Connie's Condensed Christmas

     My husband and I have now traveled to Seattle three times in six weeks. Before the third, and I desperately hope, final installment of contract work here, I realized that we would be getting home two days before Christmas. That meant I had one week to:

•  finish shopping for and wrap gifts
•  mail a package to my brother's family in Alaska
•  have Missoula gifts ready for daughter to deliver
•  decorate the house
•  buy food for both Christmas Eve fondue and Christmas dinner 
•  deliver gifts to our pastors, two of whom will be gone when we get back
•  make peppermint bark for staff at the pharmacy where I take blood pressures weekly
•  make and decorate sugar cookies
•  deliver cards and visit with friends in care facilities                                                  

     I am an annoyingly organized person. I was one of those students who had all their end of semester homework done early, as in, I had no one to hang out with finals week because everyone else was studying. But being gone for a week right before Christmas was an organizational stretch even for me. I had to decide which elements of our Christmas traditions were most essential. When the kids were at home, I fixed six kinds of cookies, three kinds of candy, Chex mix and egg nog for the holidays. Now that it is just Reed and I and Tracy, who has stopped eating sugar, we decided to pare it down to three essentials--sugar cookies, rosettes and almond bark. Rosettes are the best of both worlds--fried and cookies, but they don't keep well (which I didn't know until the kids left home), so I'll make those after we get back. Almond bark will only take minutes to make. But cutting out and especially, frosting, sugar cookies takes time. I had drafted my daughter for that duty, but she had to cancel at the last minute. Fortunately, Tracy was planning to repair the car of a widow from our church and, because she can't drive at night, he was going to her house to pick it up. I told him to invite her to come with him to our house for food, fellowship and frosting. After all these years of decorating them the same way, it was wonderful to have fresh ideas to go with the fresh cookies.
     My home decorating theme was twofold--minimalist and safe. Safe for, and from, my two year old granddaughter. I hung wreaths where she couldn't reach them and unbreakable ornaments where she could. Reed and Tracy strung lights on the fence, but not on the house. Thankfully, someone bought an "As seen on TV" Star Shower light projector for a gift exchange years ago, and we wound up with it. It's much easier to turn on lights than string them. Reed and I were willing to forego a real tree and use our quick and easy fiber optic ones this year, but Trace both wanted, and was willing to water, a real tree.We had neither the time nor the inclination to go out and cut one, the latter due to disastrous attempts at this when our children were young. Since those culminated with buying one at a tree lot anyway, we decided to just skip to the end. So we bought a tree. It was the right price, height and circumference, however, the branches are so spindly, I can only hang "lite" ornaments on it. Fortunately, the lights are lite.
     It is an interesting challenge to separate the trappings from the truth of Christmas. Traditions add to the beauty and anticipation of the season, but all we really need for Christmas is Christ. All any of us ever need is Jesus.