Life on the Prairie

Merry Christmas everyone!  Our blog has a different format this week. We each wrote a short piece about Christmas. We hope during this busy season each of you takes time to reflect on the birth of Jesus and the true meaning of Christmas. We hope, too, that you enjoy fellowship with family and friends. We will be back on the prairie for our next post. It will feature Emily, the Kind Suffragette and will post the first week of January. 

My Christmas List

                                                                                                            By Judy

Each Christmas many hours are spent writing lists. I write “to do” list after “to do” list. I enjoy crossing completed items off the list.  I try not to think about the items I constantly move forward to the next day’s list. I make lists of presents to give my children, grandchildren and friends. Children list toys they wish Santa to bring. Santa, of course, keeps his “naughty or nice” list. This year, I made a Christmas list of what I want.

Happiness is on my list. How wonderful our world would be if everybody was happy. I especially wish the people I know happiness. When my children were young and still at home I really wanted them to be happy early in the morning. I’m not necessarily a real morning person, and I didn’t expect smiles and laughter. I just didn’t want grumpy, negative attitudes expressed before I had my coffee. However, now that my children are on their own, I miss those grunted “mornin’” greetings.

I put world peace on my list. Many people will gather for Christmas this year with a son or daughter absent, serving our country so we here in America might live in peace. Families in war torn countries call refugee camps home and are separated from family members. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if simply putting world peace on a list to Santa brought about world peace? “Treat others as you would like to be treated” might be a better place to start.

Food, clothing and shelter for everyone are on my list. The problem is in the logistics. How does Santa get the clothing from my overcrowded closet to all those short women who need sweaters and jeans? How do the leftovers in my fridge get to the starving child in Africa? One of my sons once asked me “where do the people who have no houses sleep when it is cold?” This is a tough request for Santa. It is easy for me to say “I’ll pray for food, clothing and shelter for everyone,” and I do. Still I shop for the perfect Christmas sweater. I decorate the Christmas tree and string greenery throughout my warm, comfortable home. I bake a ham…turkey…pies…cakes, and I make fudge and caramel popcorn. It is not as easy to clean my closet, work in a soup kitchen or shelter the homeless. Hmmm, this might be an item for me to work on achieving rather than asking Santa.

Patience is on my list, too. I would like more patience for store clerks waiting on customers as well as patience for teachers of children waiting on Santa. Drivers need patience, too, particularly those driving on the same highway as I. Mothers and fathers need patience, and perhaps even a certain Nana I’m very familiar with could use a little more patience once in a while.

An extra hour of time each day is on my list, or maybe I should put the ability to manage time better on my list? Either would help I believe, especially if I used it to accomplish some of the other items on this list. If I spent just one extra hour with a lonely person during this busy season, it might be a blessing to that person as well as to me. That one hour, too, might be a start to accomplishing other items on this list. I wish you all a Christmas filled with love and happiness.