Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 143

Random Thoughts on the Christmas Scene

My children are home, and I am in the throes of Christmas!

So I don’t have time to write a whole lot. So I thought I’d just share some personal news and some good stuff that may interest you.

First, yesterday was our anniversary. But Keith just got sicker and sicker. On Tuesday night I told him we really didn’t need to go out for dinner. We could just order really, really nice take out. (Because who wants to sit in a restaurant pretending to have fun when they’re sick?) He said absolutely not. But when I was talking to him on the phone yesterday during the day, he was remarkably easy to convince.

That was when I knew he was REALLY sick.

You know the “man-cold” idea, about how pathetic men get when they’re sick? Keith’s not like that. In our marriage it’s me who is pathetic. Keith just always says, “I’m fine,” no matter how he feels. I’ve stopped asking, “how are you feeling?” and I’ve started asking, “On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being your idea of fine and 10 being my idea of fine, how are you?” That works better!

My Man of Steel: Celebrating 25 Years Together

Today is my 25th anniversary.

It’s also my husband’s.

We celebrated back in October, but today’s the actual day.

Keith’s actually sick (but “I’m fine” is what he says if I ask him how he is, while he keeps hacking the whole time). He never admits to being sick. He reminded me that once, about ten years ago, I called another pediatrician in town and said, “you’re going to have to cover for my husband tonight because he’s not going near a patient when he’s this sick.” Keith said he was fine. He wasn’t!

So I don’t know if we’ll have any romantic dinner or anything tonight.

But over the years on this blog I’ve written a lot of posts reflecting on our marriage, a relationship for which I feel tremendously blessed. Throughout the day over on Facebook I’ll link to some of them.

For today, though, I thought I’d rerun this column that I wrote on the occasion of our eleventh anniversary. I still like it, and I know many of you are right around 11 years married, too. So I thought you may relate!

 

My Man of Steel
This Saturday I’m supposed to give my husband something made of steel.

We’re celebrating our eleventh anniversary, and for this blessed occasion whoever is in charge of anniversary gift etiquette obviously ran out of ideas. “Paper? Taken. A nice wooden chest? Taken. What about diamonds? Better save that as an incentive to stick around.” Growing increasingly desperate, she probably looked out the window, saw her husband’s ‘57 Chevy up on blocks, and yelled, “Steel!”, forever relegating us to eleventh anniversary hopelessness.

I figure I’m left with a new car (fat chance), the foundation for a new house, or power tools. But the only thing more ridiculous than me trying to choose a power tool would be my husband trying to use one. The one and only time he did any home improvements was his attempt, along with another doctor friend, to hang a pot rack. Instead of drilling into a stud, they drilled into my toilet drain, sending water—and I don’t know what else—into our kitchen.

Whatever I choose, though, it occurs to me that Ye Olde Marriage Etiquette Lady may have had a point.

Steel is an appropriate metaphor for marriage.

Steel holds houses together, keeps bridges from buckling, and forms the foundations of our cities. Steel doesn’t bend.

Over the years of our marriage we’ve had some tough times. Keith’s residency at the Hospital for Sick Children was horrendous. He always came home exhausted. Two babies demanded our attention, leaving us with no energy for anything else. In the middle of this, we had a beautiful baby boy, who lived only 29 days. Though I will treasure those precious four weeks forever, his death left a hole that can never be filled on this side of heaven.

When I walked down the aisle eleven years ago, I knew I loved Keith and that he loved me.

I figured that love would be enough for forever. I was wrong.

Love alone would not have seen us through these eleven years, through miscarriages and sleepless nights, through baby stresses and our son’s death. As much as I adore my husband, I don’t think it’s love that has made our marriage strong. Indeed, that idea—that love keeps us together—can actually harm a relationship.

If love is what keeps us together, then when we stop feeling all gushy towards each other we wonder if the relationship is viable. Commitment is just as important as love, and perhaps even more so. If you’re not truly committed to each other, you can’t really discuss problems. Whenever you do, the whole relationship may be at stake. But when you are committed to each other, you can hash something out until you get it right, because you know that person isn’t going anywhere.

During our first year of marriage, I was ready to kill my husband many times over, or at least cause him to wilt with that evil eye. He understood nothing about my feelings, while I, of course, understood everything about his. What allowed us to get through that time was not that we loved each other—there were times we both doubted it—but that we knew we were in this for the long haul. We had promised God, and we had promised each other, and we did not make those promises lightly. And if you’re in it for the long haul, then you may as well work it out, because the longer you wait, the more miserable you’re going to be.

In every relationship there are times when splitting up seems like the only option.

Certainly in cases of abuse or chronic infidelity this may indeed be the case. But overall, God promises that people will be happier if they choose to honour Him by staying and working it out. It occurs to me that this is the way steel is forged: through hard work. The sign of a strong marriage is not that storms don’t come; but that when they do, you decide to weather them together. And as you do so, that steel supporting you grows stronger.

My husband is the most romantic guy in the world. He’s easy to love. And as we’ve chosen to commit to each other, the steel holding up our house has grown stronger. My kids can tear all over it and it won’t collapse. They can jump and tug and pull, and we’ll stand firm. I cherish every day we have together, and I look forward to many more.

Together at the photo booth at our daughter’s wedding!


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Giving Priority to what Matters Most This Christmas Season

Do you feel sometimes like all you do is run around, putting out fires?

Hello everyone! This article was first posted four years ago, but I wanted to share it again with you today! Christmas is just around the corner and Katie, Becca and Connor are coming home for the holidays this week. I want to have lots of time to spend with them, so I’m going to be posting some of my favourite Christmas columns from the past this week so you’ll still get fresh content but I’ll have more time to spend with family. Enjoy! 

My favourite time of year is the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

Everything shuts down, and our family cocoons together. Before Christmas is a huge rush, but after Christmas we lounge around, sleep in, and, my absolute favourite—play board games together.

It’s become a family tradition. Every year sees a new game under the Christmas tree, and then that game gets played, along with an assortment of other ones, over the next week or so. Sometimes friends join us, and sometimes it’s just the four of us, but it’s always a ton of fun.

What I will never understand, though, is why we don’t continue that fun into the year.

We all love the games. We laugh, and create family memories, and make fun of certain family members who always get lucky—or never do. Yet once “real life” starts new, the games get stashed away into the cupboard, often to remain there for another year. Why?

About sixteen years ago I read a book that changed my life: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. One of the most important insights that he had was the idea of dividing everything we do into four categories, based on whether those things were important and urgent. So you could have urgent but not important (the phone’s ringing, and it’s a telemarketer), or you could have important but not urgent (spending time doing nothing with your teenage son). Then there are the “fires” in your life, those things that are both important and urgent, like dealing with a child’s suspension from school, or dealing with a spouse who just revealed they’re having an affair, or handling a family funeral.

Some fires can’t be avoided—the funeral, for instance—but others could likely have been prevented. And the way to prevent them is to spend more time doing things that are important but not urgent: those things that feed your soul and that feed your relationships. Read to your children. Start a hobby with your spouse. Talk to God. The more we centre ourselves, finding spiritual peace, and build into relationships, the fewer crises we will have in our lives.

But there’s a problem with these important but not urgent things, and it’s in the very definition of them: they aren’t urgent.

There isn’t anyone forcing you to do them. And it’s so easy for the urgent-but-not-important things, like checking your Facebook notifications, or replying to tweets, or checking your texts, to get in the way of the important things—the people standing right in front of us.

The key thread throughout Covey’s book, in all seven habits, is the idea of intentionality.

Nothing will get done just because we value it, or because we dream of it, or because we make Pinterest boards of it. It only gets done because we do it. After reading that book I did quit TV, but despite that as my teenagers have grown I’ve found it a challenge to prioritize those family times.

Why don’t we play family games during the year as much? Because nothing is forcing us to do it. And so when work and school schedules get busy, when friends want to talk on Facebook, when I have one more article to write, we tend to retreat to our own little worlds. And so often those, “I just need twenty minutes to finish this,” become two hours, and the night has evaporated.

That’s not who I want to be. I want to be the Sheila that lives from Christmas to New Year’s, hanging out in fuzzy pyjamas with cups of hot chocolate and board games on the table. This year, I hope, I will be intentional enough not to neglect the important in favour of the urgent.

Check out Steven Covey’s the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People!

What are some traditions or activities you want to continue past the Christmas season this year? Any practical ideas of how to implement them? Let me know in the comments and we can talk about it!

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Christmas Letter to an Adult Child

This is my 21st Christmas as a mom.

A lot of them blur together, but I remember the lead up and excitement for Christmas. Setting up the Christmas tree with the girls; planning what we’re going to buy for their cousins.

I remember all the Christmas traditions we had, like reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever out loud every year, or making new Christmas decorations. And, of course, all the excitement that the 25th will finally come!

But Christmas is different now. I’m not excited about December 25th as much as I am excited about December 21st. Now, the 21st happens to be my 25th anniversary, but that’s not why I’m excited (we’re celebrating in May with a trip, anyway). I’m excited because on the 21st, my girls and my son-in-law come home.

I know many of you are still in the wonderful chaos of Christmas with little kids, but I want to give you some “words of wisdom” from the other side of parenting. When the kids grow up, Christmas will still be about them. But not in the same way.

My Ministry Director’s name is Tammy. I used to call her my assistant, but she’s so much more than that. We were good friends before she started working for me (in fact, I used to volunteer for a church ministry that she was running, so she used to be my boss!). We travel together a lot on my speaking engagements.

And last night she posted this on Facebook, about her daughter who is now 23. (I know her daughter well, too!). I love this, and I think it originally came from the DJ Rick at Country 104.3 in Boise, Idaho (it’s been blowing up all over the internet, but I think that’s where it first was):

My daughter each year asks me the same question. After thinking about it, I have decided I’d give her my real answer:

What do I want for Christmas? I want you. I want you to keep coming around, I want you to bring your kids around (when you have them).

I want you to ask me questions, ask my advice, tell me your problems, ask for my opinion, ask for my help. I want you to come over and rant about your problems, rant about life, whatever. Tell me about your job, your worries, your significant others/spouses, your kids when you have them. I want you to continue sharing your life with me.

Come over and laugh with me, or laugh at me, I don’t care. Y’all laugh at me all the time and I secretly love it. Hearing you laugh is music to me.

I spent the better part of my life raising you the best way I knew how, and I’m not bragging, but I did a pretty darn good job.

Now, give me time to sit back and admire my work, I’m pretty proud of it. Raid my refrigerator, help yourself, I really don’t mind. In fact, I wouldn’t want it any other way. I want you to spend your money making a better life for you and your families when you have them because I have the things I need. I want to see you happy and healthy.

When you ask me what I want for Christmas, I say “nothing” because you’ve already been giving me my gift all year. I want you.

One day the kids won’t be as excited about presents. They may even sleep in on Christmas Day! They may arrive at your house with someone in tow that they want you to meet. They may arrive heartbroken, or exhausted, or stressed, and just need a place where they can crash and be a little kid again.

They’ll probably arrive broke.

They’ll probably arrive with personal issues they’re trying to work through, worries about the future, and things that a full stocking on Christmas morning can’t solve anymore.

But it will still be delightful.

One of the awesome pictures they took on the cruise this summer! We liked to ham it up a little.

We’ll get to have some fun together. We’ll play games together (I already bought a game that’s all wrapped up in our Christmas Eve bag that we get to open for some fun that night!). And we’ll stay up late, and sleep in late, and laugh and sip hot chocolate.

In fact, all of this makes Christmas even better than it was when they were little, because I appreciate everything now so much more.

My children are coming home. And that’s all I really want for Christmas.

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On Tragedy, Compassion, and What I Want to Be Remembered For

My grandfather lived to be 95 years old.

When he died, unlike most senior citizens, most of the people at his funeral were actually quite young. That’s because his neighbours all loved him. For decades he had been looking after their yards and fixing their roofs and taking care of pets when they went on vacation. He had been the neighbourhood watch when the kids walked home from school, and had been the first to know if someone was in the hospital.

When he grew too old to make himself dinner, the neighbours all took turns having him over for a meal.

He was a happy–albeit anxious–man whom people just fell in love with. He was kind, humble, and truly caring.

My grandfather, Frank, with my daughters Rebecca and Katie in 2001.

Yet his life was marked with tragedy. Each tragedy, though, always brought with it a corresponding blessing.

When he was just six years old, his mother Kate died of a brain aneurysm. His step-mother, however, was a wonderful woman whom he loved dearly.

When he was 12, a combination of scarlet fever and a near-drowning left him mostly deaf. That meant his education was limited, and he couldn’t go to war.

But at the age of 30, he got his first hearing aid. And promptly entered the dating scene, capturing my grandmother’s eye not too much later.

My grandfather Frank and my grandmother Lilian–just after they started dating.

My grandmother died of cancer after 25 years of marriage. My “Nana”, Frank’s next wife, was wonderful to me, and her death when I was 8 (after 17 years of marriage to my Poppa) was one of the biggest tragedies of my young life. His next wife, Dorothy, would be at his side at my wedding.

Three women, all different, whom he all loved dearly. And he outlived them all.

I knew all of that about my grandfather.

Yesterday, though, I was telling you about how I joined Ancestry.com to trace my family tree.

I shared about my grandmother’s side yesterday. I’d like to tell you today what I discovered about my grandfather Frank’s side–it’s a story both of loss and of great faith, and it’s humbled me.

Kate Byerley (Frank’s mother, my great-grandmother) was the oldest child of Clement and Sarah. As I waded through census records and birth and marriage records, a picture of their family emerged.

Sarah Byerley, around 1890
Clement Byerley, around 1890
Clement and Sarah had seven children: Kate, Margaret, Thomas, Ethel, Fabian, Carrie, and Dorothy. Thomas died early; Ethel died when she was a young teenager, leaving the family with four girls and one boy.

Now Clement came from quite a large and prosperous family of shipowners in Portsea Island, near Plymouth, in England. I found the wills of his father and grandfather and uncle, and when they passed away, Clement became a property owner and quite a wealthy coal merchant in his own right. Interestingly, though, someone else who is ALSO tracing the same tree on Ancestry.com, and who is descended from a different one of Clement’s daughters, provided some personal anecdotes about him I never knew.

She said that even though Clement owned quite a few businesses, his real passion was the church where he was deacon, and he spent far too much time trying to help the church, and not enough time on his businesses! So his father’s and grandfather’s business sense did not carry on to Clement. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that the family decided to move to Canada.

Fabian, the only surviving son, went first. I actually found the record of his ship crossing in 1906, at the age of 18, showing up in the port of Halifax (Ancestry.com has a ton of ship records, and I’ve found almost all my ancestors going back and forth. Keith even found one ancestor arriving from France in 1680!) . He moved to Winnipeg, and a year later, in 1907, most of the family followed–Clement and Sarah, along with three of their daughters (Kate, Carrie, and Dorothy).  The fourth, Margaret, stayed in England because she was already married.

Now, here’s where the sad part comes in.

Somewhere along the line, likely on the ship, the family caught tuberculosis.

Caroline dies first, in 1908. Six months later, Kate (my great-grandmother) marries Henry. Six months after that, Fabian passes away.

Here’s the family’s census record for 1911, that I found on Ancestry.com:

About a month after that census was taken, in the fall of 1911, Dorothy marries. Less than a month later, Sarah, her mother, dies.

That leaves Clement still alive, with two daughters, now married. Clement moves in with Kate and Henry and their baby boy, Frank (my grandfather). Dorothy and her husband move to Ontario, and later to Iowa.

In 1915, shortly after giving birth to a baby girl, Kate dies suddenly of an aneurysm. Clement signs the death certificate, likely because Henry was too upset to do so. He’s now a single dad with two young children. Clement stays living with them, though, even though he’s “only” an in-law.

Henry Wray with his children Frank and Elise, after his wife dies. Circa 1915

In 1920, Dorothy passes away in Iowa.

Margaret, who remained in England, passed away in 1934, at the age of only 52.

Clement would live for another ten years, surviving all of his children and his wife.

When he dies, my grandfather signs the death certificate.

Interestingly, it’s from Margaret’s granddaughter that I got so many of these pictures and so much information! She’s on Ancestry, too, and I found her (though she’s in Australia, I believe!). And she’s provided character stories of my great-great grandmother I never knew! So much fun. In writing the Byerley family story, though, she wrote that ALL of the relatives died upon moving to Canada. She didn’t know that some of us lived! So I was able to inform her that she does, in fact, have a Canadian branch of her family (and introduce her to my daughter Katie’s videos, too!).

My great-great-grandfather Clement loved God his whole life. He dedicated his life wholeheartedly towards serving God, even at great monetary expense. And yet God did not spare him from grief.

Yet my grandfather never talked of him as a particularly bitter man. He quite enjoyed him.

And I think, as I went further back with Ancestry, I figured out why.

As I said, I read many family wills, and one of the people who seemed most interesting was Clement’s aunt Caroline. She never had any children herself (she married a twice-widower when she was beyond child bearing age), but from everything I can see, the woman was a saint.

In the 1891 census, she was 70 years old, yet living with her were two great-neices and a great-nephew, just so that they could go to school.

Her will is filled with bequests to all sorts of family members just starting out, to give them a helping hand.

She was close to Clement, and mentioned him quite a bit in various documents.

But the happiest thing I found, in all of my research on genealogy, was her obituary from 1892.

Her death will be mourned by a large circle of immediate friends, and it is impossible to estimate how many poor in the surrounding neighbourhood will have cause to deplore the loss of one whose many years of generosity and benevolence was only known to themselves.

Isn’t that beautiful?

This woman was one of the wealthiest in the town. She had no children herself. And yet she went out of her way to be generous and to befriend those who needed her help.

My grandfather Frank’s sister also had no children.

Yet she lived a bitter life, and in the end, no one mourned her (she specifically asked her lawyer not to notify us of her death, and actually disposed of the family heirlooms I had given her after my grandfather passed away. She also disposed of all the family photographs, too). No one was there to bury her (though we would visit her every few months) because no one knew she had died.

Caroline sounds remarkably like my grandfather, who loved people and surrounded himself with community. His funeral was packed.

What I have concluded about my family heritage

As I’ve had this adventure with Ancestry.com over the last two months, I’ve made a few conclusions.

From my paternal grandmother’s side, I got the ability to speak in public, to tell jokes, to be humorous and capture the audience’s attention. My con man of a great-great grandfather used these skills for ill; I hope that I use them for good.

And from my paternal grandfather’s side I got a legacy of faith and generosity that saw my family through incredible grief and hardship and loss, and still had people who were full of life and full of grace.

That’s a wonderful heritage. And even though Caroline is “only” my great-great-great-great-aunt, and not a direct ancestor, I think she’s one of the ones I’m most looking forward to meeting in heaven. She took a great interest in Clement’s children, and in all of her great-nieces and great-nephews. And I’m looking forward to hearing her stories.

Thank you for humouring me and listening to my stories!

When you’re a blogger, it seems like everything that’s big that happens to you has to be blogged about. It isn’t “real” if it’s not written down. And so since genealogy is a big hobby my husband and I have adopted lately, I just wanted to write down these stories. They mean a lot to me. It’s interesting to see where I came from. And I just never realized how much loss there was on my grandfather’s side of the family. God does not promise us easy lives. He only promises that He will carry us through them.

If you want to get started tracing your family tree, you can do that with Ancestry.com.

Maybe you’ll find some long lost relatives like I did! And maybe you’ll discover part of your legacy, whether it’s good or bad. I think knowing where we came from is so interesting. It’s neat to pass on to your children. And it’s neat to see how many prayers may have already been made for you from generations gone by!

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On the Black Sheep of the Family: Family Stories and Your Identity

Do you know very much about your family tree?

With Christmas just around the corner, I’ve been talking about Christmas traditions and family last week and this week, and today I want to start a 2-part series with some really COOL stories I’ve been itching to tell you about what I’ve discovered!

On Thanksgiving my cousin came over for dinner and showed me what she had discovered about our family tree on Ancestry.com.

When I was 13, I went on a big family tree blitz. I interviewed older relatives and went back as far as memories could go, and then, in a visit to England, I applied for birth certificates and marriage certificates and took the family back a few more generations. But then everything came to a halt around 1830. I couldn’t go any further back, and I didn’t look into it anymore.

That was 30 years ago.

Now we have the internet, and Shawna was doing all this amazing work on my mother’s side, so I decided I’d join Ancestry.com and take a look at my father’s side.

(Note: all of these links to ancestry are affiliate links–but I’m a fully paid up deluxe member, so I totally use this, too!)

I entered all the info I had gathered back in the early 1980s.

You can buy “worldwide access” on Ancestry.com where you can search all kinds of public records all over the world–census records, birth, marriage, and death registries, parish records, military records–so much. On some lines I’ve actually managed to get back to 1500! It’s so neat. (You can also buy just access to one country, if you know that everything happened there.)

But I want to tell you the story of William Conroy Dalton, my great-great grandfather.

Here’s what I knew before I started the latest genealogical research:

My grandmother came to Canada as a girl along with her siblings and her parents. It was common knowledge in the family that William, my grandmother’s grandfather, had been a sergeant in the army hospital corps.

We all were also told that my great-grandparents (William’s son Thomas and his wife Lillian) had married in January of 1902.

However, back in the 1980s, when I was looking for their marriage certificate, I couldn’t find it. So I searched further back. Maybe they married in 1901? In 1900? Nope. So I went FORWARD. They were actually married in 1903. The only problem? Their first child was born in May of 1903. Whoops.

So my great-grandmother was five months pregnant when she walked down the aisle. I always figured that they had had a hard time convincing him to marry her, and it was sort of a shotgun wedding. And then they always celebrated their anniversaries adding one year to the actual total, so their kids never knew.

Later they all immigrated to Canada. My great-grandfather died fairly young, but my great-grandmother died right after she learned my mom was pregnant with me! I found their graves when I was in Winnipeg last year.

Now, fast forward to Ancestry.com.

I found all kinds of census records for them! I found them all in the 1921 Canadian census:

But also on the 1911 census before they left for Canada!

And here’s something interesting. On the 1901 English census, I discovered that Lillian and William Thomas (my great-grandparents) were actually neighbours! Guess that’s how the friendship grew. William Thomas is there with his family (he was 17 in 1901); Lillian’s family was there, but Lillian’s on the census elsewhere since she was a live-in domestic servant at the time.

But the 1901 census left me in a bit of a quandary, because someone is missing from the Dalton household. Do you see it?

My great-great-grandfather William Dalton isn’t there. His wife Ellen is the head of the family.

His son William Thomas is there, but he’s not. And then Ancestry.com gave me a hint. They told me there was a William Dalton who is likely the right William Dalton, but he’s not living at that address. He’s actually in a prison.

“Was my great-great-grandfather really in prison?!” I thought.

So I searched for his military records–and found them. But he had left the military by 1901.

I decided to search further afield, and took a look in the British Newspapers Archives. On a whim, I typed in “William Conroy Dalton”. And lo and behold, I found a TON of rather amusing articles of my great-great-grandfather’s antics.

Allow me to share what I’ve learned about William Conroy Dalton’s life.

William was indeed a sergeant in the army hospital corps. He was 27 when he married his wife Ellen in 1883; she was only 17 at the time. Over the next 15 years or so they travelled around with the army, according to the military and census records I found on Ancestry. One child was born in Cairo; another in Scotland in 1893.

Around 1895 he left the service.

And in 1897, the newspapers first started reporting about him.

I love that line–“the prisoner had already been twice before the court.”

So basically he’d been obtaining free clothes and groceries by impersonating other people and pretending to have a government pension.

In 1899 he was back at it again. Allow me to give you some excerpts of the rather long account of his trial:

He was accused of going into posh hotels and other wealthy businesses to say that he was in charge of a holiday advertising guide that we be going out to all railway passengers on British rail. He obtained money for advertisements in said guide from many businesses–but no guide, of course, existed.

He represented himself at the trial. And the really long newspaper article provided a transcript of his cross-examination of witnesses, including the fact that there was much laughter. The judge had to tell the jury not to judge based on his charisma, but based on the facts.

In trying to justify himself, he also said, “Could someone REALLY be such a merciless sinner, given that his father is a well known merchant in Huddersfield and his brother an important man of the cloth?”

He threw himself on the mercy of the court, especially in light of his wife and six children, who would be destitute.

But it was to no avail. He was sentenced to three months’ hard labour.

Over the next 10 years I found five more instances of him being charged with crimes like this, including several where he also threw himself on the mercy of the court as a first offender (and since there were no computers then, and he was committing the crimes in different cities, I guess no one knew any better!)

He served at least three stints in prison that I could find.

That’s right. My great-great-grandfather was a charismatic and charming con-man.

So it got me thinking about that marriage when Lillian was 5 months pregnant. Maybe it wasn’t that HER family had a hard time getting HIM to marry her. Maybe it was that HER family didn’t want their poor daughter to marry this horrible man’s son!

As far as I know, no one else on the Canadian side of my family knows any of this. We never heard any rumours of prison or cons or anything like that. So likely the family came to Canada to escape the father’s reputation and to make a new start.

I had a few thoughts as I was reading all of this.

First, persuasion obviously runs in the family.

My kids are both great public speakers. My dad was a professor. I’m a public speaker. But we can all  use our gifts either for good or for bad; it’s entirely our choice. We’re born with certain talents and predilections; that’s God gift to us. What we do with those talents are our gift to God.

Second, it must have been so hard for my great-great-grandmother.

During William’s first stint in prison, his son, my great-grandfather, the oldest of six children, was only 17. Ellen had to look after six kids while her husband was in prison. That’s horrible. And she had virtually no support, as far as I can see.

So it matters who you marry. Don’t be taken in by charm; really look at someone’s character. It’s funny to laugh about all this now, but how horrible it must have been for her then! Of course, I’m glad they did marry, or else I wouldn’t be here. But nevertheless, it’s a good lesson for young girls: don’t be taken in by the bad boy who sweeps you off your feet. Really look at the good.

Third, we don’t need to hide the black sheep.

Obviously this caused a great scandal in my family, so much so that it wasn’t talked about. But I don’t think the fact that my ancestor was a criminal reflects on me. While my gifts and my talents may be partly hereditary, my character and my choices are not from my family; they’re entirely from God and my relationship with him. No matter who our ancestors are, we make the choice of who we will be now.

My husband has started looking into his family tree, too.

I was talking a few weeks ago about hobbies that you can do with your spouse, and genealogy was one of them. But it’s also a GREAT hobby to do with your children. When I was a young teenager, I really loved this stuff. And now it’s easier than ever.

This Christmas, when you have your extended family sitting all in a room, how about collecting some of those old stories?

Or trying to create your own family tree? Then you can start digging further. Here’s a quick primer on what to do:

Start filling out your family tree on Ancestry. You only have to pay to use Ancestry if you actually want to search the records, like census records, birth records, etc., that they have on file. So just get started by filling in the names you know and see how far back you can go!
Start collecting peoples’ stories from your family. This is a great one to get kids involved with, too. Especially with elderly relatives–it’ can often be difficult for kids or teens to bond with older relatives, so getting them involved can help bridge that generation gap!
Then, if you want to go back further, purchase an Ancestry.com membership that allows you to search records and start tracing back–and learning lots of fun things about your family members, too! You can get a membership specifically for your country or pay a little extra to get one that gives you worldwide access (that’s what I have, since my relatives came from England to Canada, and I needed both Canada and the U.K.)

Right now you can get 10% off of an Ancestry.com membership for Christmas. If you’re stuck on what to get a parent or a sibling who already has everything, this may be a great gift that they could start playing with right away!

I want to share a very different story with you tomorrow about the heritage of faith I found on a different line of the family.  It’s helped me understand more about myself and where I came from, but also shown me the legacy of faith that I never really understood that I had. And I’ll share the best obituary I’ve ever seen, too! (It makes me cry.)

The post On the Black Sheep of the Family: Family Stories and Your Identity appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

Is Sarcasm Hurting Your Family?

Sarcasm hurts–if used incorrectly. And if you or your spouse comes from a sarcastic family, that could easily start to tear away at your relationship.

Every Wednesday for the last eight years I’ve put up a post about marriage–my Wifey Wednesday articles. With Christmas around the corner, though, I’ve been talking a lot about family traditions and managing the in-laws at Christmas. And one of the things that I’ve found really impacts a marriage is the “feel” of the family of origin–especially if that family is sarcastic.

So I thought today we’d look at how sarcasm hurts when used the wrong way, and how to change the “feel” of your marriage and nuclear family.

For the first two years of my marriage, I was sure that my brothers-in-law hated my husband.

Their conversation was always so sarcastic. And I wasn’t used to that. So when someone said a sarcastic insult, I went through a little shell shock.

I asked about sarcasm on my Facebook Page last week, and I got all kinds of comments! Here’s what some of you said about sarcastic families:

1. Sarcasm is fun and silly…when it’s fun and silly. Too often it’s used as an undercover attack. Don’t attack your family! We pick and use sarcasm but we keep it above board.

2. It is something that I need to work on at times. My children are young and I think sarcasm from kids is UGLY! I do not want it from my kids so I have to watch what comes from my mouth.

3. I guess I must be operating with a different definition of sarcasm than most people are or something, because I echo the comments that say it’s only funny when it’s straightforward and everyone knows it’s funny–I can sarcastically say I don’t know if I want to keep my husband if he puts his dishes in the sink instead of the dishwasher (or whatever), but I can only say that because we’re both 150% positive that we both want to keep each other permanently. It wouldn’t be funny, and we’d never say it, if there was even the tiniest chance of it being true! For us it’s a way of teasing, but it’s really obviously teasing (at least to us; we occasionally surprise those unfamiliar with our family dynamics). It’s never passive aggressive or mean and would really upset both of us if it were.

So let’s analyze this: I don’t think sarcasm is necessarily bad.

Since my marriage, I’ve become a LOT more sarcastic. I tease my father-in-law all the time, and he definitely likes it.

Nevertheless, sarcasm can often get out of hand, and can poison the dynamic of a family without you necessarily even realizing it.

Often we hide behind sarcasm when we’re unable to say what we really feel.

Sarcasm can be very passive aggressive. One of my kids went through a period where she was sure a group of friends really didn’t like her. If she mentioned that she was planning on going out for lunch with a different friend, or that she had Skyped with someone new, they’d say, “what? We’re not enough for you?” Or “There she goes again, trying to become Little Miss Popular.” It really hurt her.

But as we were talking about it, she realized that it was just that the girls were lonely and were afraid they were losing her. Instead of saying that outright, they’d be sarcastic in a way that hurt.

Many families get in that dynamic. Instead of expressing true feelings and true needs, they lash out and insult or tease in a slightly nasty–or even really nasty–way. And if you call them on it, people will often say, “Why are you so sensitive? I was just joking.” Here’s how one Facebook reader described this dynamic:

Sarcasm is something that was used, when I was entering my husband’s family, as a barbed tool against me & when it hurt, it was excused as, “but I was just joking! Can’t you take a joke?!”

For that reason, I think sarcasm with the family you grew up in is fine — you know the “language” and you know when it’s crossing lines and needs to stop. But for heavens sake, PLEASE spare the poor inlaws!

But sometimes we hide behind sarcasm because we’re even afraid to say something nice! That feels just too vulnerable. Here’s some great advice:

Sometimes, giving an honest compliment is a bit awkward, especially when the norm is sarcasm. But do it anyway! Even when people shrug it off, it really means a lot. Make it a point to say two or three or ten kind things for every sarcastic comment, if that’s what it takes.

Sarcasm can hurt families. Some steps to make sure it doesn't get out of hand:
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Sarcasm can make a person hard or jaded.

When we’re used to responding to people by joking about their worst qualities, then that is what we’ll tend to look for in people. We won’t look for things to praise.

Even if you only mean it as a joke, when it’s done too much, it can wear at someone. And it doesn’t just hurt the recipient of the sarcasm, either; it hurts the person who is always saying it, too. They start scanning for things to joke about rather than scanning for things to encourage people about. And people need encouragement and affirmation! Indeed, researcher John Gottmann found that one of the two keys of predicting a successful marriage is that people scan for things to praise–not to criticize.

One Facebook fan said this:

I was raised in a sarcastic family and it mostly felt fun, felt “right.” But now that I’ve been away from it for so long, I don’t enjoy it from my family any more. It feels hurtful. I would not have agreed with the naysayers before. It’s almost like I’ve acculturated to no sarcasm, and now I don’t “get” it. Humor is very cultural, I believe.

When we’re in the middle of it, we often think it’s fine. But as you’re away from it, and start building people up and talking openly, you start to see how toxic too much sarcasm can actually be.

Is sarcasm always bad?

No, not necessarily. In fact, a Harvard study has found that people who are sarcastic tend to be more intelligent and more creative! And teasing can actually be fun in marriage–as long as it’s balanced out with plenty of encouragement and praise:

You can also use sarcasm to increase intimacy, either as a flirtation or by teasing a friend. “You only say the opposite of what you really mean if you know the person is going to understand you,” says Dr. Kreuz. By using sarcasm, he says, “you are saying, ‘I trust you. I am bringing you into the club.’ ”

But for sarcasm to work, it needs to be between two people who have a high degree of trust already.

Here’s another Facebook fan summed it up:

A phrase my mom often said was, “Many a truth is spoken in jest.” I think that can often be the case with sarcasm. That said, I think it is how it’s done, with whom, about what, and what is the spirit behind it. I think you can be sarcastic with certain people in a way that is fun and funny, but we need to be careful how that translates into other situations, as evidenced by the above stories. It can be fun and light-hearted, or it can reveal a heart filled with bitterness. So perhaps sarcasm is a tool, one that can be useful in the right context but can also be very damaging if we aren’t careful.

'Sarcasm is hostility disguised as humor.' - Clifford Lazarus
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So what do you do if your husband is sarcastic, and it bothers you?

After all, women seem to be bothered by sarcasm more. In one study out of Penn State, researchers found that NO man thought that sarcasm was necessarily harmful, while women were split on the issue.

Here’s some good advice from a Facebook reader:

When someone is sarcastic, try to get them to just share their feelings in a straightforward way to hopefully encourage more of that. For example, you can say, “I don’t understand, what is it about me doing (fill in the blank) that is wrong?” Or, “It sounds like you’re saying it bothers you when I do that.”

I’ve found that this works well in my marriage! My husband is often very sarcastic (he comes from a very sarcastic home!)–but he balances it with a LOT of encouragement and praise and luvvy-duvvy talk, so it doesn’t bother me that much. But if he becomes TOO sarcastic, I just turn it into a question: “Are you saying that I haven’t spent enough time with you lately?” Or “Does it really bother you when I do X?” And then we can have some real conversations.

This time of year is a good one to raise this question with your husband:

What do you think the ‘feel’ of our family is? Do we build each other up or tear each other down?

Because you’ll be with extended family so much, you can talk about the effects both of your families’ modes of communication had on you, and what you’ve carried with you into marriage.

If you’re feeling hurt by sarcasm, talk about it now. And then take my reader’s advice: make 10 kind comments for every one sarcastic one. That will make your marriage–and your family–feel much safer!

Now let me know in the comments: How has sarcasm affected your marriage–or your family?

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10 Ways to Enjoy DIFFICULT Christmas Dinners with Family

Big Christmas dinners with all the siblings and parents and in-laws.

That can be very Norman Rockwell. But it can also be filled with boisterous arguments. Lots of alcohol. Swearing.

It can be really uncomfortable.

And so, at Christmas, we’re often presented with this conundrum:

What do we do with an extended family we don’t necessarily get along with or have much in common with? Do we have to spend time with them?

I had one reader write to me last week about her extended family. One sibling is in a transgendered lifestyle. Others are openly homosexual. All are often profane and use bad language. What effect will this have on the kids?

Yesterday I wrote a big post about what to do when in-laws are actively being verbally abusive or bullying towards members of your nuclear family. But today I want to pose the more common question: What if you just don’t agree with their lifestyle, or what if you just don’t like them very much or get along with them? What do you owe them at Christmastime? Obviously, if they’re abusive, yesterday’s post is more relevant. But when families just plain are unpleasant, here’s some other thoughts for today’s Top 10 Tuesday.

Some of these thoughts may not sound much like me. After all, I’ve spent the last few months talking a LOT about how it’s wrong to enable sin, and we should draw boundaries. But I’d like to take this from another perspective today.

So here’s the question I’d really like to ask:

Can you get along with extended family, even if you don’t agree with them, approve of them, or even just plain like them?

I think we can. And here are 10 ways to make that easier:

1. Draw boundaries over how much time you will spend with extended family.

It’s okay to say, “We’d love to join you for dinner from 3-7 on Christmas”. You don’t want to stay all day. Think about how much you can take comfortably, and then make those rules. It’s also okay to enforce boundaries on gifts. It’s okay to say, “we don’t have a lot of money for presents this year, so we’d prefer to draw names and only buy one gift,” or “we won’t be giving presents to anyone over 18 anymore.”

Family can be difficult. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy Christmas with them!
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2. Try to carve out time with just your nuclear family (or those with whom you’re 100% comfortable).

It’s also easier to handle extended family if you have time at Christmas just with your nuclear family (or those with whom you’re totally comfortable and laid back with). It’s okay to say to your parents, “we’d like to spend Christmas morning just with the kids.” Build some memories the way you want to build them, and then it’s easier to handle more difficult situations in small doses.

But, once you’ve got those boundaries in place, try to love your extended family wholeheartedly in the time you are giving them. Here’s how:

3. Come to terms with what you expect from your family.

One of the reasons that extended family takes such a toll on us, I think, is that deep inside we long for the approval and love of family.

When extended family isn’t like that, then we often feel hurt, and that hurt is often expressed as anger. “They’re bad people.” “They’re hurting my children.”

What if, instead, you realized,

My extended family is never going to be that for me. That’s why God put me in the body of Christ, so that other people could fill that role for me! So my job, in this family, is just to love others, without expecting anything in return.

As I said yesterday, it doesn’t mean that you accept abuse from people. But you know what? Drinking alcohol in front of you is not abuse. Swearing in front of you is not abuse. Being rude or vulgar is not abuse. It just means that they aren’t like you. That’s hard to accept, and sometimes we have to mourn for a while what we wish we had. But when you stop expecting extended family to fill a certain role for you, then you’re freed up just to love them!

4. Realize your nuclear family is your main family. Don’t expect others to fill the gap.

If you came from a not-so-great family, or if your family currently is not-so-great, that’s sad. But the neat thing is that you can create your own traditions and your own family, right now, with your husband and your kids. Realize that your nuclear family is your main source of love and emotional connection. Others don’t have to fill that role.

5. Does everything need to be perfectly pleasant?

We all dream of idyllic Christmases with magic and candlelight and family togetherness. But does everything have to be like that? If you enjoy time with your nuclear family, does it really matter if a few hours or a day out of the Christmas holidays isn’t how you’d like to spend it? Is it okay if some part of the season is about you loving others where they’re at, even if it’s not as fun for you?

6. Do we have to agree to get along?

Is it necessary to agree to be civil and kind to one another? Do people have to be super nice to you in order for you to be nice to them?

What I’ve seen in a lot of my extended family is that people can take offence, and that offence can last for years. I made a decision early on in my marriage that I just plain wasn’t going to let myself dislike anyone or hold a grudge. Life is just easier if we all get along and are kind to one another. So that meant that I didn’t have expectations on people. I decided that I would try to find things to talk about where we had things in common, even if it was just the kids. If someone did something I didn’t like, I just ignored it. That’s not becoming a pushover; that’s just deciding that you’re not going to take offence and you’re just going to get along.

I wasn’t expecting anyone to be my best friend. I was just expecting that we could be kind to each other.

7. Remember: your kids identify with you.

“But what about the children?” I can hear so many say. What effect will it have on them to see people getting drunk or to hear people swearing? Won’t that mean that our kids will start to think that kind of behaviour is acceptable?

No, not at all. You are the ones raising your kids, and they will primarily identify with you. You can say to your children, “Sometimes Uncle Joe drinks too much alcohol and acts really badly. That’s one of the reasons that God doesn’t want us to get drunk. But we’re going to love Uncle Joe anyway.” Your kids know what you approve of or don’t approve of, and just because they’re around people who are different does not mean that they’ll somehow change their minds.

8. If you treat it like it’s not a big deal, your kids will, too.

Worried that your kids will pick up on swear words because they hear them from your family? Honestly, if you treat it like it’s not a big deal, they will, too. Our kids heard swear words for years without realizing they were swear words because we never really reacted. But if you make a fuss all the time or show obvious disapproval, then your kids will perk up and try to see what’s causing all the uproar.

10 Ways to Make Christmas Dinners Easier with Difficult Extended Family:
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9. Your family already knows your views. You don’t have to advertise them more by actively disapproving of them.

If your brother brings his live-in girlfriend to dinner, you are not obligated to tell them that you think sex before marriage is wrong. If your cousin who you know smokes marijuana comes to dinner a little bit high, you are not obligated to tell her that she is doing something bad. If your uncle who is homosexual brings his lover, you aren’t obligated to say that you disapprove of homosexuality.

I’m pretty sure that your brother, your cousin, and your uncle already know what you think. What matters to them is how you love. We don’t win people to God by spreading our views. We win them by loving and by setting an example. Live out your faith; don’t expect people who don’t already share it to be able to live it without the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives. 

10. Jesus ate with sinners. That means it’s okay for you to eat with them, too.

If you have a homosexual brother who is bringing his partner to dinner, eat with them. Laugh with them. Tell jokes. Enjoy them. They are people. What if they flaunt it in your face and make fun of Christ? If they’re deliberately attacking you, then certainly you can leave. But make sure: is it that they’re honestly attacking me? Or are they just insecure and trying to see if I will reject them? 

Because if they say something mean about Jesus, you have two choices: You can take offence and leave; or you can chuckle and say, “I’m really sorry you feel that way, because I love God, but you’re not pushing me away that easily, because I love you, too.” And then you can change the subject.

Jesus ate with sinners, which means He ate with people who normally made lewd jokes, who swore a lot, and who drank too much. But those people were comfortable with him. And I think it’s because he saw through the false bravado and just talked to them like people. This Christmas, can we do the same thing?

Jesus ate with sinners. This Christmas, it's okay for you to the same thing. #loveyourfamily
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Reader Question: Do I HAVE to See My In-Laws This Christmas?

Do you HAVE to spend time with extended family this Christmas–especially if that extended family is always trying to undermine your family?

It’s Monday, and on those days I try to answer a reader question. But I’ve had so many this time of year on similar topics, and so instead of answering a specific issue, I think I’d like to write more of a general guideline on how I think we should handle extended family at Christmas.

I’m going to do this in two parts: today I’m going to talk about how to draw boundaries and how to decide when in-laws have overstepped and you may need to stop contact for a while. And tomorrow I’ll talk about what to do when extended family isn’t abusive or bullying–but they are just plain unpleasant.

So let’s look today at how to handle abusive parents.

Nobody Needs to Subject Themselves or Their Children to Abuse

Seriously. You honestly don’t have to! I know that one of the biggest stressors in a family is having to pack up the kids at Christmas and travel to Grandma and Grandpa’s house–if you know that once you get there, you’re going to be given a lecture, or the children will be treated inappropriately. And you feel small and angry and helpless and somehow unable to get things back on an even keel.

Families can become abusive even if they weren’t that abusive when you were growing up. Here’s why: Many parents’ biggest aim is to be able in some way to control their children. They want their kids to think like them, to have the same priorities and opinions, and to become a validation for everything that the parents believe.

It could be that while you (or your husband) were growing up you performed that function well. You did agree with your parents. You did go to the same church happily, share the same political beliefs, saw the world the same way. But then you left home and your world got bigger, and you found that many of those beliefs and opinions weren’t working for you anymore.

That’s when your parents’ behaviours may have started to change, because you were stretching your wings. They may have started to insult you, to question your salvation, to berate you, etc.

Sometimes parents change, too, because of things that are happening with them. Maybe they’ve become depressed or have other mental illness issues. I know of one family where wine was absolutely forbidden when the kids were growing up. But after all the kids left home, the parents started to drink. And now the dad is a really ugly drunk, and whenever people get together for holidays, alcohol becomes a major factor.

If your parents are overstepping their bounds and demanding (through lectures, manipulation, or guilt trips) that you act or believe a certain way, then they are being abusive. This does not have to be tolerated. 
What are Examples of Abusive Behaviour?

I know a lot of people will say, “but how do I know?” How do I know if they’re actually overstepping the line?

Here are just a few examples:

Examples of abusive behaviour in extended families: Is your family like this?
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1. The family completely dismisses the spouse and is always talking about an ex-girlfriend or someone else that they like better. They buy Christmas presents for everyone but the spouse. They don’t talk to the spouse. They “reminisce” with the son (or the daughter) about all the fun they used to have before the spouse came into their lives. The motivation for this is usually to keep the son or daughter in their grasp, and prevent the spouse from having influence.

(this is different than a sister who may have kept up a friendship with an ex-wife, for instance, but still talks to the new spouse. Just because someone is still friends with an ex doesn’t mean that they are undermining the current wife or husband. The question is: do they try to engage with the new one or not?)

2. The family “grills” the couple on where they go to church and gives lectures or books to read or other things about why they are spiritually wrong. They won’t take no for an answer. If they’re challenged, they say, “we only care about your heart.”

3. The family pressures the couple, through guilt trips, to take on obligations that shouldn’t be theirs. For instance, they may be pressured to lend money to a sibling, or to have a sick relative move in with them. This is all the more likely to happen if you’re the couple who looks like you’re doing everything right. You’ve just bought your own home, you’re trying to work to get ahead, and now you’re the one who is targeted, right when these extra obligations would hurt you the most. It’s common in families for the “black sheep” to get all the attention and the extra money, while those who are acting responsibly are made to feel guilty if they don’t share what they have with those who are irresponsible.

4. The grandparents take the grandchildren aside and try to tempt them with things that you have specifically said are wrong. They try to give the children food you know will hurt them or will undermine what you’re trying to do. They try to get the kids to watch shows you don’t want them to see. If they’re older, they try to give them alcohol.

5. The family constantly criticizes the spouse and tries to “correct” their mothering, their housekeeping, or anything. It can also work the other way, where the dad criticizes the son-in-law’s career choices or other types of things, making it clear that they are not accepted.

All of these things constitute parents deliberately undermining the marriage and trying to prevent the couple from being able to “leave and cleave”–from being able to make decisions on their own.

Extended families become abusive when they try to control you. It's okay to protect yourself!
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How Should You Act Towards Parents Like This?

We are told to honour our parents, absolutely. But once you’re married, your nuclear family is your main concern and your main responsibility. You do not need to bankrupt yourselves for parents or extended family, and you do not need to subject yourselves to criticism.

Unfortunately, the only way to properly honour them in this situation is really, really hard: you have to be open and honest and tell the truth. 

That’s going to be a very, very difficult conversation.

You may be tempted to make up an excuse, or even lie, by saying something like this, “I’m sorry we can’t visit this Christmas; my husband got called in to work at the last minute.”

That is not honouring your parents and it isn’t honouring God. And it won’t help you with the problem in the long run!

The only right thing to do is also the hardest thing to do, and it means having a conversation where you say something like this:

Mom and Dad, we love you and we want to honour you. We want to continue to have a relationship with you. However, we can’t do that right now because you (constantly criticize us; dismiss my spouse; try to get the grandkids to disobey us). As such, we’ve decided that for our own peace of mind we won’t be visiting this Christmas. We hope that we can re-establish a relationship, but it will have to be when you promise not to (criticize, run a guilt trip, etc.)

I think it’s best to do this on the phone or in person. If they start to question you (which they will) and then yell (which they may), then it’s okay to say, “I don’t think this conversation is going anywhere, and I don’t want to talk to each other this way, so I’m going to hang up.” And then hang up, and block the number if necessary.

You can also write a follow-up email detailing the kinds of behaviours that are bothering you, so that it’s in writing and everyone knows.

That’s really, really a hard thing to do.

I get it. But unfortunately, I don’t think there’s any other way to do it other than being honest.

Listen to Your Spouse

Finally, and this is a really important one: listen to your spouse. Often parents are being abusive and we just plain don’t see it. But our spouse does. And maybe a mother is treating a daughter-in-law inappropriately, or a father is treating a son-in-law inappropriately, and we don’t see it.

If your spouse is being hurt by your family, you need to listen to that. Don’t dismiss it. And then it’s your responsibility to make it better. You be the one to talk to the family. You take the initiative to protect your spouse.

Just Remember: Unpleasantness is Not Abuse

One final warning: just because you don’t like a certain branch of the family doesn’t mean they’re being abusive! And just because people are unpleasant doesn’t mean you should cut off contact. Tomorrow we’ll talk about 10 ways to handle unpleasant relatives at Christmas.

But I know many of you are dealing with honest to goodness abuse and adult bullies in the extended family, and it’s okay to stand up to them and say, “our family will not be participating with you this year because we won’t be treated like that anymore.”

That’s called boundaries. And boundaries are, indeed, biblical. Jesus doesn’t want other people trying to manipulate you. He cares when you’re treated like that. And the book of Proverbs is all about not subjecting yourselves to “fools” like this.

Other Posts You May Like:

When your husband won’t “leave and cleave”

Dealing with the In-Laws at Christmas

Now let me know in the comments: Have you ever had to deal with abuse in the extended family at Christmas? Did you ever have to enforce a boundary? What happened?

The post Reader Question: Do I HAVE to See My In-Laws This Christmas? appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

The One Thing I Can’t Remember about Christmas

We’ve been talking about Christmas this week, and for today’s Friday Roundup I wanted to do something a little different than normal. 

So in keeping with our theme, today my daughter Rebecca is talking about some memories she has of Gregoire Christmases, but, most importantly, what she can’t remember.

Here’s Becca!

When I look back on Christmases from my childhood, I remember three things. 

First, we always baked a birthday cake for Baby Jesus.

We started when I was 3 or 4, and it’s my earliest Christmas memory. It became one of our family’s traditions, since we never did the Santa thing, and because, well, it was Baby Jesus’ birthday after all. Plus my family loves cake. So any excuse pretty much goes.

Second, Katie and I agonized over waiting for my parents to wake up.

One particular time it was 5:15 AM Christmas morning when I was 6 years old, and Katie was 4.

Katie and I weren’t allowed to wake Mom and Dad up until it was 6:30 (pure torture). But we were way too excited to fall back asleep. So Katie and I got out our favourite stuffed animals and started to bargain with the clock. “PLEASE make it be 5:16, clock! PLEASE! Teddy wants it to be 5:16 so badly!” And then it would turn to 5:16 and we’d start all over again with the next number.

We sat and did that for a solid hour and fifteen minutes.

And then we ran as quickly (and loudly) as we could to Mom and Dad’s room, jumped into their bed and wiggled and giggled excitedly until they woke up. And then when we became teenagers the roles reversed! Although Mom and Dad never really wiggled and giggled as much as we did.

Third, it was really laid back.

I remember waking up for Christmas when I was 8 and Katie was 6. We woke up at 6:00 that year, because we heard something. We peeked out of our bedroom door to catch Mom sneaking downstairs with an armful of presents. She froze, paused, and then whispered, “Santa’s running a little late?” 

We laughed and went back to bed, and she let us come down a whole fifteen minutes earlier that year than any of the years before. Score!

Our family did things at its own pace–we weren’t scrambling to drive from one city to the next, but we made sure to see whoever was available. We didn’t stress about having the perfect Christmas tree, or the perfect presents–and it wasn’t a big deal if mom and dad forgot to put the presents under the tree. It was just fun.

But there’s one thing that I cannot remember no matter how hard I try.

And that’s the presents. 

When I look back, 3 presents stand out to me from my childhood (before age 16, since my memory’s still pretty good for the last five years). A foosball table, a giant sleeve of Barbie dresses, and a tea set. And I honestly cannot remember the rest.

I remember opening presents, and I remember being excited about the presents I got, and organizing the in my toy boxes and drawers in my room, and purging old toys to make room for the new ones. But I simply cannot remember what exactly I received.

And I think that’s because the highlights of the holiday were never what we got. And we got awesome presents. But most of our Christmas wasn’t about that–gifts were over by 9:00, but our day had only started. My family did such an amazing job of making Christmas about celebrating Jesus and spending time with family–and making that time together fun.

Mom joked around when she forgot to put the presents under the tree. Katie and I bonded by pleading with our clock to speed up time. I stood on a chair to “help” stir the Baby Jesus Birthday Cake, because I couldn’t reach the counter otherwise. It didn’t matter if the tree was perfect (which is good, because it was really ugly), if our hair was curled for the Christmas Eve service, or if everything didn’t go according to plan.

What mattered was just that we were together, and that was made the priority.

So I don’t remember the presents. But I definitely remember Christmas.

 

What’s #1 at To Love, Honor and Vacuum?

We’ve had a great week at the blog!  This week’s post have hit all of the Top’s categories, so this week on the roundup, we will be looking at some of the 3’s and 4’s! And thank you all for your continued love and support!

#1 Post on the Blog: On Economics, Sex, and Hillary Clinton’s Relationship To Women Like Me

#3 on the Blog Overall: 10 Signs You’re Respecting Your Husband Too Much 

#4 from Facebook: Is It Okay To Be Upset If My Husband Talks To His Ex-Wife?

#4 from Pinterest: Creating Christmas Traditions When You Don’t Have Kids

Why I’m a Great Mom….

Katie just posted this on Instagram. Finals and deadlines with sponsored videos are getting to her, poor girl.

Well friends, on a scale of ‘hot mess’ to ‘freaking hot mess’ I think I’m somewhere around a ‘flipping hot mess.’ This picture is going out as an appreciate post to my mom, who after praying with her inconsolable, sobbing, distraught daughter over FaceTime said, “Order yourself a pizza, dear. It’s on me.” YOU DA REAL MVP, MOM. Instead of being a stressing the heck out university student, I am now a FED stressing the heck out university student who is eating pizza while lying on my tile floor, which is much better. Pizza does seem to put life back into perspective, can’t wait to give you a massive hug when I’m home for Christmas, Mom❤️❤️ And in all seriousness to you who is reading this, I would love prayer today. So many things are coming due at the same time and I’m feeling very overwhelmed. – 1 Peter 5:7 –

A photo posted by Katie Gregoire (@katielizg) on Dec 8, 2016 at 5:23pm PST

We finally decorated for Christmas!

In case you missed it, my mother moved in with Keith and me this summer, and it’s been going great. And one of the perks is that we have double the Christmas decorations to choose from now! Our house has never looked more Christmas-y. We have a rule that we never decorate before December 1, but now that it’s decorated our house is looking very festive. It’s getting us really into the spirit of things, and it’s getting us excited for when the kids all make their trek back here to Belleville for the holidays!

When did you put up decorations? Or are you a last minute kind of family?

I’m off to make some hot chocolate and really get into the spirit of Christmas. No holiday is complete without copious amounts of chocolate. I hope you have a great weekend, everyone!

The post The One Thing I Can’t Remember about Christmas appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.