Angel or Alien?

 This is a reprint of a story I wrote that appeared in last year's Chicken Soup for the Soul's Christmas anthology: 

“Mom! I made an angel for the top of our Christmas tree!” 

My five-year-old daughter exclaimed these words as she excitedly pulled the treasure she'd made in her kindergarten class from her backpack. Then she held it up for me to admire.

It consisted of a six-inch cardboard cone spray-painted gold, very much resembling a metallic gold, upside-down ice cream cone. To that base she had glued white pipe cleaners on the sides and bent them so that they came together in front. There they were also glued to a small rectangle paper so as to appear to be holding sheet music. In the back, she’d glued a lacy doily which I assumed were wings.

Up to that point is wasn’t so bad but its head looked like something out of a science fiction movie--a rather large white Styrofoam ball in which my sweet daughter had stuck large, colorful pins to make its facial features. She stuck the ones for eyes through small, round metallic gold papers. The papers were not glued down, and thus did not rest against the round Styrofoam ball. They sort of stuck out all around the pin eyeballs, looking a bit more like fins than eyes. This caused the angel’s eyes to look sort of like insect eyes.

It’s hair was a series of yellow pipe cleaners that had been cut short and individually stuck in the head. They were bent so they hung down rather than sticking straight out, thank goodness. It’s halo was another yellow pipe cleaner that had been stuck in the very top of the Styrofoam head and then bent into a circle around it. Since she had used the same pipe cleaners as the hair, it sort of looked like one piece of hair had gotten wind-blown and messed up. I had to fight the urge to smooth it down along with the other hair.

But my daughter was so proud! What’s a mother to do? 

Of course, I told her the strange-looking thing she held in her hand was beautiful and I climbed on a chair and placed it on the top of my tree.

… and there it remained, or was placed again, rather, year after year after year. It peered down on us Christmas after Christmas looking more like a space alien with its metallic, bulging eyes, than an angel. And every year, as I placed it on the tree, I tried to assess my daughter’s level of attachment to it, always hoping we could finally laugh at it and declare it for what it was—a five-year-old’s funny attempt at making an angel. But each year my daughter smiled and admired it when it came out of the Christmas box. Many times, she excitedly placed it in my hand and exclaimed, “My angel! Here Mommy, put her on top of the tree.” (I suppose the angel was a her. It was hard to tell but my daughter seemed to think it was.)

One of the years when my daughter was in middle school, as I was taking the angel out of the box of decorations, its head fell off and rolled onto the family room floor. I jumped at the opportunity, quickly suggesting that perhaps it was time to get a new angel for our tree.

My daughter’s face fell. Even though she was close to being a teenager, she still held affection for this strange item that bordered on being a monstrosity. “Or… I could try gluing the head back on and see if it stays,” I quickly suggested. This pleased my daughter so her angel once again graced our tree … for many more years.

I was beginning to wonder if I would have to have that bug-eyed thing topping my tree forever! I would see beautiful trees in stores and magazines and other people’s houses, but not mine. Mine was forever doomed to be a tree decorated with homemade ornaments my three sons and one daughter had brought home to me through the years. And it would forever have this insect-like alien with messed up hair sitting on top of it!

I resigned myself to it. It appeared inevitable.

Then one Christmas morning when my daughter was in high school, she handed me the gift she had bought me. I opened it and there before my eyes was a beautiful, elegant, store-bought angel tree-topper! I have never been so happy to receive a gift in my life! She and the whole family burst out laughing when they saw how happy I was.

Today, my tree is a mix of homemade ornaments and purchased ones. But sitting on the very top is a lovely angel holding tiny candles that light up who has normal looking hair and eyes and an elegant halo. It looks down at us in a gentle, smiling sort of way, instead of leering at us through bulging eyes.

And the other, much loved angel of days gone by rests in the bottom of the decoration box in two parts—body and head—because her head came off again. Every year I look at it and laugh … but I think I miss it a little. I love her too much to throw her away. She is a treasure in her own way.

My daughter is grown now with a child of her own. One year, I offered to glue her angel’s head back on and let her use it or her Christmas tree. We both burst out laughing.
 

 Christmas Card Christmas Christmas Tree Advent

 Christmas Card Christmas Christmas Tree Advent

God's Gift

2 Corinthians 9:15 says, "Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift." I have never really noticed this verse. I mean it has never really

stood out to me before … until chapel at school last week … and now I will  never forget it.


I substitute at a Christian school and happened to be subbing on chapel day last week. The speaker was interesting. She drew a huge chalk picture as she spoke. I did not know her and sadly cannot remember her name. But I remember the verse she quoted.

She said this verse is the perfect verse for this time of year because it begins with thanksgiving and ends with a gift. What a powerful observation about this verse! It is a perspective that sealed this verse in my mind.

As I'm writing this it is the day before Thanksgiving. This year will be different for me. My Mom passed away last summer, and her absence is felt. Two of my sisters called me this week grieving again over her passing. I’m reminded of her as I prepare food to bring because so much of how I cook was learned from her.

We’ll have Thanksgiving at my adult daughter’s this year for the first time. I’m excited about passing the baton. She’ll have a house full with her, her son, fiancé, his two sons, two brothers, one of the brothers fiancé’s and my husband and me. I tried to tell her how I cook a turkey but she assured me she could find the instructions online. 😁

It’s a new chapter and I am determined to embrace it because truly, I have so much to be thankful for! Having had a loving mother who lived a long and wonderful life and a daughter who is carrying on traditions are just some of my many, many blessings. Most of all, I am thankful for God's unspeakable gift--His son, Jesus who came not to condemn the world but that the world through Him can be saved. 

A Colorful Christmas

Many years ago, when my now grown children were young, we had an especially lean Christmas. My husband’s start-up business struggled, it prospects for success looked dim. I worked feverishly to get my nursing license active, which required taking continuing education classes. At Christmastime I was still trying to get my license active and thus not yet employed. We carefully planned our very tight Christmas budget right down to every bite of food we would eat on Christmas day.

On Christmas Eve, we traveled back from visiting my parents some six hours away. Though we had budgeted the gas for the trip, when we arrived home, hungry, it occurred to me for the first time that I had not thought about what I would feed my family when we got home.

Before having dinner, we sat around our Christmas tree, each opening one gift as was our Christmas Eve tradition. My budding artist daughter opened oil pastels as her gift. These look a bit like crayons with papers wrapped around each one.

Then it was dinnertime. I looked around for any food I might could scrounge up for dinner. We had food but most of it was set aside for Christmas Day meals. What could I possible feed my family?

To my relief when I opened my pantry I discovered a box of spaghetti noodles and a can of sauce! We would have spaghetti for Christmas Eve dinner!

As I was boiling the noodles, my daughter came to me with her oil pastels frustrated because she could not get the outside paper off them. For some unknown reason, I thought perhaps if I held them above the steamy boiling noodles the paper would loosen a bit.

I do not know why I thought this was a good idea.

Immediately, the pastels started to melt and drip into the boiling water below. I jerked them away and saved her gift from melting altogether but there in front of me were tiny colorful bits of oil pastels floating around among the spaghetti noodles.

I did the only thing I knew to do. I looked at the pastel box to read what it said about them. There were the words I had hoped to see: non-toxic!

I rinsed the noodles, of course, but still a few flecks of color remained. I had nothing else to feed my family other than the food set aside for Christmas Day and even that had been carefully planned with no extra portions. Not even a bowl of cereal. So … knowing the precious few flecks of pastels that remained were non-toxic … I put the spaghetti noodles in a bowl and set it on the table next to the sauce.

My family teased me unmercifully about our colorful Christmas Eve dinner. To this day, not a Christmas goes by without one of my adult children asking if we are going to have our “traditional Christmas Eve dinner” –multi-colored spaghetti!

A Christmas Story

 My physician / writer father wrote a story once about the birth of Jesus from a physician’s point of view. He said he had been thinking about the Christmas story and realized the birth of Jesus was miraculous in so many ways besides just the virgin status of his mother. From a medical point of view so many things could have gone wrong with a birth of a newborn in a dirty stable, at that time in history to a teenage, virgin mother. This realization prompted him to write a story which he set in a play or skit format.

His story opened with a panel of doctors from across the ages sitting at a large celestial conference table discussing God’s plan for the birth of Jesus.

The 18^th century physician who pioneered the need for basic antisepsis such as hand washing, Dr Semmelwies, voiced objections to the plan. “I have grave concerns about the location of the birth. A stable?  Why a stable?! It is such a dirty environment!”

Dr. Lister who further developed antiseptic practices agreed whole heartedly with his fellow panelist.

Dr. Casselman, the inventor of forceps, also had reservations. “The mother is so young and at that time in history, I had not invented forceps yet. A teenage pregnancy is wrought with potential problems, the narrow size of her not-yet-fully-developed hips, to name one. I feel there are risks in both the maternal age and the timing in history of the planned delivery.”

21^st century Obstetrician, Dr. Edwards chimed in pointing out the poor nutritional status of most people at that time in history. “It’s not like they could purchase prenatal vitamins from their local grocery store! And there are no hospitals with neonatal intensive care units in case the baby has problems.”

And so it was agreed. The panel solemnly decided they would have to give a negative opinion of the planned birth. They could not in good conscious do otherwise. 

Just then, another physician entered the room and began to speak. This man had a long beard, long hair, and wore a tunic that came to just above his sandle-clad feet. “Gentlemen,” he said. "I am Dr. Luke. And I am here to report that the birth has occurred just as planned. Mother and child are both well and I've recorded it all in my charts.”

Merry Christmas

Last year my local writing group had a fun Christmas writing exercise where we were challenged to write something which incorporated titles of Christmas carols. This piece was written by Crystal Murray the president of my local writing group. She gave me permission to post it on my blog. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!     

          

THREE WANDERING KINGS

(by Crystal A Murray)

We three kings knew we had a long journey ahead. We started on a silent night, but it turned out that many joined us along the way. We happened upon Good King Wenceslas, who asked us where we were going. Since we weren’t exactly sure yet (at this point we were just following the yonder star), I just him hawed around and finally answered, “Oh…little town of Bethlehem, I reckon.”

We continued on down the road when one of our road mates stopped and said, “Do you hear what I hear?“

I answered, “Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, tell us what you heard.”

And then Melchior spoke up and said, “I didn’t hear anything, but I saw three ships come sailing in as we passed the harbor.”

“If you already saw the ships,” I said, “then it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.”

“Well then,” said Melchior, “go tell it on the mountain, so everyone will know!”

“But who will tell Grandma?” asked one of our younger travelers.

“We will,” announced a group of teens who had joined us. As they ran out of site, I heard them singing what sounded like, Hi ho, hi ho, to Grandmother’s house we go. It reminded me so much of my childhood that I could practically see our old homestead decked out with the holly and the ivy, and I could smell the chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Oh those memories of days spent rockin’ around the Christmas tree were so wonderful. I hate that it all had to end when Grandma got run over by a reindeer.

I was almost crying when someone broke into my thoughts. “I think I just heard the silver bells.”

“You mean you heard dinner bells,” I joked because I knew we were all starting to get hungry. Never the less, we trudged along until it came upon the midnight clear that the star was leading us to a barn in the middle of a field.

As we approached the barn, someone shouted, “Bring a torch, Jeanette Isabella,” and we all sprang forward to view the baby who had been tucked away in a manger. At that, the little drummer boy began to play a special tune that sounded more like sleigh bells or jingle bells than a drum. I don’t know how he did that. It was magical and made me wonder, what child is this that can turn even the sound from a child’s toy into such beautiful orchestration. And that’s when I heard the bells on Christmas day and then we all exclaimed together, “Oh holy night

Merry Christmas

 

And Lo, the Star Went Before Them – Part 1

This story has appeared in two Christmas anthologies – “Klutzin Around the Christmas Tree” and “Christmas Tales, Christmas Bells” I will post it in two parts.

It felt more like a warm summer evening than Christmas time. The crowd had gathered on the back lawn of Francis Jones – a missionary guest house named for a former missionary who lost her life to Yellow Fever in this tropical country of Nigeria. I was a child in the audience, too young and untalented to have made the cast. A person needed to be able to sing in order to be in this play and I have never been able to sing. But my sister was an angel. She sang a group song with the other angels and my brother was a Wiseman. That was a huge honor! He would be joining his voice with the voices of the other two Wisemen in a rendition of, “We Three Kings”. I was excited for them….but mostly; I was just excited. The play was always a highlight of the Christmas season in this African country I had learned to call home.

On the far end of the huge lawn was a wooden stable made by one of the missionary men. In it were Mary, Joseph, and “baby Jesus”. This year the baby was just a doll but in some of the past years it had been a real baby. The year my siblings were in the play, there was a shortage of real missionary babies. Next to the stable were some live sheep which another group of little “shepherds” worked very hard to control. These always made the play interesting. They often provided comic relief…or perhaps I should say a comic distraction as the actors tried their best to remain serious.

Usually, there was a large star made of cardboard and covered in tinfoil which rested on top of the stable, but this year was different. This year was special! One of the missionaries had attached a rope to the roof of the stable and extended it across the lawn to the roof of Francis Jones. This year, the star was suspended from the rope. It was to be pulled across the lawn in front of the Wisemen as they walked towards the stable. Also as the star moved across the lawn, it was to be illuminated by a spotlight from the ground. What a great play it was going to be this year!! And, how lucky my brother was to be walking under that spotlighted star as he sang his song!

 

Christmas in Ogbomosho Part 2

By: Peter Gilliland

Aahhh! Christmas in Ogbomosho. To this day, I am convinced that THAT is where REAL CHRISTMAS happened, especially during the 1950s and early '60s.

Christmas there was not just a day, but a season. The best season.

We lived on a very large mission station, and celebrations were a Big Deal. There were parties; a station party, at the Seminary, or sometimes at the guest house. And it was wonderful.

And there was the Christmas Pageant. One year, my sister, Diana, was Joseph, because she was the biggest kid. Linda Goldie was Mary. I think Pat & Jim and Jonathon were the Wise Guys. John and Bill Carey and I were shepherds.

Then later, John and BC and I aged into Wise Guys. We sang "We Three Kings," and my verse was "Born a King on Bethlehem's plain, gold I bring...."

One year we did something like "The Littlest Shepherd," and Kenny was Him.

For weeks ahead of time we had rehearsals. Aunt Jane was usually the one tasked with making us into thespians. And it was wonderful.

Sometime in November we made a pilgrimage to Lagos to buy presents. We stayed at "the Hostel" and shopped at Kingsway and UTC and Chelarams and Leventis. Kingsway had a black Father Christmas, and I had my picture made sitting on his knee. In the afternoons we would go to Victoria Beach for a couple of hours, and I was delighted and terrified (and sometimes almost drowned) by the tremendous breakers. Then back at the Hostel there would be a quarter inch of sand in the bathtub after my bath. And it was wonderful.

My mother always hosted a carol sing at our house. Most of the station crowded in to sing Christmas carols, while my father and a few other non-singing men retreated to the kitchen to fry up donuts. And we always sang "The Twelve Days of Christmas." And it was wonderful.

There was lots of good food; cakes, cookies and pies in quantities not seen through the rest of the year. And there was Mrs. Jester's fruitcake. And it was wonderful.

There was excitement in the air, a marvelous anticipation, and parents hid things from children, and children were forbidden to enter certain rooms. And it was wonderful! 

The days were hot and dry and the nights were cool and you could imagine winter. It seemed that Christmas would never actually arrive because time passed so slowly. And it was wonderful.

And the Christmas decorations came out. For years, we had a casuarina tree – or branch – for a Christmas tree. Daddy strung the lights, and Mother and Diana attached the decorations, and I was "shooed" away from the tree because I was not trusted to place ornaments properly.

The tree lights were the old fat-bulb kind. If one bulb was bad, the whole string hung in darkness while Daddy changed one bulb after another to find the offender, and then the lights would come on in delightful, colorful glory. There were a few of the candle-shaped lights that were supposed to bubble, but after a few years they did well just to light up. In later years there was tinsel to hang on the tree, and plastic icicles, and even lights that did not all go out if one failed.

Then came the years of artificial trees. They were more perfect and modern and from America and they looked more like the pictures in the Saturday Evening Post, but somehow -- they never seemed quite as "right" as the casuarina branches -- and the only smell they had was of musty staleness.

Sometimes I just sat in the living room and looked at the tree, and at the presents that began to accumulate under the tree (but which we couldn’t touch), and I would dream delightful dreams of anticipation and wonder what was in those packages.

And it seemed that Christmas would never actually arrive.

And it was wonderful.

Finally, after weeks of anticipation and delighted, seemingly unending, frustration, The Day Before Christmas arrived.The excitement was unbearable. Nothing really happened that day, and the boring suspense was terrible.

I knew that some families cheated and opened their presents – or at least one present – on Christmas Eve, but I knew that such behavior wasn't really proper, and that wasn't how WE did Christmas. No, we waited – and suffered – until THE Day.

The Night Before Christmas was not just a poem to me. It was the LONGEST night of the year. I tried hard to sleep (I knew Santa Clause couldn't come until I was asleep). I listened carefully for reindeer (I had been assured that Santa could handle the fact that we had neither chimney nor snow). And my mind danced in unquenchable excitement as I anticipated the delights to come with the next daylight. Eventually, sleep would sneak in behind the drumming from the town and overpower me when I wasn't looking.

Suddenly, it was The Morning, and Christmas was HERE! Mother would wake me and bundle me into my robe and slippers, and we would step out onto our upstairs porch to begin CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas in Ogbomosho

 

Ogbomosho, Nigeria is the town I grew up in. Christmases there were so special. Nigeria is a country on the coast of West Africa just beneath the Sahara Desert. Christmas in Nigeria comes in the middle of the dry season in a special part of the dry season known as Harmattan.

Wikipedia defines Harmattan like this: The Harmattan is a dry and dusty West African trade wind. It blows south from the Sahara into the Gulf of Guinea between the end of November and the middle of March. Humidity can drop to as low as 15 percent. In some countries in West Africa, the heavy amount of dust in the air can severely limit visibility and block the sun for several days, comparable to a heavy fog.

And against this backdrop, we celebrated Christmas. My father used to say he liked the fact that Christmas came in the middle of Harmattan. In America everything was stark, cold, and dreary with the trees bare and the air full of winter’s chill and in the middle of this otherwise dreary time, Christians celebrate the birth of the Savior with ornamented and brightly lit Christmas trees, gifts, good food, and Christmas cheer. Likewise in Nigeria, when the world is dry and dusty, all the leaves and grass are a dreary brown, Christians are celebrating the joyous birth of their Savior with songs and good cheer. The celebration in both countries injects cheer in an otherwise dreary season and proves that our joy over Christ is not based on our circumstances.

I loved the Christmases of my childhood! They were unique and wonderful. A missionary kid friend of mine, Peter Gilliland, has written a short memoir about his childhood memories of Christmas in Ogbomosho which I will post in two parts over the next few weeks. His memories are so similar to mine since we were both blessed to spend our childhoods in the 50’s and 60’s in the same wonderful town – Ogbomosho, Nigeria or as the Nigerians write it, Ogbomoso. (Their “s” is pronounced like an “sh”.)

On a humorous note, when I was a baby, I had very thin wispy blonde hair. During the Harmattan season the static electricity from the dry blowing air caused my hair to stand on end most of the time and my family fondly called me “Harriet the Harmattan cat” because my hair looked like the hair on the back of cats when they arch in fear or anger.

 

A Cheery Countenance

Today's post is a memoir written by a fellow MK, Ron Wasson.

The Child Was Happy

Growing up in Nigeria, parents had little choices as where to buy “Western” toys for their children. They were simply hard to come by. But every so often, when parents ventured to the city for supplies, they would stock up on toys to be used throughout the year for the upcoming birthdays, Christmas or other special occasions where a toy would brighten up a child. One toy that was among the favorites for children was the Matchbox cars that were made in England. They were called Matchbox because they came in a box the size of a small matchbox that would slide open just like a real matchbox to reveal the priceless treasure inside. The child was happy. 

Each toy was made of metal and with exact precision to its larger counterpart but to a much smaller scale. There were not just cars, but trucks, trains, cranes, motorcycles, buses, police cars, ambulances, anything that was manufactured on the larger scale was reproduced on the smaller scale and with much detail. With so many different models to choose from, collecting became a hobby and each child longed for a new and different toy to collect. At times, a child would end up with two of a kind or one he/she no longer wanted so trading became a very common practice. The child was happy.

But what made the Matchbox toys so popular was that because of the size, the child (and parent) could take it anywhere and be used to entertain the child, much to the delight of parents. Have an antsy child who could not sit still during the long church service? Then pull out one of his favorites and let his imagination take over. (only one toy at a time as two or more would cause a major distraction!) The child was happy.

As for the child, the outdoors was the perfect environment for playing with the toys. Grass, rocks, dirt, mud, cement patio; whatever the condition was there was a toy made for the occasion. Countless of hours were spent playing outside with the toys.

Sometimes, other children would join and together the state of affairs would expand to the limits of each child’s imagination. Of course, this also meant a few would get lost never to be found again until perhaps a hard rain storm washed it to an area more visible and to be later found by a delighted little child. It didn’t even matter if by this time it had already begin to show signs of rust and discoloration or the wheels didn’t roll. It was once lost and now it was found. The child could now relate to the hymns that were sung in church about being lost and then found. That’s all that mattered. Life was easier to understand when the Matchbox toy was shared with it. And when the child couldn’t play outdoors, the Matchbox toys were just as easily adaptable for indoors where the hard floors, carpet, furniture, beds, etc. all provided a whole different environment for the child to unleash his/her imagination. Nothing better to entice a child to take rest time in the afternoon then to allow him/her to play quietly with one of the favorites until sleep conquered the imagination and the dreams took over. The child was happy.

I remember one Christmas; my parents struggled to find toys for us. It was during the civil war and imports to Nigeria were slowed if not stopped altogether. But with a little imagination and creativeness, a miniature outdoor world was transformed onto a piece of plywood. There were painted roads, little houses, trees, rocks, grass, even a lake (small mirror glued to the board). This tiny world was created with whatever was available and put together with abundant love and imagination but to us, it all was just like the real outdoors. It didn’t even matter that new Matchbox toys were not included, as we already had our own. All that was missing were children to bring to life this miniature world. It didn’t take too long before fantasy and imagination burst forth onto the special little world. The child was happy.

Merry Christmas

Then Came Love

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16 (NASB)

What does love look like? If someone asked you to draw a picture of love what would you draw? Ask a child that question and he might draw a heart, but does that really convey the essence of love? The Bible tells us love looks like a baby in a manger - like approximately seven pounds of helpless flesh sleeping contentedly or perhaps crying in hunger just like any other baby. But this baby was not in a warm, clean crib in a brightly painted room; no this baby was in a stable full of dirty animals because there was no bed for Him among humans.

Love also looks like a young man in the prime of life bleeding and dying on a cross. It looks like this man willingly giving up His life so that others might gain theirs. Love looks like the everlasting God in all His glory……wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

Sing sweet and low your lullaby till angels say “Amen.”
A mother tonight is rocking
a cradle in Bethlehem.
As wisemen follow in the dark, a star that beckons them.
A mother tonight is rocking
a cradle in Bethlehem.
(Lyrics from a song on the late Nat King Cole’s Christmas album.)