How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Since I was nine years old, it has been a Christmas tradition of mine to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas. My children never seemed to care for the show and my grand kids like it even less. But I am NOT daunted by them.

What could be wrong with a story about a creature who  absolutely hates everything about Christmas because of the noise surrounding an entire town on Christmas Day. The Grinch comes up with a plan of of disguising himself as Santa to steal everything representing Christmas belonging to the Whos believing it will be enough to stop the holiday from coming.

In the end, after he accomplishes his task, he notices the town still sing and celebrate Christmas. The Grinch questions, "How could it be so, it came without ribbons, it came without bows, it came without tags, it came without packages, boxes or bags. Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store." Touched by this, his heart grew three sizes larger and he returned all of their gifts, food and decorations.

I can't wait to play How the Grinch Stole Christmas this year--my 45th consecutive year!

I Love Family Traditions

I love traditions which are wholesome and memorable--those which are passed down from generation to generation. I especially enjoy those which we have observed for so long and no one remembers how they started.

For many years on Halloween I made chili for dinner. When the kids got home from trick-or-treating like it or not they had to have a bowl of chili. Some of my children like chili and some would rather not partake--but we had it anyway.

Yesterday as my daughter Cassy was preparing for a Halloween night with her family, she told me she already had taco soup in her crockpot for when the kids returned from trick-or-treating. Apologetically she said, "I wanted to keep up the chili tradition, but Brayden doesn't like chili. So I decided to [tweek] it a little and make taco soup a tradition for us."

I took that as a wonderful compliment. Hopefully some our good traditions can withstand the test of time.

Mom's Crystal Goblet

I have a delicate crystal goblet which is a little chipped around its edges through years of use.  I know some of its history--at least in the last 50 years or so, but nothing of its usefulness before that.

This goblet belonged to my mother, and she gave it to me a while back. I am really glad I have it because it holds some good and bad memories for me. Good memories because it always lovingly showed up on a t.v. tray beside my bed when I was sick holding 7UP and a small straw and bad memories because of that same reason--I was sick.

The t.v. tray with the beautiful crystal did not show up just when I was sick but when all of my siblings were sick. It stayed for several days when my brothers each had their tonsils taken out and longer stints when we all came down with mumps and chicken pox in various stages of contagiousness. It was always the 7UP that was a mystery. Mom never kept it on hand, but it showed up in the goblet each time we became ill. I guess there are some things we will never understand.

For some reason I always believed that this goblet was the last of a set that my mother had received as a wedding gift--the last because I had broken the rest. But Mom said this same goblet showed up by her bedside when she was sick as a child. Maybe I should call it the "Healing Goblet."

No matter what it is called, whenever it look at it I can hear it say, "I love you."

Violins

I know very little about the violin, nor do I know how to play one, but I would certainly like to learn one day.

I do know one thing about violins--I love the sounds they produce, especially in the hands of one who loves it.

Take a moment, close your eyes and listen. I think violin music is very relaxing--maybe you will too.

Late Summer

There is a crispness in the air right now--although it is really just late summer. I wore a jacket at my bus stop at 6:45 a.m. yesterday and was really glad I did.

I spent the day with my mother and we mentioned what a wonderful temperature it was--with just a slight breeze. I commented, "I hope heaven is just like this." Mom even promised a woman we met that the weather we were experiencing would continue until Christmas. Probably not.

This time of  year I pull out my spicy candles tucked away from the previous winter.

The fragrance of the candle always brings memories of fall for me such as burning leaves, snickerdoodle cookies, pumpkin pie, autumn soup, cornbread, crisp morning air, last of summer garden vegetables, apple cider and fall flowers.

I am really going to try and enjoy this end-of-summer weather and be grateful for all that I have.

Rainbows

I have always loved rainbows. I think children do too. The colors are so stunningly beautiful.

Rainbows come and take us by surprise. Most of the time someone has to point them out to us. Some of us just shrug them off as one of the "nature things" and others look quickly then turn away.

The rainbow is a reminder of one of our Father in Heaven's blessings. The blessings we receive  are kind of like that. Sometimes someone has to point them out to us, others we never even notice and sometimes we make a quick glance and go back to life.

This rainbow was just over my house the other day. My husband called as he was driving from Provo to tell me about it. I never would have noticed!

I wonder how many blessings I never even notice. I'll try and do better.

Old Cemeteries

My husband and I enjoy traveling and seeing new sites. When we travel by car, we always end up going through many small towns. Each town is unique but there are usually some similarities.

One thing I have noticed is that most have one or several churches and connected to each church is usually an old cemetery.

Since I am a family historian, it is very hard for me to pass up an old cemetery. Of course, we don't stop at all of the cemeteries--only the ones we think we have family buried. But I still can't help being drawn to an old cemetery. Maybe some think this is creepy. But cemeteries hold many bits of information very important to family history research.

As we drive by an old church, I always hope someone locally has taken some effort and posted a picture or at least some information found on the headstones. I know when I help people at the family history library their faces always light up when they see a picture of a headstone of a loved one.

Old churches with cemeteries are on my list of favorite things.