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Part of Dale’s family lives in the town of Natchitoches, Louisiana. Every year the town has a Christmas festival with a parade, fireworks, and lighted displays along the riverbank. I have never been there for the parade and the festival, but each time I have seen the lights, I have loved them.

The displays are reflected in the water and the pulsing, colorful bridge lights are timed to music. There is a tunnel of lights that flash in patterns which make you dizzy. There are the normal holiday lights of snowmen, skaters, trains, candles, nutcrackers, and Santa with sleigh. There are the Louisiana unique lights of magnolia, crayfish, and alligators.

My favorite lighted scene, however, is the depiction of the stable with star overhead, Mary and Joseph, babe in the manger, shepherd nearby, and kings making their approach. There are two lighted signs in this scene. One says Silent Night and the other says For God So Loved The World.

Nativity Christmas Lights

Every time I see it, I take heart that in this small southern town a Christmas display still depicts the birth of Christ and tells you quite clearly why God sent His Son.

My neighbors at the end of the block are in a festive battle for best Christmas display in lights. Until this year, the neighbor on the left end was king of lights and uncontested on our block. Then, sometime this year, his rival bought the house directly across the street from him. I am convinced that holiday display technicians insist on buying corner lots so they have two sides on which to display their wares.

The battle commenced in October for halloween. The new guy had his display up earlier and it was impressive with a graveyard, skeltons, ghosts, and witches. However, the king of yard displays is hard to beat, because he puts out something new every few days. He had fresh dug graves, skeletons, ghosts, witches, webs, giant spider, howling noises, and a giant mummy coming out on the balcony.

When it gets close to halloween, I drive an alternate route home to avoid driving by his house of horror. I could say I do it so the children aren’t frightened, but really it’s me who gets creeped out every year.

Thankfully, halloween ends and yard displays quiet on our block for a month. However, the day after Thanksgiving, the new guy jumped ahead again with his Christmas display. He loves inflatable displays as well as lights.  He has a giant merry go round, spinning penguin, santas, frostys, deer, skiing bear, candy canes, as well as a house and yard full of lights.

I really want to go over and encourage him, because sometime over the next eighteen days, he’ll realize he has lost again. The King has just gotten started with a giant new Santa in a hot air balloon, his musical trees, the train, snowman in the box, teeter totter, wooden soldier, and the 30 foot tree of lights. We have yet to see the Grinch coming out of the chimney, Snoopy, the snow globe, and multiple others that will reappear some day in December.

My neighborhood displays, although quite impressive, could not be described as beautiful. For that, we traveled down to Richmond to the Lewis Ginter Garden light display. It was lovely. They had butterflies, fish, dragonflies, fairies, tricycles, unicorn, lily pads in the pond all done in lights. In addition, there were whole pathways of lighted trees, tunnels, mazes, and buildings.

My favorite light display was a giant peacock in lights where several strands of the same color lights made up each feather in the tail. The kids loved the light dog running through the trees. We were all fascinated by the interactive train display which included house on fire and engine repair.

The one item that baffled us all, however, were the spider lights. An artist had made giant lighted spiders that were scattered across the garden. Last year, the designers had created a web of lights that the spiders sat on. It was not exactly holly jolly. When my friend Pam saw them, she asked, “What’s with the spiders?”

I’m thinking of giving the new neighbor down the street a bit of advice. If he could find the garden spider artist and buy himself some giant spider lights before next year, he may be able to take the king by surprise and win the halloween display hands down.

Every year Abby’s middle school hosts a Christmas party where the boys must wear ties and the girls must wear pretty dresses. I have learned it is not easy to find appropriate dresses for girls ages 11-13. They outgrow the little girls dresses and the junior dress assortment is either too casual or decidedly lacking in material.

Last year we searched and searched in vain until I drove to Richmond and went to Dilliards. Dilliards is a department store based in Texas. Therefore, they have plenty of teenage girl shoppers who need party dresses for quinceanera and debutante events. They have the most lovely little girl dress department.

Even though Abby can still fit in some of the dresses in the girls department, she refused to buy one. “Look how cute this is,” I would say. She would say nothing and just give me the teenage girl flat eyed glare. She may have done a bit of over exaggerated sighing as well.

Prior to driving to Richmond, Abby had printed out pictures of dress possibilities from their online store. Her father did not care for these possibilities for they were all lacking in material. So, we had discussions regarding appropriate dress length and shoulder coverage. Almost all junior dresses have skimpy straps or no straps at all which forces you to buy a sweater.

Abby loves to shop. My mom loves to shop. I do not love to shop. I suppose this is why on the way to Richmond Abby told me  “You make it no fun.” My most enjoyable shopping experience is when I can give Abby and my mom the money and wait for them to return and tell me about the great deal they found. However, my mom is too occupied for shopping right now, so Abby is stuck with me.

For Abby there are a few absolute No’s with clothing: No elastic, No scratchy netting, and absolutely No puffed sleeves. Even though the sweater was really cute and the puff on the sleeve was really small or the netting was a tiny amount on the bottom of the inside skirt…No! No! No!

Abby tried on dress after dress. Too short…Too skimpy…Too old…Wrong color… Finally a peacock blue dress with a skirt that fell below the knees. The shoulders were bare, so we started in on the sweaters. Too short…Too skimpy… Too old…Wrong color.

Sweaters were abandoned for capes. We disregarded Edna Mode’s advice of “No Capes!” and found a black cape to wear with the dress. Victory! We went to the register to pay and the girl rung up Abby’s dress. Without my being aware of it, Abby had chosen a dress that was 50% off. She did her grandma proud.

This week Josiah and I attended the school’s fall sports awards ceremony. It was great. Everyone played their roles to a t. My brother, Rob, often meets characters in life and makes the following comment,”You couldn’t script them better.” If Rob would have been with me, he would have made that comment this week listening to the football coach: the head football coach.

Josiah attends a fairly small school; there are 400 kids total in 7-12 grade. This year the school started a football team with 30 boys and (to my amazement) 7 coaches. Now, I love football. Everyone knows I love football, but seriously…7 coaches?

The school hired a retired local legend who almost 20 years ago led his public school team to three state championships. He brought with him a staff of men who he had either coached, coached with, or coached against. It was remarkable. I was fired up within just a few minutes of listening to him and thought again of the scene on the top of the sand dune in Michigan. Thankfully, this time there was no throwing up.

The coach thanked the parents for adjusting to the boys riding the bus home from games. “We go together; we come home together: Win, Lose, or Draw,” he assured us. He then told stories about what it was like to build a team from the ground up. “There were kids who didn’t know what a hash mark was. Can you believe it? Not knowing a hash mark?” he declared. Next he talked of how much the team would improve next year when they started filming games and exchanging film with the other coaches from our conference. “Did he really just say exchanging film?” I asked myself.

Although the football coach was the highlight, I had a chuckle about plenty of other things. Upon looking at her players, the field hockey coach commented, “Don’t they look like a group of nice young women? …No mud on them…Give them a stick and then see what happens!” The team stood up there awkwardly with a look on their faces that said, “Why do we have to wear a dumb skirt to this ceremony?” I was ready to grab a stick and join my sisterly kin. Alas, I cannot. Instead, I will force Abby to go out for field hockey. It’ll toughen the girl up when she joins the Chicks with Sticks.

A bit later, the cheerleader coach gave an impassioned speech justifying cheerleader as an athletic sport. “We sweat…there’s blood…and sometimes we get punched in the eye!” she proclaimed. The audience did not seem convinced, especially the seven football coaches. I must now regretfully confess that I was once a cheerleader. Although I played lacrosse in college, I was a cheerleader in high school. (I am only admitting this because I fear my sister will point this hypocrisy out in a comment to this blog.) Yet, when I looked upon the cheerleaders standing up there, dressed to the nines, I did not feel the same sisterly kinship. However, Josiah can certainly attest to the fact that I still love to yell loudly during sporting events and awards ceremonies.

The Cross Country coach was scribbling frantically up until his turn arrived. Another Cross Country mom and I were hypothesizing whether he was writing his speech or still trying to determine who lettered. The coaches give out awards, named after people in the Bible, to those athletes who exemplify spiritual leadership, excellence, perseverance, or sportsmanship.

The first award the coach gave was to the captain of the team. He had joined Cross Country three years ago to improve his health. He was extremely overweight. The first year, he ran the 5k in 36 minutes. The next year, he came to the team having lost 40 pounds. This year, he had a personal best time and ran the 5k in 24 minutes. It was a remarkable testimony and I am ever so grateful that the school awards those types of accomplishments.

To my surprise, Josiah won the Nehemiah Champion of Excellence award as the best runner on the boys team. He and another runner had battled back and forth throughout the season on who would finish first for the team. Towards the end of the season, Josiah started to win more often. At the conference championships, Josiah beat him by one second.

The cross country team competed well this year despite only having 4 boy runners and 5 girl runners. The girls team tied for best in Conference and 3 of the 4 boys finished within the top 25 at the conference meet. After the coach handed out the awards, the team moved into the hallway to receive their letters. The coach came back into the audience and sat down. The other Cross Country mom tapped him on the shoulder and asked if he was going to give out letters. He replied, “Oh. We’re supposed to do that now?” The team was standing in the hallway trying to figure out what happened to the coach. Josiah came back in with a giant letter “F.” Being academically minded, I find the letter a bit scary.

In a fit of “Cross Country Dad,” Dale had emailed the athletic director requesting some effort be made to recruit additional runners to the team. (I know he should be stopped, but I can’t make him see sense.) In the reply, he was thanked for his concern and reminded that there are 7 fall sports competing for athletes. It remains to be seen if next year this “Cross Country Dad” will continue to pursue recruiting now that he knows he is outnumbered seven to one.