Before we go any further, I have to warn you...

Being honest is really important to me. Like, if David says to me "Did you forget to do that think you said you'd do?" I will cringe and say "No, I thought about it but it was inconvenient and I was in bed eating chocolate and didn't want to get out and figured I'd do it in the morning." That level of honest. Which is strange, because it doesn't bother me at all that (say, in the last four lines of this post alone) I have proven myself to be self-centered, gluttonous, and lazy. I am good with those flaws. But honesty is important to me.

Except where exaggeration is concerned. Exaggerating, you see, is not lying (this applies only to the telling of stories). My dad used to say (of the wife and four children that he and his eardrums were blessed with) that we'd "never let the truth get in the way of a good story". This is not technically the case--sometimes there is a good story but I won't tell it because it's true. Privacy and all. Like the story about David on the bus when he was nine and the thing Anthony said about testicles the other day.

When Nathan was twelve he went to a wedding reception, came home, and announced "Liz is never coming to my wedding". Apparently, he thought I would tell stories.

"Hah." said David (then eight), "Liz will never remember the stories that long."

"Hah! Will SO!" I countered (with my usual practice of meeting eight year olds where they are in terms of maturity level) "because I WRITE them DOWN!!!"

(This is true. I have chronically messy house, my car only gets an oil change when it rolls over, sticks all four wheels in the air and goes into convulsions, and my yard has been a GIANT heap of garbage for SIX YEARS, but I have meticulous baby books. I like to write. It's like talking, but you don't have to find someone who will listen to you.)

"AAAAGGGGHHHHHH!" Nathan shrieked, upon learning that I was writing about him, "The Book of Doom!!!!"

So, I have great sets of baby books labelled "Books of Doom" for each child. And the new car, which has bluetooth cell phone capability, has learned to dial the oil change place itself and book an appointment.

So my point is that you have been forewarned that from time to time I exaggerate. In case you didn't figure out out from the part in my blog post where the car rolled over on it's own and started dialing my phone. This exaggeration is particularly true of medical conditions. Gary thinks blissfully of the days pre-internet medical sites, when he was greeted with "How was your day?" instead of "I have immune thrombocytopenic purpura." So, reader beware.

In the interests of accuracy, I must note that I don't think Gary has ever been greeted with "How was your day?" (see prior note regarding self-centeredness). Ironically, I think if this ever happened, he'd send me to a neurologist to rule out a brain tumor.

Hey, speaking of brain tumors... So, this friend of mine (I have been reading blog sites and learning that you aren't supposed to use real names, so I'll call her Mrs. Smith which is really ironic because I call her that in real life, too, and it's not her name there either), this friend of mine burned herself on my tea kettle on account of side effects of a brain surgery she had years ago. I burn myself on that kettle all the time, and there's nothing surgically wrong with my brain, but you know what hypochondriacs people with brain tumors can be. Well, actually, it wasn't a tumor, it was a brain cavity (caused by a congenital condition). I have to tell you, if I had had a cavity in my brain, I would be referring to it as "part of my brain was born missing!" for my whole life because that is way more dramatic. But Mrs. Smith is not a big exaggerator.

So, David enters the kitchen part way through, and I say to him,

"Did you know she had a brain tumor?"

"It was a cavity." Mrs. Smith corrects.

"I figured." David says. "That's how Liz tells a story. Makes me glad I have perfect teeth."

I'm really not that bad.

Should Being a Unitarian be Easy?

So, my husband has these friends at work who I think should be Unitarians. They're a group of six or so from varied paths--a couple of Agnostics, an Atheist, a liberal Jew, etc--who meet every month or two to talk about religion. One of them, (who I call "Cuba guy" because I can't remember his name and I'm really impressed by his medical work overseas) even asked me about Unitarianism once. I was prepared. I had my elevator speech at the ready (an elevator speech is an outreach tool--your thirty second summary of how you'd define Unitarianism). I drew it out and launched into it with full speed and enthusiasm. He backed away slowly... nearly onto the street, actually...

"How's that different from a book club?" he asked.

I wasn't sure.

So, realizing that I wasn't so good at this conversion stuff, I transfered my efforts to my husband. Our conversations would go something like this:

Me: Hey, they would love Unitarianism. You should tell them about it.

Gary: They know about it.

Me: You should tell them more. You should tell them to come to a service.

Gary: I don't want to be creepy.

(long awkward pause)

Me: We need better elevator speeches.

So, this conversation happened a couple of years ago, and not much has gone on since. The group of six has been meeting regularly, enjoying themselves, and continuing on completely oblivious to my religious direction. Last summer, Gary and I started asking ourselves some hard questions about what it means to live out our Unitarian values. This fall, we un-plated the Mercedes, and Gary started riding his bike to work--through minus thirty temperatures, snow, sleet, and so on. At work, he was met with an "are you insane?" reception from the other doctors. He was surprised by this--we're used to Unitarians, who bike and walk everywhere, and who's insanity is widely acknowledged. We watch them pare down their vehicle needs, buy solar panels, and take on social justice issues. It was Unitarians who took us aside when the housing crisis hit Saskatoon and gently pointed out that we have way more space in our house than we really need.

In the last month or two, Gary's friends have been asking him questions again. They know a lot, it seems, about Unitarianism--they've been reading about it online. It's led to some interesting discussions. A lot of people are asking questions. I don't know if any of them will come to church, but in the last couple of years I've mellowed enough that this doesn't matter to me so much. I want the people who need us to know that we exist, but once they do... I'm less concerned with my religion's power to change others--and trying to focus more on its power to change me.

I remember how when I first found Unitarianism, I was relieved. I thought it would be simple. I was mystified by my husband's attitude, when he initially refused to join the congregation.

"But this is a perfect fit!" I declared. "What could be easier?"

"When I join a religion," he answered, "I don't look for it to be easy."

Gary doesn't have an elevator speech. But if he did, I imagine it would go something like this: "My religion challenges me. It challenges me to think through and define my values and to live up to them. It helps me steer clear of the easy outs--of accepting someone else's plan for my life, or of drifting through life without a moral compass. It holds me accountable for living the life I believe to be right."

Gary doesn't have an elevator speech--but he's working on an elevator life.

Even Unitarians can be succinct. See?

I have become enamored with six word stories.
(http://www.smithmag.net/)

I'm a Unitarian, a religion infected with verbal hemophiliacs (of which I'm a textbook case). As an attempted cure for myself, I have managed to sum up all major aspects of my life in six words each.

Life story: I was right to take detours.
Love: I married up. (So did he).
Friendships, female: Loving you, important. Laughing together, critical.
Friendships, male: When talking, imagine words cost 1.00.
Environmentalism: This is going to take forever.
Art/Writing: Good stuff out there intimidates me.
Death: I can't believe there's no bargaining.
Babies: I see why nobody tried explaining.
Preschoolers: But they sleep through eventually, right?
Teenagers: Maybe I'll be omniscient again later.
Homemaking: I make a world I love.

"Hey!" you declare, "Isn't religion missing from your list of major aspects of life?"

Why yes, I answer, I saved it for last. As a part of our National Identity Initiative (albeit an only tangentially related part with no official blessing and mostly just for fun), I challenge all Unitarians out there to come up with the six word story of their religion. Impossible, you say? Two examples that I didn't write: "Find us and ye shall seek" and "We will question all your answers." A few examples that I did write:

God/no God, whatever. What next?
There are others like me? Really?
We footnote all the deep words.
Some questions still unasked--as yet.
Same church community--different price tag.

So, the gauntlet is thrown down, fellow UUs (all three of you now following this blog)! Six words--what can you do?

Liz


As a footnote, my favorite six word stories from the website:

Became more like myself every year.
Birth, childhood, adolescence, adolescence, adolescence, adolescence...
Giraffe born to a farm family
Accidents cause people--son is wonderful.
After your jump, the net appears.
Alas, a farewell to legs. Next!
Awkward girl takes chances. Fun ensues.
Found Jewish princess. Good-bye succulent pork.
Tried men. Tried women. Like cats.
His love letters had bullet points.
Arthur-ectomy taking years! Beware: wed cautiously.
Lived in moment until moment sucked.
My family is overflowing with therapists.
Screw cleaning. I have twin boys.
Hope my obituary spells "debonair" correctly.

Lentil-Covered Pancreases

I'm in awe of Eric's kindergarden teacher. Not just because she spends three hours every morning with a dozen five year olds and nobody ends up bleeding--although that in itself deserves some kind of award--but because she somehow manages to do it with such calm, dedicated organization. Everything is decorated, everything has a place, every activity is educational and tied into the theme of the week. They had entire units on sorting stuff (Eric's favorite activity). It contrasts sharply with my home, where we have themes too, such as "unstick spaghetti from the wall" day, "lets stomp around in the snow until one of us steps on and finds the snow shovel" day, and "lets eat whatever we find in the freezer that doesn't have a label" day. But I recently learned something (maybe everybody else already knows this) that has changed my perspective on teachers and their godlike Martha Stewart personas.

The teachers are cheating.

They have this store full of books where everything's laid out for them in themes, and all they have to do is carry out the instructions and copy the cool activities. I discovered this store accidentally and became instantly dazzled. It was around Christmas time. I was in the middle of buy nothing christmas. Buy nothing Christmas was great for the boys--they loved it--but I was having serious withdrawal. I kept looking for excuses to purchase stuff. For a while I figured we needed a pizza stone to cook pizza on like my brother in law. Of course, a) a pan works fine and b) I don't cook pizza. Then I thought I should buy frames and put up family photos--this would work better if I had any photos that were more recent than 1998 (I'm exaggerating--my sisters take lots of photos of my family). When I discovered this store full of shiny books filled with great activities for my kids, I was dazzled. I could save so much time by busying them with educational activities. I began saving time immediately by spending hours sifting through those things, then spending hours photocopying stuff and planning. We could have a gingerbread week, and a toy train week, and a mice week...

We already had a mice week, actually, when a certain older child (who will remain nameless because I am convinced that he can control all of the internet with his freaky computer skills) left the back door open overnight. For weeks (I estimate about forty billion weeks) we battled a mouse infestation. Every morning, the boys would excitedly check the traps for new friends, to be let free in the back yard. The boys didn't come to understand that mice are "supposed" to be scary, as evidenced by this story Anthony told me about when Izzy was babysitting (picture a three year old prattling on in one continuous sentence):

"And so I sat on my bed and I saw a mouse but it was a dead mouse and I said 'Izzy, look, this mouse is dead and Izzy said 'AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH' and then Izzy told us we were going to go to her house for a visit until you got home and I said 'but I have to finish my time out' and Izzy said 'you can finish your time out at my house because we have to go RIGHT NOW' and we went to her house but she forgot about the time out and I got to play with her barbies instead."

Anyways, I am happy to report that the mouse infestation appears to be over, and ever since Pine Sol themed week, both Izzy and I are breathing much easier. And I've even made use of the educational materials I picked up around Christmas, although I never quite manage to get a full unit together. We don't have "Lets learn our internal organs" day, because I never quite get it all synchronized. We lean more towards "I need to take this phone call. Boys, colour these pancreases."

Despite the fact that the idea of organized theme units pleases my inner Martha Stewart (who, quite frankly, is beginning to sink into a deep depression and deserves a little lift), the kids don't care. Their favorite themed day was "day mom realized that the dried lentils she's been intending to learn to soak and cook so as to save money are actually older than either of us and so we dumped them all in a tub and stirred them with sticks and then glued them to paper and then stuck them up our noses and then mom made us go back to colouring pancreases."

My favorite teachers' book isn't a unit book at all. It's called "instant lessons for little learners (by the mailbox people)" and it's designed for the day when the planned unit goes haywire, and the teacher is faced with a teaming mass of five year olds who need to be told what to do before they start gluing lentil covered paper pancreases to their hair. These aren't organized by unit, they're organized by what kind of junk a panicked teacher will have on hand. The "units" have titles like "yarn", "popsicle sticks", or "dried pasta". I use this book more than all the others combined.

This gets me to thinking. What I really could use as mom of preschoolers is a book (or website) designed by the "units" of a stay at home parents' life--grocery shopping, doing laundry, doing dishes. Those "games" that we all invent out of necessity. Often they're educational, but most of all, they're convenient and real life. One of my favorites is "Find the letter". Here's how it goes:

Prepwork: Enter a long lineup in a busy place, such as a grocery store or post office. This is a good game for when your kids start pulling stuff off of the shelves and you see the clerk phoning for the security guard.

How you play: You declare a letter of the alphabet (you could use a colour for younger kids, or a riddle for older ones). The child has to look through all the products in front of them (usually candy--if I believed in Hell there'd be a special place there for the guy who puts all that candy at the checkout) and find the chosen letter. Then you repeat with a new letter. This is good for three or four minutes at least, before the fun runs out and you have to switch gears to something else--a rousing game of sort-the-stuff-in-our-cart-according-to-size or go-pretend-that-other-lady-is-your-mom. When my first batch of boys were eight and twelve, we'd play "somebody in this room is a spy, can you subtly figure out who?" but gave it up when they had trouble understanding what I meant by "subtle".

But I'm not joking (about any of this, unfortunately, not even the dead mice). We need a resource like this to have on hand, one that offers help with the units of daily life: riding the bus, washing the floor, sitting in the ER for two hours waiting for the nice doctor to dig the lentils out of your three year old's nose (okay, I'm joking about that). Lets replace the "Dora the Explorer's Creativity Enhancement Program" with "12 things to do with old egg cartons". Because lets be honest. Parents have lives of their own. Parents working outside the home often have two lives. Who told us we needed this stuff? (Okay, it was me, at the beginning of this blog post, but since then I've bathed a kid, made lunch, and cleaned out a closet. Consistency would be an unreasonable thing to expect).

On the front of one of the books it says "make the most of each teachable moment". Why do I need to do that? For all of the history of humanity, children have been loved and guided and woven into daily life. When did they suddenly become products?

Today Eric wanted to learn about the post office, great, so I explained it (accurately, I hope). But the internal organs never really interested him, and so what if he grows up thinking "pancreas" means "paper thing to colour and stick stuff to"? Lets be honest, he's unlikely to come face to face with one. Sure, I know he'll likely come face to face with gingerbread and bears and toy trains, but won't he figure that out as he goes along? Do we really need units on "bigger" and "smaller"? Won't that come up on its own at some point?

What have you, loyal readers of this blog (both of you) found useful? Any books to recommend? Websites? Neat real-life games? Reliable and inexpensive exterminators, in case the mice come back?

The Esteemed Art of Synchronized Falling

(missing trapeze video would go here--we're having technical difficulties).

Our trapeze show was fantastic--due largely perhaps to the fact that I was not in it. Allyson says that I was excluded because she doesn't think I could pass for a Bedford Road student (it was the Bedford Road Talent show, not actually The Liz's Trapeze Show), but I figure it's because she's mad at me for dropping her so much. Allyson has a glass-half-empty attitude about being dropped--she fails to even acknowledge the fact that I hold on to her successfully way more often than I drop her.

The four trapezers in the video are:

Izzy: Izzy babysits my kids, and got recruited to trapeze on the grounds that she's really small and really light. Turns out that she's very good at it--very graceful, which is surprising because she can't walk ten feet without tripping on something and falling over. If there's nothing to trip on, she just falls over anyways. In the performance, however, as you can see, she doesn't have any accidents. Allyson points out that this is because SAM (Izzy's trapeze partner) doesn't drop people.

Allyson: Allyson is a perfectionist.

Mamoru: Mamoru came to Canada to learn English and has instead learned guitar, trapeze, and how to make a fantastic lemon pie. I figure this is okay--he can pick up English any time (hey, my three year old and five year old can do it--how hard can it be?). He has been doing trapeze for only eight months, and deserves a medal for being able to decipher all four of us yelling conflicting instructions in a foreign language.

Sam: Sam is Allyson's brother. He is brutishly strong and can do anything on the trapeze, which causes us to resent him. Or maybe we resent him because he sits in the pit and throws foam blocks at us while we are practicing.

Now trapeze is not something you should try at home. It is best attempted under the careful eye of a trained instructor, with regular practice on professional equipment. Unfortunately for these four, instead they have had only me, one night a week, using a bar that I made out of scrap metal and hockey tape, holding up my laptop featuring videos I found on youtube and yelling "Do this, do this" (or in the case of Mamoru, attempting to meet him halfway by declaring in Japanese "Corewa ee desu. Kudasai. Mecha Kowai. Hidori Migi" and gesturing wildly). On the bright side, we have a foam pit to practice over, which is way safer than when we were working off a tree in the park and the only padding we had was that inflatable mat with "not suitable for use as safety equipment" written on the side. Also, when we were in the park, the only think Sam could find to throw at us was sticks, and Izzy kept getting distracted by wondering whether the boys biking by were "cute old" (as in 17 or so) or "old old" (as in 18 or over).

A disadvantage of relying on YouTube is that we have no idea what any of the tricks are called. This results in us referring to them by whatever names seem logical to us, such as "super painful move", "move Izzy was right about", "canning Sam move", "lap dance trick" (really, when you see it, you'll recognize it), and "move Sam can't do". In the case of Move Sam Can't Do, Sam has been arguing that since I've dropped Allyson twice now, the name should be changed to "move that neither Sam nor Liz can do".

As those of you who know me will already be aware, when I tell a story it is usually filled with "exaggeration". Move Sam Can't Do isn't really "Move Sam Can't Do" so much as it is "Move Izzy Won't Let Sam Try Because Liz Keeps Dropping Allyson Whenever They Try It". Actually, all this talk about making Allyson mad by dropping her is exaggerated as well--Allyson is actually very understanding about being dropped. And I don't so much let go of her, exactly... I more let go of the trapeze. Which results in a similar feeling of, um, weightlessness, but it's not quite the same. I like to think that Allyson is comforted by a pleasant feeling of solidarity, knowing that I am falling with her. Or, more accurately, on her. Also, my claim to sympathy is even more valid than hers, because she is way bonier than the "not suitable for use as safety equipment" mat. So, really, my landing is way less comfortable than hers.

I am exaggerating the risks, of course. In fact, the closest we've ever come to real injury wasn't while practicing "Move Nobody Seems to Be Able To Do" at all (a move we deemed too risky to put in the show because we might fall. We saved it for the encore. And we fell). The only moment I was truly afraid that we'd end up with serious injury was when, during the show, Allyson's dad (think strong like Sam but about nine feet tall and very protective) realized exactly what we do at trapeze. He was particularly impressed not only with "Kamikaze Move Nobody Seems to Be Able to Do" but also with "Lap Dance Trick" and "Butt in Face Move". I tried calm him down by pointing out that for the show we used a mat that is intended for use as safety equipment, but he still seemed a little, um, grouchy. It didn't help that Allyson's teacher (a woman who is clearly high on creativity and bravery but not so much with the discretion) chose that evening to invent "Flip That Ends in Faceplant Inches From Edge of Mat"...

They say running is great cross training.

Inducted Into the Ways of Sin By the Regina Unitarian Fellowship

This last weekend saw Laura and I head to the Regina Unitarian Fellowship, to guest speak at the congregation and help plan the Unitarian Western Regional Fall Gathering. For those of you who aren't familiar it, the WRFG is basically a time for Unitarians from all across Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and part of Ontario to gather together to do some religious stuff but mostly to watch the Saskatoon youth and I perform trapeze at the talent show. If you are familiar with the gathering, disregard the previous sentence. To make a long story short, we toured the museum, taking in world class displays on the entire history of mankind as we know it, viewing many rooms and discussing all the events of the weekend--and we concluded that yes, the metal rafters did indeed reach high enough to hang a trapeze off of for the talent show on Saturday night.

Unfortunately for the folks from RUF, sorting all that out took only until around six or seven, and then they had to find some way of entertaining us for the entire evening. They appointed Trevor to do this. For those of you who don't know Trevor, you can look him up on my friends' list on facebook--he's the one who has altered his picture to have horns and creepy eyes. We decided to go to the Casino, to see a Christmas Concert by a country western singer. I don't normally go to country concerts--but this is not so much that I'm against country music. It's more that I don't normally do things in the evening that require brushing my hair and using sentences that don't feature "Horton the Elephant". And I'd never been to a Casino in my entire life.

Entering a Casino--in case you've never done so--is like walking into a James Bond movie. Everything is all glittery and big-city looking. I kept expecting bullets to start flying and Angelina Jolie to come swinging off of a chandelier. This didn't happen because there weren't any chandeliers. They did have slot machines, though. I have never gambled, and so I saw this as a chance to expand my boundaries and try new things. Quarter in hand, I approached a terminal.

You know, on the commercials, they make it sound like developing a gambling problem is pretty easy. I expected to stick in the quarter and pull a lever, and voila--instant psychopathology. Turns out it's more complicated. There's no slot for a quarter, for one thing. Fortunately, they have a guy in a suit whose job it is to wander around, say helpful things, and stifle his own laughter until he looks like you could pop him with a pin. Apparently the machine only takes bills, which was a problem since the smallest bill I had was a five. I felt this was a bit much to spend on a gambling habit, but I wanted to appear smooth and metropolitan. I pulled out a five, slid it into the machine, and nearly caught my sleeve and slid my arm in as well. Then the real trouble began.

Important Looking Guy In Suit hovered over us offering helpful explanations and watching our every move with that look of intensity people get when they're watching a car accident. Apparently, the exact timing of how you press the button controls which combinations pop up. And there are nine different lines of betting that you can do, and nine different amounts you can bet, and it only took me a minute and a brief recollection of my University statistics classes to calculate in my head that I wish David hadn't gone to Japan and left me to navigate all this glittery math stuff by myself. Important Looking Guy was explaining a bunch of stuff about techniques and probabilities, rather than offering useful information such as where the button was to press to see the whirley parts do their whirley thing. I eventually did figure it out, and once you get the hang of it, it's pretty simple. You keep pressing the button over and over, and you watch the whirling, and in the corner a little counter counts down the money from five dollars, one nickel at a time. This takes a while. It would be very entertaining to my five year old, who is learning to count money. To me, it did not take long to realize that either of my preschoolers could play this game--I have no idea why they insist you wait until you're nineteen. I also wish to point out that the Dress the Bunny game for game boy was more entertaining, and only cost $3.99.

After that, we went to country singer's Rock Concert and Surprise Religious Conversion Experience--which was all in all quite entertaining, and stayed up just late enough for me to be very sleepy preaching the next day which is too bad because if you fall asleep while you're talking it's hard to convince everyone else that they should be interested. If I did fall asleep, nobody said anything (they're very polite in Regina). I was quickly awakened for the rest of the day when Hilary surprised me by insisting that I spontaneously help lead the congregation in a round of "Come, Come, Whoever You Are... wanderer worshipper, lover of leaving..." I swear those are the original words and they did not add in the part about "lover of leaving" once they heard me start singing. Anyways, the terror of that experience had me on such a buzz that the entire drive home I couldn't sleep (as I'd planned to). Instead, I kept chattering away at full speed about how neat the Regina Unitarians are, and how we could have province wide get togethers, and how they'd been growing their membership lately and why did she think that was and did she believe what Trevor said about it being all him? Laura offered to drive so that I could nap, and then helpfully reminded me several times of my plan to sleep. She didn't try to get me to drink the warm lemoney traveling-by-car medicine that Gary likes me to take, though... ...perhaps she wanted me alert in case of a roadside gambling emergency.

A Post Not Actually About Oranges

In a creative writing class, I once heard a story that wasn't about oranges at all. I have no idea what it was about--it was written by a woman who'd lived through the great depression, and wartime, and who remembered the "simple life" (that mythical land that is much more alluring to those of us who've never been there). Those "ancient" times when there was only one (usually handmade) gift under the tree--and the children were delighted with it.

In the (autobiographical) story, the little girl gets an orange. She didn't know what it was--she describes it's bright colour and smooth skin, and the weight of it in her hand. She runs her fingers along it, then holds it close to her face and smells it--examining it's tiny pores. When her aunt shows her how to peel it, she describes the mist that shoots into the air, covering her hands with an intoxicating scent. She saves the peel, then lines up all of the sections and counts them, before eating even one--and describes the sweet, exotic flavour in detail.

I imagine giving one of my own kids such a gift--and having them hold it up, frown at me, and declare "they make these out of chocolate, you know". My teenagers and I, like heroin addicts, have created bigger and bigger Christmases each year, in an effort to capture that magical high described in the story that wasn't actually about oranges.

This year, I'm going cold turkey. I've always read longingly about "Consumption Free Christmas" and thought how deeply in line it would be with my values. Around December 2oth or so--when I'm up to my ears in lists and wrapping paper and piles of boxes and wishing more than anything to have time to sit by the fire with the kids... That's when I think longingly of how a Consumption Free Christmas would be perfect and bemoan the fact that my now teenage stepkids were "spoiled" for the idea before I ever met them. If I'd parented them from day one, of course, they'd spend all their time holding hands, singing, and offering to help empty the dishwasher. In a sudden rush, I realized that there really isn't anything in the way--the teens are old enough to be "paid off", I haven't yet had time to spoil the youngest ones. No time like the present.

This year, we've warned friends and family that we're doing "Consumption Free Christmas". We're not buying gifts for anyone. We'll make some simple things to put in baskets--we've always loved making miniature gingerbread houses, truffles, and a Christmas Newsletter--but everyone's getting the same thing. No lists, no mall, no big budget. The few people who need to be "bought off" (the teenagers, employees) will get bonuses and a couple of the same handmade gifts everyone else gets. December 1st, we'll put up family stockings, and all month we'll make and wrap stuff to put in them. I have no idea how this will work out.

So far, it's been remarkably smooth--extended families on both sides have responded mostly with relief and support. Everyone feels Christmas has gone crazy. Even the little boys have been enthusiastic. We've done a lot of talking, and they're particularly excited about delivering the truffles. The littlest one (three years old) declared proudly one day"I get to be Santa!". For now, at least, they're very excited about giving--the "less presents" part hasn't occurred to either of them. I even have "buy in" from the hyper-organized super-systematic five year old with the memory of an elephant (who remembers Christmas past--and has been counting down to that special day since he found a Calendar in January's junk mail).

He came across me crocheting a little soap bag. A soap bag is where you put all the little bits of soap that are "leftover" if you happen to have a husband who feels that anything less than half a bar is just "bits" and inherently unusable . You put the bits in the bag and then it lathers up and you use it to wash with. I explain all this to Eric, who is a passionate devotee of Not Wasting and also of Putting Things Into Their Proper Bags Where They Belong.

"Can I have it?" he asks, with the direct approach common to five year olds.
"I'm making it as a Christmas present." I answer, hamming it up a little. "It's taking me a very long time as you can see, so I'm going to give it to someone who is very, very special to me."
"Mom!" Eric grins excitedly, "That's me! I'm very very special to you. Can I have the bag?"
"We'll have to see--and I don't tell people what their Christmas presents are going to be." I answer. Eric watches me crochet for a long time. He asks about all the details of how I make the bag, we talk about how long it takes, and we talk about the lucky person who gets it. After a while, he leans in, puts his head on my lap, and grins up at me.
"Mom," he says happily, in a hushed, excited whisper "I think I know what I'm getting for Christmas."

Me too.