Beneath the Wraps

          Family has grown.  We used to do a dinner on Christmas Eve. We would gather at the house where Aunt Gertrude and Uncle Ted live.  That was a tradition for years.  My grandma Helen and her three kids and their children - we started out with just three of us -  I was the eldest, then my cousin, Michelle, my brother Patrick and then Michelle’s brother came along.  It was another seven years before Edmund and Corey were born and then Rosa and then Kayla.            Daddy’s only sister, Chrissy got married to Kim.  Eventually they had four boys and the family continued to grow.  Both Patrick and Michelle found partners and married. And the family continued to grow.  It seemed like there were more people than room.  It got hard for Trudy to host not one, but two dinners each year.  Not that she was supplying all the food.  ...

          I always think it’s kind of odd that so many ornaments are made from porcelain or glass as they break so easily and not all of us are blessed with a quiet environment in which the tree will rest looking perfect and undisturbed.   (Jenna’s eight.  I think she still rearranges the ornaments on a daily basis) Several years ago my mom came home with a whole slew of ceramic ornaments that she had painted at a Relief Society activity.  I don’t know how many ornaments there were, but I believe I had at least four of them in my possession when Roland and I were married.  The fondest memories are of the Raggedy Anne and the gingerbread man Ornaments. Mom had wanted me to have Raggedy Anne and Patrick was to have Andy.  But we also got to choose among the remaining how many ever there were. The gingerbread man is the first one I chose.  It had been left on the tree one year when the tree was...

          When I asked Jenna what she wanted to get her dad for Christmas last year, she did not even hesitate with an answer.                  “A Bow Tie,” she announced proudly.           I visualized an elastic and paper doily all bunched up.              “What kind of a bow tie?” I asked.   “A Black one.”  And so it was.  We purchased a black bow tie for Roland – the only black bow tie that we found.           I was reminded about gifts – precious to the child’s mind, but very impractical.  For instance my wanting to buy my dad a pink Batman shirt for a gift.  I don’t remember it, but my mom said that it happened.           First off you need to understand that m...

          We hadn’t put up our outside lights for Christmas this year.  I meant to bring them out with all the other Christmas decorations.  I remember seeing them.  But they must have gotten lost in the shuffle.  Just as well.  There were a couple of days when the wind blew hard.  So hard that some actually lost their decorations – which is NOTHING compared to what was lost in Newtown Connecticut on December 14 th .           Sandy, for me, was a lot easier to deal with, as the disaster was a result of the elements – not some psycho on the loose with a gun.  If a gunman is going to just turn the gun on himself – why not just start there?  And it’s not like the world will ever KNOW what became of this individual who’d gone on a shooting spree to wipe out innocent children.  Whatever reasons are given will be speculation – and even if we are given reasons tha...

          Okay, to my knowledge, there really is no such thing as Zion’s Mall.  It had been the name for a Relief Society activity that was held during the holiday season in 2008.  A wonderful presentation and activity that I have never experienced before or since. I had signed up to take a relish tray – and as I was arranging the pickles and olives in an ordinary way, Roland (who is all about presentation) rearranged them so that the arrangement itself appeared  to be a huge sunflower The cultural hall had been set up with tables all around for booth display. There were ten “shops” surrounding the seven round tables located in the center of the room which represented the food court.           When we entered the “mall” each sister was presented with a “master-in-charge” card and a shopping bag to fill.  The object was to vis...

A few years before I met Roland,  I had gone into a Deseret Book Store in search of something.  Sharon Velluto was doing a book signing on her new book, “A Christ Centered Christmas”                      I remember picking up a book and thumbing through it.  It looked interesting.  It was on sale as I recall.  I took it home and started reading it. “How to Use this Book” – the very first words on the very first page.  “This book has been designed to satisfy the needs of all families {bold italics added} from those with small children to those whose children are grown, as well as singles and seniors .  . .             How many times have I heard or read that . . . “and to all of those that are single, we love you as well” (though you are really not our main focus – we don’t want to exclude ...

Anyone who knows me knows that gift cards ( for the most part) say, “I don’t care enough to be creative or to know you well enough to know what you really want.”  Anybody who truly knows me knows I loathe shopping.  I would rather have a useless gift that comes from the heart than a gift card. I am probably in the minority as not everybody feels that way. I know my sister-in-law would much rather have the gift card than an item that she’s just going to exchange anyway.  At least two of my boys love receiving gift cards and being able to get what they want (with pants and shoes it’s just as well; they can’t just be purchased as they have to be fitted to their bodies) For a while I refused to buy gift cards.  What does that say about me.  Giving someone a gift that I would never want for myself.  And yet how often do we buy or make things for people that we would never purchase or make for ourselves?   Sending a gift card to a newlywed ...

          Christmas is the season for miracles.  But miracles happen everyday.  Not just at Christmas time.              Often my mom and I would drive to Bakersfield to see my brother and watch him perform in whatever current play he was in.           One February when we happened to be on our way down, it was not the greatest of weather.  Snowing hard.  Blizzard almost.  It was ugly.           We had stopped off in Nephi to get something to eat.  Mom asked if we should check into a hotel and continue our journey the next day.  I left it totally up to her – for I was for getting off the freeway two exits passed our home town – which is less than ten miles.  I definetly wouldn’t be driving in that kind of weather.  But mom opted to go ...