Here we are again on a Sunday afternoon Blogging. I will start this Blog entry with a bit of really good news. In June 2021 our fourth great grandchild will be born. Now that all the family knows, I am happy to reveal this baby will be a boy!! That will give us two girls and two boys. The Roper girls is very tickled they will have a baby brother to play with. This harks back to my own childbearing days. We also had two girls and a little boy.
Friday, December 18, 2020 was a fourth Christmas Date. We love to go to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra in December each year. With the corona virus, there will be no live performance. But TSO created a program they could stream and you could purchase a ticket to watch it at home. I purchased a ticket for Claude and me. Then we were talking and thought Jake might enjoy it as well. I asked him and suggested it would be part of his Christmas present. He was happy for us to do that. We purchased Jake a ticket to watch at his home in Michigan.
Friday started out getting a few things done at home. We left the house at 3pm for a Georgetown run. We walked, dropped a treat bag off for Papa and filled his birdfeeder. Then we dropped off a treat for the Noe family. Claude drove us to Formaggio's to pick up our curbside order of individual pizzas and Caesar salads. This was bittersweet. Formaggio's closes permanently after this weekend. Claude chatted with the young girl that brought out pizza to the Jeep. She has done this several times before and I believe she recognized us. Could be that bright green Jeep. Claude told her how much we were going to miss Formaggio's and how much we appreciated their being there for four years. I do believe the old guy's voice broke a bit as he thanked her for their service. We sat in the parking lot to eat.
We drove home with a stop at the Coyne's to pick up our cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning's breakfast. We also dropped off a treat for the Coyne family. While Claude picked up the rolls, I sat in the car and ordered Jake pizza and Caesar salad to enjoy with his TSO experience. Then we pointed the Jeep toward Sadieville and returned home.
Funny side note: I sent Jake a text earlier to be sure what kind of pizza he wanted this time. He sent me a text saying he wanted mushroom and minced garlic. Then he sent me a second text saying when he started to text 'mushroom' his autofill suggested 'minced garlic'. Clearly he and I have done this before!!
We got home and set up the lap top and logged in to TSO. We were ready to view our evening date experience. There was a pre-show viewing of the members of the TSO family telling us each Merry Christmas. Then a little after 8pm the program began. It was fun to watch them on television. We missed all that up-close-and-personal experience with the fire bursting out of places and the walkways overhead moving around as the band plays on them. Jake sent us a message saying he really enjoyed the experience. It was his first time watching TSO. I suggested we now need to get him to a live performance. It is loud and it is rock and roll, but they are excellent musicians and they put on an amazing performance.
Okay, when we got home we opened the door from the garage into the house. It was open for a little bit as we brought things in. Then all doors were shut, the Christmas lights were turned on outside, the lights on the Christmas tree were turned on, we were about ready to settle in. I walked from our bedroom into the living room and was sure I saw something fly across the room. I have floaters in my eyes and I thought maybe it was one of them. Claude could tell by my pause as I came out of the bedroom and the look on my face that I saw something. He looked at me and said, "Did you see a bird too?" Oh My Goodness!! There was something. I put my Kindle on the breakfast table and walked back toward the laundry room. It flew out again into the windows of the breakfast room. Claude got up when I let out a little bit of a scream. We found the fly swatter to help extend the length of our arms to guide the bird towards the door. We opened the front door and the door from the living room to the deck. We managed to corral the bird into the living room under an end table by the big red rocking chair. Then it flew out and into the dining room. I told Claude I needed a picture. I took two and then we positioned ourselves to herd that little bird out the front door. Sure enough, it flew into the entry way and out the front door. Yeah!! This was a new experience for us. We did have the doors open and a stray dog was in our breakfast room one time. We also had one summer that a mother bird made a nest in my front door wreath. She laid eggs and hatched them and I have video of the last one flying away. We had a mouse crawl into our outside HVAC unit and make a nest. It chewed a wire and died. We had to replace the unit. We also had a squirrel that climbed the utility pole in the back yard and chewed the wires up there ending with no power on our block for a bit. So, we are not without animal experiences. But a bird in the house, this was a first.
At one point Claude went out to get the mail. He was pleasantly surprised to find that his Mike Rowe face masks had arrived. The purchase price is given to the Mike Rowe Foundation which provides scholarships for people to trade school and technical colleges.
This evening we are going to the Church. There is a drive-by activity tonight. We'll go and check that out. Hoping the weather clears for them.
I have been sharing Christmas stories I have saved over the years with Papa in my daily letters. My hope is it helps him to feel Christmas a bit. I don't know if it is working. But I will keep doing it. One of the stories I shared was "The Christmas Orange". This is the story we shared with the Noe's and the Coyne's with some oranges for Christmas. I used to share it each Christmas with my seminary class I taught in Maryland. I would buy one or two of those big candy oranges that are segmented and dipped in chocolate. We would read this story, eat our oranges and share Christmas thoughts and feelings. Here is the story:
The Christmas Orange
David was a young boy who lived with nine other children in a meager orphanage in southern England. There was always very little to eat, and in the winter months it was seldom warm, as fuel was very expensive. But at Christmas time there seemed to be a little more to eat, the orphanage seemed a little warmer, and, of course, there was The Christmas Orange.
At Christmas each child received an orange. Just a simple orange, but the only time of year that such a rare item was provided. They would save it for several days just admiring it, feeling it, loving it, and then finally smelling it one last time before they would carefully eat it. Sometimes it would even dry out before it was eaten as each child would try to savor the Christmas Orange just a little longer.
This Christmas Day, David had been disobedient and the punishment for his crime was the loss of his beloved Christmas Orange. David was devastated! He had waited all year for the sweet smell and tangy flavor of this Christmas Orange. His pleadings and promises were all denied and David spent Christmas empty and alone.
As the night ushered in, David could not sleep. He was constantly reminded of the loss of his beloved Christmas Orange. There was no hope or good will left in this cruel and orangeless world. So alone in the darkness David started to silently weep at this cruel misfortune. And somewhere, there in the darkness a soft hand reached for his and quickly placed in it an object. The giver of the object disappeared in the darkness leaving David with the sweet smell and sticky feel of an orange. This was a special orange. This Christmas Orange was made of nine carefully divided orange segments from nine other oranges--nine other highly coveted oranges that would be eaten on this night instead of several days to come.
The story I shared today is really touching as well. Here it is:
God works in mysterious ways...
This is a first-person account from a mother about her family as they ate dinner on Christmas Day in a small restaurant many miles from their home. Nancy, the mother, relates;
We were the only family with children in the restaurant. I sat Erik in a highchair and noticed everyone was quietly eating and talking. Suddenly, Erik squealed with glee and said, "Hi there." He pounded his fat baby hands on the high-chair tray. His eyes were wide with excitement and his mouth was bared in a toothless grin. He wriggled and giggled with merriment. I looked around and saw the source of his merriment. It was a man with a tattered rag of a coat, dirty, greasy, and worn. His pants were baggy with a zipper at half-mast and his toes poked out of would-be shoes. His shirt was dirty, and his hair was uncombed and unwashed. His whiskers were too short to be called a beard and his nose was so varicose, it looked like a road map. We were too far from him to smell, but I was sure he smelled. His hands waved and flapped on loose wrists.
"Hi there, baby; hi there, big boy. I see ya, buster," the man said to Erik.
My husband and I exchanged looks, "What do we do?" Everyone in the restaurant noticed and looked at us and then at the man. The old geezer was creating a nuisance with my beautiful baby. Our meal came and the man began shouting from across the room, "Do ya know patty cake? Do you know peek-a-boo? Hey, look, he knows peek-a boo.” Nobody thought the old man was cute. He was obviously drunk.
My husband and I were embarrassed. We ate in silence, all except for Erik, who was running through his repertoire for the admiring skid-row bum, who in turn, reciprocated with his cute comments.
We finally got through the meal and headed for the door. My husband went to pay the check and told me to meet him in the parking lot. The old man sat poised between me and the door. "Lord, just let me out of here before he speaks to me or Erik," I prayed. As I drew closer to the man, I turned my back trying to side-step him and avoid any air he might be breathing. As I did, Erik leaned over my arm, reaching with both arms in a baby's pick-me-up position. Before I could stop him, Erik had propelled himself from my arms to the man's. Suddenly a very old smelly man and a very young baby consummated their love relationship. Erik, in an act of total trust, love, and submission laid his tiny head upon the man's ragged shoulder.
The man's eyes closed and I saw tears hover beneath his lashes. His aged hands full of grime, pain and hard labor-gently, so gently cradled my baby's bottom and stroked his back. No two beings have ever loved so deeply for so short a time. I stood awestruck. The old man rocked and cradled Erik in his arms for a moment, and then his eyes opened and set squarely on mine. He said in a firm commanding voice, "You take care of this baby." Somehow I managed, "I will," from a throat that contained a stone. He pried Erik from his chest unwillingly, longingly, as though he were in pain. I received my baby, and the man said, “God bless you, ma'am, you've given me my Christmas gift."
I said nothing more than a muttered thanks. With Erik in my arms, I ran for the car. My husband was wondering why I was crying and holding Erik so tightly, and why I was saying, "My God, my God, forgive me." I had just witnessed Christ's love shown through the innocence of a tiny child who saw no sin, who made no judgment, a child who saw a soul, and a mother who saw a suit of clothes.
I was a Christian who was blind, holding a child who was not. I felt it was God asking...."Are you willing to share your son for a moment?" when HE shared His for an eternity.
The ragged old man, unwittingly, had reminded me, "To enter the Kingdom of God, we must become as little children."
Author Unknown
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