Tag Archives: Mask

A Different Christmas

Do your holidays cooperate? Occasionally, Christmas thumbs its Rudolph-red nose at me. Sometimes, though, it’s simply different.

In 1958, my family celebrated Christmas in our Mexican mission compound with a bare-limbed, thorny bush.

We dogmatic preschoolers protested, “That’s not a Christmas tree!”

With spun-glass angel hair, that odd, but lovely tree and borrowed Nativity introduced a different celebration. Hot-air balloons and fireworks lit the nights. Instead of dime-store trinkets, I received a wooden doll bed made by our handyman. My nine-months-pregnant mother, while sewing baby blankets, made doll versions from scraps. We ate weird sweets. We watched village children scramble for candy showered from a clay piñata my blindfolded dad smacked.

Strange for a five-year-old far from her Indiana home — but what wasn’t to like about candy and presents?

Although, if we’d spent Christmas in Austria, the celebration might have seemed less merry. Masked ghouls, representing Krampus, St. Nicholas’s evil counterpart, stalk city streets, shaking sticks at bad children. Scary for a kid who, despite missionary roots, pushed her little sister around.

Nearly meatless in Mexico, my family and I would have embraced the Japanese tradition of eating Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas Day.

However, I wouldn’t have savored South Africans’ holiday delicacy: deep-fried Emperor Moth caterpillars.

Bereft of television in Mexico, I would’ve welcomed Sweden’s Christmas Eve tradition: watching vintage clips of Donald Duck. According to one American visiting future Swedish in-laws, nothing can disturb this sacred ritual.

We all have holiday expectations. My missionary family was no exception. We didn’t want a different Christmas!

I didn’t want a different Christmas during 2020, either. I wanted normal, when our children and grandchildren filled the house.

Yet that odd Mexican holiday’s sights and sounds linger, 65 years later.

My parents treasured them too, despite hard times. Mom delivered my 12-pound brother at home.

Dad, who broke the clay piñata with his forehead, suspected villagers controlling it had intentionally smacked the gringo. Despite major headaches and self-taught Spanish, Dad pioneered a church.

The beautiful, thorny Christmas tree embodied that beautiful, thorny year.

Appropriate for followers of a Savior who experienced thorny years.

Even COVID couldn’t stop us from enjoying a special Christmas.

In 2020, Christmas was different.

We Zoomed gatherings. Met family in a park for masked Christmas walks. Pantomimed hugs.

Different. Thorny.

But Christmas 2020 was good.

One I will never forget.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What unique Christmas sticks in your mind?

Weird Things for Which I Was Thankful — Even in 2020

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(In this edited version of my newspaper column, I recall a Thanksgiving when COVID ran rampant.)

Have your children or grandchildren watched “Sesame Street’s” Oscar the Grouch? I worried, lest my offspring adopt him as their patron saint.

Fast-forward to 2020. Thankfully, my children don’t live in trash cans. Nor is Oscar their role model.

I, on the other hand, sound more like Oscar every day. So, this Thanksgiving, I choose to be grateful, even for weird things.

Thank You, Heavenly Father, for the following:

I don’t have to mask when I talk with You.

If praying with a mask seemed difficult, singing in the church choir was harder!

Because of COVID-19, I rarely try on clothes in stores. No multiple mirrors!

Squirrels playing nut-soccer on our roof don’t weigh 400 pounds.

Delivery drivers bring life’s necessities — like apple cinnamon air freshener and SunChips^® — to our doors.

Potholders that aid in taking golden turkeys from the oven have not, unlike everything else, gone digital. I haven’t had to recharge one yet.

Not all gas pumps show videos.

I also thank You that my husband has never, ever refused to open a pickle jar.

We use clean water I didn’t haul a mile.

Though some idiots — er, futurists — drool over human interfacing with technology, my Internet still has an off button.

Leaves filling my yard are not poison ivy.

I rarely worry about charging hippopotamuses.

Thank You, too, God, for pie. Any kind but mince.

Also for the fact no one has written or performed “Medicare Supplements: the Musical.”

My niece’s pie looked much better than mine, so I used her pic.

For the color periwinkle.

For the rustle and fragrance of a real book that keeps me up late.

For phone calls from Little Brother. When I was a teen with a boyfriend, and he a brat with mirrors, I wished him 2,000 miles away. Eventually, my wish came true. Now, I cherish the bittersweet joy of hearing his voice.

So thankful that the COVID situation improved so I could travel and visit Little Brother out West.

Finally, Lord, I’m thankful for my two-year-old grandson who sings in the night.

You hear that, Oscar? Probably not, as you have clapped your trash can lid on tight.

Stay there, if you want. But if you change your mind, gratitude’s an excellent antidote for grouchiness.

Even for you, Oscar.

Even for me, this Thanksgiving of 2020.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: For which aspects of COVID’s wane are you thankful?

Looking Back on Resolutions 2021

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Are you one of those scary people who keep New Year’s resolutions?

Then skip this and return to Planet Jenny Craig, from whence you came.

If, however, you’ve given up all hope of achieving such goals, let me be the first to encourage you. A decade ago, I discovered a unique approach that revolutionized New Year’s Day.

I learned to make only resolutions I will keep.

Please note the effortless beauty of the following examples:

I promise I will not mow our lawn in January.

I will give up earmuffs for the Fourth of July.

Check out my actual 2021 resolutions, whose success rates left those of Jenny Craig aliens panting in interplanetary dust, including:

I will refrain from topping my waffles with pickles.

I will, however, break world s’more records, as our children gave us a patio firepit for Christmas. This mother wants to make her children happy, so no sacrifice is too great.

My next resolution should prove doable for 95 percent of the world’s population: I will blame COVID-19 for everything. Conventional therapy points fingers at spouses, parents, kids and in-laws. Instead, blame COVID. This is cheaper and less complicated, as no virus yet has been named in a lawsuit or divorce.

Speaking of COVID, I also resolve to wear a mask in public. Even if most are designed to fit your average antelope.

I’ll still greet all checkout personnel and other shoppers with a smile.

If the pandemic endures, I’ll continue my role of Invisible Pickup Customer. Despite reservations, confirming emails, receipts, pickup signs and angels blowing trumpets where I park, I will continue to elude pickup personnel at each and every store.

Out of deep concern for the local economy, I will order takeout. Three times a day.

In 2021, I will talk to my microwave more than to humans. Which probably is good, because mostly I yell at it to shut up.

I resolve not to camp in Dead Women Crossing, Oklahoma.

I will continue to brighten the days of IT personnel and car mechanics with the astute diagnostic phrase, “It doesn’t work.”

I will regard all device updates as tools of the devil and Russia.

I will not lift my car to clean its underside.

I resolve to write in cursive, though my grandchildren believe I am using hieroglyphics. Not surprising, as I helped build the pyramids.

Finally, I will stumble through playing and singing one praise song daily, thankful that my childhood dog — who howled epithets when I sang — no longer critiques me. Fortunately, Jesus and Hubby like it.

See? A simple, innovative approach. Profound. And free. (You only pay for shipping.)

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Are you ready to take the resolution leap in 2022?

Easy Christmas Shopping? Ho, Ho, Ho!

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We veteran Christmas shoppers have seen it all.

We’ve fought kamikaze traffic and circled malls 250 times, searching for parking in the same zip code. We’ve donned body armor to survive elbowing crowds. Defied Klingon clerks who wanted to beam us to Kronos.

During one holiday shopping trip, two scary grandmas in my line battled about who was ahead. Would they take out everyone else, too?

Enter online shopping, the answer to desperate prayers. Especially in 2020.

No traffic. No higher-than-Santa’s-sleigh gasoline costs. No sore feet — unless we type with toes.

I generate Christmas atmosphere for online shopping by concocting a Christmas playlist, donning my loudest holiday sweater and drinking hot chocolate from my favorite Christmas mug. Christmas candles smell like pine … or Pine-Sol^®?

Regardless, I pull out credit cards. My password list. Ready. Set. Shop!

My laptop’s crankier than a teen at 8 a.m. on Saturday. When I threaten it with a pitcher of cold water, the laptop finally cooperates. Sort of.

It sends me to the Malwart website, rather than Walmart. (Nothing to do with my spelling, you understand.) A pop-up offers the Garfield beach towel my grandson covets for only $471. When I purchase a puppy-kitty storybook instead, the website informs me other customers who bought this book also purchased “The Preschool Guide to Overthrowing the Government.”

Weary of children’s gifts, I peruse flannel shirts for my son. Surely, with 83,259,441,701 advertised online, I can find one. But 83,259,441,700 are size XXXXX Large.

My son could fit in a sleeve.

Wait. I see it!

The solitary size large, un-girly plaid shirt is in stock! But it can be sent only to Madagascar by Christmas. If sent to Indianapolis, it will arrive on February 29, 2024. If I pay extra.

My laptop emits a distinct chuckle.

Grrr. But if I use the pitcher of water, I’ll have to beg use of Hubby’s laptop. He’s busy ordering camping equipment — my Christmas gifts to him?

I may wait until Valentine’s Day.

Desperate, I return to pricing Garfield beach towels. Three others cost $500 apiece, so I grab the bargain at $471. Using the promotion code BANKRUPT, I owe only $470.12. Surely, this gift qualifies for free shipping. But no, I must spend only $203.77 more. So, I buy a bag of flour.

I miss pre-Internet shop owners, humanoids who said, “May I help you?” and did.

So, I join other masked shoppers in real stores. Remembering those two scary grandmas, I imagine they’re not Internet shopping. They’re still pushing and shoving to be first.

Other shoppers and I will watch — from a distance.

Maybe we should bring along pitchers of ice water?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Do you prefer online or traditional shopping?