Writing Next Year’s Christmas Letter

By Cynthia Ruchti –

The process of putting away Christmas decorations takes me well into the New Year. Even after the bins of candles, stockings, ornaments, and various sizes and shapes of nativity sets have been shelved, I can still walk through the house and discover another little tidbit I forgot during the clean up process. The mistletoe hanging in the hall. The little felt holly leaves tucked at the base of the kitchen canisters. The antique wooden mittens in the family room and the gingerbread house salt and pepper shakers.

Every year, it’s the same. The decorations go up in a day and take weeks to completely collect.

I like to pray over the cards and letters we received during the holidays, remember friends and family and what they reported about their lives. Only then do I feel comfortable putting away, recycling, or (gulp) tossing those Christmas communications.

But today it occurred to me that I am—right now—writing the material for next year’s Christmas letter. And so are you.

The lives we’re living today and next week and next month are the reports we’ll give in next December’s Christmas letters.

What do I want mine to say? “Dull year. Nothing happened. Didn’t bless a soul. Wasted my time. Focused on myself. Avoided hearing from God, so not much to tell ya. Merry Christmas.”

With the year this young, I still have time to make an impact on how that letter will read. I have a wide open door of opportunity to influence others, build friendships, plan meaningful travel, follow through on ideas for quality time with family members, take pictures of fun days with the grandkids, be caught smiling often enough that I’ll have photo images I’m happy to include, listen intently enough to the Lord that I’ll have something to say.

A promising year lies ahead. Maybe I’ll use a corner of my calendar to jot down exceptional experiences as they happen, exceptional verses I discovered in my devotional times with the Lord, exceptional books I read through the year, and exceptional touches with other people so next year’s Christmas letter will write itself and reflect on a year well spent.

PRAYER: Father God, every day with You is an adventure! Forgive me for the times I’ve rushed
past the wonder on my way to the next event. I pray You’ll give me a sensitive heart this year and that my commitment to living all 365 days of it Your way will make it a year worth celebrating.

BIBLE VERSE: “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity…” (Ephesians 5:15-16a NIV)

Christmas Will be Different This Time

By Cynthia Ruchti –

“Christmas will be different this time,” I vowed. “No more rushing around for last minute gifts. No more stress headaches from the spreadsheet of our holiday activities. No more sending out Christmas cards three weeks into the New Year with a traditional holiday greeting: Sorry this is so late.”

I made that vow the first weekend of October that year. But my kids didn’t get their Christmas wish lists to me in time to get things ordered. I couldn’t find the ideal Christmas card to send and procrastinated on creating a Christmas letter because most of the stories of what happened needed updating. Where was the picture of our trip to the Rockies? On the cell phone? The digital camera? The computer?

The black-out dates on the calendar—for meditation on the reason for the season—turned gray, then grayish white, then black lettering on a pure white background…one more important activity that promised to help us focus on family, friends, and faith. It focused, instead, on frenzy.

Old, cherished traditions were squeezed out by the football schedule. Gifts were slapped into used gift bags with last year’s name sticker ripped off, replaced by a scar-covering bow.

The Christmas Tea for my sisters and girlfriends would have happened, if we hadn’t waited too long to plan the date. No one could get free on the same afternoon.

I didn’t think about our advent calendar—little windows with “The Promised Messiah” Scripture references—until December 11^th.

What if God’s approach to Christmas had been as haphazard and unintentional as my efforts?  What if the Lord’s good intentions were squeezed out by other “running the universe” activities? Understandable.

Devastating.

What if the star “came and stood over where the credit cards bills lay”? What if the priceless moment of Christ’s birth were delayed until halftime? Hee-hee-hee-hoo, Mary.

What if…this year…I treat that holy moment with the respect the angels gave it?

PRAYER: Holy God, when I sing “I Surrender All” today, I mean to include all the hoopla of the holidays. I surrender it all to You. That will be my new favorite holiday song. I’ll still sing Joy to the World and Silent Night, but the theme this year is “I Surrender All.”

BIBLE VERSE: “They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him” (Matthew 2:11 NLT).

This Toll Booth is Closed

By Cynthia Ruchti –

Each hash mark on the highway ticked off another few inches of a very long road trip. My friend and I made use of every moment, brainstorming new projects, talking about the latest antics of our drama queen and king grandchildren, proposing answers to the national debt crisis, and discussing the intricacies of nuclear physics. Come to think of it, we didn’t get to the last two subjects.

Fully engaged in what is always stimulating conversation with this dear heart-friend, we barely noticed the scenery flying by. My friend drove and I took notes when we landed on a plot solution for a new book or a recipe for slow cooker pork chops. The designated recording secretary for our road trip’s discussions, I filled a small notebook, writing in the margins, flipping pages for a new rabbit trail subject that caught our attention.

Aware of every nuance of thought and the joy of having time to talk out things we’d only been able to hint at when separated by too many miles, neither of us noticed when my friend pulled into a toll booth with a red X overhead.

Three other toll booths boasted bright green Xs. They were open for business. We, however, were stuck in a closed lane with no way out except to brave the oncoming toll traffic and back out, against the flow of racing, unforgiving steel.

My friend was mortified that she’d missed the big red X. Closed. It had happened so fast, as everything does on a superhighway. We laughed about it after the problem was resolved. But today, as I remember that moment of realization that we’d missed the warning and driven straight into a dead end because we were momentarily distracted, I wonder how many other times in life that’s happened to me.

PRAYER: Lord God, don’t let my attention waver from the signs You place all around me, the warning signs, the dead end signs, the bridge out warnings, the flashing lights that can keep me from veering off course if I just pay attention. I don’t want to get caught in a relationship or emotional or spiritual place with no easy way out.

BIBLE VERSE: “The LORD says, ‘I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you,’” (Psalm 32:8 NLT).

Hysterical Society

By Cynthia Ruchti –

Our local historical society stays busy resurrecting bits of history, restoring ancient artifacts, and maintaining a charming museum that draws more traffic than one would think for a small town.

The walls and displays and collections in the museum reveal a past, now invisible.

At one time, along the jaundiced-sounding, but intriguing, Yellow River, flourished a loud, but productive, lumber industry. It was so many years ago that no one alive today has sawdust on their shoes. A significant pottery business thrived, too, sometime in history. Fire destroyed most of the two-story buildings in town, twice, if I remember correctly. And out here where I live, eight miles from town, another village existed with a railroad interchange, or so the story goes. There’s no evidence in the landscape or the neighborhood. We can’t even see a dent where railroad ties must have been. But the historical society knows. And they’ll get the details right.

Devoted to preserving historical accuracy, they’ll inform me who was mayor when the first fire raged and how many times the physical therapy building changed hands before its current use—from mechanic’s shop to general store to fabric shop (that one I remember) to—Was there something between the fabric shop and physical therapy?

The historical society could tell me.

As respected as are the members of the historical society, I’ve sometimes wondered how popular a hysterical society would be. They’d laugh hysterically over the antics of the locals. They’d tell hysterical stories about the time the semi-trailer full of cheese broke down outside of town and the community youth group saved the day by rewrapping the cheese, earning enough money to keep the ministry going for another few months.

The laughing kind of hysterical society would gain a quick reputation…for preserving and restoring old joy.

In the book of Proverbs, we’re reminded about God’s thoughts on laughter. “Laughter doeth good,” He said, “like medicine.”

“Laughter doeth” is a nice historical and hysterical way of putting it, isn’t it?

PRAYER: Lord God, I sometimes act as if serious thoughts are the only valuable thoughts. But You told us it’s not only good and worthwhile but medicinal, healing, to laugh. Forgive me for the times I pushed laughter aside as a waste of time. Help me recall the history of the hysterical You’ve woven throughout life and find ways to give others the gift of laughter.

“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones” Proverbs 17:22, NIV.

Talked Into It

By Cynthia Ruchti –

“Whoa! That is…that’s a unique color combination.”

I stood in my friend’s kitchen, trying to stave off the nausea induced by the wild, highly unappetizing faux painting technique on what she called the “accent” wall.

“You don’t like it?” she asked, eyebrows tented.

I used a trick I learned when my kindergartners brought home creative but unrecognizable artwork. “Tell me the story behind this.”

My friend burst into tears. “There’s no story! It’s a disaster! I hate it!”

“We agree then.”

“It’s not just me? It really is horrible?”

“You needed to ask? Jen, those garish colors just aren’t you at all! Who talked you into this?”

She paused for a moment. “The kitchen designer. Not only did she talk me into the circus-tent-in-a-tornado technique, but it cost me more than the glass-tile backsplash!”

Sympathy oozed out of me.

I’d been talked into a few bad ideas before, things I’d regretted a lot more than an accent wall that could be painted over. “Hon, what made you say yes to this? Didn’t the designer show you a sample first?”

“Oh, I saw a sample. Didn’t like it. But I thought I was the wrong one, the uptight one, the person with no taste. So I caved.”

“Love to talk to you more about this, Jen, but could we discuss it in the living room where I’m less likely to lose my lunch?”

Throughout time, God’s people have often been talked into things they knew were dumb ideas, or even spiritually dangerous ideas. No doubt they, like my friend, felt intimidated by the apparent—and false—wisdom or intelligence or good sense of the person insisting, “This is perfect for you. You need to try this—everybody’s doing it. Okay, you can hang onto that faith idea if you insist, but at least don’t let yourself go overboard.”

Regret doesn’t come from listening to God, but from listening to others who talk us into things that go against the wisdom of God.

PRAYER: Father God, I don’t want You to have to ask, “Who talked you into the pursuit of this nonsense?”(Isaiah 57:11—The Message). By Your Spirit, keep my head on straight and my ears tuned only to You.

BIBLE VERSE: “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure, then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere” James 3:17 NIV.

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