“Peace with God, peace with others, and peace in your own heart.”
Today is a dreary, rainy day but a warm one. When I woke up, the first thing in my head was my list and what I have left to do. The house is all decorated so I just have to finish the tree and make a batch of fudge. Yesterday, when I was bringing up tubs of house decorations, I brought up a tub filled with boxes. When I opened the tub to check the boxes, I found only empty boxes. I didn’t return the decorations to their boxes last year. I laughed.
One of the ornaments for my tree is one of the special ornaments my mother insisted we not touch in case we broke them. The ornament is a big, colorful ball. I always put it toward the top of the tree just as my mother did. I’m very careful.
When I was a kid, school always dragged around Christmas time. We did a few Christmas activities like coloring nativity scenes and making cards for our parents which helped pass the time. My nativity scenes were heavy on the brown, but the hay was yellow and Mary always wore blue. I remember getting a box of hard candy from the nuns, I think, on the last day before vacation. The boxes were cardboard and had white strings to hold to carry the boxes. I still have a box, and I hang it on my scrub pine.
I put my nativity set on the table in the living room. It is an old one very similar to the one we had when I as a kid. My sister has that now. They both have chalk figures. When I opened the box yesterday, I noticed the camel was missing its nose. I found the nose and glued it back on. I bought the set at a church fair even though a few key figures were missing. I had to buy some sheep and the Wise Men. I easily found two Wise Men, but Balthazar, the Black Wise Man, was difficult to find. I hunted on E-Bay and finally found one. When he arrived, I put him with his fellow travelers. This Balthazar is about half a height taller and a lot bigger than the other Wise Men. I never checked his size. I was just happy to find him. Every time I place Balthazar I laugh.
keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
December 15, 2018 at 12:41 pm
Every year at this time we wish each other Peace on Earth. Obviously, we can’t make that happen nor can we make peace between ourselves. Race vs. race, religion vs. religion, nation vs. nation and now immigrant vs. citizen. Maybe we human beings don’t deserve divine salvation in any form because we can’t control ourselves or our worse impulses. In the end it’s just six feet of dirt and twenty-five cents worth of cheap plastic flowers. If there is a divine being I think he long ago gave up on us and moved on to another form of humans in his other creation in a different part of the universe. 🙂
Sadly, #45 has canceled the White House press corps. Christmas party. One of the pillars of our democracy has always been a free press but now I fear that many of our citizens don’t appreciate that freedom. They believe everything on Fox News as the divine truth and consider any other news source as fake. The motto of the Washington Post sums it up perfectly, “Democracy Dies in Darkness”. Trump is killing our democracy with a thousand cuts.
One Democratic house member on the committee investigating Google, asked the Google CEO, Sundar Pichal, why when she Googles the term idiot in images it brings up photos of Donald Trump. Try it just for fun. 🙂
Today is sunny with a high expected of low to mid 60 degrees.
December 15, 2018 at 9:42 pm
I can’t greet you using your name. The second letter of the alphabet isn’t working on my key _oard.
I think Peace on Earth is the wish of us all, the hope. You and I have control only on ourselves so we have to work this grass roots. Hate crimes have risen. We just have to hope that good people will out weigh the not good people.
45 has the worse relationship with the press of any other president in my memory. I’m sure the idea of a party for the press corps is anathema. I’m thinking that much is pushing in on Trump. Even his numbers are a little worse. We have ti stay alert.
Then there was the senator questioning why when his granddaughter was playing a game on her phone, horrid stuff out the senator appeared the screen. He wanted to know how that can happen. Sundar Pichal’s only response, “We don’t make that phone.”
December 15, 2018 at 10:31 pm
Sorry to hear that you are letter ‘b’ disabled. 🙂 Don’t worry you can call me anything except late for supper or even nothing at all. 🙂
Trump doesn’t like news, he likes propaganda. 🙂
December 15, 2018 at 10:46 pm
I get around the missing ‘b’ by copying. I used your ‘b’.
December 15, 2018 at 7:08 pm
Kat, we have a Santons nativity that we purchased many years ago from Santons Fouque in Aix en Provence. We walked up and down the road looking for the workshop and finally found it with the help of locals. This was a year that we added again to the display. I have not worked out when new figures become available. The figures are handcrafted
Meanwhile I added a second nativity this year from Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem. Before our trip to the Holy Land I had decided the nativity in Olive Wood was my remembrance to bring home and the good folks at the Abbey were ready for me
It is the Gaudete. Rejoice.
December 15, 2018 at 9:45 pm
MDH,
I have several nativity sets, three from Africa, some from South American when I was there and more from all sorts of places. I do like the chalk ones with their chips and all. They were part of my childhood.
Souvenirs for me are always something Christmas if I can find some. Each time I put them o the tree they trigger memories.
Rejoice!!
December 16, 2018 at 2:44 am
Up to the sixth grade our teachers did what they could to make time pass faster. We always had a story time each morning when the teachers read from a book and the lights were turned off but we all had small lit candles on our desks, most of us also had gingerbread and perhaps Julmust to drink.
We were also busy making christmas decorations with glossy paper or normal white ones that we could color as we pleased. Can’t remember any nativity scenes though, mostly christmas trees and yule gnomes as I remember it 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
December 16, 2018 at 11:17 pm
Christer,
I’d have liked the candle and the gingerbread. My teachers were nuns so they didn’t figure they had to do all that much to keep us busy. We’d behave no matter what.
I think the nuns would have had a heart attack if we made gnomes. I’d have liked it, but they definitely not.
Have a great day!