"a (Christmas) day in the life"

as far as this blog goes, i still have no idea how to add friends or really do anything but post pictures and words...so this is going out to you 5 or so random people who stop by to check in on me from time to time. it is an exciting look at Christmas Days in The Life of Shaina!

I haven't really been super into Christmas this time around, I guess I've been pretty tired and felt like it's come and gone a zillion times over with the amount of "Christmas" junk all over the place...I went to The Nativity Story the other week, but it didn't really spark any inspiration in me...I was kind of sad coming up on Christmas, because I usually really connect with the Christmas story spiritually and hold it dear..and I found myself not really even wanting to read it by myself because it gets quoted left and right and we always read it as a family on Christmas Eve anyways, and also because sometimes I dread that after so many years of Bible college and of reading the Scriptures and studying the passages, that they will become too familiar and I am horrible with the familiar...I always want something new and unknown, I am absolutely unfaithful to the used-to (or maybe I just fear that I am or will be)...but I knew, the night before Christmas Eve, that there's always something hiding there in that Book, and I was going to find it. (So strange how with changed perspective something old can unfailingly offer something new.) I think whenever I read that Story, I try to think of who I most wish I could be in it. This time I wanted to be the shepherds. Can you even imagine how magical and holy and overwhelming it would be to be nobody special out doing the same old thing, and to encounter angels in the quiet, dark night, and to hear their praises to God?! And then to be told to go and see God himself, just you, nobody, out in the dark night? To be among the first few people to ever be in the presence of Jesus? Oh if I dread anything worse than myself and what might be about me, it is that I've forgotten the feeling of the magical, holy, overwhelming presence of the Lord! Ah, how many words have fallen off mossy lips as shabby substitutes for gold, frankincense and myrrh...for wonder and awe and love...what's become of worship?

Yesterday morning, my pastor continued a December series he's been doing on Christmas songs. Oh Holy Night was the song, and it was lovely because there's a sweet old man with a beautiful voice at my church who performs that song every year and it's a huge tradition for Gerald to sing it, and it makes me want to cry every time. And then Jay did this sermon where he told us a really funny and action-packed story of his Holy Night: the night his first child was born. It was a really great and engaging sermon and we were all just riveted, but there was this one sentence that just happened in the midst of all the rest of them that I don't even think he had planned for or knew he was saying. He was telling us how he got to carry his daughter from the operating room to the little room with the baby beds, and how he made that the longest walk of his life because "I had this sense, that she had just come from God's presence...and I wanted to soak as much of that up as I could, before she grew up and forgot."

mmmhmm...


Last night was the Christmas Eve service at my church, which was wonderful because everyone was home and I got to see all my old friends and visit a lil' bit with some of them, and it just felt very homey and warm and special. Plus, there's some sort of thing at my church where pretty much everyone who's grown up there is amazingly ridiculously musically talented, so it was a treat to get to hear a lot of them perform beautiful songs and worship together! Plus this little teensy adorable girl with black pigtails and light-up sole knee-high boots did a wicked boogie and almost dove into the advent candles when her family was performing. (There always has to be something funny). Then they surprised me and gave me a gift, and the bag was as big as me, so I looked pretty stupid lugging it back to my seat in front of everyone! But there was a ludicrously amazingly lovely cozy plush blanket (that reallllllly soft stuff) in it, so it was worth the scene!)

Then the whole fam went over to Grandma Stella's house (she has a really pretty name, doesn't she?)...we have done that since before I was born on Christmas Eve...and it was just the most fun and special time! I just wish I could invite everyone to some sort of get-together with my family--they are the funniest people in the world. Basically what we do is laugh and eat and sleep. And laugh. Sooo much laughing! It's like not just one funny thing happens/gets said...something happens or gets said, and then it gets exaggerated, and built upon, and branches out to become even more hilarious, and sometimes even reaches outta-control status, where there is an epidemic of wheezing and near-vomitting. But anyways, my little cousin Robert was like the presents patrol, asking every 3 seconds if we could open presents yet. So my aunt and cousin Jess and I dragged out the pre-present portion of the evening really long with ridiculous Christmas trivia and stories, plus a premiere family viewing of "Big Mama" -- a home video Kalen and I made when we were like 9 & 11 with our now-20-year-old cousin Matt that involved him dressing up like a blonde dress-wearing, purse-toting villain and Kalen smoking pot (fake of course) and getting shot and kicked a lot. Ah we were imaginitive kids...

This morning Kalen put a ban on me coming out and joining the family until he had wrapped my gift. This was a gift in itself, because it left him no time at all to spend coating the gift in some form of tape that has to be removed painstakingly. The thrill of this blessing soon subsided however, when I discovered a hideously disturbing object in my stocking...SILLY PUTTY! I can't even begin to tell you the story behind that. It's truly awful. My mom got just the reaction she was fishing for when I took one look at it, shrieked in horror, and dropped it on the floor. sicksicksick...I don't even want to talk about it anymore. While I was pulling myself together, Kalen was unwrapping his gift from me. Immediately upon realizing what it was, he started laughing and demanded that I open his gift to me that instant. He couldn't even wait, and blurted out that he got me the exact same thing! We completely neutralized each other. It was very strange and very funny! My parents once again failed to sever me from "Santadom" and gave me a little plethora of cute presents instead of just one boring grown-up gift. I think it's 'cause they paid for Kalen's flight out to see Krissy and they probably felt guilty and like they should give me more junk. Pfff haha. Which, hey, y'know, isn't all bad...it's kind of nice to be at this stage of life and still be getting we-got-your-younger-brother-things-so-we-wanted-to-get-you-things-too gifts. Not getting married and growing up too fast has really paid off! jooooking..but they gave me a digital camera! Which is really sweet of them because they always try to think of things I need for "my career" and school and whatnot that I probably can't afford to buy for myself. But which also means that now I am going to have to set aside and devote an entire day to technology I think...because that ipod from last Christmas is still definitely in its box...I honestly appreciate and can use all the technological things they have given me over these past few years...I just...gahahaha....I'm ridiculous! But actually, I think I'm set now...stereo...normal camera...video camera...laptop...ipod...digital camera...and I already have a dvd/vhs player and a tv...I think I'm technologically-established enough to go ahead and get married and watch those boring grown-up/couples gifts start rollin' in! Pffff hahah. My parents definitely received a turkey deep-frier from my dad's older brother. What the heck! hahaha...Oh Christmas. I don't think I like gifts half as much as I like the stories behind them...and the thing I'm sure I'll remember past any of that, is just us sitting around in all our sweet sweatpants in the cozy basement, the smell of coffee, half watching A Christmas Story and laughing our heads off, Dad chiding Mom for "breaking the pact" and giving him gifts (after years of him sneakily doing the exact same to her and hiding diamonds in tupperware sets and the like), and that effing Silly Putty and the joy it brings everyone to taunt me during this particular season.

I'm pretty sure the rest of the day consisted of a lot of turkey and saskatoon pie with the saskatoons scraped out of it, countless hours of "Mall Madness" (an electronic board game that encourages poor financial management and excessive shopping) played with an 11 and 14 year old who just got cell phones and mock-designer purses from Santa (I know! RIGHT up my alley!) and then several hours of semi-consciousness featuring Indiana Jones special features and my dad snoring. And my grandma keeps telling me that I remind her of her mom, which I'm not sure if she's just kind of getting old and crazy a little or if I really am like this lady I never met. Her name was Lena and she was from Norway. I bet she was interesting. Wish I could've known her! In any case, I guess I look like her when she was young and I make lefse just the same as she used to, which Grandma hasn't done/seen done in decades. So now I feel extra-connected to my family. I always thought it would be fun to be a vivid continuation of an ancestor's existence!

Well, it's after midnight now, so Christmas is officially over...until Kim and I go to Regina for the Patented Ultra-Deluxe Shaina Strategy of Christmas Shopping: treasure hunt, buy everyone's personalized gifts for real cheap on Boxing Day, stow it all away for a year, and say "Oh! Hey! I'm already done my Christmas shopping!" when everyone else starts saying "Crap! I have to do my Christmas shopping!" and then just spend time hanging out with Grandma and helping her with her baking and watching movies with Kim and Amie. Hey now! Christmas is pretty swell.

Hope yours was delightful as well!

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