It's Looking a Lot Like Christmas Around Here

The kids all went "shopping" in my room today for goodies for each other in preparation for Three Kings' Day and now there's quite a pile of goodies under the tree waiting for Sunday. This is fun! Little ones sneaking around with bags of goodies and finding a place to secretly wrap them (and using way too much paper and tape of course!) is just making my week.

I decided with certainty that buying things ahead of time (I scour after Christmas sales and St. Vinnie's for goodies so that everyone can give a present to everyone) is much easier than shopping with the kids. For a lot of reasons. Not that I never take the kids shopping (believe me, I do!) but deliberate shopping with each child during this season would completely do me in.

Besides the Christmas fun with the kids, I'm working on Christmas cards. Really! I've been uploading batches of pictures to Walgreens.com so that I can include a family photo with each card (totally gave up on the Christmas letter idea) as well as some extra photos for those we've visited this year or things like that. I think some of these Christmas cards will also turn out to be thank you cards of sorts for the wonderful hospitality we've received over the year - particularly during our trip to California. Running through photos is a delightful way to finish out the year.

Funny how much of a photo year it's been this year. This is partly because of the new camera we bought this year. (I'm SO happy we decided to do that.) The other reason it's been a photo year is the quantity of celebrations that have involved photos. We're definitely photo people and tend to get involved with anything involving photos - like the photo boards for my in-laws' anniversary (which I also made into a blurb.com book for them and recently put together smaller versions as KK gifts for John's siblings).

I may have some more end of year wrap-up posting over the next few days, but in the meantime, Happy New Year!

Dog and Girl on a Snowy Christmas Eve

DSC_1565, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

Kate had a great time with Charlotte in the snow. One of Charlotte's very favorite things is to try to catch snowballs with her mouth.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

Hope you are all enjoying a blessed Christmas. We've been too busy here to do much blogging. We sang for the Christmas Eve Mass as usual and headed to my in-laws for the family gathering. John took the older four (by request) to midnight Mass so most of us were up REALLY late. Christmas morning was just right. Christmas afternoon we had over 40 people at our house for a casual, but fun Christmas party. Life is good! :)

Thankful Mondays: Cold Weather Edition

DSC_1451, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

Today I'm feeling grateful for:

New back tires on the van.

Anti-lock brakes.

Thinsulate.

Scarves and hats and gloves.

Hot tea and hot cocoa.

Four-kid-powered snow shoveling (with some help from the adults too).

House insulation and central heat.

The Department of Public Works.

Weather's been alternating here between zeroish with heavy winds and quite a bit warmer (20s and 30s) with snow. We're expecting snow to fall starting tomorrow morning at 5 am and not stop until sometime the night of Christmas Eve. Ah, arouind here we're not *dreaming* of a white Christmas!

Too Funny!

Our black lab mix loves the snow in just this sort of way, though I've never seen her in snow that goes over her head...



hat-tip Ten Kids and a Dog

Decorating the Tree

DSC_1400, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

We've been working on the tree on and off since Sunday night and it's just about done. The kids love to help!

Remind me next year to not get a long-needled Christmas tree. You need gloves to work on anything but the outer-most ornaments - the needles are REALLY sharp!

Frankly Speaking

"Mommy, can we have some egg noggin after dinner?"

More Playing with Cameras in the Snow (at Midnight)

I thought this contrast in photo settings was sort of interesting (again, it was really hard to see well enough to focus). I love that you can see some stars in some of the shots - particularly the one that looks like daytime:

First with a flash, just to get the idea:



With a quick exposure, no flash (probably the "truest" shot):



This one was with the regular no flash setting (a really long exposure - and the sky came out way too light):

Midnight Shadows

Midnight Shadows on the Snow, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

One night last week I was up late fussing on the computer after everyone else had gone to bed. I finally started heading up when I looked out the front window and suddenly wished that I knew how to paint. It was a clear night with a beautiful ground-covering of snow and a full moon! The land and everything on it looked almost as if it was daytime (though the sky was much darker), you could see everything perfectly and there were perfect shadows everywhere.

I had to bundle up and try my hand at the camera outside. It was pretty difficult to capture pictures because it was too dark for the camera to handle auto-focus and really too dark for me to see what I was trying to focus on. Naturally using the flash would ruin all of the beautiful shadows and subtlety.

This was probably the best shot I got of tree shadows on the snowy ground.

Please Pray for the Lorang Family

They were in a serious car accident a few days ago. The 17 year old daughter was killed and the mother is still too confused (from a head injury) to be told what has happened. The younger children were uninjured, but are certainly suffering a great deal.

Details on their aunt's blog here.

Advent Cuteness

I pointed out the priest's rose-colored vestments to Kate at Mass today and asked her why he was wearing those colors. She answered simply: "Because it's the Pink Sunday of Advent." :)

Well Begun is... Fortunately Not Always Necessary

Advent had a messy beginning around here. We arrived home from an out-of-state Thanksgiving trip on the first Sunday of Advent - exhausted and a little fluish. Though we weren't constantly sick for the next two weeks, we had our share of it (particularly last Sunday night when five people in our house - plus the dog! - got sick - only two of us were able to make it to Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception - me and Frank!) on and off along with plenty of tiredness in between. Oh yeah, and because we've been working on insulating the attic, we started Advent with all of our Christmas stuff strewn all over "the another room". There wasn't much time for anything beyond setting up an advent wreath (which didn't get lit nearly every night).

We did manage somehow to get through our basic advent "projects" that we try to get to each year - the library tree, adopting a family from our Church's giving tree for a big food donation and delivering car seats, playpens, snowsuits, etc. from the same holiday tree to a pregnancy help center in Milwaukee. We enjoyed celebrating St. Nicholas Day of course (which, as you may remember, is celebrated by a large portion of the population in the Milwaukee area). But that was about it for almost two weeks.

Yesterday I was finally at a point where I could start catching up on our Advent. We've been getting the place cleaned up after all our chaos and now the dining room table isn't so smothered that it would be unsafe to light the advent candles! Terri managed to find our Jesse Tree ornaments (which are cut out of a book - can't remember the name right now) and which we've never managed to put up in their entirety. (We only started using them last year, though I think we owned them the previous year). Yesterday we hung up most of the ornaments for the days we missed (we hang them on our two rose bushes - which seems pretty appropriate, especially given the song "Lo, How a Rose Ere Blooming").

Part of the reason that the Jesse Tree never got completed last year was that I never got around to punching holes in the ornaments and putting little ribbon hangers on them. Such is life around here sometimes! Today I finally picked up some ribbon and we have way more ornaments on the rose bushes now than we've ever had before. We may actually finish the entire thing for once. :)

I also picked up an interesting Advent Calendar DVD at the Holy Hill Gift Shop. It's not very Adventish in the "traditional" sense, but it offers a nice little way of preparing for Christmas by sharing interesting and sometimes touching little stories of Christmas related things - like the story of the writing of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the World War I Christmas Truce, the origins of candy canes and other tidbits. The imagery is a little *loud* (fast paced and over-busy) but overall I really liked it and I think it would be particularly enjoyable for families who are just beginning to bring some more "rootedness" to their Christmas traditions.

This morning we enjoyed a very memorable little St. Lucy's Day celebration. We do usually bake St. Lucy's Day buns (from the Kirsten American Girl cookbook) but we just weren't moving enough for that yesterday. At 9 pm, when Terri reminded me about the buns, we decided that baking just wasn't going to work! (On top of everything else, John was out at a work-obligation until really late and Ria was at a lit class until late). So we made a quick run to the store for some nice pastry-cake things and decided to throw an extra treat into our morning celebration - sausages! The fun party this year was that because John was out, he didn't really hear about any of the plans and a surprise was definitely in the making. :)

At 6:45 (so nice that it was a Saturday this year - weekdays they have to get started a lot earlier!) all the kids except Frank got up and started their preparations (and pulled off the entire thing all on their own). Ria cooked sausages, Terri made hot cocoa (she's the expert in the family - we make it with yummy Ghiradelli cocoa powder), Bernie whipped together a paper wreath with paper candles (it was basically her turn to be the official presenter this year) and I'm not exactly sure what Gus and Kate did, but I know that they were all required to pull off the lovely little feast that we enjoyed about an hour later in our bed. Despite some spilled hot cocoa on the comforter (whoops!) and some crankiness from Frank (who wasn't quite ready to wake up) it was a lovely little party.

Meet the Girard Family

This family received a new house from Extreme Makeover Home Edition yesterday and will be featured in an upcoming show. Here's the sad but heroic story of their lost father and brother. (It's a real tear-jerker.)



hat-tip Leticia

Snow on Pine

DSC_0821, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

Ria took this photo.

Gratuitous Snow Fun Picture

DSC_0787, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

Notice all the mismatched mittens? (You probably didn't notice, but I did.) Since this picture was taken, St. Nick brought all of the kids new snow gloves. I love Thinsulate! :)

Cuteness

Cuteness, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

This is my great-nephew Jarell, who I got to visit with over Thanksgiving. Isn't he sweet?

Another Quote on Gratitude...

I can't believe I forgot this Chesterton one in my earlier post - it's exactly the sort of thing I was thinking about in how gratitude can help us keep things balanced. Fortunately, I've been catching up on some of Dr. Thursday's posts while we're getting through the flu here and he mentioned the quote in a recent post...

...we should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not drinking too much of them.
[GKC, Orthodoxy CW1:268]

Also, while I'm at it, Willa left the following Chesterton quote in the comments box of the previous post on Gratitude:

"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

Christmas Concert

Madrigals Christmas Concert, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

My four oldest were in a lovely little Christmas concert last night at a friend's house. The high school girls sang lovely ancient songs and chants (including the O Antiphons) and were accompanied by recorder, hand bells and small percussion instruments by four younger children. It was really beautiful!

And a Great Sign Appeared in Heaven...

DSC_1073, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

This lovely statue of Our Lady is from Mission Santa Ines in Solvang, California. According to the Mission Website, it's a statue of "Our Lady of the Rosary, an excellent Mexican Baroque period sculpture from the mid-18th century."

Thinking about Gratitude

I decided a few days ago that the virtue I personally should work on during the season of Advent is gratitude. True, deep gratitude. The kind that inspires good stewardship and balance and charity. Here are a few tidbits I've been thinking about in this regard...

The first was the Gospel from a few Sundays ago (from Matthew 25):

After a long time the master of those servants came back and settled accounts with them. The one who had received five talents came forward bringing the additional five. He said, 'Master, you gave me five talents. See, I have made five more.’ His master said to him, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master's joy.’

Then the one who had received two talents also came forward and said, 'Master, you gave me two talents. See, I have made two more.' His master said to him, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master's joy.’

Then the one who had received the one talent came forward and said,'Master, I knew you were a demanding person, harvesting where you did not plant and gathering where you did not scatter; so out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground. Here it is back.' His master said to him in reply, 'You wicked, lazy servant!
So you knew that I harvest where I did not plant and gather where I did not scatter?
Should you not then have put my money in the bank so that I could have got it back with interest on my return? Now then! Take the talent from him and give it to the one with ten.

For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.'

The second is from a book I picked up for myself for Christmas, but just haven't been able to keep my nose out of. It's called Book of All Saints by Adrienne Von Speyr (Ignatius Press, 2008) and it's astounding. Adrienne was a mystic who received glimpses of the prayer and spiritual lives of saints and others (including some writers and composers). The work is incredibly powerful. For me it makes a double impression at the same time - the closeness of God's involvement in human affairs and the realness of the saints. Anyway, the passage I had in mind was from her writing on St. Francis of Assisi:

...his first reaction was always gratitude. He accustomed himself, in everything that happened in his life, always first and foremost to praise and to give thanks, even before he knows what it is, in fact, that he has received, even before he accepts what he receives, looks at it, and gives it shape.

I think I had more quotes in mind too, but I'm really out of time.

Thanks for the Memories...

I picked up this meme thing from Sarah...

How to play: BOLD anything you have done.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland (DisneyWorld)
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea (does from a small boat in the middle of a lake count? LOL)
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied (in general)
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelos David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book (if Blurb.com counts!)
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

A Lovely Story with some unexpected Catholic Background

When I was doing my research for this year's library tree project, I spent a bunch of time at a local bookstore, checking out great new children's titles. Easily my favorite (which it turns out the library had already purchased) was Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire A. Nivola.

It's a lovely true story about a lady from Kenya who won the Nobel Peace prize for helping her country recover its economic security by starting a movement to replant the trees and small farms and gardens that had helped the country prosper in the past, but that had been cut down to make way for larger commercial farming (which had devastated the economy).

The thing that had struck me about the book on this first read-through was the beautiful sense of order and dignity - the importance of stewardship of nature, the use of the people themselves as important resources in solving problems, the simplicity of remembering that one person can really make a substantial change, the need for perseverance even when things aren't easy right away. Basically: we change ourselves to change the world. It also has lovely small-is-beautiful and principle-of-subsidiarity sort of themes in it.

The thing I had forgotten was a detail about the years that Wangari had spent in America - where she went to college and majored in biology. I had completely forgotten that she went to a Catholic college (even though the campus picture is portrayed with nuns in habits walking around!). There is a lovely indication in the story that their philosophical influence had a significant impact on her story (and is of course an essential part of the story that her background in biology helped prepare her for her good work):

Her heart was filled with the beauty of her native Kenya when she left to attend a college run by Benedictine nuns in America, far, far from her home. There she studied biology, the science of living things. It was an inspiring time for Wangari. The students in America in those years dreamed of making the world better. The nuns, too, taught Wangari to think not just of herself but of the world beyond herself.

How eagerly she returned to Kenya! How full of hope and of all that she had learned!

The story (and the book) is SO right and so beautiful in so many ways. It's a book anyone could love.

The unexpected discovery I made when I read the "Author's Note" in the back of the book was that the college Wangari attended in the United States was Benedictine College in Atchinson, Kansas, which is familiar to me for many reasons - most particularly because the husband of a good friend of mine is a professor of philosophy there.

What it Means to be a Christian: Three Sermons by Cardinal Ratzinger

I'll probably have to re-read this book before I can give what I would consider an adequate review. And yet, I got so much out of the first reading that I wanted to jot some of it down.

This is a lovely, quick read (though very deep) that draws and challenges you out of yourself to see where you're supposed to be in relation to God and to others. It's a series of three sermons that were given by then Cardinal Ratzinger during Advent and are perfect reading for this season.

Here are a few quick quotes to give you a taste of what I mean:

When we reflect on such things, we shall simply no longer be able to divide history into ages of salvation and of iniquity. If we then extend our vision and look at what Christians (that is, those people we call 'redeemed') achieved in the world by way of iniquity and devastation, in our own century and the previous centuries, then we will be equally incapable of dividing the peoples of the world into those who are saved and those who are not. If we are honest, we will no longer be able to paint things black and white, dividing up both history and maps into zones of salvation and iniquity. History as a whole, and mankind as a whole, will appear to us rather as a mass of gray, in which time and again there appear flickers of that goodness which can never quite be extinguished, in which, time and again, men set out toward something better, but in which also, time and again , collapses occur into all the horrors of evil.

Yet when we reflect like this, it becomes plain that Advent is not (as might perhaps have been said in earlier ages) a sacred game of the liturgy, in which, so to speak, it leads us once more along the paths of the past, gives us once more a vivid picture of the way things once were, so that we may all the more joyfully and happily enjoy today's salvation. We should have to admit, rather, that Advent is not just a matter of remembrance and playing at what is past - Advent is our present, our reality: the Church is not just playing at something here; rather, she is referring us to something that also represents the reality of our Christian life. It is through the meaning of the season of Advent in the Church's y ear that she revives our awareness of this. She should make us face these facts, and make us admit the extend of being unredeemed, which is not something that lay over the world at one time, and perhaps somewhere still does, but is a fact in our own lives and in the midst of the Church.

And one more passage...

Being a Christian means having love; it means achieving the Copernican revolution in our existence, by which we cease to make ourselves the center of the universe, with everyone else revolving around us.

If we look at ourselves honestly and seriously, then there is not just something liberating in this marvelously simple message. There is also something most disturbing. For who among us can say he has never passed by anyone who was hungry or thirsty or who needed us in any way? Who among us can say that he truly, in all simplicity, carries out the service of being kind to others? Who among us would not have to admit that even in the acts of kindness he practices toward others, there is still an element of selfishness, something of self-satisfaction and looking back at ourselves? Who among us would not have to admit that he is more or less living in the pre-Copernican illusion and looking at other people, seeing them as real, only in their relationship to our own selves? Thus, the sublime and liberating message of love, as being the sole and sufficient content of Christianity, can also become something very demanding.

It is at this point that faith begins. For what faith basically means is just that this shortfall that we all have in our love is made up by the surplus of Jesus Christ's love, acting on our behalf. He simply tells us that God himself has poured out among us a superabundance of his love and has thus made good in advance all our deficiency. Ultimately, faith means nothing other than admitting that we have this kind of shortfall; tit means opening our hand and accepting a gift.

Beautiful!