Ramblings of Jo Mama

OK... Feeling super festive right now. These are some things I love about the Yuletide Season:

1-Our always Charlie Brown Christmas tree. FRESH! No exceptions. I'd sell my...well I'd sell just about anything in order to have a real tree.  Every year I get a new glittery something to add to the tree and their is lots of homemade from school, or nursery kid creations. Our tree has something for everyone!

2-Our wall of Christmas stockings.  Every single one of us, grandkids included have hand quilted, and decorated and names crosstiched on the cuff. Every single time, since it was only Greg, Emily and I my darling and lovely and talented friend, her name is Janna, Well everytime there was another kid, their was a new stocking completely different and all the same for every in-law and now grandkids.  One year, we got overly excited cleaning up cause we had a new WI game system and we accidentally threw Greg's stocking away. I was pretty distressed. Guess who had a new stocking the next Christmas? Yup.

3-My Mothers Jewelry Chrismas tree. I will explain. She had a friend who took all the costume jewelry she had from like, her whole life, lots of which I remember and she got this ginormous frame, covered the inside with black velvet, glued, in a really awesome fashion all this glittery jewelry into the shape of a Christmas tree, and it even had a starfish pin (so tacky and awesome) on the top. She used this tree as a substitute when she was older and didn't want the work of a regular tree. I put it in her window, in her room for three years when she was in the nursing home.  She would never let the nurses plug it in, OH I forgot to tell you that the creater poked holes in the back and poked through lights from top to bottom and so it was real shiny next to the jewels.  Anyway's, she would never let the nurses plug it in because then the lights would get used up. I WAS SO FRUSTRATED WITH THIS PART and would try so hard to convince her that I could replace the lights but she was just so freaking set on certain things. When she was pretty far gone and could not really express her wants I told those nurses, turn it on and never turn it off for the whole month.  And they didn't.  I hope she got some joy out of it's beauty. To my credit, I thought my sister would want it and I offered it to her but she said no. Therefore, I, without guilt have it propped up in all its boisterous, beauty on my piano. It's worth dropping by to see.

4-I love the memory of my Father painstakingly, one by one putting the long, shiny, pain in the butt ice cycles on our family's tree. I don't know how he did it. He had the patience of Job. I would like to think I could do that, cause it would look awesome but I would end up throwing gobs of them on the tree all at once and calling it good. He was so awesome.

5-Christmas tunes!  Now, look people, we all know that there is some outstanding Christmas compositions out there and then there are some really really BAD, MUY MALO stuff. It is painful for me to listen to a good percentage on the radio stations, but the good outweighs the bad. I prefer instrumental I think, that is the most peaceful to me and calms my over-wired brain.  I just bought the Piano Guys Christmas CD and it is pretty dang awesome. Different, but some of it is absolutely amazing.  By the way, I had no idea that John Schmidt was the piano half of the piano guys!  He doesn't look like what I had pictured. That was a useless comment, but this is a blog so I can use too many words to express my own self. Josh Groban is my exception to my love of instrumental. He is so dreamy I tell you, then hook him up with Faith Hill and I am fallin' on the floor happy.  One of my favorite things in life is a truly fantastic harmony. 

6-Tinsel.  I know what you are thinking, tinsel is tacky. NO ITS NOT! it just has to be the right kind and hung in the right place.  You should see my gold, really retro, like way way old school tinsel I got last year at one of our favorite little shops, The Harmony Shop in Provo.  Its so pretty I just stare and stare at it. Small things amuse small minds, and I love tinsel, so put that in your pipe and smoke it!!

7-My replica of the cardboard, with slits and you put it all together and we all got them in primary when we were little.  You know the one?  Well, we know I have the best most lovely friends and my darling Dana across the street, after getting weary of hearing me year after year yearn after hers, had a copy made somehow and cut it out and made slits and you can see the places where she had taped hers together and that made it all the better!  I just love it and it replaced my porcelain nativity scene, which was always just a little uncomfortably fancy for me.  I love it and will use it FOREVER!  Shout out to Mark and Dana. Thank you again.

8-Lights, duh, everyone loves Christmas lights. I love other peoples lights but I will admit that our own, outside lights which I am in charge of give me a little heart-burn. There is a movie which is a cult classic favorite around here, It is called Mixed Nuts and it is Hillbillyarious I tell you! there are a lot of stars in it and Rita Wilson has a battle with the lights she is trying to put up and I just want to cry cause I relate so well.

9-Christmas movies. Are they not calming and comforting?  Some of our favorites are the following:

Mixed Nuts
Elf
The Grinch
Lost in paradise (its naughty but funny)
The Family Stone
Muppet Christmas Carol
White Christmas
HOME ALONE TWO IS BETTER THAN ONE CAUSE IT HAS THE PIGEON LADY AND SHE ROCKS THE SCREEN!
Christmas Vacation (my tradition is to watch this while wrapping presents) its so stupid funny!

Don't you all just quote the Grinch all year long?  We do. "Even if we are HORRIBLY mangled, ther'll be no sad faces on Christmas."

10- I Love Jesus. A lot. How I would have gotten through the past year with out God and my Savior I have no idea. I don't think I could have, or if I did I would have come through it a lot more battered, body and spirit. Thanks for all your prayers. No really...THANK YOU.