A Child Just Like Me

I remember once many, many years ago going to see my mom thinking I would get a little sympathy from her for the fits Princess was giving me.  After all, she’d raised a daughter too.

Over a pot of coffee, I detailed the latest stunts Princess had pulled.  Like when she pulled all the pictures out of the sleeves in the photo album and left them scattered all over the floor.  Or when she got into my make-up case and had Avon’s Classic Ruby long-lasting lipstick from her chin to her nostrils and almost ear-to-ear.  And then there was the time she thought that if one squirt of bubble bath was fun, two squirts would be better and came out of the tub looking like a fermented Pillsbury Doughboy.  I didn’t touch on all the temper displays I’d seen over the preceding few days; Princess’s reputation for being opinionated was the stuff of legend.

When the pot of coffee was gone, and I’d run out of tales about Princess, I asked Mom why she hadn’t said anything and was just smiling.  She winked at me as she collected the coffee cups and said, “Because I had a daughter like that too.”

She then proceeded to recount how I had embarrassed her to death at church by pulling off her hat on a Sunday when she was having a bad hair day.  Or the time we were visiting relatives and I noticed something sticking out of her pants leg.  When I pulled on it, it turned out to be a knee-high nylon that had stuck there from the last wearing.  I was the kid she couldn’t turn her back on or I’d be into something I shouldn’t have been.  I was the kid who pushed every limit to the breaking point.  I probably was the only kid in the history of the free world who didn’t get grounded until after she was 18 years old.  Really, looking back, it’s amazing she kept me around at all.  And I’m sure the only reason she did was so I could have children of my own and find out what poetic justice was all about.

It seems to be every grandparent’s dream to have their grandchildren (who are perfect, by the way) put the middle generation through the same kind of anguish created for the grandparents by that same middle generation.

This is why parents keep those blackmail-type photos around…so when their child starts dating, the pictures can be paraded out to their child’s embarrassment, thereby balancing the score somewhat.  And this is also why grandparents love to have their grandchildren for short periods of time; just long enough to spoil them rotten and get them all wound up, just to drop them back in their parents’ laps to contend with.  And yes, someday Princess will have a daughter, and when I listen to her tales of woe, I will say nothing except “I had a daughter like that too.”

While every child and parent and family is different, the life stages and phases remain mostly universal.  All children go through a biting stage, a lying stage, a hormonal stage, a rebellious stage, and a maturation stage.  And all parents go through the anguish and turmoil created by those stages, learning a few things and forgetting none.  This is so when their grown child comes home looking for sympathy for his own offspring-related misery, they can smile, wink, and say, “I had a child like that, too.”  

A Day with Our Kids

We just had the most freaking awesome day ever with our kids.  

Today was our Christmas celebration with them.  They came for dinner with us, and we had good conversations--several at one time, sometimes.  

Then it was on to the presents.  There have been some years in our family when Christmas has been rather lean.  Not so this year.  Not only were we able to spend some extra money on the big kids and Cubby, we were able to spend a little extra on each other.  This was not a “socks and underwear” kind of Christmas!

Although, I did actually give Captain a new, higher quality union suit than what he normally wears, and it is blue instead of red this time.  

Captain is famous for being frugal.  Part of that is just his nature, part of it is what he was used to, and part of it--now, I think--is a point of pride for him.  And I get it.  You can’t go around spending money willy-nilly or you’ll get in trouble.  But sometimes, it pays to spend some extra pennies for a higher quality product.  Like a union suit, since he wears them every day in the winter.  

As you know, Captain spent several days this fall wiring our garage.  I must say having lights out there has been a real plus for me so I’m not driving into a dark building after bowling.  We know how well I like the dark!

Because there is electricity, one of the gifts I got--which I asked for--was a garage door opener.  Can’t WAIT for that to get installed!  Asking for an expensive, yet practical, item is not outside my wheelhouse.  I’ve been known to do that in the past.  One year for my birthday, I asked for and received fog lights for my truck.  I was thrilled then just as I am now with the garage door opener.  

And my kids--bless their little pea-picking hearts (that’s Tennessee Ernie Ford for all you young whipper snappers out there)--went together and bought me a Kitchen Aid stand mixer.  I’ve never been able to justify the cost to myself even though I’ve had mixer envy after my good friend got one a few months ago.  

Making cookies with my old knock-off brand hand mixer was never pleasant, so I didn’t do it.  I am hoping...no, I promise...now that I have the stand mixer, I will be better at making cookies like any self-respecting Gramma should.  

But as good as all those “things” were, the best part was yet to come.  Captain had won a gift card to Scheel’s at a farm meeting he attended a week or so ago, so after a short, minor debate, we packed everybody up and headed to Rochester.  Mama Bear had never been to Scheel’s, so it was fun to see her take in the overwhelming amount of stuff in the store.  There was a motorized scooter for Young Man to use so he wasn’t hopping around on his crutches.  The men headed off to the second floor where Captain could check out the ice fishing gear as he had decided to use his gift card for a new thingiemadoo for his ice auger.  The estrogen contingent headed for the clothing section; specifically, swim suits.  

My family will be gathering at the Water Park of America this coming weekend for our Christmas celebration, and everyone but Princess needed new swim wear.  We perused the toddler selection for swim wear and had to use one of Young Man’s crutches (which were in the cart while he zipped around in his cart) to get one suit down from the top rack.  

Mama Bear found a suit for Cubby and on sale!  It doesn’t get better.  Then we cruised over to the women’s swimsuit section.  I probably could have gotten by without getting a new suit, but the current suit I have is a halter/shorts combination, and I was getting bad mental images of me coming down a water slide at however many miles-per-hour and have the top go off over my head.  No one wants to see that!

Mama Bear and I both found new suits--YAY--and we headed off to find the guys.  They were just coming back from the second floor, but we headed back up there since Mama Bear hadn’t seen that area yet.  

That’s when it got fun!

We stopped and did the duck shoot game, we checked out the ice shacks, and the kids played some buck/deer hunting game.  We looked at little teeney tiny softball gloves for Cubby but decided it was a year too soon for that.  We looped around through the treadmill section, back past the snowshoes and outerwear, and then over to the bowling lanes.  

Princess discovered that her cousin and aunt were also at the mall, so she texted them to meet us at Scheel’s.  They found us as we were perusing the compound bows and we spent a half hour or so catching up with them.  

By the time we left the store, it was full dark and we had spent nearly or over two hours there!  Cubby was a trooper and even though she was wiped out and hungry, so wasn’t fussy.

Back at home it was leftovers from dinner, clean up the kitchen, and everyone headed home.  

I can’t tell you how blessed we felt that our grown children were willing and happy to spend the whole, entire day with us.  There is nothing that makes a parent happier than that.

Christmas Birds

Sometimes in this life, we have to admit that other people do things better than we do.  Not all things; but some things.

There is no one on this planet who compares with Paul Harvey for delivering an impactful, meaningful message and often when we most need it.  

By now, I’m sure we have all heard--thanks to the Superbowl ads--Harvey’s speech on God Made A Farmer.  Hits you where it hurts, doesn’t it?

I guarantee that this message, aired every year at noon on Christmas Day on any radio station that carries Paul Harvey, will hit you not where it hurts, but where you live.

In your heart.  

Don’t just listen to this.  HEAR this.  KNOW this.  BELIEVE this.  

From everyone in Brogan World to everyone in your world, may God bless you today and every day.  Merry Christmas!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddai8rkXWRs

Out of the Ashes

Friday, December 20, 2002, dawned bright, clear, and cold.  There wasn’t much snow for being right before Christmas...sort of like this year.  In fact, we had just put up our Christmas tree two nights before...during a thunderstorm.

Captain got up at 5 a.m. like every other morning.  He started the coffee and stoked the big old Blaze King wood stove in the living room like every other morning.  He went off to milk like every other morning.

I got up an hour later to a warm house, had a cup of coffee, and got ready for work like every other morning.  I got the kids up and fed them breakfast like every other morning, and got them off to their last half-day before Christmas break.  I finished getting ready and headed to work like every other morning.

Little did any of us know this morning wasn’t like any other morning in our lives.  

Being the Friday before Christmas, our office was having a little holiday gathering in the break room which just happened to be ten steps down from my desk so I was back and forth all morning from work to food and back again.

Mid morning, I had to run from the little party to answer my phone.  It was Captain.

Have you ever gotten a phone call and the person on the other end says your name?  Just your name, but in such a tone that you know whatever comes after it is going to be a life-changer?  Yeah, that’s how Captain sounded that day.

“Jude, you have to come home.  The house is on fire.”

From that moment until much later in the day, I’m sort of fuzzy on details because I went on auto pilot.  I went to find my supervisor and tell her I was leaving.  She was away from her desk so I told...someone else.  I don’t even remember who.  I remember breaking down in sobs before I could even put my coat on and grab my purse.  

I was parked about three blocks away, and by the time I got to my van I had convinced myself it wasn’t as serious as Captain made it out to be.  It was just a chimney fire and we were going to have to replace some shingles...that was all.  

Our house sits up on a hill and when I came around the last curve in the valley before heading up the hill, I saw a thick blanket of smoke laying over the entire valley.

And I knew it absolutely was as bad as Captain made it out to be.  

The Pine Island Fire Department was already on scene.  They were actually here when Captain came home from chores at the main farm near Mantorville.  When I drove up to the house, I couldn’t find Captain at first.  I did find our neighbor, Lori Weis, who had come to see what she could do to help.  She pointed out Captain to me, and then she told me she was going to call the school and have them pull our kids off the bus so they didn’t drive home to complete and utter chaos.  Our kids have said every year on this date…”Thank God for Lori Weis.”  I’ll second that.  

After a thorough investigation by the fire marshal, it was determined that the pipe that went from the stove, through the wall, and into the chimney had sprung a hole and an ember stirred up when Captain stoked the stove ended up in the studs between the interior and exterior walls to smolder in the insulation.  Because our house wasn’t a full two stories, but 1-½ stories, the full length of each side of the “upstairs” was crawl space...nothing but air...and when the flames got to that level and caught that air, the fire shot across the house and consumed everything in its path.

Except the flag that waves just mere inches from the flames.  We still have that flag, folded and displayed in a case made by my cousin, Wes.  There is also a scorched dinner plate from the old house, a broken coffee cup, and three $1 bills that were given to us by some elderly neighbors who could scare afford to do so.  

I don’t share this to create sympathy or make anyone feel sorry for us.  In fact, the complete opposite.  I share this story so that I can let you know that people are inherently good and kind and helpful, and how thankful we are to live in rural America, in a small community, because within an hour or just a little more from the fire, we had family, friends, and neighbors offering anything and everything that we might need.

From Lori Weis thinking of our kids to Matt Kennedy stopping by with a pair of boots for Captain (which he still wears to this day, 13 years later, I might add), to the local restaurant offering to be a drop off center for donations.

That kind of selfless giving, that “love thy neighbor” attitude, that absolute and sincere caring is what small town life is all about.  They care.  

We don’t know everybody who did what they could to ease our lives in those days and weeks following the fire.  But we thank God for each and every one of them every year on this day.

When we lie down at night on this day each year, we say a special prayer for firefighters everywhere to be safe on their jobs.  We say a prayer of thanks that we live in a place where neighbors helping neighbors isn’t a phenomenon...it’s the norm.  And we say a prayer that we will always find a way to help others in need as we can.

The message below was from us to our community after the fire.  We meant it then, we mean it now, and we will mean it every day forever.

Changing doesn't mean forgetting

Change is inevitable.  I think someone famous said that but I don’t know who.

Sometimes change is super easy.  Like changing my hair color.  After being dark blonde most of my life, I went to an auburn awhile ago.  I have gotten more nice comments on this one little change and it gives me a whole new boost to my confidence.  The fact that my brother-in-law noticed AND commented cemented my decision.

Sometimes change is good thing.  Like changing my job.  I did transcription for 18 years, and I was damn good at it if I do say so myself.  In the last few months, though, I was getting...bored isn’t the right word because there was something new every day.  Jaded isn’t really the right word either.  Yeesh, you’d think a communications major could come up with the right word.

Whatever the word, I just wasn’t feeling it any more.  I realized that was bad for me and bad for Mayo.  So I made the decision to make a change and lucked into a job that I think will suit both me and Mayo much better.  

Good change can still be scary, though.  When I got the call offering me my new position, I was holding the phone and doing a happy dance around my office.  Ask Captain, he saw it.  After I hung up the phone and pulled Captain into the happy dance for a few seconds, it hit me like a ton of brick:  oh crap, what did I just do?

Anyone who has taken a new position has those thoughts of What if I can’t do this job?  What if I don’t like it?  What if I fail?    Or maybe that’s just me.  It’s hard to leave the familiar even when the familiar isn’t the right thing anymore, but somehow each person knows when it is time to make that change.  It is usually only after making a change that I realize HOW right it was.  

I can say with complete confidence that I am going to love my new job.  It’s so vastly different from what I’ve done, so that’s a challenge.  However, I am doing it within the familiarity of the department I have been in for years so that’s a comfort.  

Sometimes change is...well, it’s just a crap load of suckage.  That kind of change is usually the thing that we have absolutely no control over.  It’s when life throws you for a loop when you were least expecting it.

Like a funeral for a beloved family member.  

We are going to bury my uncle Roger today, changing the lives of the wife, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren he leaves behind because a familiar piece of their family will be missing.  And yet, he will live on in those very people left behind, and I know that they will always honor and respect the man he was, the life he lived, and the changes that made their family what it is.  

My cousin, Dean, gave a very eloquent eulogy that pegged Roger to a tee.  There was some humor, there were some tears, and above all there was a deep and abiding love.  Once I get a copy of it, I will append it to this post and repost it because it is worth sharing.

To do my part in honoring Roger's memory, I will spend some time this weekend going through photos from our wedding day from the ceremony, reception, happy hour, and dance.  Photos that were part of our wedding gift from Roger--a semi-pro photographer--and his wife.  I’m talking hundreds of photos, taken at a time when you had to pay to have prints processed.  It was an amazing gift that I will cherish now more than ever.

The serenity prayer was deeply meaningful to Roger, and it is all about change and how to deal with it.  It’s always been a favorite of mine as well, and now I will always think of him when I see it or say it.  

Change is inevitable.  It’s how we handle the change that determines if it was a good thing or a bad thing.  

Forgetfulness...it isn't just for the elderly anymore

Alzheimer’s runs strong in my mom’s family.  I have always been a little snide about thinking that I was spared that trait, not having that gene pool.  

Now...I’m not so sure.  

Pretty sure that sometimes my brain just whirls in neutral and doesn’t work.  

Take last night for example.  I went shopping for some new work clothes, seeing as how my new position is going to require weekly on-site attendance and the yoga pants and sweatshirt mode I have been in for five years just won’t cut it.

First stop was CJ Banks at Apache Mall.  To yank my chain, Princess calls this (if you shop there, please don’t be offended) the “fat old lady” store.  I don’t care what Princess calls it, I really like their stuff.  As usual, I found what I needed (pants and three layering shirts that were buy two, get one free).  SCORE!

Then it was on to Penney’s because you just never know what they might have.  I found a cardigan-type sweater without buttons on sale for $10.  Went in the dressing room to try it on, found out it fit, did a little happy dance and went and paid for it.  I had a couple of more stops along my way home at Target and Hy-Vee, so it was late when I finally hauled my load into the house.  I dumped all the bags in the middle of the kitchen floor and went to bed.  I was going through them this morning showing Captain what all I got...no CJ Banks bag.  

Hunh...must have left it in the truck.

Nope.

No CJ Banks bag to be found.  

Why, you might ask?  Because I left the stupid bag in the stupid dressing room at stupid Penney’s!  

You might think this is an overreaction on my part to a small problem.  I would beg to differ with you.

If this was the first time I had done this, or even the second time, I might agree with you. However, this is a consistent enough pattern on my part that it has become a family joke.  

I have left groceries at Hy-Vee.  I left two 50-pound bags of mulch on the bottom shelf of the cart at Menards.  I have left things at Target, Wal-mart, and Home Depot.  My children are lucky I didn’t leave them at the hospital after they were born!!

What the heck??  

I have two college degrees, I hold down a full-time job, and I raised two children.  Why can’t I remember to take all of my purchases home with me?  Geezaloo.

I do remember the important stuff, though, like birthdays and anniversaries so that’s a point in my favor, yes?  I (mostly) remember to pay my bills on time.  I can do all activities of daily living like bathe/feed/clothe myself.  

I don’t know why this one thing is such a problem for me.  I could try and blame it on holiday stress, but someone would call me out on that because it can happen--and has happened--at any time of year.  

So, in the future, if you happen to run into me shopping somewhere, please remember to ask me if I have everything that I bought with me when I leave!

Choose Happiness

I don’t like being a Debbie Downer for very long.  It just takes to much stinking energy to be miserable.  Who has time for that?  Besides that, I don’t care if they do say misery loves company, nobody likes being around a negative person for very long.

My mom counseled me many years ago on dealing with setbacks/challenges/obstacles.  She said, “You can let it make you bitter, or you can let it make you better.”  Wise woman, my mom.  

So I am taking me and my recent pity party to town tonight and hitting the greeting card section at Target.  This has been a tried-and-true method of mood-picker-upper for me for years.  I don’t even need any cards...I just want to go laugh for awhile.

I have a good friend who joins me in the adventure on occasion, and we have driven people out of the card aisle with our antics over humorous cards.  When Captain’s mom, Princess, and I hit the greeting card aisle...someone is going to pee their pants laughing.  

Reader’s Digest has had it right for decades.  Laughter really is an amazing medicine.  There are all kinds of scientific studies and data that support that.  All I know is that after I have laughed my butt off at a dozen or more cards, I leave the greeting card section in a lighter mood and better able to get a grip on whatever was bugging me to start with.  

There are a couple other no-fail things that always, always, always lighten my mood.  One is a video that Mama Bear posted on her Facebook timeline of Cubby doing belly laughs.  I ask you, friends, who can be in a bad mood watching a baby belly laugh?  It’s impossible!

The other online therapy I have is a You Tube video Captain ran across some years ago.  If you Google Search “Most Contagious Laugh” it is the first choice that pops up.  It’s kind of a Hee-Haw looking stage.  For you youngsters who don’t know about Hee Haw, that would be a red barn prop and a guy in bib overalls.  He calls three audience members up on stage to play a game, and the one guy in the middle in the yellow sweater gets to laughing, and he sends the host into fits of uncontrollable laughter to the point he has to leave the stage momentarily.  Watch it and you let me know if you don’t laugh until you cry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIfhOF-w1XI

Captain is a big talk radio fan, and he listens to Garage Logic with Joe Soucheray on KROC in the afternoons.  They have a clip on their website about the greatest Christmas prank ever.  This guy totally messed with his neighbor’s head by screwing up his Christmas lights.  You have to listen to it; it’s another one that you can’t help but laugh at.  You have to be patient, though, because it’s a really long story.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSupBXmoTrc

I know that “down days” are simply a part of life, but when I have had enough of being in the dumps, I will do one or all of these things to lift my mood.  Here’s to only happiness and laughter in your days!!

And the iTune saga continues...

Holy headaches, batman, this laptop/iTunes situation gets worse by the minute!

I found, thanks to a good friend who works at Office Max, a charger that worked on my laptop.  So excited!  Had to let it charge for over three hours to have enough power to even start.  Fire it up, grab by iPod, all set to load a dozen CD’s worth of Christmas tunes.

Utter disappointment...somehow in the 364 days since I last accessed the laptop, it got password locked under Young Man’s name and no one can remember the password.  

So my holiday tunes are still inaccessible to me.  My Office Max contact will be bowling with us tonight, and I am hoping if I take the entire laptop and charger to give to her, she can fix it at work this week.  

I am THIS close to just going and buying a new laptop with a CD drive so I can just load all my music that way.  But the cheap part of my personality just can’t justify that expense right now.  

What a pickle!

I did download the I Heart Radio free app on my phone, so I can get some tunes, but they aren’t MY Christmas tunes.  It helps, but not completely.  

On a positive note, Captain and I did go buy our Christmas tree last night.  I have always campaigned for an artificial tree and have yet to win that argument.  However, we did find a very nice, full, short-needle tree at the Lion’s by North Walmart.  We’ll bring it in the house this morning to let it floof up and then put it up tomorrow night.  

In amongst all the Christmas preparations, we are in the middle of year-end financial stuff with tax prep, cash flows, balance sheets, etc.  Talk about a spirit drainer!  Captain had his annual appointment at FSA.  Only minutes into his meeting, I get a call from him that the loan officer was pretty miffed that I hadn’t sent a container of microwave caramels for him this year.  Guess I know what I’ll be doing this weekend!

Since I finally got paid, I could get all my Christmas shopping out of hock from my Amazon online cart.  I love Amazon because I can get anything I want from the comfort of my own home and not have to actually “shop.”  I hate shopping.  

Now I just have to wait for everything to be shipped and then I can wrap them, which is actually a job that brings me quite a bit of joy.  

I just need to remember, again and again, that the important part of Christmas is being an example of Christ for others.  I had that point driven home to me clearly yesterday when Amy was doing my hair color.  A young man came into the shop for an appointment with the other stylist.  He had longer hair than I did and said he wanted to “cut it all off.”  I thought that was pretty drastic, but since I’ve done the same thing myself a time or two, I wasn’t going to judge.

Turns out he was donating to Locks of Love...not just making a drastic personal choice.  I was humbled by this young man’s selflessness and realized that in the midst of great chaos in our world, there are still good people who put other’s needs in front of their own.  That’s an example of Christ that is almost too wonderful for words.  

The Gift of Giving

Today is a comp day for me at work because I worked the weekend.  I am happy and excited to say it is the last weekend I have to work because, after 18 years as a medical transcriptionist, on Monday, December 14, I will be transitioning to a new position in Documentation Services as an administrative assistant.  

This means that I will still be able to work from home four days a week but go onsite one day a week.  I think maybe it will be nice to have one day out and about with someone other than Captain.  Not that I don’t appreciate being at home with him, but different perspectives and viewpoints keep things interesting.  

It will also give me a reason to dress up and be a girl one day a week right down to hair spray and makeup instead of throwing on jeans/yoga pants and a sweatshirt every day and pulling my hair back in a clip.  Sometimes having to make the effort to get spiffy is a good thing!

I will not miss working weekends, but I will sort of miss having a comp day during the week.  My new job will be straight Monday to Friday 8 to 5, but I am consoling myself that that one day a week I go onsite can be my errand day, instead of having to make a special trip to town for errands.  It all works out.  

Last Thursday was also a comp day, and I spent that day putting up Christmas decorations and trying to find my Spirit.  I spent some time loading my iPod with Christmas tunes, only to find out that the bulk of my tunes are not on our desktop PC, they are on my really, really, really old laptop.  There’s a problem.

First I had to actually find the laptop and once I had, I discovered that the battery was dead and I could not find the charger for it anywhere.  Somehow in all my wisdom, I must have put it in the electronic waste pile last spring and hauled it to the dump.  Stupid - 1; Brogan - O.  

So I thought I’d just be cagey and borrow the charger for Princess’ laptop.  Nope, different size plug in thing.  Well, crap.  Now any Christmas Spirit I might have mustered up went right out the window in frustration.  

Lucky for me, according to the Walmart website, they sell replacement chargers for the laptop (actually and IBM Think Pad), so I’ll have to stop there in my travels today.  I NEED THOSE TUNES!!  

I was wracking my brain trying to remember why on earth I put them on the laptop instead of on the PC, and I remembered that our PC CD drive no longer opens, and that’s what is on my laptop...I burned a dozen Christmas music CDs onto the laptop.  

One of my favorite Christmas CDs is the most recent one by Trace Atkins.  It is amazing.  He does a rendition of The Little Drummer Boy and drops way down to his lowest bass tones...whew, gives me shivers!  He has a female Celtic group singing background vocals that are awesome, too.  

The other CD that is on that laptop that I have to have to get through Christmas is Trans Siberian Orchestra “The Lost Christmas Eve.”  

As you can see, this is a major crisis for me!!

Maybe it isn’t the music I need (although I really, really, really want it), maybe I need some retail therapy because isn’t Christmas about giving?  Don’t get me wrong--I like to get presents as much as the next person.  But I just love giving gifts.  We try very hard to avoid the gift card fall back and actually give a wrapped gift.  There is just something special about seeing someone rip into wrapping paper and finding something just for them inside.  

I am also behind this year on my Red Kettle contributions.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t pass a kettle without putting something in.  Sometimes it might just be a few pennies and sometimes it might be a $5 bill.  It just depends on what I have in my pocket at the time.  There’s that giving thing again.  

I haven’t even ordered my Christmas cards yet.  That’s for tomorrow.  I had the devil’s own time finding a picture with both Captain and me in it, because usually I am the one running the camera.  I finally found one from a camping expedition this summer.  It’s not spectacular, but it shows who we really are.  

Whatever your tricks are for getting the holiday spirit, I hope that the spirit of giving is part of that because it really is true...it is better to give than to receive.