Monthly Archives: December 2009

A Walgreens Christmas Dinner

28 Monday Dec 2009

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The Christmas season in a pastor’s home is always an active time, and this year is no exception, but our family planned ahead, purchased and shipped all our gifts early, and managed to send out one box of  Christmas cards to most of our family.  At  the store a memo was posted notifying us no time off would be granted in December — no need to ask.  With that the pace quickened as Christmas approached, and my part-time job became a full-time thing.   There was less time to prepare for Christmas than in previous years,  and we encountered a few unanticipated “opportunities” for faith and laughter, but it had been a fun-filled month of anticipation.   On the weekend before Christmas we had an Open House for young and old from our church, Todd’s folks arrived the twenty-third, the house was tolerably clean, and we waited excitedly for the Texas and North Carolina cousins to arrive.  And then…

“the night before It was Christmas and we were without…”, gifts needed wrapping, and the trip to the grocery store was fast disappearing.  My husband who had been down for the count sick for three days finally arose in the morning of Christmas Eve day with no voice, and it was looking like this year’s sermon would be retitled “Silent Night” and the Christmas story would be done in pantomime.    His voice recovered, a few packages got wrapped.  I dressed in my most festive attire and off to work I went at eight am.  Somewhere during the day my husband called to see if I would be up for going out to lunch.  I looked at my boss and asked her if I was crazy to go out given I only had a cooked Country Ham for Christmas dinner and was unable to find a Crown Roast at any local store.  I was still absent of the necessary sides for dinner. She and I concurred I must go and be carefree for a couple hours and “just shop later”…perhaps very quickly before our six pm Christmas service. Sounded like a good idea at the time.

The story picks up quickly at this point because with so many unwrapped presents, the only rule as every one wrapped that afternoon was that you could not wrap your own.  We ran out of wrapping paper at one point and began wrapping with scraps…a real patch job.  We then left at five for the service and decided a little run to the market after the service would have to do. 

Around eight pm Marilyn (Todd’s Mom) and I left for the one place we were sure would be open on Christmas eve.  I know you’ll shudder if I put the big box store name in print so we’ll leave it out and let you fill in the details.  We pulled into the parking lot just as the doors were being locked, lights turned off, and shoppers left the store, bags in hand.

Marilyn and I start to laugh hysterically as we and an army of late shoppers sped across the street to another grocer only to see the same thing unfold. My face went pale and my mind numb as I started envisioning my bare pantry and lonely, country ham — naked in the middle of my beautifully set table with nothing to dress it up. My mother-in-law was not phased and said “Trish we just need to find a 7-11, we’ll be fine, we’ll make-d0.”  The light bulb went on for me in that moment as I realized the Walgreens would be open.  Others would soon realize the same thing, and another stampede was about to begin.  The first ones to Walgreens would get the choicest crops from their canned goods aisle.  We sped off in a hurry…   

We leapt out of the car, grabbed one of the last carts available and there we were, standing in the canned goods aisle at Walgreens preparing Christmas dinner, laughing uncontrollably as Marilyn author of , Taste and See That The Lord Is Good ~ Psalm 34:8,  ( a published cookbook) creatively put together dishes from what was available for our Christmas Dinner.   

Our menu:

A jar of green olives and a can of black olives

Green beans and Campbell’s Mushroom soup (no French-fried onion available) home- made caramelized onions topped the dish

Peas and mushrooms

Au Gratin potatoes (from the box)

Corn pudding made with canned corn

Orange jello and crushed pineapple ( my daughter’s contribution)

Frozen Mrs. Smith pumpkin pies

Our Country Ham and Sweet potato biscuits from Smithfield, Virginia shipped earlier that month from the Southards. 

Don’t you all wish you were here for this delicious Christmas dinner from Walgreens.

Trish and Marilyn

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My family was leaving a Chinese restaurant after lunch on Christmas Eve in 2006.  A little boy about 9 years old asked his Mom if he was Jewish?  She said “No!” and the boy shouted back “RATS!”
He then asked “What I am?”  Mom’s reply was too soft to hear.  It was a teachable moment as we backed our car out of the parking lot. I asked our daughter the same question — “Who are you?”
I knew even before she answered she would say “Child of God,” because over the years we have sought to share our Christian faith and heritage with her, so that she may know she is fearfully and wonderfully created by God.  The map to who we are, where we are and come from,  must be communicated to our children, our neighbors, and our coworkers, those in our spheres of relationships as well as others who are not.

The Christmas season the world offers is a Retail Christmas.  Though exchanging gifts brings great joy, without Christ at the center it will not lead us anywhere closer to the true essence of Christ and His message, but become a distraction at the very time of the year we set a day aside to celebrate Immanuel — God with us.  Bumbling along in a haphazard existence will give our children a life with no identity, no sense of who they are, and open them up to other’s values and beliefs, man’s way and not God’s way.  They will not have a map of life.

In Barbara Tompkins Mom’s Class last year we made Jesse Tree‘s ornaments.   Our family systematically read through the story of Christ and hung ornaments on a small pink feather tree as our Christmas decorations were all packed and ready for our move the Texas the next week.  It was a comical tree with a serious message in those Jesse Tree ornaments, the story of God found in the Bible, a message of

God’s love and provision of redemption found in Jesus Christ.   

We are all unpacked this Christmas, and instead of the pink feathered tree, we are back to our home-grown artificial tree as we again tell the story of who we are in Christ by telling the story of God and his redemptive plan of salvation.  Each ornament symbolizes an accompanying Bible story that, with the help of the book The Advent Jesse Tree, Devotions for Children and Adults Preparing for the Coming of Christ Child at Christmas (Nashville: Abington Press) directs us to a daily story from the Bible and provides songs of praise to sing as a family.

As Christmas arrives our anticipation is toward the greatest gift God has given the world — the birth of Jesus the Christ, God’s own Son, Immanuel — God with us.  The Scriptures read throughout the month show us The Way, providing a clear and concise map of who we are, the identity we have in our Lord Jesus, the hope of glory.

Resting in Him,

Trish