On December 25, Fum, Fum, Fum...

Updating a post from our Guatemala mission:

 "T'was [two weeks] before Christmas and all thru the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse..."

Well maybe one! The computer mouse was sleeping at the office, so to begin, I used a little blue tooth keyboard our kind son in law helped find and Elder Willits wrestled to connect wirelessly to earn oatmeal cookies with SUGAR (not honey) --his specification for a thankful reward.

The mouse has awakened, now, to help me finish a hope from a few days ago, in wee morning hours to capture  early memories. 

When my Dad was small,  

some tinsel hanging from the branches of the family tree must have touched the electrical plug and burst into flames. His mother noticed, grabbed, and ran with the torching pine outside to thrust it into the snow.  Grandma healed her burns with honey, and Dad kept us safe by choosing to dismantle our tree on Christmas Day or the day after.  

When your tree is disassembled, ornaments carefully packed, and radios stop humming songs of the season, what happens next?   

In music, when a true chord is struck, tones of each note is heard, but for moments afterward, overtones, octaves higher echo the air.  Christmas strikes a real chord.  And overtones are memories.  So, what is an early or special memory that causes you to wonder or [hold close] these things...in [your] heart?  

This year, Elder Bednar challenged each of us to imagine being really there in the events that surrounded Jesus' birth.

I am working on this...But today, I have some treasures to share that might spark memories of yours--in feeling the magic or magesty of Jesus's birthday!

My first memory, I must have been three years old, as it seems like it was before my fourth Christmas, 
I remember being outside the door of a little bathroom in a tiny student married housing apartment, feeling oh, so nauseated.  I did not know that word.  But I remember being doubled over and feeling very not well. 

   Maria and a few other family members are going through such an experience.  

Last week, when I was speaking with a mother of a young man named Immanuel I told her a reason why I love that name.  It is one of the names of Christ-- "God with us."  Heavenly Father loved us enough to send us to earth.  To give us bodies that would let us have the blessing of progressing.  We love Heavenly Father.  But He is in heaven.  He sent his Firstborn Son to earth to BE WITH us.  To be born physically, to experience stomach aches, body aches, and heart aches.  God With Us. 

I remember Mom reading a story to me read by Paul Harvey about a man trying to save a dying flock of birds, and wondering what he could do to help them want to enter his warm barn.  Grandpa Gee listened to this radio orator every day during his lunch with Grandma.  I remember being scared of Grandpa when I was little and he was stern.  As years passed, my goal in our phone calls was to make him laugh, and boy, could he laugh.  

The scriptures explain that because Jesus came, and experienced the aches and pains that He endured, we do not have to go through the same type of suffering that He did, if we repent (experience a change of heart, and let His Spirit point us to choose the right.)  I also like Elder Holland's encouragement to understand that because the Savior went through the feelings of being so very much alone, we never need to feel so abandoned or alone.

Another memory is from hearing a copy of the reel-to-reel tape recorder my parents used to capture talks with a red suited, bearded man:  When I was two, my father held us close and bellowed "HO, HO, HO, little girl (or little boy) How old are you?" I told him I was six.  I had just turned two. 

Age four, my mother brought us near an announcer at a radio station who was broadcasting near Santa, who was asking what the little children wanted for Christmas. We had been told from knee high that if we were good, Santa would bring us something nice.  If we were not good, he would bring us a piece of coal for our stocking.  I decided that the sticks and stones ideas wouldn't be such a bad one, if I had a big brother around.  He could take those sticks and stones and build a beautiful play house. 

I told this to Santa.  Christmas morning came, but to my dismay, Santa had gotten the message, BUT the sticks and stones were NOT the two by four boards with bricks for my imaginary play house. 

 On the kitchen table, I found a paper sack of sticks and soil that Santa had seemed to have dug from my back yard

This was NOT what I was expecting.  Lucky for a little girl,  stowed behind the sack of soil and sticks was a baby that really cried. I remember later I gave my baby a bath in the tub with real water and she did not cry any more.

  So, I am thinking now, that the big brother idea is still a good one.  Sometimes we forget what we really want for Christmas is something that lasts and lasts, and yes, we have to be good!  A wonderful part of the story is that each of us has Someone who can make something really good out of any of our poor choices, or coal and sticks that sometimes come in our stockings.  Is there someone that is making a great house for you?  I like that He told John, "In my Father's house are many mansions, I go there to prepare a place for you." Isn't it comforting to understand that there is "Home" waiting...with a welcome sign?

I am pretty sure it was this same Christmas that we were visiting a neighbor, looked at the sky and saw something amazing. 

I keep asking my mom to explain how I could have seen something like this. 

Just like my memories of watching Mary Poppins float mid air in the night from my daddy's shoulders at Disneyland, some things I will have to learn "why" later. 

It could have been at this same party that we found out that one of my brother's friend's house had burned down or his mother had died, something tragic.  My mother held us close.  We felt the sadness of this friend and their loss.  We did not have a lot of things, but we had each other!

I also remember being at a parade, where Santa came through the crowds and handed us HUGE candy canes, the size of three big people fingers put together.  I was not sure I liked candy cane flavor, but I grew into it. 

Before the next Christmas, our family moved across the country, over 2,000 miles, to a small town in New England, where the deadline for school was the 31st of December, good luck for me, and for my best friend. 

Turning five, in kindergarten at the Christian Day School, I learned by heart the story of shepherds and angels.  I liked the carol where I could sing full blast, "Glory to God... [in the highest!]  
My favorite present  was a schoolgirl doll.  Again, she could talk, "My name is Susie Smart.  One plus one is two.  Two plus two is four.  C-A-T spells cat.  D-O-G spells dog." She had a desk and a chalkboard, and having Susie Smart helped me want to be smart, to learn learn learn, even if part of the school I was going to included taking naps.  I still am learning about naps.

I remember getting a ping pong table in the basement of our New Hampshire house,

 

that had just been refinished to make a bedroom for three boys.  The piano also fit downstairs.  When I hear La Candeur, Consolation, Arabesque and other songs by Burgmuller, I instantly feel a little space heater and remember reading Little Women, listening to my sister practice.  Our practice time was five in the morning, and our mother sent us together to give each other moral support. 

I remember receiving two dolls, one larger,

one smaller   that my sister and I got, just alike.  Our brother would play with us, but his games (always inventive) would ever include cars  and adventure.          

It is in December that I got to have a second birthday.   My best friend turned eight 18 days after me.   We were the only members of the Church in our school, with no others our age for miles around.  

My dad baptized us both.  We borrowed the nearby Portsmouth chapel--the water heater did not work, but we learned that the Holy Ghost could help us feel warm!

Not long after we turned eight, Joann's mother remarried.  Her step-dad joined the Church, and eventually became bishop of our struggling tiny congregation, or branch, that grew and grew from a twig to now three congregations or wards... 

Above is Joann (far left) and her brother Mike (middle top)  with us, selling fire alarms

to earn money to help build a chapel that finally was constructed

in our little city, 7 years later.

                                                                         From meeting in a rented hall where we would clear the tobacco and alcohol remains before setting up chairs for a sacrament meeting with shortage of classrooms... I remember our Sunday School class meeting in the foyer of a women's bathroom.  And I remember asking Sister Pouliot what God looked like. To this and a plethora of other questions she decided I would need to find out myself, later-- I could ask when I got to the other side, and then tell her!  

                                 

 Years later, in Warwick castle, on a Starkey family history trip, overhearing a perplexed mother climbing stairs quiet her whimpering little son, "When we get upstairs, we shall SORT it out!"  which is my advice to our grandchildren when they can't figure everything out--just now. 

I heard another story this December from my mother.  It was in this same tiny branch that my father had been invited to lead, that a local department store offered to share their returned items to be distributed to families in need.  I remember seeing a pretty manikin head and wishing that I could be on the list of recipients.  I remember traveling over winding tree-lined roads to a little house in the hills such as this and being invited in to bring groceries and gifts to a chilly home with a dirt floor.  The paper grocery sack and other items were shared, along with the warmth of another family caring.  

Later, Mom and Dad visited again.  As they were traveling along the same winding road, they encountered a young man.  He explained that his mother had died. 

"I have been reading the blue Book [of Mormon] that you left."  

In grieving the death of his mother, he had discovered comfort in words of His Savior.

I remember traveling over the river and through the woods to church on a snowy evening.  One night (our Sacrament Meetings were then held in the evening) our family and one youth were the only people there. 

This is 40 years later, the same little house where we met

I remember driving home from church with snow surrounding us

and seeing a family that had just had a car accident and needed a ride home.  The little girl sat in the back seat with us as we delivered her to their destination.  Much much later, it seems like years if not months, from the parking lot of my best friend, the same little girl, approached and described how she remembered that we had helped her.  It surprised me, as I could scarcely remember this girl, let alone the incident.  That being said, when I sing words about a poor wayfaring man or read Matthew 25 I realize that there are times when we give something small, that is only natural that a person would do, it may be large to someone else--enough to remember far longer than we do!

Another memory I have today, is of my Mom and Dad in New Zealand, calling with Skype on Christmas, dressing up and sharing the Nativity with a baby

from our wood floored front room.  

Hearing Dad read the words of Luke, Matthew, and 3rd Nephi chapter one in his baritone voice reminiscent of a deep narrating voice of his father, my heart honed to remember -- this is what Christmas is all about.  The story.  The reason we could choose to come to earth.  Why the angels sang, and sing, 

and will continue to sing. 

From the "foundation of the world until today and forever."   

Only this season, we are the one who is far away, watching scarfed Mary and head-banded Joseph prance and dance and Hark the Herald.
             

My companion likes being a wise man, traveling from afar!

 "This is as good as it gets,"  I decide, as a toddler pounds piano bass notes, 

an auntie holds her stomach, recovering gradually from the flu. It is this story (beginning, middle, and end) that eases the enduring of pains and challenges of physical bodies, mortal challenges, and pains resulting from misguided choices. 

Hark!  The Herald Angels are singing.  They sang, and will continue to sing.  And when I join them in voice or heart or lyre (fingers or feet)  somehow the resonance of a father's and grandfather's voice echoes through the words,

 "And it came to pass, there went out a decree from Cesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed..."

As challenges with  year-end difficulties wait to be contested, confirmed or contradicted, I think of a mother and step father traveling from their native city to wait until "the days were accomplished that she should be delivered."  While we are awaiting the days to be accomplished, it can be our turn to peer at the side of the road to help bring a fellow traveler home. 

 A family that we might not remember weeks later but that might continue to remember us, as they were sick and we visited them, were hungry and we fed them, naked and we clothed, a stranger and we took them in.

A final memory, that came while sewing napkins for a missionary dinner was the high school year I decided to make a Western-styled snap flannel shirt for my Dad for Christmas.  I worked into the wee hours putting on brads or snaps. And I do not remember Dad wearing the shirt.  

This Christmas, I resolved to find out first the WOW gift...before working for hours and hours, and then to learn what the pattern required.  At the end of the day, the hope is  not only to have learned how to conquer "snaps," but to have the best present ever--to live eternally loved ones.  The meaning of TIME less. Timely memories, timeless themes, overtone notes of a true chord.  

Another thing I learned from sewing.  While sewing the border on the napkins,  I talked to grandson William, five, who was "being a toad," hiding under every green thing in the house.  I told him about the hole in our street in front, how it had gotten bigger and bigger every time it rained, the soil would wash further down until it was getting dangerous.
 
That morning a team of eight men had arrived and were filling the hole.  Later they covered it with cement...a foundation, so when the floods and rains arrive, there will not be an abyss of misery and woe for traveling neighbors.

 When I hear foundation of the world, 

I am grateful for a Rock 

of our salvation, 

offering a gospel 

cut out of a mountain without hands, 

and a promise 

that as we 

firm a foundation in our own families, 

we can fill the holes in our heart 

with words of truth daily, 

acknowledging One who made it possible 

for us to be here, 

One who offers comfort 

when difficult things happen to us, 

and One who encourages us 

to reach out and lift others along our path.  

P.S.  We asked our friends here and ask you--
What are traditions of Christmas that you like to keep in your family?

Ours: 

Kitchen and treats, stockings

Wrapping packages,

Reading the story of Jesus

Counting blessings

Enjoying Beethoven and breakfast

"Little Women" and plays

Blankets and wrapping up,

With snowball (and/or pillow) fights!

Family games--rook and variations of the same!

 

Recitals, visiting elderly, caroling

Relaxing--Shhhh!..."Peace--be Still!   

                                 

pajamas

 --matching or not

Finding cousins

Visiting family

Loving roots

Discovering beauty

Trying out mistletoe

sending and gathering notes of family, friends

"And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from the into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem...And when they had seen it, they made known abroad..." 

So like Mary, what will we keep 

(and ponder in our heart)  

share 

(or hold close?) 

What are your prized traditions 

with loved ones near and far? 

Happy overtones of the season

-- to all, and to all a good morning!

  Love, Mom/Grandma/friend/neighbor/sister

                        Laurene Starkey