Anticipation

Post written by Aaron Bouwens.

photo courtesy of footloosiety

Here I sit at my desk an there are only 6 days until we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. As each day passes the excitement and anticipation build around the big day. Having young children at home, the countdown is a very important activity. I am amazed at the passion coming from my oldest as she waits for that morning. This has caused me to wonder what happened? Somewhere along the line the magic of Christmas was lost. It was more than the loss of Santa, sorry if that was news. The best I can tell it is something within each of us that has been lost.

If I allow myself to do it I can still not only remember, but experience the feelings of Christmas morning when I was younger. That morning could not get here quick enough. My poor parents had to deal with this over excited boy well before the sun made its debut for the day. We would tear through the paper and marvel at the gifts that had been left for us. I must confess while it was a religious experience, there was nothing remotely spiritual about what happened that morning. I am pretty sure we went to Christmas eve services at the local church, I honestly do not remember them. There was too much excitement about what was to come.

That feeling of anticipation is one that we experience at different times in different ways throughout our lives. That night when you are pretty sure you are going to get that first kiss from that someone special. The time before you humbly ask your beloved to be your bride. The day of that great wedding. The arrival of children. You all know the feeling even if it has not been found in those events. There is a measure of excitement, a dash of fear, a sprinkling of anxiety. All of it comes together so we experience something like joy and the feeling that you are going to puke. Ah now that is anticipation. While there are adults who get excited about Christmas, I would guess not many have that level of anticipation.

Where has it all gone? The fact we lose the anticipation of Christmas is evidence we have lost the heart of Christmas. When we get older the love of receiving gifts does not go away, but that is not enough to cause anticipation. In reality it has become a day of expectation, we expect certain things to happen, and rarely are we surprised by much of anything. For the most part mystery is gone. Wonder is left to those who believe the presents magically appear under the tree while we sleep. What would happen if we recaptured the heart of Christmas? I know that the actual date of Christ’s birth is sometime in the spring. I know December 25 was selected to combat a celebration by “pagan” people. The fact remains it is still the day we celebrate when the God of eternity stepped in to creation and changed everything. On that day, humanity, you and I, received an unexpected gift, the means of our salvation. As the people slept that night, they had no idea the gift that was being birthed in a stable. Perhaps we still are not real sure of the gift that was given.

This year as we move closer to Christmas morning, I am working to position my heart and life to feel that anticipation. I guess you could say I am still coming at the day with expectation. It is a different kind of expectation. I am expecting God to show up. I am expecting God will wow my socks off somehow. My attempt is to approach the day with that feeling of joy and being on the verge of puking. Christmas represents the day when everything changes for all time. That is something to look forward to.

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Growing Up

Post written by Bridget Strub.

photo courtesy of DeaPeaJay

In case you haven’t heard yet, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. This past weekend though, I’ve started feeling nostalgic about life in a funky way and it’s affecting my Christmas spirit. I keep looking back on where I’ve been, and wondering where in the world I’m headed. I can’t seem to shake the feeling that I’m missing the boat somewhere. As I wade through my thoughts, one thing has become unpleasantly clear. I’m growing up, and I hate it. This realization has begun to suck the wonderful out of this time of year. Depressing, I know. Not something I should be writing a week and a half before Christmas, I know. I guess I’m just hoping to find some clarity by processing my thoughts in writing. Better yet, maybe you can share some of your wisdom with me as I sort through this season of wondering.

To give you a reference for when this all started, I was in the car with Pete on our way to a Christmas party. I had been feeling a little reflective that day, but a song on the radio seemed to pull my thoughts right out of my head. The song kept repeating the lines,

I’ve overcommitted myself.
I guess this is growing up.
I’m sleeping so little these days.
I guess this is growing up.
I have a feeling things are about to change.
I’m guessing this is growing up.

So it may not seem revolutionary by the look of it. In fact as I copied those lyrics I couldn’t help but feel a little childish. I recognize that they’re pretty simplistic, but I heard the song in one of those moments that seems to make everything clear. The kind of moment that can never be replicated. The kind that happens when you’re lost in your thoughts while looking out the window of a moving car and you suddenly hear every detail of each chord played and harmony sung as clearly as if the musician had reached into your heart and yanked out what you’d been feeling and put words to it. I love those kinds of moments. They are epic. Those kinds of moments leave imprints on my soul. Those kinds of moments get archived into my memory as treasured scenes from my life’s movie. Those kinds of moments generally make me feel alive. In this situation though, I was left more with questions than with exuberance. Those questions have been amplified as my weekend trudged on, and I’m not quite sure where to go from here.

What I do know is that Pete and I don’t have a ton of commitments these days. We have our jobs, and a few nights a week that require our attention. Otherwise we’re pretty free to sit on the couch most evenings. The strange thing is that when we get to our busy weekends, we feel as though we’ve sprinted to a finish line and need a week to recover. Ironically, in our dating and early married years were defined by over commitment, but had ample time to spend with each other and had tons of fun in the process. We loved having good ole fashioned, irresponsible fun. In fact, we were the king and queen of fun country. We didn’t care about the repercussions of staying up late or pushing ourselves beyond our limits. We lived for those moments. We thrived on the busyness…until it caught up to us and we bottomed out…hard. It seems as though we’ve never fully recovered from that and the only culprit I see in that is age.

I’m a perpetual 23 year-old in my mind. After acknowledging each birthday since then, I’ve reverted back to the age I was when I was queen of fun country. I have an image etched in my mind of a girl dancing barefoot through a field of tall grass, hair tossed by the wind, not a care in the world, laughing. That’s the world I long to live in, but then I have moments like the one in the car the other night and my bubble is burst. I don’t know how to get back there, and it scares me to think that my life will continue on in this pattern of disappointment. Sure, I’m a more responsible woman who has held a steady job for three years now. Yes, I can pay my mortgage and other bills on time each month. Woo hoo, I have a savings account. Yadda, yadda, yadda. But where’s the fun? Where’s the adventure? What am I doing to change the world? I miss the uninhibited passion I had to reach out and grab hold of my dreams. I don’t even know where those dreams are anymore. That scares me. I used to live for dreaming, for possibilities and action. I used to be a world changer. Where have I gone?

I’m reluctant to move forward into adulthood, but know the doors of my 23 year-old life have long since closed. What am I supposed to do in the mean time? Who am I meant to be? I have a hard time finding a place for the queen of fun country in the “appropriateness” of being a professional, well-behaved woman. I guess what I’m trying to say is I recognize this is growing up, but I don’t think I can do it gracefully and am scared I’m going to fall into the abyss of a monotonous, ineffective life. I miss that little girl in the field with possibilities as endless as the sky. I miss the laughter, joy and the heart behind it all. I have to go find her.

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Winter!

Post written by Pete Strub.

photo courtesy of laserstars

To me winter means three months without sunlight. Three months of driveway shoveling. Three months of double-long commutes. Three months of wondering whether this will be the day I drive into a ditch for the third time (What? You haven’t done that before?). Three months of bulky winter coats. Three months of salt marks on my shoes. Three months of our dog Monty dragging me like a dogsled through the snow on walks. Three months without my bike or my running shoes. Three months of chapped lips. Three months of depression. In short, I’m not a big fan of winter. If it wasn’t for people around here that I really love and like, I’d be out of Rochester. I would move to the south and spend Christmas on the beach. I know that some of you probably look forward to the winter and cherish such things as snowmobiling, skiing, or snowboarding. Personally, these are all sports I could do without. If I have to dress like an Eskimo to do something, there is no way it can be fun. If I was sure that global warming had the potential to eliminate winter, I would buy a Hummer and spray aerosol like it’s the 80’s. There are, however, exactly two good things about winter. The first is snow days. As a teacher, I get to stay home on snow days – this is ridiculously awesome. The second good thing about winter happened to me today for the first time.

Getting on the road on the way home from work today, it was clear that it was not going to be a normal drive home. Usually my drive home from school is my own personal NASCAR race, but in the snow I turn into an elderly woman. This evening, the roads were bad enough that just about everyone had gone into grandmother mode (no offense grandmothers). It took me forty-five minutes to make a drive that normally takes me eighteen minutes. And this, believe it or not, is the other thing that I really like about winter. A couple of times each winter, the weather is bad enough, that everybody’s plans get wrecked and everything slows down or comes to a stop. I look forward to these days. We all know that we move too fast in our world, but very few of us will take the initiative to slow down on our own. These bad weather days feel like a reminder that there are bigger and more powerful things than our busy schedules and to-do lists. I think that God loves these days, too. We are forced to be slow, be still, and peel back the layers busyness and stress. The only way we can mess up these wonderful days is to fight the slow-down. I suggest we just succumb to the slowness, give up our to-do lists, and enjoy. Or we could all move down south…

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Countdown to Santa

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Cookie Commotion

Post written by Bridget Strub.

photo courtesy of Link576

Each year around Christmas time I set some pretty lofty goals for myself that involve Christmas cards arriving in people’s homes by the third week of December, having all my gifts purchased and wrapped before Thanksgiving, and decorating the house from top to bottom on Black Friday – after I’ve spent the morning bargain hunting for the cheapest prices of the season of course. Here I sit at the end of the first weekend in December and I’ve not purchased the cards yet or even attempted to search through the attic for our Christmas decorations. I have started my shopping, but am sure the rest of it will be done with minutes to spare on the 23rd. That just seems to be the way it goes each year. Each year since I’ve been married I’ve set those ambitions for myself and each year I’m let down as the month slips by and my goals get shoved into the background. Last year we didn’t even buy a tree! There is one tradition, though, that was established my first year of marriage and I’ve cherished it ever since.

Pete’s family has a rich history of recipes passed from generation to generation. It’s not unusual to see recipe cards with handwriting from my mother-in-law’s grandmother or recipes with titles of Aunts or Uncles names in it. Each Strub family get-together is marked by a hearty main course, savory side dishes, and baked goods to die for. Christmas is no exception in the Strub household. Each year Pete and I get together with his parents and sister or sisters to make not one, not two, but six different kinds of Christmas cookies. It is an all day occasion filled with hot, hard work, but the memories I have as a result of those days with my family is priceless.

Just today Pete and I spent close to seven hours mixing, measuring and frosting cookies. In the midst of those hours though I was able to share life with people I love. I got to play hide and seek, tickle fight and some other games I didn’t really understand with my four year old nephew. I heard the incredible heart of my father-in-law as we shared a conversation about the world. I learned from the wisdom of my mother-in-law and shared laughs with my sister-in-law. All of these moments, though easily taken for granted, were priceless. I won’t get that time back.

As I left the house exhausted, arms full of sweet goodies, I realized how much I appreciate the excuse food provides to get people together. We use the excuse to catch up with old friends over coffee and a pastry. We use the excuse to get to know a significant other more intimately over a meal. We use food as an excuse, or opportunity rather, to share life, love, and community with those around us whom we hope to learn from. Food is unique in that way. It’s really one of the only things in the worlds that brings people together no matter how far apart they are.

While Christmas cookie making is not the healthiest of the holiday traditions to uphold, the company shared in that time is invaluable. I’ll sacrifice the health of my body a little in order to connect with my family every day. Now, if I could just figure out those Christmas cards and decorations…

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Yippikia!

photo courtesy of ENTER-FLICKR-OWNER-NAME-HERE

Something happened yesterday…my television began to only project a black and white image.  Many would consider that a bad thing, but considering it hasn’t turned on consistently in over a month makes me feel like a blessed man.  We watched television in pre technicolor and it was glorious.

It reminded me that there are a tremendous amount of black and white movies that were made long ago.  We don’t think about them much, we are usually are only interested in movies with advanced cimeia tography and special affects.  Over half of the movies use special CGI and advanced affects to make their stories work.  I’m not gonna go into whether or not advancement in movies is good or bad, no I’m just gonna talk about a great movie, it just happens to be in black in white.  If you have the chance to watch it in color (thanks to

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