Turkey/Black

As child, I woke before dawn on Thanksgiving morning to the sound and smell of onions and celery sizzling in butter on the stove. My mom always bought a giant turkey, so it needed to cook all day in order to be done by mid-late afternoon. She'd get up at 5:30 a.m. to begin the process of getting the thing in the oven, and a process it was! First she made stuffing, starting with the sizzling onion and celery, to which she added seasoned bread cubes and french onion soup. Then she stuffed both the neck and breast cavities, then sewed them closed with skewers and string. Next, she tied a big piece of string around the whole turkey to keep the wings tucked in tight, placed the bird breast down on the roasting rack, and poured three cubes of melted butter over the top. In the oven it would go, and she would baste it hourly throughout the day.

Now I'm the mom, and I make the Thanksgiving dinner, and I have dumbed down her process significantly. I do not get up at 5:30 a.m. I do make her stuffing recipe (there is none better), but I don't actually stuff it inside the turkey. It's so much easier not to. Still, those early memories of waking to sizzling onions and celery, announcing to the whole house that it was Thanksgiving, are forever etched in my mind. Another Thanksgiving memory is from when I was in college. Tom was dating a girl, who invited all of us to Thanksgiving dinner with her family. That would have been fine except my grandma didn't want to go. She had zero desire to spend Thanksgiving with a bunch of people she didn't know, and honestly, I felt pretty much the same. So while my mom and Tom accepted that kind invitation, Grandma and I went to a lovely restaurant at a hotel in downtown Portland for Thanksgiving dinner, again, one of those delightful memories to be cherished.

Thanksgiving 2021 is now a new memory, hopefully cherish-worthy. Our four kids who live here in the valley, along with their spouses and kids (the two who have those), gathered at our home for the traditional dinner, followed by games, and ending with multiple desserts. We ate lots, played hard, ate more, and it was all good.

But honestly, my friends, Thanksgiving doesn't compare to the following day: BLACK FRIDAY!!! After last year, when COVID kept us inside, Shulamith and I were beyond ready to hit the stores and spend our hard-earned cash, which we saved in envelopes in my hidden filing cabinet throughout the year. We left at 7:00 a.m., so not as early as some people, but good for us because we left well-rested and ready to shop. 'Til we dropped. Almost literally. We were out for a full 11 hours, and I'm still shocked by how much we accomplished. I have five kids, and Shulamith has three, and by the end of Black Friday, other than the gifts we will buy for each other, we were nearly done. Wow! Finished shopping a whole month before Christmas, including stockings? That is a record, even for Black Friday veterans like us.

We hit Target, where we drank our traditional Black Friday Starbuck's hot chocolate; then Walmart; followed by Costco and Best Buy; then lunch break at Spaghetti Factory, where we ordered all our online gifts; and finally South Towne Mall. Then we came home, slept, and spent most of Saturday afternoon in wrapping heaven. I love to wrap presents way more than Shulamith does, and (shhhh!) she's not that good at it, but she helped me anyway, and she's definitely improving.

I am now in full-on Christmas mode; all I need is the semester to be over. 

Turkey/Black: What a wonderful weekend!

We need a little Christmas, now!

Shulamith loves to prove me wrong. I think if you asked her to name her top 10 favorite things to do, proving me wrong would be near the top of that list. So a week ago we began to discuss when we would decorate our houses for Christmas. I mentioned that, although I start listening to Christmas music on November 1st, I never decorate until after Thanksgiving. She was certain that was not case, that at least once, I had decorated for Christmas prior to Thanksgiving. I didn't believe her.

That night she was up at midnight giving Swen either sugar or insulin, depending on whether he was low or high, then waiting for his numbers to correct before going back to sleep. So what did she do while she waited? Search my blog to find evidence to prove me wrong. And of course she found it: right here! I can't even imagine her joy, in the wee hours of the morning, knowing she had proved me wrong yet again. Eli and Amanda and I all awoke the next day to a link to this post.

What prompted this discussion originally were the many decorated homes we see throughout our neighborhood on our multiple daily walks: Trees in windows, lights on houses, spotlights creating shining snowflakes on garage doors. It's all quite beautiful, so it didn't take much to persuade me to decorate last weekend, rather than waiting 'til after Thanksgiving. Because really...

We need a little Christmas, now!

Shulamith's daughter Kennedy helped me with both nativity scenes. She is so talented artistically! She even drew the manger scene that will appear on the front of my Christmas card this year; you can be excited for that. She also likes to make silly faces in pictures.

Eli loved showing his baby daughter, Jane, her first Christmas tree. She was dang impressed too!

Shulamith's son Swen helped hang ornaments, both upstairs and down, not to mention cleaning my house from top to bottom before we decorated.

My history with Christmas trees is long and troublesome. There was this one that was seriously possessed! I ultimately donated it to Amanda and Eli; they can deal with a Christmas tree that hates Christmas. I'm done! Then there was last year's tree. This one wasn't willfully belligerent, but it was covered in glitter, which meant my house was also covered in glitter. Ugh! It's sort of like with Waffles. It's not his fault he sheds all over the place, but he still sheds all over the place. As we decorated last year and I tirelessly vacuumed and swept, vacuumed and swept a million specks of glitter, Mathew mentioned that I would "never get it all." Challenge accepted! It took a while, but the glitter is gone. And it's not coming back. Because you see, this year, I'm donating this lovely glitter-covered tree to the Webster-Monson Family. Bahahaha, Matt is gonna be so grateful. 

As for me, I bought two new trees this year, one for upstairs and one for the basement. I'm thrilled with both of them and delighted with how all the decorating efforts turned out. As for Shulamith, good thing she's the best friend a girl could ever have (even though she loves to prove me wrong). Just look at her here twisting and tying ribbon on my tree, something she learned to do from an instagram influencer. 

Okay, here are the finished products. You ready???

I've grown a little leaner,

Grown a little colder, 

Grown a little sadder,

(This next line: Not a chance!)

We need a little Christmas, right this very minute.

We need a little Christmas, now!

The seeds we plant...

A week ago, Eli rose early and logged into a Zoom call, where he witnessed a baptism in Louisville, Kentucky. He was able to participate, though virtually, in the joy of that day, as his friend Tom entered the waters of baptism.

This story began eight years ago, when Eli (Elder Webster) was serving in the Arkansas Little Rock Mission, which includes parts of Missouri, Mississippi, and Tennessee. One day a ward member called Elders Webster and Hadlock and asked them to come help his childhood friend, who had just relocated to Memphis, move into his new house. I should point out that this wasn't just any ward member; this was the amazing Brother Floyd, who worked tirelessly alongside the missionaries serving in the Memphis area and kept tabs on all the others in the mission as well. If a P-day rolled around and we moms hadn't heard from our kids by mid-afternoon, our go-to guy was Brother Floyd. All we had to do was shoot him a message, and within a few hours, he would track down our missionaries and find out why they hadn't emailed. Every six weeks on transfer days, Brother Floyd always had all the deets on who was transferring where. With his help, we moms knew where our kids were headed almost as soon as they did.

The missionaries love Brother Floyd and they love to serve, so they cheerfully agreed to help his friend move. They put on their work clothes and headed right over. They liked Tom immediately; he was a kind and generous guy with a fun sense of humor. As they finished helping him move in and were about to leave, Elder Webster discreetly (or perhaps non-discreetly) placed a copy of The Book of Mormon on his dining room table.

And that was that.

For awhile.

At some point, Tom agreed to take the missionary discussions, and Elders Webster and Hadlock were excited to teach him. As they studied together, their friendship with Tom grew although he did not choose to be baptized at that time. In March of 2014, when Eli finished his two years and was headed home, Tom posted a message on my Facebook page, "Eli's comin', hide your heart, girl." Eli was way too young to have even heard of Three Dog Night, let alone this song, but I was well familiar with both, and this message made me so happy!

And that was that.

For awhile.

For eight years, actually.

Then just over a week ago, Elder Hadlock called Eli with the best news: Tom was getting baptized! He and his wife had left Memphis and relocated to Kentucky, and thanks to modern technology, both these former missionary companions, the ones who helped Tom move into his house in Memphis eight years ago, were able to zoom into the baptism. 

The seeds we plant.

All three of my missionary sons had challenging times on their missions, times when they felt like they weren't making a difference, like they weren't accomplishing anything. But that was never the case. They may never fully know the fruits of their labor, but the seeds they planted were good seeds, and the Savior will handle the rest.

Congrats, Tom.