manrymission.com

I greatly admire all organized Christmas participants. They mail their cards on time, bake their cookies, make their candy, buy their gifts, mail packages early, wrap presents, decorate the house, and light the tree. My sister falls into this category of Christmas success and my father praises her peanut brittle.

I do not fall into this category. I do what must be done immediately before it must be done staying up late to accomplish the task. My mom called me at 9pm last night and discovered me baking cookies for the church Christmas Eve cookie exchange. The exchange was originally planned for Saturday, but was snowed out. I had baked peanut butter hershey kiss cookies originally, but they did not survive until Christmas Eve.

I have a general idea as to what I need to do and will suddenly focus on a task at random and it will become my priority for the moment. I do not give Dale much warning and will announce, “I think we should get the tree today and you can put lights on it tomorrow…then you and Gabe can hang the lights on the house.” Other times, I will get stuck on what gift to give to one of the children and illicit Dale’s help. These are moments Dale tries to avoid, but occasionally he cannot escape the endless search for another option which ends in no right answer.

I cannot do my shopping all at once. I have a friend who does all her Christmas shopping on one day. She shops from 8am to 10pm. I could never shop that long. Abby and my mom could, but not me. I usually purchase gifts in the order of when they have to be given: family gifts to be mailed, friends, children, and finally Dale. (Dale is last place, but don’t tell him)

On Tuesday, I had my final list and headed to the shops. The large amount of snow remaining has made parking lots random spot chaos. At the MCX (military department store), they had cleared the parking lot willy nilly. Some aisles could be entered and exited only one way, some aisles  and spaces were filled with snow, and everyone and their brother was driving about. It was madness.

I had a list and it did not include entering the MCX, (I was supposed to be going to the commissary next to it.) but I had a sudden compulsion to join the large crowd headed to the MCX and was funneled in by them. I wandered about consumed by the Holly Jolly.

Eventually, I escaped the MCX with “great gifts I didn’t know I needed”, bought the food I actually needed, and dropped everything at home. I now had three more stores to go. At the first store, I did well sticking to the list. On my way to the second store, Dale called and said, “Zeke needs water proof mittens.” “OK,” I thought, “I’ll just run into this other store not on my list.” From past experience, I should have realized I was at the brink.

There is always an item that is unattainable. Each year it changes and when I begin to look for it, I cannot stop trying to find it. I waste more time looking for it than it is worth. I will search and search throughout a store, looking everywhere and will slowly enter the “Holly Jolly Haze.” All focused thoughts disappear, nothing on the list can be found, and I wander at random in a slow distracted ineffective manner.

It is near impossible to escape the Holly Jolly Haze.  Shopping becomes painful and if someone asks if they can help me find something, I can no longer give them a cohesive answer. Truly, it is best to go home, sleep, and try again another day, but even this simple decision escapes me.

Eventually, I stumbled home fortified by a hot cocoa topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. It didn’t snap me out of the Holly Jolly Haze, but it sure tasted good.

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.

By Mugs Manry

“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.”

Acts 4:32 (NIV)

The sight of a large truck being loaded with household items will elicit the following prayer from me, “Lord, thank You that this truck is not parked at my house.” Our family has moved many times because of my husband’s military career. After each move, there is a tremendous push to put things away. Inevitably, I run out of energy and cannot face another decision on where something should go. Therefore, piles of items remain in various rooms to trip over or maneuver around as we settle into a new place.

(more…)