Momma said it so it is true! It is funny how so many years later the things momma said, come back to haunt me! Especially things like, "You can't judge a book by its cover." "You reap what you sow." "Never look a gift horse in the mouth."
I am not sure a lot of them made any sense at all, but nonetheless they seem to pop up fairly regularly in my everyday life and they seem to be most apropos to a situation I find myself in at the moment. Now do not leap to conclusions that I have gotten myself in a pickle again, because I have not. My life seems to be spinning along beautifully and I hope that will continue and not go spiraling out of control as life sometimes does!
It is the Christmas season and while the birth of the Christ child never ceases to fill my heart with joy, there is all the fa de la that goes along with bringing out the best or worst in some people. I do not buy into the trappings of the season. I do not fight the crowds to buy a gift for friends just for the sake of buying a gift for someone. I do that all year long and Christmas is reserved for the birth of the Christ child. I go to church. I come home. I do not drive slowly by the houses that are ablaze with lights and the meter on the side of the house is spinning at top speed. I do not fight the crowds at the parade or at the mall. Covid is always in my mind. I do not want that stuff!
I do spend time remembering when the kids were young. As a single working mother with five kids, Christmas was not always as nice as I would have liked and the table was rarely loaded with the bounty of the harvest! One Christmas we had corn dogs, because that was what the kids wanted and it was cheap! Daddy usually took them over Christmas break and Santa was a little more giving at Daddy's house. That was fine with me and has absolutely nothing to do with my memories at this point.
The saying "It is what it is", comes to mind at this time. Not sure if it is relevant at all, but there is a lot of truth to that statement and it has helped me over more than one rough patch! Gibby said that and he was a very wise man and one of my most trusted friends in the days gone by. He was one of the first to die from AIDS. His was the first panel I made for my Memorial Quilt which hangs in the Library on Abriendo.
The saddest part of getting old is the dimming of my memories! At least I think that is it, but then again I am blessed with selective memory! I remember things very vividly, and while that may not be exactly how it happened, it is how I remember it. Momma used to say "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," and that is how I remember things. My journaling may not be exactly how things happened, but they are what I remember.
"Never let your right hand know what your left hand is doing." "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." But, the best of all is "It is what it is." And there you have it in a nutshell.
Christmas is coming and this will be 81 of them that I have lived through. Will this one be different? Of course! They all are. But 6 days after Christmas, I get another shot at doing it right. New Years with the resolutions to "do better this year." I used to quit smoking every January 1, but it never worked out because I had no willpower. I finally quit, but I do not even remember the date, nor the year. It has been a very long time though!
So, just in case I do not make it back to this site for Christmas, I want to wish you all a very happy Christmas! Remember the baby Jesus. I know different religions do things differently, but just know that all roads lead to the manger and then to the cross.
As Tiny Tim would say, "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!"
Peace!
