There is nothing in life that is perfect save for the love of God. Flaws face us at every turn and no matter how hard we try, we will never be perfect. When you operate as a perfectionist, you rob yourself of so many opportunities to laugh at yourself. You cheat yourself out of the glorious feeling of being good enough. That doesn’t mean you don’t strive for better. We all should. Like Little said this summer when we were baking together in our country kitchen in West Virginia….”We should have a baking show! We’ll call it Bear and Nana’s Baking Show. And our tag line will be…It’s Good Enough!” My Little Bear gets it! I wish I would have at that age!
I finally finished decorating the tree yesterday. The last of the precious vintage and hand blown ornaments went up and I carefully placed them where we can see and enjoy them all season. Mr. FixIt went out to the building and found a timer plug so the lights will automatically come on in the morning and off at midnight. I love to see the lights all day. I’ll take every opportunity to bring more light into my life…especially when the days are getting shorter and the nights still get longer.
I no sooner finished and put the boxes away when Mr. FixIt walked in and said, “What’s wrong with the tree?” I looked over and wouldn’t you know…another strand of those pre-lit lights went out?!?! My heart sank a little. I tried to figure out if it bothered me enough to take everything off the tree, string new lights on it, and decorate it again and you know? It does not. After we watched The Voice last night and I prepared to come in our room to write to you, I sat on the edge of my seat and stared at the tree.
“You know what?” I asked my sweet husband. “Nothing on this earth is perfect so this is just going to be our year of the imperfect tree.”
“Eh, we’re getting the new tree top angel pretty soon. Maybe she’ll brighten up the top of the tree.”
Yep, I’m sure she will.
As I was sifting through the box of fragile ornaments, I came across a little treasure trove. I put those ornaments away in February, and I have no memory of tucking this little packet inside. Maybe it got placed there as I absentmindedly searched through boxes at some point since. You know, like the time I finally found a long lost phone book in the freezer. It happened to be in my hand and when my mind went in a different direction, i just set it aside as I picked up the rump roast.
I sat down in my recliner and sifted through to see what I’d found. There were several photos of past employee parties when Hubby #2 was finishing his internship and residency in Denver. There was a photo of a cloth doll I made when you couldn’t get your hands on a Cabbage Patch kid to save your life. My foster sister and her husband, looking like the babies they were, in their wedding picture. I sent it to their son. There was a funeral card for my step great grandmother. How did these things even get in there? I found two slips of paper torn from notepads with the autographs of Avery Schreiber and Harry Belafonte. I met them back in the early ‘80s.
But, the very best treat was a letter from my grandma written in her eighth grade hand. Her letters were always newsy, telling us what was going on at the farm. She always told us about the weather and who had come to visit her and when she’d seen the doctor last. Whenever I find one of her letters, it almost feels like a little visit with her. Mom always read her letters out loud to us. They always started out “Dear Ones…” no matter who she was writing to. Mom wrote back to her faithfully, even though we lived less than thirty miles away. When I married and moved away, her letters were precious jewels to me and I still cherish them when I run across one.
The next thing we will tackle is the annual Christmas cookies. Mr. FixIt will make his peanut butter cookies with the kisses on top. I’ll search my recipes and come up with some fun ones to bake. We like to give away containers of cookies every year to the neighbors and family and friends. My back is all better now so I’m ready to rumble!
❄️
“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6 ESV