Only 25 Shopping Days

It is beginning to look less like fall in the Truckee Meadows. High winds have drained the color from neighborhoods and foothills. More than the sprinkle of raindrops predicted fell yesterday with the promise of more to come. The bowl created by mountain ranges that surround the Meadows has a dusting of white stuff, as seen from my kitchen window. However, judging by the almost audible cheers from peaks in the distance, new snow pack must be sufficient to have avid winter sports enthusiasts heating wax and grooming slopes. Me? I'm happy to have serious snowfall find its place at higher elevations and just dream of a white Christmas in the valley. Content to be inside, warm, and decorating gingerbread houses, the constant reminder from the media of, "Only 25 shopping days 'til Christmas", reminds me of...

Sister Kosh, a woman who looked older than her years, the result of severe health problems. A new member of the church or re-activated, I'm unsure, but she took her more recent involvement seriously. I'd never met her, personally, but she lived across the street from my Relief Society President. My name came up in conversation between the two. Then an unexpected visit from Sister Holmes, delivering what would be Christmas for four of my grandkids, from Sister Kosh--a very generous gift card. Thankfully, the kids were given this grand opportunity to experience service in action and be involved in creating heartfelt thank you gestures. She could also count on hugs and greetings at church. We saw her for the last time, gravely ill and dying. We could not touch her to hug her but she gathered the strength to tell me that her dream had been realized. She had been through the temple. A few days before what would be another very lean Christmas, I received a card in the mail. The sender was a name unknown to me. Inside, a very generous gift card for the 'South children', and a note. "Hello. You don't know me. I am Mrs. Kosh's son. She left instructions that I am to send this to you. I've added what I could to her offering....."

 Todd and Jenn surely remember the Christmas we gave the only thing we had to give--music. It wasn't hard to come up with a list of friends and neighbors--"It takes a village"--who had helped us through a difficult year. But I couldn't even afford to do the cookies-on-a plate thing. Instead, I called each one on the list to schedule a time with them, after work, during the week before Christmas. For those who didn't have a piano in their home, I invited them to our house as the last appointment for the final night of our performances. The kids were rehearsed in Fred Warring's, "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," and a few other carols. I accompanied on the piano. Todd was learning to play guitar so we three sang, in German, "Silent Night," to his accompaniment. To express a little more, the kids rolled into scrolls the poem I had written for the occasion, on plain white paper, decorated with inks and sealing wax from an earlier crafting life, tied, then presented one to each family once we had completed our singing. Performance had once upon a time been a grand thing for me, almost easy, but life happens and I had taken cover, retreated, withdrawn. It was very hard to stand with my kids to sing "Silent Night". With each performance, it got a little easier to peek out from within myself, a bit. It was quite the week, a flurry of activity, stretching gas in the car to make appointments but still get to work every day, and hoping our homespun offering would be accepted and considered a gift by some stretch of imagination. During that week, we began to find things in the car when we arrived home after each performance that had not been there before--fresh, warm pumpkin bread and other goodies, cash, even a Christmas tree! No Ordinary Christmas Tree

Shopping for the holiday? It feels so good to find just the perfect thing for someone and be able to get it for them. I love to give and receive nice things, simple things, sentimental things, expensive things but many favorite memories of holiday gifting are of the hardest times, the leanest, times when money to buy for others was near impossible but the want to give, the strongest. Learning to give was not hard for me. Learning to receive was a whole other lesson! I'm unsure if being an introvert has anything to do with either. I still have lessons to learn about giving and receiving, in meaningful ways. It's a part of who I am.