The Vaulted Files: Reflections on Advent (2010)

My latest project is recipe scrapbooks into which I am compiling recipes, photos and stories.  As I scrolled through my vault of writings in search of holiday themed essays, I came across this one from 2010. I think it was written as a way for me to reconcile my Catholicism with my love for Christmas decorations.  My kids, now on the brink of full-blown adulthood, are not as likely anymore to gather around the Advent wreath with me for prayers, or collect stars from the Advent calendar as we count down the days to Christmas Eve. But this narrative reminds me of all the joy that is still present in the season, even as my family scatters like dandelion seeds to fulfill the duties of our days.  Happy Advent, everyone. 

While the city is alive with Christmas decorations and as families are planning their gifts and activities and preparing their homes, we Catholics are reminded throughout the Advent season that it is not, in fact, Christmas just yet.  Sometimes, I attend Mass only to leave feeling guilty for having already put up my Christmas tree. Obviously, I need to work through these feelings.

I love the Christmas season, whether it is celebrated liturgically or secularly. I love it for the lights and decorations, for the magic and mystery.  I love the planning and preparing – both in my home and in my heart.    I am generally cheery and positive, but let’s face it – I am waaaaay more joyous during December.  I find that I smile more, I giggle more, and I am more generous with both my time and my treasure.

Every time I look at my office doorway and see the red stocking peeking in, I am reminded of the season’s magic.  I love the signs of the season, and I want to display them as early as possible because I love the feeling that I have during the holidays.

I know the season is not all about presents, shopping and Santa.  I know it is about celebrating the birth of Christ.  I love the liturgical significance of Advent in that it tells us to “prepare.”  I want my children to feel the Christmas spirit all year long, because the reason for Christmas is with us all year long.  I also want them to understand the liturgical significance, so we have an Advent calendar and an Advent wreath.  We say daily prayers during Advent, and we do our best to prepare room in our hearts and home for the Christ Child. Advent is a time to recollect and ready ourselves for Christ. I always thought that meant I had to chill on Christmas until December 24 and allow Advent in as a time to rest and wait.  But that’s virtually impossible for me to do.  I want Christmas, like all. the. time.

To me personally, Advent is about anticipation, not delaying. Preparing, not waiting. We should be busy now – preparation is not a passive thing. May each Advent – whether busy or restful – lead our hearts to the perfect Christmas.

2018: A Year of Love

As I reflect on the year that began with so much pain, I realize that love has been our constant companion both inside and outside of that pain. Love came to us in friends, and in the form of hugs and texts. It took the form of cards and covered casseroles, potted daisies and even a few corked bottles. It saw us through a year that was simultaneously sad, hard, maddening, bittersweet and joyful.

To paraphrase a few lines from a book I just finished reading, we are never entirely healed. We will be “a patchwork of love and grief, of gains and losses”.**  Even though it was an emotionally draining year, we saw through each other our ability to laugh and be happy. Lennon was right. Love really is all you need.

With a full heart I present the sixth annual pictorial recap of a year that was ultimately filled with love beyond measure.

January
After Pop died, we all needed a place to direct our grief. Tearing down his oldest and most decrepit shed provided our catharsis. This is the only pic I have of the day, taken after the shed had been razed to the ground. I wish I had a picture of the tug-of-war team that pulled it down. It truly felt like Family Olympics.

February
Goofing around at my parents’ house one weekend, my dad and Vic played Heart and Soul together on the organ. (Go on, sing a measure. For the entire rest of the day. You’re welcome.)

March
Baby Girl turned 16 and got her license. We haven’t seen her since. (Kidding…sort of).

April
A pic of my favorite men just before Aaron headed out to the Senior Prom.

May
This. Just… this.

June
Three days after we watched A Dog’s Purpose, a stray German Shepherd showed up at our house and wouldn’t leave. He looked neglected so we fed him, bathed him and named him Bailey. He’s a genuine sweetheart who lives with Charolette now, and Kasie and I believe he was sent by Pop. I just love big dogs with big paws.

July
My kiddos altar served at our church for nearly six years. As Aaron prepared to leave for college, Vic announced she didn’t want to serve without him. This was the last time they served at Mass.

August
Here’s the one WTH? picture. There’s always one. Breakfast time and one of our eggs had two yolks. Was this really the most exciting picture I took in August, you ask? Why, yes. Yes it was.

September
Labor Day weekend found us driving to Ruston to leave a huge part of our hearts at college. I cried the whole way home. Max didn’t take it too well, either, and spent the next ten days sulking in Aaron’s room.

October
Part of our first-ever trip to New York to see Harry Potter on Broadway (which deserves its own full-length post) was the fun I had making t-shirts for our Hogwarts-loving travel companions, customized with each person’s favorite quote. And of course, experiencing the magic of Broadway and the Big Apple with my favorite wizard.

November
Nothing like a wedding to remind us all that life is good, family is precious and true love is eternal. My oldest nephew, Jacob, and my newest niece, Cassidy:

December
Remember that family I told you about in my most recent post? The ones who make Christmas entirely magical? This is them.  I love these people to the moon and back!

Well, there it goes, folks. The credits are rolling on 2018. May your 2019 be blessed and may you find peace, love and joy in every single moment it holds for you.

Bonus pic from the NYC trip: I couldn’t resist. So long, 2018. See ya in the funny papers.

 

** Clare, Cassandra. Queen of Air and Darkness. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books. 2018. Print.

Christmas Past

What follows was originally intended to be one chapter in a larger collection of essays that chronicles our family’s journey through cancer over the past three years. I began writing the collection just as the dust started to settle from Charolette’s cancer, and before the storm of Pop’s.  It has been through several edits since Pop’s illness and death, but the original version below is one of the happier essays and captures the joy and peace with which I have always viewed Christmas Eve.  In the spirit of the season I’d like to raise a glass to Christmases past, and to my family who made them magical.

I frequently tease Dominic that I’m going to start dragging him back to Midnight Mass during one of these Christmas seasons in our future. He staunchly refuses, stating in no uncertain terms that he is over any desire to stay up late enough to attend Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. (Even in college, it was well known that Dom would be the first one to call it a night and go to bed.) Once we had children, Midnight Mass was no longer a viable option for our schedules. But, oh, how I miss it.  Of all my memories, our family’s attendance at Midnight Mass and the wee-hours celebrations that followed are some of my most treasured.

They say you can’t go back, and I accept that; really I do. And I accept that those memories may have to remain only memories, being that so much has changed within our family since the days when we were young, just beginning our adult lives, full of hope, possibility and promise.  When I reflect on that time of my life it is as if I am seeing it transpire inside a snow globe.  I shake it and a memory forms, its edges slightly blurred. We are walking up the driveway of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church. The air is bitterly crisp and I clutch my winter-white wool dress-coat tightly around me. Dominic offers me his arm, and I loop my own through his and snuggle close against his suit jacket, resting my cheek against his shoulder as we walk. Bob and Charolette walk beside us, elegant in their Christmas attire, as we are joined by Victor and Melissa and then by John and Kasie. We enter the church and head up the center aisle to our familiar pew on the right-hand side six rows from the front. We genuflect and file in, filling the pew almost to capacity.  We greet and are greeted by familiar faces throughout the sanctuary, which is adorned in boughs of greenery. Deep red poinsettias and several Christmas trees decorated only in lights flank the altar while a large, solitary manger stands nearby. As Mass begins the smell of incense tickles my nose and makes my eyes water, but I love the tradition of it all. This is Christmas to me – holy and unrushed, simultaneously simple and resplendent.

I watch the memory for a while before shaking the globe again, and the memory fades out like a dream sequence as another forms in its place amid the falling snow. We have left the church and returned to Bob and Charolette’s home. We are loud and lively. We redress in blue jeans and sweatshirts, getting comfortable for the festivity ahead. A thousand tiny white lights shine on the Christmas tree, which is filled with so many jeweled and ribboned ornaments we can barely distinguish one branch from another. The ornaments were handmade by Charolette’s cousin, Boots, many years prior, and they are the only tree ornaments I will ever know inside this house. We have a full meal planned and ready. Wine glasses are filled and Pop reaches far back into a kitchen cabinet to retrieve a bottle he will use to top off the eggnog. We laugh and eat and laugh some more before settling in to exchange gifts in the living room, a process in which we take turns opening one gift at a time. Sometimes Father Dave is there, standing at the kitchen counter, popping the top on a beer and joking with us. He is as much a part of this family as we are, and his relaxed smile says that he feels it.

The memory morphs easily into one of my most favorite Christmases, when during our gift exchange John hands Kasie a wrapped box of running shoes. On the laces is tied an engagement ring. She opens the box and proclaims her excitement that he has bought her exactly the shoes she wanted. And then, removing one shoe from the box, she sees the ring just as John kneels on the floor in front of her. Her hand flies to her mouth and a second later she is in his arms, crying and saying yes. John had almost given her that gift in private; I had to beg him to please let us watch, though I’m sure it was Charolette’s asking that actually convinced him to propose publicly. I believe that is the widest I have ever seen him smile.

Sleepy and satiated, we depart for our homes around three in the morning, only to regroup in the same place the next afternoon for lunch with the extended family. It is at these lunches that I would enjoy spending time with Dominic’s cousins and getting to know Charolette’s aunt and uncles.  Oh, the stories these people can tell on each other!

The tradition changes slightly after those early years of our marriage when we begin filling the church pew with children. Now the snow globe reminds me that we have committed to an earlier Christmas Eve Mass, Victor wears the well-deserved title of Gumbo Chef for the night, and the unwrapping of gifts is no longer facilitated one person at a time.  Tiny fingers rip bows from presents and hold books and dolls high in the air for all to see. “Look, Mommy, look!!” is shouted so much that Kasie, Melissa and I can’t tell who’s opening what or who’s calling to whom. We begin to nod and smile at every child in turn, saying, “Oooh, that’s great, sweetie! Did you remember to say ‘thank you?’” Pop examines the instructions that came with his gifts, collects wrapping paper into a trash bag and plugs batteries into new toys. Mom sits beside the tree, handing out packages still to be opened while her sons gather at the kitchen table to admire a new toolset someone has received.

It is at the end of these evenings of frivolity that Dom announces, “Saddle up!” and we wrestle cookie-filled children into car seats and drive home.  Once they are tucked safely into bed and our Santa duties are fulfilled, Dom and I continue our tradition of exchanging one gift each before turning out all the lights except for those on the tree and in the garland. This is where I find my silent night. We plug It’s a Wonderful Life into the DVD player and snuggle on the sofa. We know it’s okay if we fall asleep before Clarence gets his wings; we will watch it again the next night.  And maybe the night after that.

 

So Long, ’17!

2017 started off pretty smoothly with no notable bumps or bruises.  Remember New Year’s Eve when I almost cried into my keyboard over how grateful I was to have everyone safe and sound? That feeling got to hang around through the Spring time change.  We got the wind knocked out of us again in April when Pop was diagnosed with lung and esophageal cancers. Mark my words: if I ever get my superhero powers activated, I’m kicking that disease’s stubborn ass.

Only a few of the photos below recount the truly memorable moments of 2017 which include not only Pop’s condition, but also saying goodbye to Lady-Bird, my career change, Victoria playing soccer for the first (real) time, becoming a three-car family because the kids are driving, becoming a two-car family again because I had a collision, and literally everything about Aaron’s senior year – right up to getting his college acceptance email. (So much for the frameable letter for my archives.) If I were to post only photos of the moments which years from now I will most likely recall from 2017, I would appear both incredibly proud and undeniably whiny. But as I have stated before – repeatedly, I think, because it’s not easily pounded through my own thick skull – this post is not where I recall the in-your-face moments of the year.  Rather, it is where I acknowledge the sacredness of the ordinary minutes of our lives.  The minutes that peer out through the emotional cobwebs to say, “Hey, remember how good this moment was? Be grateful.”

With gratitude in mind, and in accord with my end-of-year holiday custom, here is our pictorial year in review.

January

One thing I can’t get enough of: sunsets. Here’s a cold January day closing its eyes over our back yard.  Not sure why I’m so attracted to bare trees backlit by the glow of the sun, but really…who can resist those colors?

February

As a family, I think we all realize how very fortunate we are, despite the trials of the past two years. On February 4th Bob and Charolette celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.  That evening was the calm between the storms, and it was nothing short of blessed.

March

This is Max.  To say we have spoiled him would be a gross understatement.

April

We all took a few minutes in the midst of celebrating Aaron’s Confirmation to snap some family photos.  Here are all the Mainiero kids.

May

Okay, spoiled though he is, Max was unable to escape the inevitable neutering on his first birthday.  As a retaliation technique, he spent the next four months eating items of great import to me and Dom.  Here are destroyed DVDs of LOTR and (gasp!) The Ten Commandments.  Hey, Max, can you wrap your head around “Thou Shalt Not…?”

June

We spent our summer vacation in Memphis where we sought Elvis, found Elvis and promptly overdosed on Elvis.

July

I tried not to put anything sad in this year’s post, but some moments demand to be acknowledged. More paw prints forever on our hearts.

August

There’s always one text conversation in these posts, right?  Here Victoria and I are discussing my determination to DIY repair the door handle on the kids’ car.

September

Apparently I married a funny, funny man.

October

Homecoming 2017.  The kiddos were gracious enough to let me snap close to 200 pics of them before the dance.  Here they are showing me their “Freeze with your hands up” pose.  So if the cops pull them over, my daughter will be the one vogue-ing.

November

My sister-in-law, Melissa, drove downtown with us and took Aaron’s senior pictures.  It’s really hard to choose my favorite, but I promised I’d only post one.

December

Christmas decorating our front yard at dusk by the light of the rising Super Moon.  One of the last truly peaceful moments of 2017.

Well, there it is – 2017 in all its not-so-radiant glory.  There are blessings in these ordinary days.  I pray I remember that when I later reflect on this roller-coaster year.  Just out of curiosity…is it permissible to pre-order an easier 2018?  Perhaps I should just hold on to gratitude and hope for the best.

May each of you have a wonderful, prosperous new year, and may you be blessed beyond measure.

2016 in the Rear View: At Least We Can Laugh About It

Looking back on the year that will close its eyes in a few days, I am pleased to say it was eventful and uneventful in all the good ways a year should be. Charolette had a successful surgery in March and even though we have held our breath and kept our eyes peeled for any change, the cancer remains absent from her after a year of treatment. Victoria started high school, Aaron started driving, and they each grew at least five inches. We bought Aaron’s senior ring in November, after which I hid in the bathroom and cried like a baby.  What is it about that boy growing up that turns me into such a puddle?

Mid-year, a new heartbeat entered our home in the form of a husky/lab mix, and Mabel was so insulted she almost renounced us all.  Max has gone from being the “narcoleptic puppy” (as the vet called him) to being the in-your-face-all-the-time puppy.  He talks. Like, a lot. (My mom told us Huskies are like that.  Can’t say we weren’t warned.) And he uses his front paws for everything from holding down his own tail to slapping us in the face if breakfast is late. (Jerk.)  With his heavy-eyeliner Alice Cooper look, his my-way-or-the-highway attitude and his fuhget-about-it expressions we decided he must be a member of the mob.  Two seconds after that announcement, he grabbed his tail in his teeth and nearly fell on his head trying to tug it away from his body. We decided then that he could still be a wiseguy, but he’d have to be Luca Brasi.

OK, enough with the intro. In our customary DomAndLori fashion, I now present the 2016 pictorial year in review:

January

One of my favorite Christmas icons is the Old World Santa.  From the bygone days of her ceramic painting business, Charolette’s garage had a plethora of fired but unpainted Santas, and I set my sights on collecting and painting them in the late ‘90s.  Then I took a sixteen year break from all relaxing hobbies before finally returning to this pastime last year.  My favorite is the jovial Mardi Gras Santa who gets to hang out on the shelf until Lent.  As I packed up the decorations after Christmas, I felt compelled to line the finished ones up for a picture. I just realized they are posed so that it looks like one Santa’s hat is picking another one’s nose. I think it’s safe to say I will never be hired as a photographer.  There are twelve more unpainted Santas waiting patiently in the room upstairs. This is one of very few photos taken in January, so it kicks off the show:

February

On my way to work one morning, I sat at a stoplight and pondered the bleakness of me and everything around me.  Admittedly I was feeling more than a little sorry for myself.  We’d had a rough couple of weeks and Charolette was back in the hospital on the day before her birthday.  My spirit felt drained and I really just wanted to pull into a parking lot and cry. I stared at this tree for what seemed like an eternity, comparing myself to its barren branches, pitying our shared emptiness.  Out of the corner of my eye the light turned green, but my attention stayed on the tree because it was at that moment I recognized the sun sparkling behind the branches. I made the turn and pulled over for a photo.  I spent the next week writing about the feelings I had that morning and how the realization that the sun was shining through such a cold and prickly image reminded me that there is always hope.  I wrote it all out, read it and re-read it, then re-read it again before gagging on the Pollyanna sentiment of woe-turned-to-hope and silver-linings and promptly deleted the spewed words.  I sort of wish I had kept it because even though it was corny and ridiculously hopeful in the face of all hopelessness, well…that’s me. The words are gone, but I remember with absolute clarity the empty feeling suddenly replaced with swelling comfort, and the tears that stung my cheeks on that February morning as I conceded that there are a million things in this world that I will never understand.  And that’s okay, ‘cause look…sunshine!

March

As the days began to warm up we found reasons to be outside.  Here are the kiddos on the four-wheelers, roughly ten minutes before Victoria accidentally plowed into the back of Aaron’s vehicle, sending his four-wheeler into a ditch where it overturned.  It’s a slow-motion, heart-stopping story that aged me about five years in two minutes, but all ended well with Aaron dusty and shaken but otherwise unharmed. I notice they haven’t ridden much since then, however.

April

Aaron and I spent the better part of one morning coming up with rap names for Victoria, much to her chagrin.  “Tupac Sha-Vic” and “Snoop Vickie G” had us rolling. I continued the hazing well into the school day.  Hey – what are moms for?

May

For the second time, a yellow-tailed furball padded his way into our hearts.  At first, I thought he was a replica of Mason’s spirit because he was so sweet and snuggly, but that turned out to be a case of intestinal worms. Once cured, his independent and demanding personality emerged. Er-ma-ger, he was so stinkin’ cuuuute!

June

Of course, he grew…

July

And grew. (Although, he still hasn’t grown into those satellite dish ears.)

August

Just when I wonder if I will ever do anything right in this life, my children redeem me. Aaron announced that he wanted to join me in donating at our church’s blood drive. Watching him give blood for the first time I was the proudest mama on the planet, and I told him so on the way home. “There are a lot of things that define ‘adults,’” I said, “but giving part of yourself to save someone else, in my opinion, that’s what makes you a man.”

September

How could we possibly have a 2016 post without Eddie?! It’s not every day (thankfully!) that a pig wanders onto our property and mates with our electrical box.  The sight, the videos we took and the twenty minutes I spent doubled over in my driveway howling at the absurdity of it all will never be forgotten.  Eddie (short for Edison…get it?) made numerous trips to our yard over the next several days before the Sheriff’s office determined where Eddie lived and returned him to his home two streets behind us.  Eddie’s owners must have fixed whatever passage he was using to escape, because we haven’t seen him since mid-September. I thought I smelled him the other day, but no. It’s just as well…every time Eddie visited, Pop started talking about bacon.

October

As we entered the month that kicks off the snowball of holiday celebrations of which I am SO fond, my body orchestrated its own small-scale revolution.  I had just completed my Master’s degree, Charolette was holding her own, and my body said, “Ok, school is over and things have settled down for the moment.  You need to rest.”

“Sure, I’ll take it easy now,” I promised with my fingers crossed behind my back.

My body apparently doesn’t like me lying to placate it, because lightning struck somewhere nearby, polar ice caps instantly disintegrated and Gotham City went dark. So, by “rest” what my body really meant was, “go to the ER and get admitted to the hospital for four days.” I complained that really, it didn’t need to be so pushy.  But those who know me best gave each other sideways looks that said, “Uhh, yeah, it did.”  And that was that.

Hospitals suck, but my family makes it as fun as possible.  My Dad would determine my pain level and then draw it in on the nurse’s board each day.  Three days and several rounds of pain meds later, I was apparently doing much better.

October ranks two photos, mostly because I feel cheated by the month in which I had planned to party-hardy-marty. At the end of the month while Dom and I were flying to DC to attend a conference, our babies (ahem!) were getting ready for Homecoming.  We hated to miss it, but our moms made sure we had plenty of pics. I do believe this is my favorite.

November

Here are all the Louisiana Mainieros in a family pic after Thanksgiving lunch.  Who could ask for a better day? And why am I the only one who brings wine to photo ops?

December

You know this one had to end on a Max note.  Here he is on Christmas morning, having just opened his presents.  He was fascinated with the unwrapping of everything, but more fascinated with this super-cool chew toy!

Of course, Mabel appreciates her gifts, too.  Can’t leave out our sweet girl, so December also gets two photos…

So long, Sixteen.  It’s been lovely having you here.  May 2017 follow your lead. (Well, except for the hospitals…)

Farewell Fourteen!

If I were a glass-half-empty kind of girl, I would have to say that 2014 sucked Shrek’s big toe. Our litany of misery reads like a warped version of the Twelve Days of Christmas. One seizure (Dom), triple-bypass (Pops), four family funerals, six months of chauffeuring, and seven months without our favorite of all God’s creatures, the incomparable Mason.

True, 2014 was a roller coaster of blessing and curse, bitter and sweet. And yet, it seemed to me that each time we sunk into the valley of emptiness and grief and the fear of what could have been, our faith buoyed our souls out of shadow and into sunlight, reminding us not only to be grateful for each day we have with those we love, but also that the end of what we can see on Earth is not an end at all.

So with my glass half full, I present our Pictoral Year in Review:

January: Let’s just go ahead and start this off with the one wonky, unrelated-to-anything photo of the year.  Here is a show-stopping pic of our trampoline on the first icy day of January.  As you see, sleet does not keep my kids from bouncing, or, er…sliding.

February: Aaron was in 8th grade and getting ready to celebrate Mardi Gras in high style with the Class of 2018.  Here he is dressed to impress – or at least dressed to make me cry!  (Never mind that his Daddy was dressed EXACTLY LIKE THIS the first time I saw him!) I noticed Aaron’s height compared to the mantle’s edge as I posted this, and was pleased to show him that he’s grown four inches this year!

March: Victoria made her musical debut at my grandmother’s house by playing the water glasses.  She’s not nicknamed Gracie Lou Freebush for nothing!

April: I’m not entirely sure this happened in April, but it is in the right place on the timeline of my camera roll, so it gets the billing, even if it’s not really a “picture.” I was joking in the last line of my reply, but this really did make me proud!

May:  Paw prints and heartbreak.

June:  Headed to Grandmama and Granddaddy’s house on a Saturday.  We decided to take Mabel so she wouldn’t be home all alone.  Here she is propped in the backseat and grateful for the outing.

July: Victoria and her sweet friends gave Mabel a spa day.

August: You know those moments when you’re just hanging out, enjoying life, and you suddenly feel like you’re witnessing the present and the future all at the same time?  Yeah, this was one of those moments.

September: My boss came over and taught us and our parents how to make Italian sausage.  Primo!!!!  Here Dom and my dad are learning to case the sausage. October: My first fully-completed Pinterest project.  I started this back in March, I think.  Finished it in October.  My favorite literary places. I’d spend a lifetime on Blackfriar’s Bridge just to catch a glimpse of Tessa and Jem. November: Dom and I headed to a fancy-schmancy dinner one evening, and he asked Vic to take our picture before we left.  So glad he did.  Wish I’d had the foresight to put the ironing board up first. December: All I asked for was one sweet photo of my darling children together.  This is what I got, which is pretty typical of them nowadays.  {sigh} Teenagers! There it is, folks.  Our 2014 in a nutshell.  Come to think of it, my glass runneth over.

Ready

While at my local grocery store this weekend Dom and I stopped by the manager’s window to purchase some stamps for our Christmas cards. As I swiped my card in payment, the kind grey-haired woman behind the glass asked if we were ready for Christmas.

“Whew!” I groaned. “I hope so.”

Dom chimed in behind me, asking the lady if she was ready for Christmas.

“I’m always ready!” she beamed. Suddenly, my exasperated I hope so sounded shallow and disconnected. “I’m spending it with my mom,” she continued. “People keep asking if we’re going to have a lot of presents, and I say no. We’ll be together and that’s what really matters.”

This little lady in the manager’s booth taught me something I should have known my whole life, or at least been cognizant of for the last three weeks. Doesn’t Advent give us the opportunity to be grateful, to await in joyful anticipation the celebration of God’s love for us that is Christ’s birth? Instead of thinking about the rush of Christmas cards and tentative meal plans for Christmas Day, shouldn’t I instead be thinking during the whole year of how amazing it is that God loved us enough to become one of us, and – even more – gave us each other on which to practice love?

That sweet lady reminded my heart of its values and rekindled within me a gratitude for the true spirit of Christmas. Walking out of Brookshire’s, I felt like Bill Murray at the end of Scrooged where he’s wild-haired and giddy, exclaiming, “I get it now! I believe it’s gonna happen now! I’m ready!!”

May we always be ready for Christmas!

Ciao, 2013!

Tags

2013, photo recap, pics by the month, year in review

Is anyone else in as much shock as I am that 2013 is over?  I mean, we just got it started, right?  2012 flew by for us in uncertainty and anticipation.  2013 was supposed to creep.  Creeeeeeeeeeeeeep, I say!

But it didn’t.  It’s over.  Gone.  Just like that.  Poof!  Our first year in the new house, our first (and only) year of both kids in middle school, a quiet and peaceful year.  The year that was supposed to settle in, get comfy and stay a while slipped out like a welcome house-guest, leaving the borrowed blankets folded neatly on the sofa.  We hate to see that sweet guest go, but are grateful for the memories it left behind.

January:  Aaron’s first Social Studies project.  He’s more a Science Fair kinda guy.  But he had fun with this.

February: We finally finished building the fence.  Whew!!!!        March: Victoria’s birthday party, of course!!

April: Lady, my Father-in-law’s yellow lab, decided she wanted to help Dom mow the yard.  As you see, she’s all in!

May: The kiddos, hanging out and being sweet to each other.  (Cue collective awwwwww!)

June: You know there’s always at least one month with no notable pictures to speak of.  This is the one for 2013.  As I attempted to re-upholster the wing-back chair myself, this is one of the wounds I suffered.  I know, I know…big whoop.

July: Mabel is a food thief.  Here she has absconded with a hoagie roll that Aaron had made into a ham sandwich.  The entire hoagie, minus these two inches you see, is in her big fat mouth.

August: For the first time in Caddo Parish history, three Mainiero children are at the same school.  I had to document it.

September: Some mornings the sun shines just right through our front door and casts a rainbow on everything in its path.

October: This one deserves the video.  It just does.  We told Mabel that this is what happens to animals who steal food off of my kitchen counter.

November: I felt like the Grinch decorating his dog.  Except I think Mabel and Mason wear their antlers cuter than Max.  😉

December: The frosty, sunlit view from the deer stand. It was prettier in person.  The best part was watching the cardinals play as the sun came up.  You know, since the deer didn’t feel like coming out…

May your New Year’s celebrations be fun and safe.  And may 2014 bring you peace and joy.

Who Moved My Trailer?!!

Tags

Bad Santa, Christmas gifts, delayed delivery, FedEx, looking back and laughing, wrong address

Following up on last week’s post about my mishaps as Santa Claus, I drove to FedEx today fully prepared to have a Come-to-Jesus meeting, though whether they or I needed it more, I’m still unsure.

I had already contacted the online entity who sold me the posters and they are sweetly refunding my shipping charges.  I begged them to make FedEx find and deliver my package but like most things, once shipped, my items were at the mercy of the FedEx seas.  I was finally able this morning to determine that my package was dropped off at the main FedEx office on Christmas Eve where it continued to wait for me to pick it up.  The really fun part is that I was just supposed to know this inherently because FedEx, in all their wisdom and Christmas rush, made no further effort to contact me.  I spewed forth with unholy condemnations in the car as Dom pointed out that we were about to drive past a FedEx truck on the street near our neighborhood.

“Pull closer to him so I can flip him off!!” I demanded.  He didn’t.  So I didn’t.  It’s for the best.

I toyed with the idea of calling FedEx and insisting that they deliver my package today, but I decided knowing where my package sat was preferable to having it roam the streets again. So I drove myself to the shipping facility…fists taped, gloves on.

Once inside, I paused at the counter only to remind myself that the lady behind the counter is not the idiotic driver who failed to deliver Aaron’s gift on Christmas Eve.  She’s just working the FedEx counter, doing her job just like I would be doing mine if my office were open today.  She does not personally deserve my wrath.  Once she located my package she asked, “Do you have a new address?”  And so I launched into the whole stupid story – much like I did with you – and reiterated that the address on the package is indeed current and correct.

“I am so, so sorry for this mistake,” she offered.  Call me easy, but that was good enough for me.  Like I said, none of this crap was her fault.  I told her I would have been most happy with another phone call to alert me to the fact that my package would be available for pickup.  She agreed and apologized again.  We wished each other a good day and I hauled my four-foot long cylinder of a poster package to the car.

All in all, this goofy incident was little more than a hassle with a happy ending.  Aaron got his posters, I maintained my dignity, and the FedEx lady hopefully had an uneventful day at work.  As I stripped the cardboard cylinder of its labels containing my address I saw the driver’s reason for not delivering it, penned in the “other” category at the bottom of the adhesive label:

That’s right, folks.  Apparently my trailer was gone when he tried to deliver to it.  Like we place Internet orders all the time and then move the house before delivery.  I am thoroughly convinced that the dude wasn’t even on my street.  ‘Cause my trailer’s kinda hard to miss:

Merry Christmas!!

 

 

 

Bad Santa

Tags

FedEx, gifts, guitar case, lost Christmas gifts, motherly madness, Santa

It all started on Christmas Eve, right about the time that I was congratulating myself for not stressing out over anything, for putting the joy of the season ahead of the tasks.  I really enjoyed Advent this year.  I even took a picture of the last lighting of the Advent wreath and bid the season a fond farewell on the afternoon of the 24^th, just moments before FedEx called me.

I almost didn’t answer the phone because I didn’t recognize the number.  Except that it was a 504-area code, meaning the New Orleans area and possibly the other half of my brain (aka Stacey) simply calling from a number I didn’t have on file.  So I answered with a cheerful, “Hellooooooo!”

That’s when I quasi-met a FedEx rep who was in communication with a driver in my area.  Jackpot!!  The last gift to arrive was finally en route to my door!  It was a gift for Aaron – some fancy Lord of the Rings posters that will look awesome in his room.  (You can’t beat a map of Middle Earth.  You just can’t.)   The voice on the other end of the phone proceeded to tell me that the driver had information that I had moved.

Uhhh, like a year ago, dude.  Let it go already.

I politely asked what address they had on file, half-impressed that they would even know my address from over a year ago.  But he pulled a mind scrambler on me when he rattled off my current address.  “No, we haven’t moved,” I assured him.  “In fact, I’m standing in the kitchen of that address right now.  Tell the driver to come on out!”  And with that we wished each other a merry Christmas and hung up.

Four days later, I have replayed that conversation a million times in my head.  I wish I had asked all the logical questions, like: Can the driver find us on a GPS?  Can he find my neighbors’ (in-laws’) address instead? Why exactly does he think we moved? How can FedEx not find me when UPS has been here every day for the past two weeks?  If he doesn’t make it to my house, where can I go to retrieve my package?  Oh, hindsight, curse you and your practicality.

I was not surprised when FedEx did not show before we left for Mass.  I was disappointed when they had not come by the time we returned.  I decided to tell Aaron all about the posters and how cool they were going to be when we received them on the day after Christmas, and how we would hang them up together and make his room look awesome.  He jumped up and hugged me with a huge smile.  Totally worth it.

Fast forward five hours.  We returned from the in-laws’ where we had our Christmas Eve celebration and I proceeded to pull out the last of the kids’ gifts to put under the tree.  They’re cool with me being Santa and all, but I still like Christmas morning to hold some surprises.  So my plan was to put the two largest gifts unwrapped and under the tree after they went to bed.  Vic was getting a zebra-striped gym bag and Aaron was getting a carrying case for his electric guitar.  I reached into the upper cabinet of the utility room where I had stashed the gym bag and looked for the guitar case.  No case.  No problem.  It must be in another cabinet.

Thirty cabinets, six rooms and two hours later I was still looking for the damn guitar case, and getting quite frantic in the process.  How could I lose something that is almost as tall as I am?  I had my hands on it earlier in the day when I pulled guitar picks out of the bag to decorate another package with.  What.  The.  Hell????

I looked in every possible hiding place three times, a fact that later made my father question my sanity. “If it wasn’t there the first time, what made you think….??”  Because when you realize that of five gifts, three of your son’s are ABSENT from Christmas morning, you panic and do irrational things.  Like cry in the hallway at 1am and accidentally wake up your daughter, who gets up to make sure you’re okay and then stays awake another half hour retracing your own steps in an effort to help.  Oh, sweet child.

Needless to say, Christmas morning came and went without those three gifts.  Aaron graciously opened up his other two gifts while I served myself a steaming cup of shame-on-me and profusely apologized for losing his biggest present.  While I focused on the mishap internally, it seems no one else did, for we continued our Christmas morning with the spirit in which it was meant to be celebrated.  And I went back to the guitar shop and bought another case on Friday, with the express understanding that if I find the lost one anytime soon I can easily return it.  That’s right, people.  I have rolled up my Christmas sweater sleeves and taken measures to right the wrongs.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go throw down with FedEx.  I think I’ll offer an exchange…they give me my map of Middle Earth, and I’ll give them a map of Shreveport!!