other hand, requires a greater spirit of adventure. It involves a willingness to experience at least a small degree of discomfort for the sake of genuine contact with the culture one is visiting. It involves a suspension of belief that one's way of doing things in the Motherland is the only way, or even the best way. It involves leaving the resort, preferably by bike or bus rather than taxi or air-conditioned shuttle. And I daresay, one should at least make a stab at learning the language. And practicing it, even if you're tripping over your words and trying to remember the rusty verb conjugations you absorbed in high school.

Either way, I think the secret is keeping the expectations flexible, not demanding perfection and maintaining a sense of humor, even a sense of the ridiculous.

I'm glad this trip's had a bit of both.

Viva Mexico!

Friends. I'm excited, yet almost disbelieving. Tomorrow we are going here. To this lovely resort on the Riviera Maya in Mexico, in a little village not too far, but far enough, from Cancún. All five of us. Because getting through grad school was certainly a team effort.

I've thought about posting a couple quickies during the trip, or afterward, but would that be a desirable thing to my dear readers, or would that be shameless, tacky gloating?

Anyhoo. The number of details to attend to in anticipation of even one week abroad can be unnerving. Without my little checklist, I'm sunk. The brain, it actually starts to buzz. Sparks spew from the ears.

I like Caroline's approach. Just sit yourself down with some paper, a marker and shiny Scotch tape and make yourself an iPhone, complete with some kid games and a calculator. That must be the ticket because I don't see HER scurrying around crossing off lists and running oodles of errands. Of course, she'd better start to scurry because any moment now, I'm going to eat her right up.

What We're Reading

I was really hoping to accompany this post with a few nice book cover pictures, but alas! Trying to download appropriately sized photos from my Amazon Associates page (not so I can earn five cents if you click through and buy it, but so that my photo doesn't say "click here to look inside!") has been more frustrating than ... than ... spreading cold butter on a soft piece of bread.

Instead, I give you this dully illustrated list. If you don't like lists without pictures, I can offer you the nice, reproving lecture that the Tammy Faye look-alike clerk at Hobby Lobby once gave me about the book of Job and how it's all about patience. Wow, was that little chat ever uplifting!

A Brilliant Streak: The Making of Mark Twain
(Gorgeous high-level picture book about the life of Mark Twain. Ian.)

The Magician's Elephant
(Have been reading sporadically with Lizey. So far less captivating than her others but I just KNOW it's building toward something special.)

Mexico: 40 Activities to Experience Mexico Past & Present (Kaleidoscope Kids)
(Can I just say that I love the Kaleidoscope Kids books? They're fairly bursting with worthy information and fun activities. Also. We're going to Mexico in a few days, and far be it from me to miss an educational opportunity!)

Then, here's what I have so far to read on our trip:

The Lucky One
(I admit! I confess! At certain times, such as vacations, I do like me a bit of Nicholas Sparks. The man knows how to spin a yarn.)

Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together
(Wanted some nonfiction that would also keep me turning the pages. Gal behind me in the Costco checkout line practically swore on the life of her firstborn that I would love this book. Anyone read it?)

Enna Burning (Books of Bayern)
(Um. Shannon Hale. MIGHT have mentioned my love for her writing a time or two.)

My Bible. Because if I don't read it on a daily basis, it matters not what kind of vacation paradise I am in, you do NOT want to be around me. It's just not fun. Don't do it. You've been warned.

For Ian: The Mysterious Benedict Society

For general read-aloud: The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles 30th Anniversary Edition
(Fond memories of hearing this delightful adventure in an imaginary world read aloud at night to our cabin full of girls by a camp counselor one summer, and then of reading it to Ian a couple years ago. Now it's the girls' turn.)