Thanksgiving/First Sunday in Advent

Living in Mexico means working on Thanksgiving.  Therefore, we celebrate Thanksgiving on Saturday.

The more often we´ve done this, the more often I like it.  Furthermore, the date seems even more significant on the last Saturday in November.  Why?

The first Sunday in November is usually the first Sunday in Advent.  According to the liturgical calendar, Advent begins a whole new year (in the church calendar, at least).  So sitting down and reflecting and giving thanks the night before seems like the perfect way to cap off a year.

What am I grateful for this year?

Eight adults sitting down, having dinner.
Meanwhile, there were eighteen kids running amok in
the rest of the house!  Yikes!
So thankful for the space to pull this off.  

• All three kids and how they´re growing, gaining independence, and emotional equilibrium.  
• New friendships that we´ve formed this past year and old friendships that we´ve strengthened. 
• Having enough space this year to get a number of those friends together to celebrate Thanksgiving together!
• Having a creative outlet in the Choir of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Desert of Coahuila.
• Seeing all kinds of positive possibilities on the horizon.  (Just reconciling myself with the reality that there are only 24 hours in a day!)
• Setting down roots in this city, and feeling at home here.  
• Hubs and I settling into a good groove (and improved working hours on his part), so we´re not driving each other crazy all the time.  Or, maybe better said, this year we´re enjoying driving each other crazy all the time.  

So many other things I could mention, but those are the important ones!

Here´s to Advent!  Enjoy the season--there´s time to enjoy Christmas during Christmas.

Initial Reaction--Election 2016

Disclaimer:  for those of you who are sick to death of political posts, this one might not be for you.  In fact, skip my next few posts.  But for my own mental health, I need to write this out.  
And if you´re not sure if you should keep reading (depending on which side of the aisle we stand on), I am with the half of the country that voted for Clinton.  

But, like the vast majority of my facebook peeps, I´m on the side of unity.  (Y´all are a great bunch!)

************************************************************************

Flashback to nearly two weeks ago.  Once my kids were safely tucked away for the night, I knew that polls were closing in much of the country, and CNN could begin reporting concrete results, and not just the same hot air they´ve been spewing for the past few months.

OK, I did check before dinner, when they called Indiana, Kentucky, and Vermont.  No surprises there.
Being from Indiana, the results of the rest of the night didn´t shock me either.  It was always clear that this was going to be a close election.  It´s been clear that both sides of the aisle want change.  After all, that was Obama´s platform eight years ago.  That was why Bernie Sanders did so well in the primaries.

Really, this election was about voting for change versus the establishment.

Normally, I´d be excited about the "change" candidate.  And the optimistic side of me is clinging to a thread that Trump´s version of change will be exactly what we need.

Except that he scares the crap out of me.

But I really, really want him to succeed.  Because if he doesn´t, we´re all going down with that ship.

So, back to that Tuesday night.  As the results were rolling in, I began to get nervous that Trump might just win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College.  He had been claiming for weeks that the system was rigged against him.  Can you imagine the stink he´d have made if that was the case?  (Now, I know plenty of people will cite all the protests that are happening all over the country, but Clinton is not instigating them.  She conceded the election the following day.)

At about 12:30, it was clear that Trump has scored both the Electoral College and the popular vote. While I wasn´t thrilled with the outcome, it was a clear result, and I went to bed at peace.

On Wednesday, I turned on CNN again, to hear Clinton´s concession speech.  It was then, after a peaceful night´s sleep, that I found out that Clinton--not Trump--won the popular vote.  Immediately, I sobbed like a baby.

What the heck?  I was OK with the result the night before!  Where did all this emotion come from?  I mean, it´s politics, for pity´s sake!  Ugh.  

It just took me back to 2000, and the disastrous results of that election.  It took me back to the night before, when my husband wandered in and out to listen to the results, shaking his head, muttering, "that´s not a democracy."  My cries echoed all the pent-up frustration I carry around about how my Democrat vote in Indiana usually counts for nothing.  (And then we wonder why half of the population doesn´t vote.)

But I´ll save my examination of the Electoral College for another post.

Still, I was surprised at my reaction.  I kept exhibiting symptoms of shock or depression for the next few days.  I was shaky, jittery, teary, and felt like I was always holding my breath, like I could never fully exhale.  I mean, for pity´s sake--it was clear the election could go either way, and the last thing I want to be is a sore loser!

On Thursday, I finally sat down with my Bible and looked up the reading for the day.  Out of curiosity, I looked up the reading for Wednesday (which I missed for being too consumed by the election).

      "Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men.  

       At one time, we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures.  We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.  But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.  He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.  This is a trustworthy saying.  And I want to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good."

                                                                                 -Titus 3:1-8

Wow.

OK--to be fully honest, I´m not ready to read that first verse.  It pretty much just served as an attention-grabber.  Maybe someday I´ll be ready to read it.  But not yet.

But the rest of it?  Yes.

By stepping back and looking at the bigger picture, my symptoms of depression and shock evaporated.  I could finally exhale.

Regardless of who won, we still live in a world that is controlled by malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.

As Christians, we know we that we are free of that cycle--but not by anything we´ve done.  We simply accept the gift of freedom that Jesus gave us, and spend the rest of our lives living out our gratitude, "devoting [ourselves] to doing what is good."

At least, that´s the way it should be.  It´s easy to get distracted.  It´s easy to get caught up in all that malice, envy, and hate that dominate the world.  But this isn´t the end of the story.

Or, as my friend David Bauser posted on facebook the day after the election, "We have work to do.  We all have neighbors who are hungry, homeless, uneducated, fearing for their lives or their loved ones, feeling isolated, betrayed, abandoned, and attacked.  We have a new president-elect but the Gospel has never changed.  Let´s get to work."

Frustration to Reflection

This is the fourth year that I´ve had a child enrolled in our preschool.  Preschools tend to go all-out for holidays.  For Day of the Dead, we dress up the kids as catrinas (skeletons dressed in fancy clothes), make mini-altars, one class makes a full-size altar, dress up paper skeletons.  It´s very nicely done, but it´s a lot of work for the parents.  Because, let´s face it, while my preschooler can help decorate his mini-altar, making the tiers, and making sure it has the "necessary" ingredients falls squarely on my shoulders.

And let me tell you, nothing makes this former preschool teacher crazier than preschool homework that the parent is required to do.  (Within reason.  Cutting things out so the teacher doesn´t have to spend 6 hours cutting after school is prefectly reasonable, of course.)

So I was pleasantly surprised last Thursday when the teachers posted a sign saying, "if you´d like to bring in an altar on Monday, that would be great."

I loosely translated that to mean, "if you don´t want to bring in an altar next week, that´s OK, too."

So the weekend came and went.  We went back to school on Monday, and it turned out that the homework for the following day was to bring in an altar.  None of this "if you feel like it" wishful thinking that I had been planning on.

Of course.

So I sat down to work, making an altar.  Joey had ideas for decorating it, so after I finally got my 5 tiers somewhat solidly set in the diorama (and covered in colored paper).  I let him do his thing.

We got ready to go trick-or-treating, and it turned out that "his thing" was two odd rectangles and a picutre of his aunt who died this summer.

Knowing that he did want this altar dedicated to Tía Lili (and having a feeling that it might be a bit theraputic for him to take it in to his class, and explain about how he misses his Tía Lili), I sat down and added a bit.  And then I added a bit more.  Then I ransacked the kids´ toys, looking for little things that could symbolize interests that Lili had, things that were important to her, etc.

The more I worked on this, the more I realized that it was good for me, too.

The finished altar for Lili.  I added her computer (because she was always working!);
suitcases, because she traveled a lot; her name in Braille.  Water is
traditional to have on an altar, but I put it there because Lili loved to swim.  

After going through the toys, I found my brailler.  (Lili went blind when she was a teenager.)  It had been missing for years, and I found it again, shortly after she died.  When I found it this summer, it released some pent-up anger I had (because anger is a stage in the greiving process).  I threw it to the back of the closet, thinking "well, shoot--I don´t need THIS anymore!"  I bought it years ago, meaning to write notes to Lili, braille out some children´s books so she could read to the kids, etc.  I learned the most rudimentary braille, and then promptly lost the tools to use it.

Until a few weeks ago.

Our family altar, which Joey was
instrumental in decorating, too.  

So, putting the finishing touches on the mini-altar for Joey to take to school, I thought it could be a great teaching moment for the kindergarteners to see Lili´s name, written in Braille.  So I did it.  And, likely, the kids didn´t notice.

But it was helpful for me.  And, as Joey largely initated the project (or gave it direction), it was probably good for him, too.  After all, in essence, that´s what celebrating Day of the Dead is be about--sitting back and taking some time to remember people we love.  If we never stop to do that, we might never work through the grieving process, and that could just fester and manifest itself in all kinds of weird ways, if left to itself.

So I love that this country sets aside a day to pray, reflect, and remember.  It´s good for all of us.  And it seems that these traditions give even the youngest among us room to express their own grief and emotions, too.

I made pan de muerto this year, and was just so stinkin´ proud that I had to document it here!

As Expected

I´ve often wondered when my kids´ mastery of Spanish would surpass my own.

It´s becoming clear that we are crossing that threshold.  As I´ve been joking for years, it seems to be that I really DO speak Spanish like a second-grader.  Except now it´s not a joke.

Up until the other day, when Clara brought home this bit of homework, I had no idea that solo (Spanish for only) could--or sometimes should--be written with an accent mark. 

Thank goodness the teacher sent home a worksheet that had this grammar quirk well defined!

It turns out that when solo is used as an adjective (solo is describing the noun) it does not need an accent mark.  

Sólo requires an accent mark when it´s used as an adverb (sólo describes the verb).  After wading through 10 examples, I got pretty confident, and I´m pretty sure that both Clara and I now know the difference.  

But I´ve got my work cut out for me from here on out!