Like most kids, I grew up loving Christmas. Hands down the best part about the whole season was decorating the Christmas tree. My mom and dad would drag it up from the basement, pull it out of the box and assemble it, fitting the branches into their color-coordinated holes in the base. I loved it. We doused it with colorful felt ornaments, homemade ornaments, sparkly ornaments, colored lights and a truckload of silver tinsel. To my young eyes it’s grandeur stood unmatched dwarfing every other ornament placed around the house.

But…there was always this niggling frustration in the back of my head. The tree wasn’t real. I don’t know where the obsession with real trees came in. I didn’t know anyone who had one. But the oddity of placing something real from the forest in the middle of my house taunted me.

In moving to apartment, to college and back to apartment, I had all shapes and sizes of trees. Short trees, emaciated trees, skinny trees. No matter what they looked like, they all had one thing in common: they were fake. I wanted a real one, and it was a dream that would not be die.

Enter Bruce, my husband, the quintessential New Englander. Unlike my history with fake trees, he’d never had one. He knew they existed, but no true self-respecting New Englander would actually have one-at least not as their only tree. One could accessorize with the copycat version, but to have a plastic evergreen heralding the season in one’s home was unthinkable.

Our first Christmas came two months after we were married. We decided to spend it alone in our little apartment watching Christmas movies, eating steak and gazing at what I insisted would be a real tree to which my husband responded with a look of is there any other kind?

So one Sunday afternoon while my sister was in town we set off for a tree farm to pick out our own tree and cut it down. Not only would the blessed thing be real, but Bruce was going to show me what picking out a tree was really all about. Ritual in nature it involved the tedious task of finding it, cutting it down, mounting it to the top of the car and driving it home. Lest you think all trees are created equal, you couldn’t be more wrong. A Fraser Fir, considered by my husband as the Cadillac of trees, was simply the only option. The whole thing was incredibly romantic, and I almost couldn’t take it.

About an hour and a half into the search, I got a little tired. We walked all over the stinking farm looking for the perfect tree. In my head, they were all perfect because they were real and big and smelled like Christmas. I didn’t realize it at the time that this painstaking search for perfection would be how my sweet my husband would research all future purchases from baby strollers to sandwich bread. I could appreciate that he excelled at this skill of tree shopping. Apparently he was so good at it that his family would not purchase a tree until he was home from college on break and able to go get it, no matter how late in the season it was. It was impossible for anyone to pick out a tree like Bruce. So I’d been told.

Weary of the whole thing, my dream of authentic foliage dashed by the sheer absurdity of the search, I suggested that a fake one from Walmart would suffice and marched off in the snow back to the car with my sister in tow. We waited another hour and a half. Finally, from the distance I saw a tree moving toward us. As it got closer I realized that buried under this mass of foliage was my husband manhandling this thing proud as a peacock. We waited another half hour as he hoisted onto our little Ford Tempo, triple checking the bungee cords to make sure it wasn’t going anywhere while we drove home.

To say that it was large would be an understatement. It literally took up most of a the wall where the sliding glass door sat, protruding out into the living room leaving no one to wonder what season we were in. I could not wait to get my hands on that tree and decorate it bringing to life what I was feeling inside.

The decorating of a Christmas tree is much like accessorizing an outfit. “Forest fashion” represents the “wearer” to the outside world. In this instance, my “forest friend” donned blue Christmas balls, red tinsel and big white lace bows leftover from my wedding representing my newlywed bliss and diehard patriotism.

In my humble opinion, no more beautiful a tree could be found anywhere. Every morning as I sipped my coffee, I would sit and stare at its blinking lights and be taken back to that beautiful childhood tree-though fake-that I found so mesmerizing.

In the 21 years we’ve been married, only twice have my husband and I ignored our tree standards, disappointed both times. Ever frugal and having my romantic visions of the perfect tree thwarted by the price, we succumbed to plastic simplicity one year and something real but very pokey the next year. Like saving for Christmas presents, saving for a tree that lasts a month at best, then dies and is thrown to the curb, is a priority that cannot be ignored.

These days my house is filled with trees; one in my bedroom decorated with all of the ornaments created by my kids through the years; one in the dining room, white with lime green, fuchsia and turquoise decorations, a nod to my lime green walls; two in my daughter’s room because there is no other person more obsessed with Christmas than she; one in my son’s room, and finally the rock star of them all, the big Fraser Fir in the living room crammed with white lights, Nielson ornaments tracking the years we’ve been a family, cat ornaments because next to the Christmas tree in importance is the cat (of course) and a variety of others we’ve collected over the years. Take all the other decorations away, and you can still eek out a bit of Christmas cheer. But take away the tree and none of the other decorations make sense. Plus, where would the presents go?

Whatever makes Christmas merry for you, enjoy it with your family, rejoice in it as the beginning of the redemption story and for heaven’s sake, get a decent tree!

I’m a little late with this week’s Praise Project, a testament to the craziness of the week. It was a good one nonetheless, and I’m praising God for the following:

1). A week of being productive. There’s nothing more satisfying than laying your head on the pillow at night, tired, because of good hard work.

2). Co-hosting a night of fun and celebration with friends at the Women’s Christmas Tea with my daughter.

3). Being asked to contribute to my friend, Sarah’s, blog  http://www.doormousehouse.com in her Making Christmas Merry series. You can read about my fondness for Christmas trees there on Monday and on my blog later in the week.

4). I had a falling out with a neighbor before I moved six years ago. Two years ago she called me out of the blue to apologize for her treatment of me which spurred me on to apologize for my role in the ugliness, something I should have done long ago. We met at a mutual friend’s house this past week to pray with that friend who is going through a horrible time right now. Forgiveness has a long reach.

5). Another new student to tutor.

6). For my sweet neighbor surviving a horrific car accident recently. I’m beyond relieved that despite some cuts, bruises, fractured ribs and countless stitches she’s still with us and recovering.

7). Watching my kids desire to get involved with those around them who have broken hearts.

This week I’m praising God for:

1). My once-a-year visit with a friend I’ve known since I was three. Whether he knows it or not, I thank God for putting Michael in my life starting with pre-school and all the way to the present. Very cool to have a friend for that long.

2). Yummy food and conversation with family.

3). All the turkeys that sacrificed their lives for a country full of carnivores.

4). Memories of past Thanksgivings with family that’s now gone.

5). Time off from work and school.

6). Getting to Des Moines with no car trouble .

7). Not having to go Black Friday shopping. Thank you to my mom for taking my daughter to do the one thing she loves the most so I don’t have to do the one thing I hate the most.

This week’s Praise Project revolves around recent events in politics. As someone who respects the United States Constitution, the President’s executive order the other day reeks of Constitutional malpractice. Having said that, it occurred to me not long ago that when we get right down to it, the Constitution is a piece of paper that men signed hundreds of years ago setting up the framework for this country and in which millions of people have respected as sacred. But the Constitution is only as sacred a document as the people in charge deem it to be. As soon as those in power decide it is worth no more than the paper on which it was printed, it loses it’s power. In that vein, this week I’m praising God:

1). That He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Despite what man decides about God, His Son, the Holy Spirit and His Word, they all remain holy and sacred. No one can strip God of Who He is.

2). That my name is written in a Book and can’t ever be erased.

3). That when man fails me, God is faithful and truthful and trustworthy.

4). “He controls the course of world events; he removes kings and sets up other kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the scholars” (Daniel 2:21, NLT).

5). That God is not one dimensional as I often see Him.

6). That the Christmas season is coming and with it the reminder of hope which is why none of this turmoil really matters.

7). The reminder of what really matters: salvation of my lost friends and neighbors.

As I brushed the vintage cream-colored paint all over the trim of my bedroom, my mind instantly took me back to my childhood in the house where my paternal grandparents lived. Newton, Iowa was and still is a small town. Always seemingly on the verge of crumbling, the town marches on with the fortitude of a bygone era. My grandmother was the same. It did not matter what was going on in the world, her biological clock woke her at 5:30 every morning to start the day. From up in the guest room where I slept, I could hear the gentle hum of the radio next to a bubbling percolator.

Every morning started with Grandpa standing at the foot of the stairs coaxing us out of bed. Never one to sleep in, he couldn’t imagine why anyone else would either. A morning person myself, my feet hit the floor often before his wake-up call. My sister’s never did, and I could see the irritation creep across her face as she made her way to the breakfast table. Grumpy or not, my grandmother’s morning greeting consisted of a hug so tight she caused our breathing to come to an abrupt halt and the frustrations of a premature rising to melt.

Besides being in the presence of this strong Dutch woman, visiting her meant spending time in her grand house, a virtual extension of herself. Every room captivated my imagination. Covering her living room walls was a paper in green velvet and cream satin checkerboard with ornate-looking cutout designs and framed in cream satin paint. Beyond stood a room she referred to as the “solarium” housing a prickly brown couch that I could never quite fall in love with. Flat green carpet covered her wood floors. Despite the uninteresting carpet, the velvet roping up the stairs more than made up for it. Mounting the staircase on the way to bed each night, my small hands would grasp that soft green velvet, and I would imagine that it was black velvet that I stood behind waiting to get into the ballet or the opera.

Her house was an overload of sensory stimulation and creative output for our young minds. Perfectly pressed dresses and beautiful shoes lined the insides of her cedar closets. If I try hard enough I can still smell the scent of fresh cedar as I did then while my sister and I zipped each other up in her dresses. Once dressed we would walk to the vanity of one of the spare bedrooms to where two old jewelry boxes loaded with oversize costume jewelry stood, our feet clomping on the wood floors.

We would then march to the most magical place on earth-her bedroom closet lined in pink-petalled wallpaper. I could never quite get over the excitement of a closet that spilled into a staircase leading to yet another level of that grand house. Adding to its appeal was the fact that it was off-limits to us. Too much for me to resist, I would push my way through the clothes and peer longingly at the door that stood between me and my remedy for an overactive imagination. What was up there anyway? Were there more jewels, maybe real ones? More crisp white sheets that she tucked me into every night that I stayed? Were there more shoes, more dresses, anything that would clue me into who this woman was who technically wasn’t my biological grandmother but my grandfather’s second wife? Though not a blood relative she proved to be more of a grandmother to my sister and me than the one whose place she took. What secrets did she harbor up there?

Finally, in utter desperation, I persuaded her to let my sister and me have just a peek. She wasn’t too keen on the idea, but she gave in. What we found wasn’t all that spectacular. It might have been had she allowed us to investigate, but that was not her way. A peek would have to do. The musty unfinished third level housed what one might expect to find in anyone’s attic: old books, mirrors, boxes of unidentified things, silk flowers and such; basically anything she couldn’t yet part with but didn’t have a proper place for. It could have been a let down, but since I had not done a proper search of the place, my hopes for what that room held remained unscathed.

Despite the grandness of that house, life within those walls was about as simple and stress-free as a person could get. It was the only place on earth where my stomach settled and let me enjoy whatever activity she had planned. There was peace there, and the older I get the more I crave that and attempt to harvest it in my own house. What was it about her that made her so peaceful?

I’ll never forget a comment about my grandmother during her eulogy. The speaker remarked that Erma Bailey did not lead an extraordinary life. She wasn’t known for anything, but she served other people quietly. From the outside looking in, her life probably seemed insignificant in a world where public accolades are everything, where they determine the success of a life.

But she knew better, and she by default was teaching that to my sister and me. Though completely unappreciative of it at the time, I can say that the quiet, peaceful life she lead is more appealing to me now than a bank full of cash.

She was consistent, quiet, giving, serving, dragging us with her to deliver a meal to someone homebound due to illness or disease. I could hear her on the phone cheering someone up who needed it, asking thoughtful questions and responding with words of encouragement.

Her life proved that to be used of God doesn’t require extraordinary talents, on display for public applause. In that way she was very much like Christ, humbly washing the disciples’ feet, quietly doing the will of the Father, never asking for anything in return. Like others she had learned the key to an abundant life was an others-first attitude, the dying of self and the living to God and others.

“And He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all’” (Mark 9:35).

Unlike the third floor of her big house, an abundant life isn’t nearly as mysterious as we make it. I think I search harder than I need to because the answer requires the one thing I am more averse to than anything else: self-denial; letting go of my unrealistic expectations of people and this life on earth and what I feel entitled to during my stay here. To live abundantly is to live like Jesus lived, serving others for the sheer joy of it expecting nothing in return, searching for nothing more than His approval, letting our service to others be quiet and between us and God-our little secret if you will.

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love” (Gal. 5:13).

Abundance is freedom, and freedom is serving. My grandmother got it, and I want it. In later years, as I spent less and less time there, I dreamed of purchasing the house and all the renovations I would make starting with the worn green carpet. I fancied ripping down the wallpaper, painting the bathroom something more modern and tearing up the striped kitchen carpet.

Oddly enough without knowing it, I’ve copied her decorating style. The main color in her house was green, and somehow it has made its way into mine in a hue I’m not sure she would approve of. But there it is. In my quest to be modern and freethinking in my décor choices, I’ve bought and purchased the majority of my houses from the same era as hers; the kind with arched doorways, glass door handles and wooden floors that I wouldn’t dream of covering up with anything plusher than an area rug. I’ve furnished it in things that were made by the man my grandmother loved and waited on all those years.

As a kid running through those rooms I wished for her to speed up, do things faster, catch up with the times. But time grows us wiser. Like the slowly crafted furniture she decorated with that is now mine, I’m learning to take another cue from her: to slowly and deliberately craft a home of peace and abundance that comes from service and self-denial; to remember my purpose here and that I live and work and do for an audience of One. I hope she would be proud.

 

There’s a theme to this week’s praise project. Because the weather is getting colder (and we all know how I feel about cold weather) I have to really concentrate on being thankful for the things in my life that make getting through this icky weather easier. So on that note, this week I’m praising God:

1). For down coats

2). For corn bags that keep my feet warm while I’m sleeping

3). For flannel sheets

4). For protection from the outside elements via my heated house, down comforter, wool blankets

5). For the holiday decorations I’m starting to see around town

6). For the fact that winter will not exist in heaven

7). For the upcoming Christmas season and all that it means for those of us who love Jesus

I can’t believe there are only 9 weeks left to this year! Where did the year go? If that’s not shocking enough, I’ve just been informed by my Christmas-loving daughter that there are only seven more Fridays until Christmas-seven weeks to get my act together. That may not be enough time. Anyway, this week I’m praising God for:

1). An extra hour of sleep this weekend. It’s the small things, people.

2). New grants to write

3). Abby’s car is getting fixed tomorrow (hopefully). I’ve never been one of those people who wanted to maintain a whole fleet of vehicles, but having a car for every driver is a luxury I really don’t want to live without again.

4). My fireplace.

5). A great report from my son’s Bible teacher. I guess if he’s going to pick a class to put all of his effort into this would be the one. I’ll take it!

6). That He has the last word on everything. Elevation Worship has a great song about it. Catch it on YouTube (if I knew how to link it for you here I would, but alas my computer skills are tragically limited).

7). The fact that every day that passes is one day closer to eternity. I CANNOT wait!

This week I’m thankful for things like:

1). Our Neighborhood Watch-it’s been a week

2). Summer temps in late Fall

3). Really good coffee-expensive but worth it

4). That my brain is still capable of learning new things after lying dormant for years

5). The out-of-the-blue check we received this week from one of my husband’s student’s family-that will come in handy since my daughter’s car is broken.

6). Being able to help a friend with their book-so awesome to be part of the process with them.

7). An out-of-the-blue check that a friend of mine received that will meet a need he had never told anyone about. God is awesome!

This week I’m praising God for:

1). Shuffling through the leaves while out on a walk with my husband

2). Morning cat cuddles

3).  Routine: with all of the craziness in the world, my daily routine of mundane tasks is oddly comforting

4). Being reminded of God’s jealousy over me. There’s nothing like the reminder of holy jealousy to keep a person in line!

5). The opportunity to tutor a Spanish-speaking woman one-on-one and start building a relationship with her.

6). Lunch with Rachel-if you don’t have a friend you can spew your guts to and not risk judgment, find one.

7). Watching my daughter realize that the right decision is not always the easy one. I could say the same thing over and over, but experiencing this truth is far more effective.

This week I’m praising God for:

1). 21 years with my sweet husband (an obvious one if we’re Facebook friends!)

2). The gift certificate that paid for the celebration of 21 years (probably found under my husband’s 21 years of receipts!)

3). Sweet anniversary wishes from friends and relatives. We feel loved.

4). Lunch with a friend. Always a fabulous way to spend an afternoon! Thanks, Jeannie!

5). Serving a God who is a Giver of good gifts.

6).  A friend’s successful surgery.

7). My pastor for his tireless service to our church over the years. Thank you, Pastor John for all you do and for always being approachable and available. You are loved.