Okay, there's only a few days left until the BIG DAY, and I am in no way ready! I have the presents bought, and they are well on their way to being wrapped, but the house is a mess, and so is the vehicle we are taking to visit Grandma in a couple of days. Help! Cheer me up with your favorite stories of how things work out in the end!

Let's run down the schedule for the next few days, and maybe after Christmas we can all compare notes and see how all the running around went!

Friday: Birthday party for my youngest, who will actually turn 3 on Saturday.

Saturday: Clean house from the party and in preparation for my family being here on Tuesday for the day (Lance has to work, so he is a little pouty because he might miss something)

Sunday: Go to husband's Grandma's and stay until Monday evening. See how long we can tease Grandma until she shrieks "Let's open presents NOW!" (she can't stand not knowing what's in them!)

Tuesday: Get ready, here they come! This will be my first Christmas- hosting, as we usually do this at my parent's, but we lost daddy this spring suddenly, and my mother is up close to me and my sister now in a retirement-type apartment complex which is way too small for all of us to fit into.

Wish me luck, pray for me and cheer me up with encouraging stories!

-- Christine in OK (cljford@aol.com), December 20, 2001

Answers

Hi Christine! I don't have any specific stories, but it will work out and even if it doesn't you will have a nice time with your family anyways!!! I was talking with a friend a few days ago, her best friend had died of cancer, she has four kids, and she didn't have hardly anything ready for Christmas. I told her the same thing, it will come whether you are ready or not!!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), December 21, 2001.

Christine...... Think back over Christmas past. What we remember are the good time, and IF we remember the "bad" times, it's with a smile. :-) Ask for assistance from everybody, laugh, play holiday music, hug everybody often, drink eggnog, don't sweat the small stuff.

Huggs

-- Rose (open_rose@hotmail.com), December 21, 2001.

Are yo sure you want to do all this?

-- Cindy (SE. IN) (atilrthehony@hotmail.com), December 21, 2001.

This is my Mom's story. For years after she and my Dad were married, they still spent Christmas at thier Parent's houses, even if it meant driving halfway across the country with small kids. Because they allways went away, they never bought a tree or ornaments or decorations or anything. (Money was proabably pretty tight too. So one year, they got ready to go and for some reason, they had sent all the presents ahead. Mom hadn't shopped for any food, because they were going away. So the morning they get ready to go, I came down with a severe ear infection, high fever, the whole works- I was three and my sister was just an infant. So there they were, in a town with no family, no decorations, no holiday food, no presents. My dad stopped at a Woolworths and bought a couple of toys for me, a Whitman Sampler for my mom and a Cheap white ceramic Nativity Set. He picked up a canned ham and some other stuff, getting to the grocery just before it closed, and a Druggist actually opened his store for a few minents so he could fill a prescripton of antibiotic for me. (Can you imagine one of these Chain Drugstores doing that?) Mom said that it was the worst christmas that they ever had, but she was very thankful when I began to feel better and she relised that that was the important thing, not all the stuff around her. She also realized how much she still depended on her parents to do things for her-not just Christmas but other things as well. My mom still has that Nativity set.

-- Kelly (Ksaderholm@yahoo.com), December 21, 2001.

After I posted my Moms story, I thought, "Geez, that wasn't very cheery-it sounded pretty moralistic and preachy so how about this story:

My Mother in Law LOVES big family Christmases. A few years ago, all her (adult) kids were busy with young kids and work and all, and she herself was working pretty hard as a hospice nurse, and she didn't do all the Christmas stuff she normally did. We (husband and I) didn't plan to visit, because our kids were small and we had traveled the year before. Two days before Christmas my husband called and she sounded very sad, not one family member planned to be there. She said, (in a very quiet, subdued voice) "I knew this day would come when every one would want to spend thier Christams with thier own family and that's how it should be, so your Father and I will just have a quiet little Christmas by ourselves." Well!

Dh and I talked it over and said ok, its only two hours away, it would make them very happy, the kids love to go, let's throw every thing in the car and go, so we did. This was evening so we got there pretty late. Christmas Eve morning, the grocery was still open, so I went in a got stuff for a Christmas dinner for 6 and stuff to fill out the Christmas Eve Smorgasbord a little more. When I got back about noon, my husbands brother and family were there! Later that Evening, his sister and family showed up. Very, Very late that night, the youngest brother and wife show up, having driven six hours in a snowstorm. No-one knew the others were coming, all came at the last minent because they knew how much it meant to have a family Christmas.

The house was a mess! there were kids and dogs everywhere, people slept in sleeping bags on the floor, the dinner was strange becouse we planned for 6 and ended up with 15 but we had a blast, we had a great time, it was a truly joyful occasion.

-- Kelly (Ksaderholm@yahoo.com), December 21, 2001.

Kelly, while your mom's story is based on sad circumstances, it still still shows that at the root of things Christmas is a time of simple joys, inspired by our Celebrating the birth of our Innocent Saviour, who was sacrificed by our God, to pay for our sins.

-- Rick (Rick_122@hotmail.com), December 21, 2001.

Cindy, I really do want to do this, it just seems insurmountable sometimes, and the thought of Christmas without my Dad just leaves me speechless and feeling like I've just had the wind knocked out of me. I guess that's what's really bothering me. The other thing is that last year was the first year we weren't all together for Christmas because of an ice storm, so we missed Daddy's last Christmas. Sometimes we need a crystal ball, huh? But I don't think I would really want to know what's coming. Like the song says, "I could have missed the pain, but I would have had to miss the dance"

Keep the stories coming, though, because they are wonderful.

-- Christine in OK (cljford@aol.com), December 21, 2001.

God Bless, I'll pray for you and enjoy and make sure above all else to take time for yourself, even if it's just 5 mnutes.

-- Cindy (SE. IN) (atilrthehony@hotmail.com), December 21, 2001.