Serials and Scenarios - Merry Christmas

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me....

God's Gift of Love

by Kathleen Y'Barbo

Love. It seems as though everyone these days is either in desperate avoidance of it, in the heart wrenching process of losing it, or in the giddy throes of finding it. Some have given up on it while others believe they will know it when they see it. All of us hope when it’s our turn, the love we get - and give - will be unconditional.

But can flawed humans really offer unconditional love?

Oh, we try. If you’re a parent you know the depth of love you felt the first moment you saw that precious baby of yours. Then there’s the feelings you carried up the aisle to join your beloved at the altar. Or perhaps love to you is counted by the nights spent at a parent’s bedside. The thread of love winds through each of these, and yet it is the rare parent, spouse, or child who would admit to having loved perfectly. We are human and sadly flawed, even when we act with the best of intentions.

There is only one unconditional love that never fails. Only one love that never turns a blind eye, says the wrong thing, or procrastinates rather than acts. The love of the Father, our Heavenly Father, is perfect in every way. Not only is His love unconditional, but He also loves us in spite of who we are and not for what we are. How wonderful to know that the God of the universe loves us.

Not just love in the way we see it, the stars-in-our-eyes crazy-about-my-baby love, but a depth of feeling exponentially more than anything our flawed but well intentioned hearts could imagine.

So today, when you’re reminded that tiny baby, Jesus Christ the Creator-made-flesh, think of the love it took to accomplish this holy miracle of unconditional love. To put on the fingers and toes of an infant and come to us as Savior was the beginning of a love story that has no end.

Kathleen Y’Barbo

Kathleen Y'Barbo is the author of Beloved Castaway and countless other books. For more information visit http://www.kathleenybarbo.com/.

Kelly's comments -- Today I thank God for His love. I hope you find it everywhere you look today. Merry Christmas.

Serials and Scenarios - Eleventh Day Gift

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me....

God's Gift of An Uncluttered Christmas

by Cyndy Salzmann

It was enough to curl my toes. And a quick glance at the other mother’s in the audience told me I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

So what horrendous experience caused such a reaction from a room full of moms? A violent or sexually explicit movie? A challenge from Doctor Phil to “get real” and ‘fess up about our parenting faux pas? Or a pan of the audience spotlighting a really bad hair day?

Actually, the event that caused such a panic among this audience of mothers occurred during the Christmas program at my daughter’s school.

Things started innocently enough when the girls marched out onto the stage swinging colorful shopping bags. Of course, they were adorable and the apples of their mothers’ eyes. The trouble began when the girls opened their mouths and sang…

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!

Scurry! Scurry! Scurry!

Worry! Worry! Worry!

Christmastime is here!

As I said, it was enough to curl my toes. Just the thought of all that hurrying, scurrying and worrying to prepare for Christmas gave me a full-blown a hot flash. No wonder depression peaks during the holidays. Faced with all that stress , I wouldn’t want to get out of bed either.

Once my hot flash ceded, I began to realize that this is just where Satan wants us – dreading the celebration of the most precious gifts to mankind – the birth of Jesus Christ. And frankly, it made my blood boil – almost bringing on another hot flash. I decided right then that he wasn’t going to get away with it.

We have a choice on how much hurrying, scurrying and worrying we do. And this year I hope you’ll make a commitment to join me in uncluttering your Christmas by jumping off the treadmill and keeping your eyes on the true reason for the season.

BTW- I have a tip sheet with practical ideas and advice to help you to simplify your holidays and focus on Jesus’ birth. Just contact me at cyndy@cyndysalzmann.com and I’ll email you a copy.

Cyndy Salzmann is the author of Crime & Clutter, book two in the highly acclaimed Friday Afternoon Mystery series published by Howard Books. As America’s Clutter Coach, Cyndy is a popular national speaker and radio personality. Cyndy, her husband and three children, live in Omaha, Nebraska. For more information visit http://www.cyndysalzmann.com/

Kelly's Comments..........................

I'm relaxed. Some might call it a stupor.

I prefer relaxed. Stupor sounds so...unhealthy.

So, it's 12:33 a.m. on December 24th and I have people coming to my home for dinner in seventeen hours and I'm blogging.

Why? Because the resident carpenter is wiring the ceiling.

Yes, it's late for a carpenter to be hard at work, but he prefers to do the home stuff fueled on caffeine and adrenaline.

You know how one of the military branches had the slogan, "you'll do more before 9:00 a.m. than other people will do all day." Or something along those lines.

I think Rob's slogan is, "midnight, smidnight! Who needs stinkin sun!"

I can't clean since he is making more sawdust as I type. The cooking has progressed as far as it can. Why not blog? That way it looks like I'm involved in his project and supportive of his preferences, and I can accomplish something that needs to be done anyway.

Cyndy, do I get points for at least multi-tasking, with a good attitude, and a certain sense of joie de vivre?

I do have to report that my wonderful, handy husband brought home an early Christmas gift. Oak, hand-crafted book shelves. I'll be taking pictures of my library nook and posting them in the very near future.

Hope your Christmas Eve is full of peace and joy.

Lily and Lola Wish You a Merry Christmas...

And a Happy New Year.

Serials and Scenarios - Tenth Day Gift - Memories

God's Gift of Memories

by Marlo Schalesky

Memory is a powerful thing. We hear a song from our high school days and we’re transported to sweaty school dances and blasting the radio in our first car. The smell of brownies baking takes us back to pigtails and ponies. We drive by the house we lived in as a kid and remember the swingset in the backyard and how that rotten kid from next door blew spitwads through the hole in the fence.

Ever gotten sick on a type of food? You’ll never want to have that again. And don’t even think about naming your child after that whiny little brat that sat behind you in the fourth grade, even if your spouse loves that name.

Memory. It’s why we treasure photos, display mementos, keep in touch with people from our past. It’s why God set up festivals for the ancient Israelites and told them to erect memorials at significant places in their history.

Memory. It’s why the sight of a stuffed stocking takes me back to those early mornings in my childhood when my brother and I would wake up before dawn, run to the fireplace, get our stockings, and race back to my parents’s bed. Mom was always ready. Dad pretended to complain. And together, with lots of giggling and the thrill of anticipation, we’d pull out the gifts from our stockings one by one. Simple things, boring really. Candy. A toothbrush. Some silly plastic toy. Things that would be used up or forgotten in just a few short weeks. And yet, opening stockings is my favorite Christmas memory from childhood.

Why? I think it’s because good memories are not necessarily made from the “big stuff.” Rather, they’re fashioned out of warmth and happiness and times together. They’re woven with laughter, colored with simple, plain joy. They come from times when you experience love.

So, this year, I’m thinking about the memories I’m making now, for my kids, and for myself. I don’t want those memories to be ones of a Mom who’s running around with too much to do and too little time to do it. I don’t want them to be of hustle, bustle, shopping, wrapping, cooking, cards, and gifts thrown under the tree. I don’t even want them to be of the cool stable-and-horse set that my girls will unwrap on Christmas morning. Or the cheap kid’s guitar for my oldest (age 7), or the new “ooo-ahh” (stuffed gorilla) for one of my 2-year-old twins.

Because the toys will break, get old, get lost, or they’ll outgrow them. But they won’t outgrow the happy memories of family times together. The memories of decorating Christmas cookies with laughter and joking – those won’t get old. The times we make a gingerbread house together, or sit down and watch the Grinch – those won’t break. The simple things make the best memories. Times when we’re together as a family, having fun, enjoying the traditions we’re building together.

So, that’s my goal this Christmas, to weave memories of peace, love, togetherness, because that’s the best gift I can think of to celebrate Jesus’ birth -- Memories that bring a smile to the face of children . . . and to the face of the King.

For more about the power of memories in our lives, check out Marlo's next novel, Beyond the Night, releasing in May. A woman in a hospital bed, a man sitting beside her, and between them, a memory that can set her free. Find out more at: http://www.marloschalesky.com/

Kelly's thoughts....

I've shared some of my favorites over the past couple of days. I suppose since I'm listening to the Passion of the Christ soundtrack and IMing my youngest while she faces a huge challenge --two and a half hours from home-- I'm feeling a little pensive.

I remember the Christmas that Rob and I were separated.

And I'm celebrating the fact that we are together today. That we will share another Christmas together, in spite of the odds, in spite of the past pain.

What about you? Do you have someone on your list who needs your forgiveness this Christmas? Do you have someone on your list who needs a glimpse of your heart? Or maybe a dose of truth? Do you need to wrap up some kindness or mercy? Does your tree need to be draped in grace or the meal sprinkled in love? Does someone need your shared memories as an encouragement to get through a rough spot?

Give and accept the gift of love this Christmas. Life's too short to put it off any longer.

Serials and Scenarios - Gift of Story - Ninth Day of Christmas

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me....

God's Gift of Dreams and Story

by Melody Carlson

A dream doesn’t always seem like a gift from God, but sometimes I’ll experience one so vivid and amazing that I can’t help but think God is at work. I remember a dream that woke me in the middle of the night about ten years ago. I was so moved that I felt compelled to write it down. In my dream I saw a sweet angel who was distraught that Jesus was about to leave heaven to be born as a baby on earth. So she volunteered to give up being an angel and God transformed her into a magnificent star to light the night sky for the Big Event.

I won’t tell the entire dream, but simply let it be said that the ending surprised everyone—including me. The story became a children’s Christmas book called The Greatest Gift (which is currently out of print). But as a result of that dream, I began to pay even more attention to my dreams. Sometimes I think that God simply uses them to show me things about my own life and sometimes my dreams wind up in my books.

Melody Carlson is the author of Ready to Wed, (Guideposts Books 2007). This story also involves a dream! For more information visit http://www.melodycarlson.com/

I have always loved books, far more than the words and the stories within. Those are reason enough to love books but I delight in what they represent.

Books are connectedness. Opening a book immediately connects me to the author. The characters reach out and grab my imagination and often heart. But even better than intimacy within the covers of a book, is the intimacy that has occurred with my children and husband as we've read books together.

Not just story books, oh, we did those, devouring Dr. Seuss, Monster at the End of this Book, The Berenstain Bears, and my favorite book from childhood, The Bull Beneath the Walnut Tree, the one I read to my younger brothers. And as our family tastes grew with our children's physical milestones, we kept reading.

Our oldest honed his skills while reading segments of The Box Car Children stories. Once the kids were on their way to an exotic island and Jordan read the name of a port they passed through "Cheecheego" I can't remember which adult read next, but I do remember laughing hysterically that the foreign port was our very own Chicago. We all still laugh. In the same book, Rob read that the kids ate sea biscuits. Jordan got the giggles and sea biscuits were mentioned too often over the next few months.

Car trips have been enriched with the rhythm of my voice as I've read aloud from Little House on the Prairie, The Painted House, The Chronicles of Narnia. Now that our children are out of the nest or perched on the rim, ready to take flight, I still read to Rob.

Some of my favorite reading memories are tapping me on the shoulder, triggered by sights and smells of Christmas past. We read the Christmas story together and one of several favorites, The Tale of Three Trees, Why Christmas Trees Aren't Perfect, The Night Before Christmas. I can't think of a memory that touches my heart like the one of our family huddled over a book.

Delicious scents from the Christmas feast perfume the air, all of us are dressed in our Christmas finery. White lights twinkle from the Christmas tree and if it's a white Christmas from under the snow on the evergreen and light wrapped porch railing.

These memories last just a few moments. Just a stolen pocket of peace in the midst of stress and busyness. But I've discovered that these breathtaking pockets of intense emotion are the things that make up my happiness and contentment.

The tree falls over? That's life. But when I can laugh, it becomes a memory. The kid who just twenty minutes earlier had driven me to a nervous breakdown, cuddled up against my thigh while we read...blessed bliss. I've learned to find my Christmas dreams in the midst of my Christmas chaos and I don't know that I'd have it any other way.

I'm hoping you find joy and peace this Christmas.

Serials and Scenarios - On the Eighth Day - Unexpected Blessings

God's Gift of Unexpected Blessings

by Angela Hunt

The arrival of our daughter from South Korea wasn’t exactly unexpected—we’d spent years longing for her, and then months praying for that little baby’s safe arrival in our arms.

And as I look back over the experience, I can’t help thinking of Mary, who must have had such mixed feelings when she held the infant Jesus in her arms. Great joy, for the promised child had arrived. Great responsibility for the fragile life in her care. And great dread for the difficulties and sorrows that would arise.

As a young mother, I knew there would be tough times, and I haven’t been disappointed. But through bad times and good, through loving moments and less-than-loving moments, I can see the hand of God’s sovereignty molding me, my husband, and my children into the people he intends us to be.

Christmas shines brightest in the eyes of children. But it resonates most deeply in the hearts of those who love them.

Angela Hunt

Angela Hunt is the author of Doesn't She Look Natural? (Tyndale Publishers). For more information visit http://www.angelahuntbooks.com/

Kelly's Blessed Christmas Moments with and without Children....

I can't compete with Angela's eloquence so I'll just share some of my favorite in-living-color dysfunctional parenting Christmas moments with you.

One of my all-time favorite pictures of my two oldest children is actually a short series of pictures. In them, the four-year-old attempts to take something from the one-year-old's clenched fist. Both children begin upright with expressions of sheer determination. The last picture shows no faces, just the adorable backsides of a victory in progress. I suppose, in hindsight, I could've put down the camera and intervened. But, alas, I did not. I chose to snap the wrestling-under-the-Christmas-tree-struggle, frame it and continue to laugh about it twenty years later.

Today, a friend forwarded an e-mail full of pictures with Santas holding crying children. I forwarded to all the slightly twisted people I know. I don't know why I find that hysterical. Could it be that I identify with the mystified and discombobulated Santa? (Oooh, another story idea. I'll have to share before Christmas. ; )

Another favorite picture...when our oldest was two. We went to visit Grandma and Grandpa who had a perfect toddler - sized wooden reindeer that was intended to hold magazines. It didn't hold a single magazine the entire time we were there. Jordan was on that thing every time we turned around. It eventually occurred to me that I needed to snap a picture since it'd make a great Christmas card. Being a toddler, he was not interested in posing when I requested that he do so. Since I towered over him at the point in life, he sat. But he was not amused.

Good news, there is hope for me. Favorite picture number three has no weeping! None. Just four smiling faces and a huge hole in the wall. Rob (Have I mentioned that we've been remodeling something for the past twenty-six years? ) decided to replace two living room windows with one big door. On a warm and sunny (Iowa warm and sunny, which is still real cold for anyone further south) December afternoon, he cut a six foot "mouth" in the side of house. The kids were fascinated, the dog was fascinated and I had several sets of felt antlers and a desire to send out pictures with our Christmas cards. Voila!

Finally, I have no picture for this memory, but it is burned forever on my brain. If you are a big PETA supporter, you may not want to read it as it does involve something worse that felt antlers on an animal's head....

We used to travel to my parents for Christmas Eve. On the way home one year, with kids dozing in the back seat already dreaming about sugar plums (Are those any good? Are they edible?) Rob and I watched the bright moon illuminate miles of virgin snow. The world was covered in diamond dust. Large, fluffy flakes fell out of the sky. The crunch of snow, the rhythmic breathing of sleeping children, and instrumental Christmas carols the only sounds that touched the silent blanket of beauty.

As we passed a field, on an expanse of untouched, moon-kissed glitter against an indigo back drop, there stood a massive white-tailed buck deer. Tears sprung into my eyes as I took in the awesome 3-D Christmas card photo in front of me. I silently thanked God for His artistic heart.

"Whoa!" I heard rumbled from the driver's seat. I turned to smile at my husband, to share a connection over our Christmas gift from God.

My husband, eyes glued on the deer, simply said. "Wow! I wish I had my gun. That rack has to be at least ten points."

Alrighty then.

I hope your Christmas season is full of lasting, picturesque memories.

Serials and Scenarios - Seventh Day Gift - Uniqueness

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me....

God's Gift of Uniqueness
by Tosca Lee

I used to hate my name. “Tosca” was too unusual. “Moon,” my middle name, was just downright embarrassing. “Lee” was all right, though it still set me apart from the rest of the Caucasian kids in my school. In an era when Christy Brinkley graced the cover of every fashion magazine, I did not wish to accentuate my different-ness.

The name I really wanted was Marie--probably because others had it and that meant I could at least buy one of those door plates for my bedroom door or license plates for my bike, which was my litmus test. As it was, they sure didn’t have plates for kids named “Tosca.”

In junior high, my friends called me “Weird Tosca.” I didn’t like that so much.

These days I teach about talent in my work as a consultant. I talk about the strange, quirky things that not only set people apart, but have the potential to make them great. A friend said to me once, “Stars have points.” He’s right. And when we blunt our points, we lose the defining characteristics of our unique mark in and contribution to this world.

Opportunities work much the same. It’s the unique ones that seem to hold the greatest potential impact. When my main character, Clay, bumps up against the opportunity to hear the story of creation from the viewpoint of a Demon, he is terrified--intrigued, but terrified. And so he resists. While his reaction might be in keeping with any sane person’s, it’s also a human reaction to the unusual. But in this case, it’s the unusual that might just might save his soul.

How has God revealed to you your uniqueness? And what, most importantly, is He telling you to do with it?

Weird Tosca

“You need to know something more about Elohim: he is the ultimate force of creativity. He is the author of diversity.”
--Lucian, Demon: A Memoir


Tosca Lee is the author of Demon: A Memoir and of the upcoming Havah: The Story of Eve. For more information visit http://www.demonamemoir.com/

Kelly Thoughts:

Tosca writes a breath-taking tale in Demon: A Memoir, one of my 2007 favorites.

After reading 111 books in 2007 I have a few thoughts on uniqueness.

I like to read other reviews after I post my own, and what I've found makes me scratch my head. It seems that taste and interest is as diverse as...well, uh, as people.

I might give three stars and a smile to a book that others have raved about. Other books that crack me up, or twist my heart, leave some cold and stone-faced.

Do you ever wonder if you have words worth sharing? Whether the way that you see things is valid or even interesting? I do. Often. I compare myself with others, and usually find myself paling in the comparison.

But then again, I don't sing on the worship team, either. Nor do I play my violin. Why? Because I gave up during the training process. I don't trust my voice to sound like I'd like it to. My fingers don't remember the positioning. Oh, I could ask someone to help me to use my voice. I have two books to remind me how to play the violin.

Maybe the key is not giving up. Maybe just plugging away and trying and practicing and failing and growing makes the difference.

Shall we embrace our uniquenesses? Shall we let our weirdness show? Shall we bloom?

I think I have a New Year Goal in my post.