The best part of the season is the anticipation.  The weeks and days building up to it, the lists and the baking and the songs and the packages appearing on the front porch as the UPS and FedEx drivers beep their horns and wave. . .the lights and the candles and the ornaments, each with its history. . . the smiles and the planning and the cards. . . all these and more, in preparation, climbing up and up to the summit which is the actual DAY, and then you’re there and after all sisters and their families have gone back home, what then? The journey really is more important than the destination, isn’t it.

The actual Day, wonderful as it may be, is kind of sad, and the day after is a heartbreaker.

Until the out-of-state relatives get here, that is.  YeeHAW, I’m looking forward to that!

Parents owe their children some magic.  It shouldn’t be an option.  Children need magic, and parents can give it to them with not much effort at all.

Parents are magic, you know. ALL parents can do it if they try. We have, in our fingertips and in our heads and in all those old boxes, the power to transform ordinary things into things of magic and wonder. We have the power to transform an ordinary day into a Holiday. There is more than tinsel and glass and molded Hallmark treasures in those boxes. There are memories, stored in those boxes. There is each child’s First Christmas, in those boxes. There is the Christmas we were all too sick to go to Grandma’s, so we had to stay home and entertain each other. There is an ornament from the Christmas of the Emergency Room visit. There are ornaments made of styrofoam and glue and glitter. There is the ornament someone bought in the Chicago airport, just because it caught his eye and he thought someone else might like it. There is the ornament a little girl used to lie under the tree and watch, JUST IN CASE the elves would peek out the window of it and wave at her. There is the ornament with sad eyes that a little boy worried about, year after year, and which must be hung in exactly the same spot on the tree – and low, because it’s really, really heavy. I have a Christmas angel made out of a torn purple pillow case and a toilet paper tube, and a piece of that same pillow case with “Oh come holy spit” written on it in black magic marker. It’s worth more to me than anything in Tiffany’s. Erma Bombeck had one, too; when I read about hers I felt kinship! There are ornaments from friends, and ornaments found at yard sales and flea markets. Every ornament on our tree has a history. I know where and when everything on that tree was purchased, or made, or given. A real Christmas fanatic can tell you the circumstances under which almost any ornament on that tree was obtained.

I can look at my tree and see more than just a beautiful twinkling tree. I look at my Christmas tree and I can see all the years of my family’s life, represented on the branches.

I can remember, as a child, sitting on the floor and just staring at our tree. It was almost beyond my comprehension that our house could contain such glowing wonder. It was like magic. My mother created magic, in our house. How did she do it? I still don’t know. I only know that I have tried to create that same magic in my house, for my children, and I hope I have succeeded.

Why do I work so hard, harder even than Clark Griswold, to try and create a magical Christmas? The answer is easy. “Because.”

Power. Parents have power to change a mundane day into a day of wonder. Our children’s memories depend on our willingness to use that power.

Sometimes we are so physically exhausted that it’s difficult to put out the effort. Don’t ever let yourself get caught in that trap. Once you start, it’s easy to continue.

Your children are worth the time. And so are you. Get up from that chair, get those boxes down from wherever they’re stored, and get busy. Make magic for your children.

Otherwise, they won’t know how to make magic for their own children

Haven’t you noticed by now that almost every time you hope and wish and strive for someone else’s happiness, you end up happier yourself? Sometimes, not getting what we wanted for Christmas means we get something else that’s even better. As far as I’m concerned, helping and watching others get what THEY wanted is the best part of the season.

It disgusts me out every pore of my very large body bothers me when people keep Christmas contained in a house or – far worse – in a church. Dressing up and hanging out with other dressed-up people all of whom are going home to near-opulence, comparatively speaking, and feeling justified and holy because they went through the motions and recited the words without actually doing anything about them really doesn’t seem like Christmas proper to me. These days, a lot of Christmas services are more like recitals and concerts with divas than anything spiritual or meaningful. Gold, frankincense and myrrh were meant to be given away, not draped around the church. How many of those overdressed bedecked people plan to do anything for anyone but themselves this Christmas?  I am not impressed by glitzy ceremony and diva performances at church.

I am also disgusted that the very places that most need volunteers and donations are near capacity with the needy and extremely short-handed with the volunteers on church nights. Shouldn’t those be the very times the most people gather together to DO for others, not just sit around and talk about it?

Preaching to the choir only reassures and reaffirms already-held thoughts and beliefs. Festooning a church with expensive fake greenery seems an outrageous use of money that would be better spent supplying a soup kitchen or providing Christmas for several families in the area. On Christmas, why not shut the church’s door and send the church’s people out to actually, physically, help real people in their own areas who are in desperate need?

If all you did this season was decorate, purchase, bake, dress up, party, sing/play/work/plan only at/for church, or sit at home relaxing in front of the TV, shame on you. Next year, try to do better than that. Next year, don’t dress up and head for the mall or the church (unless it’s headquarters for the donations which you are going to help distribute); bundle up and get out there and make Christmas really happen for people who might not know what you’ve known for years. Don’t preach to them; let your actions do that for you. Action, people, not words. Words can be empty. Words ARE empty without accompanying action.

If your church’s Christmas focuses on the shop window glitter, performance, and in-house words/deeds/actions, maybe it’s time to seek a real church – one that has substance behind the glowing windows: a church that encourages its worshipers to walk out of the church and into the lives of the people.

Words are cheap. Action takes effort. Without the effort, Christmas isn’t the only meaningless thing in people’s lives.

Seriously. If your church doesn’t know the names of almost every person in its immediate neighborhood, what good is it? What good is it if it concentrates on sending packages and money overseas and ignores the needy right across the street?

It’s better to do a kindness at home than go afar to burn incense. –Chinese proverb

Heh. She said “dick.”

There are a lot of old, boring, easily offended, humorless  people out there who don’t care much for the excitement, the wonder, the sparkles and reflections and tinsel and candles and suspense and giggles and hand-clapping and jammied children and ribbons and pretty paper and surprises, and this makes me sad for them. However, I also figure they were pretty much the same when they were young younger.

I think the ability or tendency to glow and laugh and clap and appreciate things is there in all of us, and whether we let the light of these things shine through us – or not – is a choice we make. Scrooge was Scrooge because he chose to be Scrooge. Yes, certain childhood happenings helped mold him, but ultimately, he chose his life. Free will choice. All of our lives are that way. We can’t always control the circumstances, and sometimes Karma really hits us below the belt, but we can always control the way we deal with it. Most of us go up and down, back and forth, hot and cold with our reactions; even-keeled people are rare and actually rather boring. But whether we reel from the blows and get back up, or stay down and cover our heads and wait for more, is up to us. We’ve all been there.

Me, I love Christmas. What, you didn’t know?

Christmas Eve is such a magical time. It’s all ahead of us, you see. To paraphrase Katie, age 8, in my all-time favorite Christmas novel  What Child Is This, by Caroline Cooney, the night before Christmas isn’t called a ‘night,’ it’s called ‘eve,’ and Christmas morning isn’t called ‘morning,’ it’s ‘morn.’ Eve and morn: two special words to highlight two special times.  All the other times of the year have mornings and evenings, and New Year’s has “eve,”  but only Christmas has both eve and morn.

Eve and morn are special.

How special are they? They are special already, in their own right, but how you make them special for yourself and for your children is entirely up to you. I hope you give them memories they will cherish all their lives, so much so that they will pass the glory along to their own children.

Children flourish with roots, but they soar with wings.

May your Eve be full of anticipation and warmth, and may your Morn be all you hoped it would be.

Mamacita says: It makes me sad that so many parents are not allowing their children to dwell in the world of innocent fantasy.  These parents feel that to allow it is equivalent to lying to their children about what is real and what isn’t.

Don’t they understand that to a child, both worlds are real?  I’ll go one further: to all people of any age who retain their believing hearts, and who use their brains as God (and biology) intended, both worlds are real, too.

My daughter was seven when she asked the question I’d been dreading for seven years: “Mommy, is there really a Santa Claus?”

However, thanks to Caroline Quiner Ingalls, I knew exactly how to answer her. And, this answer fully satisfied my little child, and me.

Laura and Mary’s Ma knew how to explain to her children about Santa Claus without destroying their faith in miracles and magic:

. . . then Laura had a chance to speak without interrupting. She said “There isn’t any fireplace.”

“Whatever are you talking about?” Ma asked her.

“Santa Claus,” Laura answered.

“Eat your supper, Laura, and let’s not cross bridges till we come to them,” said Ma.

Laura and Mary knew that Santa Claus could not come down a chimney when there was no chimney. One day Mary asked Ma how Santa Claus could come. Ma did not answer. Instead, she asked, “What do you girls want for Christmas?”

. . . “Ma!” (Laura) cried. “there IS a Santa Claus, isn’t there?”

“Of course there’s a Santa Claus, said Ma. She set the iron on the stove to heat again.

“The older you are, the more you know about Santa Claus,” she said. “You are so big now, you know he can’t be just one man, don’t you? You know he is everywhere on Christmas Eve. He is in the Big Woods, and in Indian Territory, and far away in York State, and here. He comes down all the chimneys at the same time. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, Ma,” said Mary and Laura.

“Well,” said Ma. “then you see – “

“I guess he is like angels,” Mary said, slowly. And Laura could see that, just as well as Mary could.

Then Ma told them something else about Santa Claus. He was everywhere, and besides that, he was all the time.

Whenever anyone was unselfish, that was Santa Claus.

Christmas Eve was the time when everybody was unselfish. On that one night, Santa Claus was everywhere, because everybody, all together, stopped being selfish and wanted other people to be happy. And in the morning you saw what that had done.

“If everybody wanted everybody else to be happy, all the time, then would it be Christmas all the time?” Laura asked, and Ma said, “Yes, Laura.”

–from On the Banks of Plum Creek, by Laura Ingalls Wilder

You’re welcome.

Let’s talk about Christmas. I consider it the crown: the end of the year, the thing that makes winter endurable.  Remember, Narnia was nothing but ice, snow, and bone-chilling cold while the White Witch ruled it.  “Always winter and never Christmas” is still one of the scariest descriptions I’ve ever heard.

The White Witch still wants to erase Christmas from our winter.  I’ve got an idea:  Let’s not allow it.

Honestly, I don’t care if people choose not to view December as the highlight of winter.  Celebrate something, or not.  I’m a firm believer in families doing whatever they want in their own homes.  Once outside that home, however,  people need to go with the flow.  Don’t like it?  Move. No one person is the center of the universe.  It is only in our own homes that we deserve to get our own way.  And not all the time, unless you’re the only one living there.

Grinches will get no attention from me, except the smirk and snark when they turn their backs.  I expect the same consideration (until I turn my back) from them.  And if they’re nice and do what’s right, nobody will ever know they’re Grinch-y.  I’m sorry for their children, though.

In public, however, only rude beasts throw greetings back into someone’s face, or take offense if someone puts a symbol on their lawn.  Or throws a hissy fit at the sight of a symbol anywhere, for that matter.  Chill.

Good manners are free.  Let’s all take advantage of that!

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1. Probably the reason we all go so haywire at Christmas time with the endless unrestrained and often silly buying of gifts is that we don’t quite know how to put our love into words. –Harlan Miller

2. The only real blind person at Christmas-time is he who has no Christmas in his heart. –Helen Keller

3. Off to one side sits a group of shepherds. They sit silently on the floor, perhaps perplexed, perhaps in awe, no doubt in amazement. Their night watch had been interrupted by an explosion of light from heaven and a symphony of angels. God goes to those who have time to hear him – and so on this cloudless night he went to simple shepherds. –Max Lucado

4. Of course, this is the season to be jolly, but it is also a good time to be thinking about those who aren’t. –Helen Valentine

5. When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things – not the great occasions – give off the greatest glow of happiness. –Bob Hope

6. What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace. –Agnes M. Pharo

7. We should try to hold on to the Christmas spirit, not just one day a year, but 365. –Mary Martin

8. Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won’t make it “white.” –Bing Crosby

9. There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child. –Erma Bombeck

10. May we not “spend” Christmas or “observe” Christmas, but rather “keep” it. –Peter Marshall

11. A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together. –Garrison Keillor

12. Late on a sleepy, star-spangled night, those angels peeled back the sky just like you would tear open a sparkling Christmas present. Then, with light and joy pouring out of Heaven like water through a broken dam, they began to shout and sing the message that baby Jesus had been born. The world had a Savior! The angels called “Good News,” and it was. –Larry Libby

13. I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year. As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays – let them overtake me unexpectedly – waking up some find morning and suddenly saying to myself: “Why, this is Christmas Day!” –David Grayson

14. . . . God’s visit to earth took place in an animal shelter with no attendants present and nowhere to lay the newborn king but a feed trough. . . For just an instant the sky grew luminous with angels, yet who saw the spectacle? Illiterate hirelings who watched the flocks of others, “nobodies” who failed to leave their names. . . . –Philip Yancy

15. Christmas isn’t just a day. It’s a frame of mind. –Valentine Davies

16. Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas. –Dale Evans

17. Remember, if Christmas isn’t found in your heart, you won’t find it under a tree. –Charlotte Carpenter

18. To the American People: Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. If we think on these things, there will be born in us a Savior and over us will shine a star sending its gleam of hope to the world. –Calvin Coolidge

19. My first copies of Treasure Island and Huckleberry Finn still have some blue-spruce needles in the pages. They smell of Christmas still. –Charlton Heston

20. They err who thinks Santa Claus comes down through the chimney; he really enters through the heart. –Mrs. Paul M. Ell

21. The perfect Christmas tree? All Christmas trees are perfect! –Charles N. Barnard

22. This is the message of Christmas: We are never alone. –Taylor Caldwell

23. My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that? –Bob Hope

24. Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart. . . filled it, too, with melody that would last forever. –Bess Streeter Aldrich

25. Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect. –Oren Arnold

26. Which Christmas is the most vivid to me? It’s always the next Christmas. –Joanne Woodward

27. Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we’re here for something else besides ourselves. –Eric Sevareid

28. One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don’t clean it up too quickly. –Andy Rooney

29. Christmas is the keeping place for memories of our innocence. –Joan Mills

30. Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. –Hamilton Wright Mabie

31. So here comes Gabriel again, and what he says is “Good tidings of great joy. . . for all people.” That’s why the shepherds are first: they represent all the nameless, all the working stiffs, the great wheeling population of the whole world. –Walter Wangerin Jr.

32. Christmas is the day that holds all time together. –Alexander Smith

33. A Christmas candle is a lovely thing. It makes no noise at all. But softly gives itself away, While quite unselfish, it grows small. –Eva K. Logue

34. Christmas is not an eternal event at all, but a piece of one’s home that one carries in one’s heart. –Freya Stark

35. The magi, as you know, were wise men – wonderfully wise men, who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. –O. Henry

36. Perhaps the best Yuletide decoration is being wreathed in smiles. –Unknown

37. Christmas is the time to let your heart do the thinking. –Patricia Clafford

38. Christmas is for children. But it is for grownups, too. Even if it is a headache, a chore, and nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chill and hide-bound hearts. –Lenora Mattingly Weber

39. Christmas Day is a day of joy and charity. May God make you very rich in both. –Phillips Brooks

40. I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph. –Shirley Temple

41. The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. –Burton Hillis

42. So if a Christian is touched only once a year, the touching is still worth it, and maybe on some given Christmas, some quiet morning, the touch will take. –Harry Reasoner

43. A scientist said, making a plea for exchange scholarships between nations, “The very best way to send an idea is to wrap it up in a person.” That was what happened at Christmas. The idea of divine love was wrapped up in a Person. –Halford E. Luccock

44. As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by December’s bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, and people to whom we are worth the same. –Donald E. Westlake

45. Ask your children two questions this Christmas. First: “What do you want to give to others for Christmas?” Second: What do you want for Christmas?” The first fosters generosity of heart and an outward focus. The second can breed selfishness if not tempered by the first. –Anonymous

46. Christmas has lost its meaning for us because we have lost the spirit of expectancy. We cannot prepare for an observance. We must prepare for an experience. –Handel H. Brown

47. In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it ‘Christmas’ and went to church; the Jews called it ‘Hanukkah’ and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say ‘Merry Christmas!” or “Happy Hanukkah!’ or (to the atheists) ‘Look out for the wall!” –Dave Barry

48. Nothing’s as mean as giving a little child something useful for Christmas. –Kin Hubbard

49. Selfishness makes Christmas a burden. Love makes it a delight. –Unknown

50. When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs? –Gilbert Keith Chesterton

“Charity” doesn’t mean “giving to the poor and needy;” it means LOVE, and love covers all bases. Using a belief system to rationalize your own personal whatevers is a cop-out, plain and simple. There are people out there who need you, and to walk on by because they said or did something that “offended” you is . . . okay, I’ll say it: it’s evil. Selfish and evil.

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? — George Eliot

The three stages of man:

1. He believes in Santa Claus

2. He doesn’t believe in Santa Claus

3. He IS Santa Claus.

That struck me as being funny, and true. And also, even, a little bit sad, and I’m not sure why. Poignancy is always a combination of emotions, and knowing something wonderful is temporary makes us sad, even while we revel in it.

I am Santa Claus. And I do NOT want to ever let the people I love down, at Christmas or any other time. But I also realize that the people we love most have the most potential for hurting. And for being hurt. Any people who are emotionally involved have tremendous power over each other. I hope we all try to use that power only for good.

You know, like Superman. Superman used his powers for good. Unless he was under the influence of kryptonite, in which case he became a flying armageddon.  I’ve met many human kryptonite chunks, working tirelessly to promote only their own beliefs and working just as tirelessly to tear down everybody else’s.  They work so hard at destroying that they’ve no time left for building up.

Let us never allow the influence of ‘something else’ to turn us into anything other than good.

“Something else” being possibly another person, or just, something else. “Under the influence” is “under the influence,” whatever outside ‘something else’ is influencing us.

You are Santa Claus for someone. Do not let them down.  The people you know, the people you love, the people you know AND love, and people you don’t even know, need you to be Santa Claus.  Nameless, faceless children need you.  They need you badly.  If you’ve got a biscuit, please give someone half.

No belief system in the universe is a reason NOT to be Santa for someone.

And if you are a person who does not believe in this mysterious spirit of generosity we call Santa Claus, then, um, uh, hmmm. . . . . okay, I’ll say it. You are stupid. Grow up and become Santa Claus. Somewhere out there is a child who desperately needs your powers. It might be your own child, or it might be a stranger’s. What difference does it make what child it is? Get out there and make someone happy. Or, at least, happier. Make a difference. Ho ho ho.

I’ll go even farther: If you are the kind of person who gets all huffy and offended and indignant because someone dared to wish you well in a language not suited to your personal belief system, shame on you. You’re angry because someone DARED wish you well? How dare YOU!!!!! How dare you throw someone’s sincere good wishes back into his/her face!!!!!

Now, get out there and make someone happy. If you have no children, go borrow some.

Life is so fleeting; why waste any of it in offended huffiness? We should all be trying our best to add to life, not suck the wonder out of it.

Oh, and fair warning: if you don’t like the tone of this post, suck it up. It’s the first of many, this season, because easily offended people are one of my favorite targets.

They’re the whiny kid on the playground who is good for a show every time he/she doesn’t get his/her own way.

Is that you? I hope not. Such reactions are ugly in a child, but even uglier in an adult. But if it is, I’ll say it again: shame on you.

Santa is a symbol, a representation of a person who lives to help others. He’s a role model for us all.

Bring it on.

Once upon a time, we were just sisters and wives and daughters when we got together, sharing a mom and having first names.  Now, we’re all Mom, Mommy, Grandma, Mamaw, Aunt, Great-aunt, mother-in-law . . . . I can remember days when I couldn’t remember the last time someone called me by my actual name.

I also remember, clear as a bell, the first time my child said my new name.  Mama.  That moment is etched on my heart, in beautiful calligraphy, and decorated with fresh flowers.  I still love to hear my children say “Mom.”  These women whose children refer to them by their first names, instead of some variation of mother?  I pity both woman and child.  Somethin’ WRONG wit dat.  Somebody gots her priorities all messed up.

Naturally, this doesn’t keep me from snickering at women who choose a synonym for “grandmother” that sounds like poo or a body part.

Contrary to popular belief, mothers are not omniscient;  we don’t have eyes in the backs of our heads, and we can’t read your mind.  The only exception to that would be MY mother.

And speaking of my mother. . . Mom, I have tried to emulate you in many ways, all of my life.  You read to us.  You sat down on the floor and played with us.  You used the power of Parenthood and created Special Days, all throughout the year.  Christmas is a holiday, sure, but it was YOU who created OUR Christmas.  I have tried to “do” holidays just as you did, all my married life.

I’m looking forward to Sunday, dear sisters and nieces and daughters and all of the other wonderful descriptions that come with all of you.  I might be the weirdo of the bunch – oh, it’s not like I don’t KNOW that!!!! -but I might also be the most sentimental of the bunch.

1.The phrase “working mother” is redundant. ~Jane Sellman

2. The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh

3. I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. ~Abraham Lincoln

4. A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. ~Tenneva Jordan

5. The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. ~Honoré de Balzac

6. He is a poor son whose sonship does not make him desire to serve all men’s mothers. ~Harry Emerson Fosdick

7. An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. ~Spanish Proverb

8. My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. ~Graycie Harmon

9. Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease. ~Lisa Alther

10. Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What’s that suppose to mean? In my heart it don’t mean a thing. ~Toni Morrison, Beloved

11. The only mothers it is safe to forget on Mother’s Day are the good ones. ~Mignon McLaughlin

12. A mom forgives us all our faults, not to mention one or two we don’t even have. ~Robert Brault

13. One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters. ~George Herbert

14. Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. ~William Makepeace Thackeray

15. Every beetle is a gazelle in the eyes of its mother. ~Moorish Proverb

16. All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother. ~Abraham Lincoln

17. No one in the world can take the place of your mother. Right or wrong, from her viewpoint you are always right. She may scold you for little things, but never for the big ones. ~Harry Truman

18. God could not be everywhere, so He created mothers. ~Jewish Proverb

19. Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother. ~Oprah Winfrey

20. I regard no man as poor who has a godly mother. ~ Abraham Lincoln

21. The mother loves her child most divinely not when she surrounds him with comforts and anticipates his wants, but when she resolutely holds him to the highest standards and is content with nothing less than his best. ~ Hamilton Wright Mabie

22. The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world. ~ William Ross Wallace

23. There never was a woman like her. She was gentle as a dove and brave as a lioness… The memory of my mother and her teachings were, after all, the only capital I had to start life with, and on that capital I have made my way. ~ Andrew Jackson

24. Who is getting more pleasure from this rocking, the baby or me? ~ Nancy Thayer

25. No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement. ~ Florida Scott-Maxwell

26. Sometimes when I look at all my children, I say to myself, ‘Lillian, you should have stayed a virgin.’” ~ Lillian Carter

27. And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see — or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read. ~ Alice Walker

28. Women do not have to sacrifice personhood if they are mothers. They do not have to sacrifice motherhood in order to be persons. Liberation was meant to expand women’s opportunities, not to limit them. The self-esteem that has been found in new pursuits can also be found in mothering. ~ Elaine Heffner

29. If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much. ~ Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

30. I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best I could bring to it. ~ Rose Kennedy

31. A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary. ~ Dorothy Canfield Fisher

32. She was the archetypal selfless mother: living only for her children, sheltering them from the consequences of their actions — and in the end doing them irreparable harm. ~ Marcia Muller

33. Spend at least one Mother’s Day with your respective mothers before you decide on marriage. If a man gives his mother a gift certificate for a flu shot, dump him. ~ Erma Bombeck

34. No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after their children do it because there’s a wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick. ~ Erma Bombeck

35. Becoming a mother makes you the mother of all children. From now on each wounded, abandoned, frightened child is yours. You live in the suffering mothers of every race and creed and weep with them. You long to comfort all who are desolate. ~ Charlotte Gray

36. Giving kids clothes and food is one of thing, but it’s much more important to teach them that other people besides themselves are important and that the best thing they can do with their lives is to use them in the service of other people. ~ Dolores Huerta

37. Blaming mother is just a negative way of clinging to her still. ~ Nancy Friday

38. I love people. I love my family, my children . . . but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up. ~ Pearl S. Buck

39. The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. ~ Father Theodore Hesburgh

40. When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet. . . indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman. ~ Virginia Woolf

41. A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path. ~ Agatha Christie

42. You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. ~ Albert Einstein

43. If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylum would be filled with mothers. ~ Edgar Watson Howe

44. What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

45. My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. ~ Mark Twain

46. Over the years I have learned that motherhood is much like an austere religious order, the joining of which obligates one to relinquish all claims to personal possessions. ~ Nancy Stahl

47. There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

48. At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you’ve left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent. ~ Golda Meir

49. A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take. ~ Cardinal Mermilod

50. A mother’s yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man. ~ George Eliot

51. There are lots of things that you can brush under the carpet about yourself until you’re faced with somebody whose needs won’t be put off. ~ Angela Carter

52. Isidor Isaac Rabi’s mother used to ask him, upon his return from school each day, “Did you ask any good questions today, Isaac?” ~ Steve Chandler

53. Sometimes the poorest woman leaves her children the richest inheritance. ~ Ruth E. Renkel

54. Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. ~ Marion C. Garretty

55. A mother is never cocky or proud, because she knows the school principal may call at any minute to report that her child has just driven a motorcycle through the gymnasium. ~ Mary Kay Blakeley

56. It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge. ~ Phyllis Diller

57. Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn’t have anything to do with it. ~ Haim Ginott

58. If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money. ~ Abigail Van Buren

59. Making a decision to have a child–it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~ Elizabeth Stone

60. If you want your child to be brilliant, tell them fairy tales. If you want your child to be very brilliant, tell them even more fairy tales. ~ Albert Einstein

P.S.  What’s that she’s saying?  She needs to FIND HERSELF?  “Find herself” my Aunt Fanny.  Grow a pair, and be a parent to your child.  He’ll have pals his own age.  YOU can “find yourself” after your job is done.

P.P.S.  Does anybody else love it when, out in public, a child says “Mama?” and forty women instinctively turn their heads?

P.P.P.S. Grammar Queen that I am – terrifyingly so, in fact, so watch your step – I absolutely love this cartoon:

No, we don’t really even SEE the front door much, unless it’s December and I’m hanging a big beautiful wreath on said door.

I mention this tonight because said wreath is still hanging on said door.  I use my non-use of the door as my main excuse; who remembers what she never sees, after all?

However, whenever we have day after day after day of pouring incessant torrential rain, for some reason I can’t STOP think of that out-of-season wreath hanging on the front door for all the world to see and pass judgment on as it hangs helplessly, in March, and dripping because it’s thoroughly soaked and can’t be brought into the house until it’s completely dried out which will take more weeks and by then I’ll have forgotten about it again and won’t find it until it’s time to hide Easter eggs, and I’ll be so embarrassed at being THAT PERSON who still has a wreath on the door in springtime that I’ll probably seclude myself in the dining room and devour all the Reese’s Eggs in spite of my diabetes and overall fatness.

I’ve been obsessing so much over that soaking wet Christmas wreath that I’ve hardly had time to notice the large black iron basket overflowing with golden balls and candles sitting there on top of the tiny little corner table in the foyer right beside the front door, and which I walk past at least a dozen times a day.  Apparently, it has mutant powers and is fighting so hard for survival that it becomes invisible whenever it senses my presence.

I don’t have the excuse of it being soaking wet, either.  I haven’t thought up my excuse for leaving it be yet, in fact.  If you have any suggestions, please, bring ‘em on.

Because the fact is, whenever I DO “see” the basket of golden glowing balls and candles there, it still makes me smile.  In fact, I usually smile twice.  Once for the general coolness of the black basket full of golden balls and candles, and once because I’m such a tool for having a Christmas basket of balls in my foyer in March.

Come on over and see it.  Use the front door so you can see the wreath.

1.  I have never used an ATM machine.  I have a feeling it would be the beginning of a bad personal habit.

2.  I still have never watched a single Survivor-type show.  Still not interested.

3.  Ditto for Oprah, and even less interested.

4.  The Christmas wreath is probably still on the front door; we never use the front door, so I really couldn’t tell you for sure.  If you stop by, and the wreath is still there, please lift it down and lean it against the porch wall.  I’ll no doubt find it when I hide the Easter eggs.

5.  I’d like to tell you all that I still haven’t ever peeked at the answers in the back of a crossword puzzle book, but the fact is, I did.  Last week.  So much for that claim to fame.  Only once, though.

6.  I still haven’t outgrown my fascination with and liking for Spencer Gifts.

7.  I still enjoy the electronics section of a store more than the clothing section.

8.  I’m sorry, but I still snort when teachers get all excited while they tell me about fascinating new and innovative theories or techniques for student engagement that are nothing but recycled and renamed old stuff that’s being marketed and sold as something that will definitely work even though it failed miserably the first few rounds.  On second thought, I’m not really sorry.  I’m just kind of amused and judgmental.

9.  I still haven’t gotten tired of reading and re-reading the Harry Potter books. Every time I re-read a beloved book, I discover something new.  I know most of them by heart now.  I usually try to memorize literature I love; then I’m never without it.  If you are a teacher who doesn’t believe in memorizing, there’s nothing much you could have to say that would make any impression on me because you’re a lazy idiot please go sit somewhere else because you smell really, really bad.

10. I’ve never had a root canal, and I hope I haven’t cursed myself by putting that in writing.