the people living in darkness have seen a great light

Picture by Liam R

Christmas brings hope, hope is our only treasure now: we were poor, and now even the little we had has been destroyed. But Christmas means that Christ is born, and every birth means a new life. Jesus came down from heaven to save us from this misery, from the pain, from abandonment, from our homelessness. His power fills us with hope, love, and forgiveness.”

from the mother of this little girl

The Gospel readings today were from Luke 2:

Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother:
Behold this child is set for the fall,
and for the resurrection of many in Israel,
and for a sign which shall be contradicted;
And thy own soul a sword shall pierce,
that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed.

Season Mosaic

I think it is like Katie said.... it's not that there's nothing to write about, more that:

... rather, I am filled, but with Christmas things that I want to hold close for awhile....All is comfort and joy.

So just a few little things that come to mind:

• The kids got the complete Jeeves and Wooster collection (DVD) for our communal Christmas present and have been watching episodes.
  
• I got up to 24, 000 in Geo Challenge (and told Liam "that log in the fireplace is shaped just like Finland" He blinked a bit). Maybe I had better give it a rest. I also dreamed about the shape of Argentina. I think I know more geography now than I ever learned in the previous 45 years.
  
• We are slowly recovering from our viruses. Liam is the sickest right now. Paddy was healthy all day but last night, after he went to sleep, started gasping and gulping a bit.... though his color stayed good. We sat him up to try to get him to cough, until he said politely, "I really would rather rest." It reminded me of the time soon after we got him home from the hospital on Christmas Eve 2002. He had been induced early and kept in the San Francisco hospital for three weeks. So it was almost exactly six years ago that I watched him sleeping in his car seat, still tiny (about 6 pounds) and looking somehow too soft and unready to be out in the real world. Then I reached over and took Aidan's oximeter pulse reader and wrapped it around Paddy's small finger. It read 99 -- about as good as you can get as far as oxygenation goes -- and I sat there for a long time with the oximeter's red light gently pulsing and Paddy sleeping, thinking about the miracle of breathing in such a tiny frail human being.
• Jeeves and Wooster is fun to watch while you're getting over a cold.
• We have several feet of snow outside, and Kevin found a site on the internet where he can see CHP reports of occasional cars stopping to put on their chains in the middle of the road, consequently blocking all the traffic around them, and once, four dogs out in the road. Interesting stuff : ).
• Aidan is having so much fun with his Doug and Melissa puzzles, and the tops he got at the dollar store.
• We have to go to Mass early this afternoon because Clare is going to be cantoring. Christmas is the one time in the year besides Marian holy days that we can count on GOOD music, sadly. Inheritors of an unparalleled music tradition, too often we sing the hymns of Haugen and Haas...sigh... but at least for two weeks we can sing time-honored Christmas carols.
• I have to go get the boys ready for mass.
• I just finished reading The Uses of Knowledge by John Henry Newman .... the last five discourses from the Idea of a University. I found it on our library dime rack which usually contains things like John Grisham or Tom Clancy, sometimes things by Victor Davis Hanson, sometimes things like old trade paperbacks of classics, and once in a while something like The Uses of Knowledge or Joining the Literacy Club by Frank Smith that looked like they were dropped down there just for me.

Just for Fun: Christmas Quiz

Your Christmas is Classic

Your wish for the New Year is more happiness. For you, Christmas is a spiritual holiday. You can't separate it from your beliefs. You are patient when it comes to Christmas. You don't celebrate too early, and you don't like seeing holiday decorations in October. You like to have an authentic, traditional Christmas. Doing it the old fashioned way is important to you. You have some preferred ways of celebrating Christmas, but you're open to compromise. You love Christmas. You enjoy almost every aspect and tradition of the holidays. You give during the holidays but nowhere near as much as you'd like to.

What Does Your Christmas Say About You?

HT: Commotion from the Ocean of Life

Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas to all!

Christmas Vigil

On Monday, we got our Christmas tree. We usually wait till the last week before Christmas. Then we slowly add the decorations and presents. We keep the tree up till Epiphany.

This Christmas has felt very joyous to me. We have a lot to be thankful for. Liam, my oldest, is home from college. All the kids are healthy. You know one reason for my feeling of contentment? I have not been sparring with a homeschool schedule all fall. Wow. Because of our sabbatical, we've been just living. There's enough time for everything. If I stop unschooling, that's something I'll really miss. Oddly, I think I've gotten more actually DONE, but it has felt like I've had less to do.

Christmas has often been a hectic, odd time in our lives, just as the birth of Jesus probably came at an odd time for Mary and Joseph. Whether or not it was actually December 25th that His Birth happened!

• In 1995 we had just moved (we moved on Thanksgiving Day) and I was on bedrest because I had gone into early labor during the move.

• In 1996, we didn't have a home. We had had to leave our rental and were temporarily renting a cabin because our permanent home-to-be was behind schedule.

• In 1997 I had lost my twins at about week 16 of gestation, though I didn't officially KNOW that until January 8th. I just had a sense there was something wrong.

• In 1998 I was pregnant with #6, in the first trimester, and sick.

• In 1999 we were in San Francisco; #6 Aidan had been through a catastrophic medical mill. He had had a liver transplant and had suffered a massive stroke. He got to come home for Christmas, and our relatives had come to SF to be with us; he was to go back to the hospital soon after, and spend Y2K there.

• In 2000, we went to Maui with our relatives and came home CHristmas Eve and got a free tree!

• I don't remember 2001.

• In 2002 our #7 Patrick was induced in early December, was air-vaced to San Francisco in liver failure and hung out at the NICU for several weeks, but resolved and was able to come home on Christmas Eve. We had our family gift exchange on Epiphany that year!

• In 2003 #6 child, Aidan, had a massive seizure just a week before Christmas and was diagnosed with pylonephritis, got out in time for Christmas, but had to go back in January to SF hospital where he spent a month.

• Last year, 2004, was uneventful. Whew! And this has been the second quiet Advent and Christmas in a row.

Read Karen E on the openness to life aspect of Christmas

"....here we are. Falling in love again at Christmas time, and crazy, head-over-heels in love with our children. And all because of of a child born in Bethlehem two thousand years ago. ..... How does one thank God for that? I always seem to do it in the same old tired way. I cry. May you, too, shed some tears of ineffable gratitude this Christmas."