What I Got for Christmas

At the beginning of December, in a burst of motherly wisdom, I sat down with my daughters one-on-one and asked them what they most wanted to do during the Christmas season. 

Sophia, age 9 and three quarters, surprised me. 

Her answer was, "Less." 

She wanted less parties, less activities, and time to just hang out at home and enjoy our house. (Which, I have to say, is pretty spectacular at Christmastime.) 

Olivia, age 6, wanted more. 

More parties, more outings, a house full of friends, and as much sugar as I would allow her to eat. 

In mid-December, we hosted an open house for our neighbors, kids included, from 6 to 7:30. At 7:30, Olivia was in the living room, ankle deep in Tinker Toys, passing out dress-up clothes with a cookie in one hand. Sophia was whispering in my ear: "It's 7:30. When are people going home?"

This is my life. I'm raising two children at the opposite end of the introvert/extrovert spectrum. 

The gift I got for Christmas this year was the ability to see this as a blessing. These walking polar opposites under my roof  force me to move toward balance as a parent and a person. 

Over our Christmas break, I made a very concerted effort to meet the girls' disparate needs, balancing adventures with rest, social time with solitude. The result was more harmony, family togetherness, fun, and peace than we have had in a long time.

If I'm honest, I'm with Olivia in the more-is-more corner. I want the same things as her, right down to the sugar. Especially in December. I love people, especially in my house; I'm happiest when I have an excuse to bake 48 cupcakes and hang decorations. 

I want to tie on my Christmas apron, wear my scissors around my neck and then sew, craft, cook and party until I drop. But the thing is, I will drop. I will, in fact, possibly drive myself to the brink of hysteria following the more-is-more plan. (Olivia, too, is likely to crash into a weeping heap after the party she begged for.)

Thank God for my introverted eldest, who acts as a human Busyness Alarm. Though I might not self-regulate for my own benefit, I will for my introverted eldest; I'll drive myself crazy, but I'm not willing to send sweet Sophia into anxiety and overstimulation. 

I'm grateful for the way marriage and mothering has educated me. I've done enough reading and research now to understand that being an introvert -- a quality not much valued in our outgoing American culture -- doesn't mean anti-social or unemotional. Sophia is a wonderfully passionate and relational person. She just wants to relate one-on-one and for shorter amounts of time, and then retreat to her bedroom to recharge. And unlike her mother and sister, she doesn't use people as mirrors; she knows who she is without having to take a survey of public opinion to be sure. I want to be more like my daughter in this way.

On the other hand, Liv and I are good for her. We draw her out of her room, her books, her inner world and force her to relate to people in groups, to cut loose, to be hospitable. 

I hold up Jeff as her model. Also an introvert who would be almost totally content to spend all his time with me and the girls, he is also profoundly generous and hospitable, ready to open our doors to the entire neighborhood should they happen to show up at the door. But then, he's been living under the same roof as me for 14 years, so perhaps the gift I've given him -- challenging though I may be -- is also balance. 

I'm grateful for the blessing of balance I got for Christmas. God grant me the ability to hold onto it all year.

Like Nobody Loves Me

Today I found Christmas in an unexpected place, and I need to share it. I found the joy of Christmas on an iTunes play list.

A couple of year's ago I made Jeff a mix CD for some romantic occasion (Valentine's Day? Our anniversary?). I titled it "Little A's Sassy Love Mix." On it is everyone from Mary Chapin Carpenter to the Rolling Stones.

Jeff may have listened to it once or twice, but it is my most listened-to play list in my iTunes library. I love it so much because the songs are just what I want to say to my husband. But at least half of them are lyrics I wish he'd say to me.

I preface what I am about to say by citing my excellent track record of praising my husband via this blog. (Despite that fact that I learned on a John Tesh radio program that bragging on your spouse is in the top-10 most-hated activities on facebook I do lot of it.)

But here's the truth. My husband doesn't love me like I want to be loved.

There's a hole in my heart that he doesn't and cannot fill. Sometimes I smack up against that reality with a mixture of shock and sorrow. The holidays can bring this into sharp relief. Like most women this time of year, I'm working flat out to make magic for the family and I want to feel seen and loved for the heart behind what I'm trying to do. (Whether or not I should be doing this is the subject for another blog.)

Today I walked into my women's Bible study room feeling kind of, well, beaten down and unloved. We finished up a 15-week Bible study by reading aloud with a treasured group of women the beautiful prayer Jesus prays over his disciples at the last supper in the book of John. I left church uplifted, wanting to tune out the whole world and stay in the peace that reading gave me.

I put on my headphones as I walked through Trader Joe's and turned on iTunes. What came up on shuffle? My love mix. And I realized, Jesus was singing to me. He was doing it in Keith Urban's voice, but I heard Jesus.

I want to stand out in the crowd for you, a man among men. 
I want to make your world better than it's ever been. 
And I'm gonna love you like nobody loves you. 
And I'll earn your trust making memories of us.

Tears start coming in TJs. Other shoppers think, Oh no, that housewife has cracked up under holiday stress. She's crying over her spiral sliced ham. But no, I'm crying over the way Jesus has earned my trust.

Memories start coming to me of all the places He has shown up and saved me, spoken to me. In mountain camp chapels and Sunday school circles as a child. In back rows of churches and back seats of cars as a teenager. In the delivery room and hospital waiting rooms and alone in my laundry room crying out for relief. In sunsets and leaves changing and the call of a friend on a day that I really needed it and the Scripture brought to mind that would mean nothing to someone else but meant everything -- everything -- to me on a certain day.

And then He went on...
I'm going to be there for you from now on
This you know somehow
You've been stretched to the limits but it's alright now
And I'm going to love you like nobody loves you...

I hear other words, recorded gospel words.
"In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world." John 16:33
"My peace I give you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." John 14:27

My play list went on. Song after song I'm realizing why I chose them for my husband, what my heart was crying out. I want to be loved like nobody on earth loves me! I want to be loved like nobody on earth can love me. 

I want love that is rescue, passion, security, eternity. I want a hero, a husband, a father, a friend. I want someone to pick me out of the crowd, choose me, see me, love me. Jesus did: He came looking for me.

Sting: I'm going to find you a place to live, give you all I've got to give." 

"I'm going to prepare a place for you  and I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." John 14:3

Bruce Springsteen: I'll work for your love, dear. What others may want for free, I'll work for your love.

He worked for me: In the manger, on the mount, on the cross. In His prayers for me in John 17, 2,000 years before I was born. Jesus was a gentleman and gave women value like no one else in His day. They saw in Him someone who wouldn't strip them of their dignity, but clothe them in honor. He earned their trust. He has earned mine.

Now I'm still listening, I'm still crying. I'm in Walgreens buying pillow pets for nieces and nephews. I'm in Gelson's buying bags of dried peas for Christmas Eve soup. And I'm hearing it played out in these secular songs: Jesus, Son of Man, man among men, loving me. And my response...

Bob Marley: In life I know there is lots of grief, but your love is my relief. 

Bonnie Rait:  I was in a daze, moving in the wrong direction 
Feeling that I'd always be the lonely one
Then I saw your face on the edge of my horizon
whispering that I wasn't the only one, the lonely one
When I heard your sweet voice calling, saw your light come shining through
I couldn't stop my heart from turning, turning out my love for you. 

The Bible study I've just finished (well, I've finished Part One, anyway...) is called the Eternal Love Story, written by my dear friend Barb Egbert. On this mid-point celebration day for our small group of women, Jesus made me a mix CD filled with love songs. He loves me like nobody loves me. I'm not ashamed to say I need that kind of love. I'm so grateful I have it from Jesus. 

Because sometimes I go through the days acting like nobody loves me. But the real issue is, nobody loves me like Jesus.

His love frees me up to accept the love from those around me (my wonderful husband included) without demanding that they love me that way, because they can't. C.S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity “If you find yourself with a desire that no experience in this world can satisfy, then the most probable explanation is that you were made for another world.” Even the best romance in this world can't compare to the eternal romance of being Jesus' bride.

My prayer for you, reader, whoever you may be, is that Jesus sings His love -- a love that is specific, unconditional and eternally precious -- over you in this next holy week. I'll send you my play list if you need it. But I don't think you will. Keep your ears open, because I know He has a song for you, too.

What Wasn't In the Christmas Letter

 I like writing our family Christmas letter every year because it helps me remember what went down in the Anderson family for the last 12 months. I do it as much for me as I do for our friends and family who are far away or we just don't get to see as often as we'd like.  But this year, since I mailed our cards out,  I keep thinking of things I left out, which I wish I'd put in.

 I strive to make "The Anderson Annual Report" honest as well as hopefully amusing, and avoid straight bragging about my kids if I can help it. But some of the most defining things about my year are usually not it it. One reason: the letter is about my family, not just me. Another: there are some things you don't say in a letter to 100 people including some of your spouses co-workers. And another: sometimes the important things are too personal for your letter, but somehow appropriate for your blog.

What would a slightly more personal letter just from me look like? For some reason, now, at 4 a.m. on December 23, I feel the need to give it a try. 

This year I lost five pounds, roughly 50 hair rubber bands, about  a dozen significant receipts or coupons, and my temper (about once a week). 

I dented another fender on our car, leaving only one out of four corners of our SUV with it's bumper unscathed. 

I baked and frosted about 264 cupcakes for my children, godchildren, and best friend; and one cake shaped like a volcano for my godson. They were all pretty awesome.

I forgave someone that I had needed to forgive for a long time, with God's gracious help. And then they hurt me again. But I found forgiving them the second time was easier. 

I saw our eldest daughter struggle with what it means to make faith her own, wrestle with God in her eight-year-old way, and eventually decided to be baptized. My husband and I wept. 

I reread Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, the entire Anne of Green Gables series, and a couple other chick books I'm embarrassed I own. I need some good book recommendations.

In August, I went to the MOPS International Convention in Texas and was once again inspired to continue ministry to young  mothers. I applied to teach a workshop at next year's convention, and was warmly encouraged but not accepted. I felt -- surprisingly -- not sad the rejection but proud that I had at least tried. I may try again next year.

I made a few new friends -- mothers of kindergarteners in my daughter's class -- that I am really excited about. 

I finished a two-year term in a volunteer job at my church that I absolutely loved, and accepted a new job about which I have extremely mixed feelings. In December I realized that the job is about serving God and not about making me happy. Which didn't exactly make me happy, but gave me peace. 

I got one pretty bad haircut. I think I might still be growing it out. 

One of my best friend's lost a baby late in her pregnancy. Another got pregnant with twins. Both have affected my heart in ways I can't explain.

I learned how to pray for other women in need of healing. I myself was prayed for in this way at least three times. 

We took a week-long vacation to Utah and spent two days of it puking in my sister in law's basement. I'm still a little traumatized.

I took a 15-week Bible study about Jesus and how he relates to women. I fell in love with Jesus again. He is such a gentleman.

My husband logged about 300 extra hours of work this year, and I missed him while he was working, but was proud that he worked so hard. 

I realized I have a pretty darn good relationship with my mom. 

This year I have doubted my ability to be a good mommy, seen negative qualities of myself (and occassionally my husband's) in our children, and yearned to be able to save them from some of the psychological struggles or personality flaws that I have. 

I have also exulted over reports from their teachers that they are kind people and enthusiastic learners, and thanked God that He is helping us grow the best parts of ourselves in our children, too. 

I have felt joy, depression, frustration, satisfaction, grief, boredom and
exultation. On the whole, it was a fruitful year. I hope yours was too. 

The Soup is Being Stirred

My mom has no good cooking tools. Open her utensil drawer and find nary a wooden spoon. No ladle. No big forked spoon for spaghetti. Just an old-school carrot peeler, a waiter's-style wine opener, a scorched spatula, and a couple of metal skewers. ( I may be exaggerating slightly).

The lack of sufficient stirring implements drives me batty, for a number of reasons that I shan't share on the Internet and would only make sense to me, but they are generally related to wishing she would take good care of herself. I have hounded her about it mercilessly for years.

Last year, I was helping with our traditional split pea soup dinner for Christmas Eve, and razzing her about the fact that I was scraping the bottom of her huge stockpot with a metal soup spoon (for eating with!) instead of a sturdy wooden spoon (for cooking with!), when my youngest brother observed, "It appears that the soup is being stirred."

Where does my baby brother get the nerve, being wiser and kinder and more grace-extending than me?

His comment was delivered without a trace of sarcasm or nastiness, and therefore, it penetrated to my soul. Was not the soup being stirred, though it was not being stirred my way?

We have all kinds of little things that irk us about our relatives, don't we, especially those they've done for years or even decades? The way Grandma always shows up 15 minutes early or Papa twiddles the fringe on the rug with his bare feet. Things that in a stranger, or even a good friend, wouldn't bother us in the least.

I think part of the reason these habits or mannerisms bother us so much is we think we see through all their habits down to their motives, and then all the way down to some kind of systemic dysfunction. A daughter looks in her mother's utensil drawer and reads it like tea leaves. But I'm willing to believe that I could even be reading it wrong, to say nothing of the fact that it isn't my job or right to be "reading" it in the first place.

In our ability to see through those close to us, there is a danger of looking right past them, to cease to see them as a whole, to overemphasize small foibles that don't matter and miss the big picture of the love and sense of belonging they extend to us. It's possible, then, for a friend or a stranger to see them even clearer than we do, with fresh eyes. That is unspeakably sad.

As I've been formulating this entry in my head over the past few days, it began as a piece on how I would be giving my relatives the gift of grace this Christmas, shutting my mouth about the silly little stuff I could nag them about. But friends, it's my soup that's been stirred. And what rose to the surface is a revelation of my own pride. Grace is something we extend to people who don't deserve it, and my family deserves a lot -- a lot more than I often give them.

The gift I'd rather give them is gratitude: for all the support, generosity, togetherness, laughter, and affirmation they've given me. For the great example set for me by my immediate family: not just my parents, but my brothers as well, especially my youngest who gave me some truth that took me a year to ponder.

My dear ones could look into some of my drawers (especially my vegetable crisper or makeup drawer) and draw all kinds of conclusions of the flawed way that I live. But I hope they won't. I hope this Christmas they'll look at me and see the best, the way God did at Christmas, as the angels declared to the shepherds, "Peace on earth and good will to men, in whom He is well pleased!" I'll take the gift of grace from them and count it among the best I've ever received.

A Full House

"This house is so full of people it makes me sick. When I grow up and get married, I'm living alone! Do you hear me? I'm living alone!"
--"Kevin," Home Alone

It's December 19 at 6:40 p.m. and I am alone in my house. Hubby is at Target picking out rayon-derived-from-bamboo socks for me that will be "from Livie," and returning the last thing we forgot to return the last time we were in Target (yesterday). The Christmas lights are on. The only sound is the dishwasher's soothing hum. Bliss.

This moment is the utter opposite of the way I spent my day: in one of America's largest shopping malls, paying for my kids to ride the Santa train and the reindeer carousel. We had lunch at a diner with four other moms and a total of eight kids under the age of eight years. Then we herded them around like manic cats, receiving compliments on their beauty and then alternatively, dirty looks as they had fits over who got to push the elevator button. Chaos. But fun. Really, truly, fun. Still, the solitude is welcome.

Solitude, to a mother, is in fact, something to be fantasized about. In the [stupid] movie Date Night, Tina Fey's character says that she dreams of being alone in a room with a diet 7-up (maybe it's a Sprite). That's about right. Except in my dream, it's a Diet Coke, and there's a sewing machine. To be alone with one's thoughts, with one's hobby, with one's book, on one's toilet. Oh the joy that would be.

And yet, before children, what I dreamed of was a full house. In fact, when Jeff and I were dating, I told him I wanted four kids. He said that's because I was picturing Thanksgivings with lots of grandchildren, but the reality would be him coming home from work to four naked kids and jelly on the walls. And he was right. We have two kids, and there is jelly on the walls, and the kids are often in a state of undress or unrest or both when he comes home.

But the point is, I wanted this: noise, mess, giggling, wrestling, toys, blankies, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, stockings on the mantel, footy pajamas in the drawers.

It's not always fun though. Duh. The other day, we were driving home from somewhere (it was probably church) and the children were interrupting each other and us, complaining about being hungry/tired/bored/something mundane, and I had their junk just piled around me in the shotgun seat of my Toyota. I turned to Jeff and said, "When I grow up and get married, I'm living alone."

Jeff laughed. He recognized the quotation from Home Alone, where the eight year old is getting dumped on by his huge extended family as they all scramble to get ready for a trip to Paris at Christmastime. Sophia caught the inconsistency right away, but missed the intended irony: "Mom, if you get married, you don't live alone!" Eye roll.

How true that is, dearest. And what a good reminder when I'm up to my eyeballs in dishes and timeouts and whooping and whining that I have received my dearest wish. I have a house full of people. Kevin got his wish in the movie too, but realized in a few short days that life without family wasn't all he imagined it to be, even though he did get his very own cheese pizza and got to watch scary movies. And how empty I would feel without having these precious ones to wash and dress, love and comfort, cook for and read to. It's sacred, what I do. It's a blessed life.

So if you want to be alone when you grow up, don't get married or have children, because solitude in a family will not come cheap. But it will be blissful in those rare moments. So now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go count my blessings, remember that my full house is a winning hand, and take these last few quiet moments to listen to my dishwasher hum.

Let Your Heart Be Light

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on our troubles will be out of sight...

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
-Jesus, John 16:33

As a perfectionist, I had issues with Christmas. Foundational to perfectionism is "all or nothing" thinking: a situation, person, day is either all good or all bad. For something to be mostly good, but flawed, is uncomfortable and therefore impossible to the perfectionist. So we don't deal well with reality. And the trouble with Christmas is that underneath all the twinkle lights reality is still lurking.

Even as an Imperfectionist, my recovered term for myself -- the self that celebrates flawed reality as a growth adventure -- I still have issues with Christmas.

In some ways, it's my favorite time: when beauty, family, cooking, crafting, friends, parties, music, new clothes, and Jesus -- all my favorite things -- combine.

In other ways, I hate it. I'm tired, overworked, underwhelmed, and emotionally incapable of the 24-7 joy that the Christmas movies and Christmas carols suggest I ought to feel. All or nothing, right? Wrong.

This year, I've had a beautiful, complex, Imperfectionist Christmas.

The second week of December, Jeff and I were waiting at the airport to fly to Las Vegas; a house he had helped design had just been finished, and we were going to the client's holiday housewarming. A weekend alone to celebrate with my husband! And then my mom called: her father had passed away in the night at the age of 96. Definitely not a moment for a light heart. But she told us to go, and we went, and it was the right thing to do. It was a time to rejoice as well as mourn, and I had to figure out how to do both.

This year, my pastor's wife just lost her mother, my mom just lost her father, a friend lost her grandmother, and another friend is living through her first Christmas without her husband, who passed away this year from cancer. I have friends without jobs and friends with cancer. Our hearts are not light.

But the attempt at happiness or light hearts at Christmas -- especially trying to achieve them with presents and lights and gingerbread (all good things) -- miss the point of Christmas. Christmas is largely not joy for present circumstances; it is joy that enduring through circumstance, with help from a God who draws close to us, will produce character, completeness and hope. So many of my most precious times with God have not been lighthearted, but heavy, weeping, on my knees, where He has met me in love and tenderness.

Christmas is also hope for the future. It is hope for eternity. But that''s scary because hope, by definition, is believing in something you don't yet have and cannot yet see.

And this has always been the way of God's people. Since ancient times we have forgotten to believe God for the future and instead looked for present rescue. Many people in Israel missed the first Christmas -- and consequently the first Easter too -- because they were watching for an earthly king to overthrow Rome and restore their kingdom.

But Christmas wasn't a happy ending. It was a happy beginning. The cross wasn't the end either, nor the resurrection. Jesus' followers hoped thought their troubles would be out of sight. Just after he rose again they asked him: "Lord, are you now going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"

The answer was no. God's people are still in exile, living in a messed up world that God has not yet fully repaired. This is why my favorite carol this year is this:

Oh come, oh come Emmanuel
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here until the son of God appears.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee oh Israel.

Rejoice! He is Emmanuel, living with us among the detritus and pain, helping us to endure and experience peace that transcends our circumstances. We are not spiritual orphans. And rejoice! He's coming again, to make right all that is wrong, "to wipe every tear from their eyes."

In the meantime, I'm being called to live in this imperfect world, taking the joy with the sorrow and responding to them both, even if they are happening at the same time. This Christmas season I have:

...celebrated one child getting an award at her school for being respectful, and cried over my other child who refuses to respect her parents

...given gifts to foster children in our community and prayed for the oppressed and orphaned children of this world with tears. And then I've turned around and whooped with glee on a roller coaster with my own children who are deeply loved.

...danced with strangers on the stone floor of my husband's clients house, and knelt on the stone altar with a friend who was weeping over her broken marriage.

My perfectionist self could not have celebrated the lightness in this season with so much surrounding heaviness. I would have felt guilty. Or I would have rejected the light moments as too small to overcome the dark. Now I think failing to thank God and enjoy happy circumstances is morally wrong. Who am I to reject the gift of lightness because it comes to me in a dark world. I'll take both, whatever God sends me. Take heart, He has overcome the world.

Baby Jesus Down the Drain

On Monday, due to weather conditions, I suddenly became hostess to a party of 20 women on our MOPS leadership team, our planned location being semi-out-of-doors. I found this out around 9 a.m. on Monday morning, and of course this sent me into a house cleaning tizzy. My home is about 11oo square feet, and has enough Christmas decorations in it for a house twice that size, so it's beautiful, brightly lit, and very crowded. Therefore, all children clutter and dirt must be removed before party people arrive.

I turned the TV on for Livie and sprung into action. As I spun around the kitchen like the Tasmanian Devil, bangs pressed back in a sweatband, apron tied tight around my waist, I whisked a plastic kids' cup off the butcher block and dumped it down the sink without looking at the contents.

A peculiar rattle came from the sink (definitely not the sound milk makes), so I stuck my hand down the garbage disposal (not turned on) to see what it was.

It was baby Jesus.

Livie has an old, mismatched plastic nativity in her room that she's allowed to play with, and here in her breakfast cup was the infant Savior -- blond, naked, curled up in ball, with bits of dried hot glue and Spanish moss stuck to his bottom. And I had dumped him down the drain.

Do any of us really need to read (or write) another piece about how Jesus can get lost in the bustle of the Christmas season? Well, apparently I do, as I take the literal disposing of Jesus down the sink as a sign. Just a few thoughts on the subject:

* I can't even say "Baby Jesus" without hearing it in Will Ferrel's fake southern accent from Taladega Nights. "Dear eight-pound, five-ounce baby Jesus in his gold diaper..." "Baby Jesus" sounds in my head, bubbling out of a Nascar driver's mouth as he asks the non-intimidating baby God to keep the money coming. Baby Jesus becomes a caricature, even in my own head, and I am a follower of Christ!

*At Christmas its too easy to make Jesus a Precious Moment figurine, a plastic Little People toy. In all his accessability (Livie plays with him like he's a My Little Pony), I can forget that he is a sign of God's radical love and the world's need for salvation. The baby Jesus shows that God wants to be accessible to us; he came vulnerable, naked, cute. But he grew up to be a lot more than that. I don't want to worship just a cute Jesus at Christmas.

* I have sent out 100 Christmas cards, watched Elf twice (dude, what is it with me and Will Ferrel today?), wrapped lots of gifts, embroidered six tea towels, and spent a week decorating, but other than the Bible verse from Luke I read with the kids in our advent calendar each morning, I haven't read Scripture or sat down to pray for at least a week. And at the party for these women I serve with at church, I didn't even say a prayer over our dinner! I know His Spirit was still evoked as we gathered, but I wish I had made time show Him more reverence amidst our merry making.

Livie's little plastic Jesus is back in his manger where He belongs. And as for me, this blog is my way of putting Jesus where He belongs for me: in my heart. I'll work at keeping him there for the rest of the season.