Mark eve

 For about a month Mark has been telling me how many days until he's 18.  He does it because I don't like it and like teenagers everywhere, he derives pleasure in teasing his mother.

I don't like thinking about him being 18, an adult, grown and flown.  

It was bad enough when Braeden turned 18 and then Emma did. 

But Mark's my baby.  For years he was my sidekick (or I was his, I don't know which.)  Being Mark's mother has not always been particularly easy, but loving him has always been very easy.

Talking about his future plans makes me quake a little inside but ships weren't made for safe harbors and neither was he.

(Right about now I wanted to post some pictures of Mark but blogger does what blogger wants and this morning post pictures is not on her approved list of activities apparently.)

Pikkujoulu 2020

This has nothing to do with the post but aren't they cute?

I don't speak Finnish but I do know this one word. Pikkujoulu means little Christmas. We started having Pikkujoulu to incorporate traditions from my family's Christmas Eve into our celebrations.

We kept doing it because we like it.

I was there when we were 19 and Adam opened his mission call for Finland.  If I had known then that someday we would be married and that his mission call would eventually indirectly result in me not only  knowing how to pronounce but also how to spell Pikkujoulu, let's just say I would have been surprised.

Life can be wonderfully unexpected.

There is tension between keeping traditions and changing them.

Life changes and families shrink and expand and shrink and expand.  Traditions ground us and root us and it's also OK to change them.  It's OK to have traditions you used to do.

Sometimes life hands us things we didn't ask for and you write the carb count on recipes.

Sometimes we choose the changes and we channel more energy into planning lessons than baking cookies.

I did make Berry Shortbread Dreams, which is what the recipe is called.  Our kids call them jammy dodgers.  They are everyone's favorite and have 8 carbs per cookie.

I used to make several kind of cookies as well as fudge.  I told Emma, "I am not making all the cookies this year for Pikkujoulu."

She said, "I know.  I was there when you were tossing things in your cart at Trader Joe's."

I'm OK with it.  I'm OK with keeping what matters most (a holiday that's hard to pronounce) and getting rid of things that no longer matter as much.  (Although fudge matters.  It does.)

Setting a festive table matters to me.

Does it bug anyone else that that spoon is askew?

What matters the most is the people.

Braeden and Anna and Emma put the finishing touches on the tree by adding the ornaments Braeden and Emma grew up with.  (Braeden said he'll take his in August when they move.  I said take them sooner because I don't want to go digging for them in August.)

Anna valiantly aimed to put the ornaments high because I said I left all the high space for Braeden.

Here I am supervising from the couch. It was an exhausting weekend and brought back all the fatigue.  Also I didn't wear a mask because I've already had Covid and I was too tired to bother.  I do appreciate how diligent our kids are in wearing masks though.

Emma paused long enough to pose for a dramatic picture.  I can't imagine how much makeup ends up on the inside of her masks, but a girl has to be who she's meant to be.

If you're wondering where Mark is in all this, he hates decorating Christmas trees and he slipped away to the basement.

Later, he read Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree to the group and also, for the first time, did the scripture reading that Adam usually does.  It's kind of like when the dad lets the son carve the meat for the first time.  Ceremonial.

Emma sang beautifully like she does, Adam and Braeden and Anna all shared a Christmas memory.  Anna's made me cry.  She has more goodness than it seems a person can contain.

I'm glad she's ours.  I'm glad they all are.

Weekend

It was one of the secretary's birthday on Friday so she had piñatas for the teachers after school.  They were legit piñatas with Mexican candy inside.  Also her teenage children came to help and it made me happy to celebrate with them.  (Additionally the homemade tamales she brought and left in the teachers' lounge at lunchtime made me happy. Rachel's family used to own El Azteca in Provo which was a Mexican restaurant by my apartment.  And it was good.)

I ended up at a piñata with some of the kindergarten and first grade teachers.  A few of them talked about how anxious piñatas made them as children.  We all started talking about anxiety inducing birthday party games and I told them I had been terrified of the game where you run across the room and sit on a balloon and whoever pops their balloon first wins.

Barbaric.

I thought it was funny that a group of people who decided to spend their lives with children were timid and maybe a little neurotic as children.

It's like we're determined to keep the world less stressful for the next generation.

Saturday I wrapped the last of the Christmas presents.  Done!

There were five shows at the theater on Saturday.  Mark volunteered to work because he is crazy.  I think he viewed it as a feat of strength. Other ushers rotated in and out but Mark and his boss, Sam, were there the entire 13 hours. At the end of his shift, Mark sent this:

 

A fellow usher said that every time he complained, Mark needed to give every other usher a dollar.  Challenge accepted and Mark didn't complain once.

If I had known that would work, I would have tried it years ago.

Adam and I dropped off lunch (for him and Emma) and dinner (for Mark).  If teaching doesn't work out, I may consider a Doordash career.

Emma finished work at 6:30 so we went to dinner with her.  I rode in her car and I told her all the things.

I love having a daughter.

Amid errands and feeding children, Adam and I decorated the tree (until I got too tired).  It was the first time since Braeden was a toddler that we didn't have children helping us decorate.  It takes a lot longer.  I love decorating the tree though.  I love our decorations.  They feel kind of like a scrapbook.

I sent this picture of two hideous ornaments I made in elementary school that always make it onto our tree.

I told them that whoever I loved most at the time of my death would inherit these gems.

Mark texted back that whoever inherits them won't feel the same after receiving them.

I told Mark he is definitely out of the running.  

Braeden and Anna flew home from Virginia on Saturday.  Braeden sent us updates of their progress.

On the way to the airport, I got a text from Amy. She texted this picture:

How I love those two!  It is a blessing to see our son so happily married and it is a blessing to have Anna in our family.  I also love that Braeden has Anna's family too, because they're wonderful.  It all feels about perfect.

Sunday night we celebrated Pikkujoulu, but I will tell more about that later.

Grateful Friday

There is comfort in switching on the fireplace in the chilly morning.

There is magic in the morning star over the mountain before the sun comes up.

There is beauty in the glowing Christmas tree.

There is energy emanating from the walls of my school.  I feel it when I walk down the halls.  I felt it the first time I went there.

There is joy anticipating a weekend of traditional Christmas activities (also laundry).

There is tranquility in cleared-off surfaces.

There is warmth in the smiling eyes of my friends at school (I never see their mouths, but the eyes say a lot).

There is love in coming home to Adam making dinner and Mark greeting me at the door to take my overstuffed bag.

There is hope in thinking of my Savior and the way He blesses our lives.  There is peace in knowing He knows how to succor us.

The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Not that he needed one....

...but Mark finally got a haircut.

Before:

 After:

It's good to have him back.

Trying to be like Jesus

There was a problem at work the other night with a family refusing to wear masks.  The ushers elected Mark to be the bold one to confront them one last time and ask them to leave it they refused to comply.  The other ushers working that night were small timid young women.  His massive pile of red curls invites a certain amount of respect(?) if nothing else (I'm still waiting for his promised haircut to materialize).  

There was indeed a confrontation resulting in expletives hurled at Mark.  He came home feeling bad about the whole situation.

The next morning I was ready to saddle up my ride or die posse.  Adam, on the other hand, prayed for the family when he said our morning prayer.

You can see which of us is being more successful in emulating Christlike attributes.

In the trenches

I was going for magical and I didn't really achieve magical, but it is festive.  I had Mark help me hang snowflakes from the ceiling.  I set up a tree with ornaments of each students' name made out of Scrabble tiles.  I have another small tree with miniature school themed ornaments: tiny chalkboards and apples and rulers.  It even has a pencil "star" that Emma made when she was a little girl.  (That little tree used to be in our school room.)

I have Mary Engelbreit Christmas scenes on the wall. 

I set up a display of Christmas books.

The song of the week is from The Nutcracker.

I read them a beautifully illustrated Jan Brett Christmas book during read aloud time.

For the first day of our class advent calendar they all got Christmas pencils.

Yesterday I found out more sad news about one of my student's families.  Every day there is sad news.  This year the sad news is more often.

My feeble efforts at Christmas cheer don't seem enough.

Maybe learning the times tables will help to take their minds off things.  The only thing I can provide is stability and predictability and love.  Maybe every time I respond with equanimity when they spill their water bottles everywhere (seriously children...) it will make them feel safe.  Maybe knowing that Mrs. Davis will give them a mask when they forget, a bandaid when they spring a leak and lotion when their hands are dry will be something.

I hope so because it's all I have.