I now have a new second place favorite in
my personal Hanging of the Greens holiday memories. Last night was the big event at Seaside. For us the evening involves more of a
work/party rather than a worship service type event. We bring snacks and hot chocolate to
share. I know. It’s Galveston, and we rarely need something
like hot chocolate to warm freezing bones.
But we can be creative. Like last
night. The temperature outside was
hovering in the high sixties, not exactly North Pole extremes. OK, not even North Texas. But what can I say? We live in a tropical island paradise. And the air conditioner works just fine.
The snacks last night were great, as
usual. I do miss Katie Hightower’s
homemade marshmallows, but fresh baked cookies and those little junior sized
cupcake treats are always a treat.
Pimento cheese sandwiches may not appeal to everyone, but they have
always been one of my favorites. Mix
that with a tub of French Onion dip and some of those chips that shaped like
little cups. And who can say no to an
assortment of Subway delights? Definitely
a fare worthy of the work that faced us.
The evening began with a frenzy. As we unloaded all the Christmas decoration
boxes it became evident rather rapidly that something was missing. The garland was there, and the tree, and
plenty of ornaments. But no lights. None of the paraphernalia carefully preserved in
plastic tubs in any way remotely resembled something one would plug in. There was a box missing. And so the search began. Every room.
Every closet in both buildings.
But nowhere were lights to be found.
Finally, just after one of the ladies left to make a WalMart run, I
decided to make one more sweep of the storeroom – the room where the other decorations
were found. Every box, every
corner. No stone left unturned. And suddenly, amid the extra toilet paper and
air conditioner filters, in a box that everyone had assumed was extra paper
towels since that what the box said, appeared the lights. All of them.
Frantic calls brought the WalMart excursion to a close, and the
decorating began.
And now to my previously mentioned
memory. I have to say up front that my
personal favorite Hanging of the Greens memory has to remain the year we couldn’t
find the Advent wreath. (Sensing a
pattern of lost things here?). It was
Sunday morning of the First Sunday in Advent, and we only had a few minutes to
get something together. A trip clear to
WalMart was out of the question (that’s eleven miles away, for heaven’s sake). We decided to improvise. We gathered some greenery off the palm trees
outside. Someone found some paper cups,
so we turned them upside down and poked the candles through them. It was truly a ragtag looking wreath, but we
decided to go with it for the day and look for the actual wreath that
afternoon. But Seaside is a magical
place at times. When the people arrived
for worship, they fell in love with the ugly old wreath and wouldn’t let us
replace it. It remained for the whole
season, and became the centerpiece of our Christmas Eve service that year.
Hard to beat a memory like that, but last
night came close. We had a visitor with
us, helping to set up the Christmas tree.
The problem was in the base itself.
One of the legs had broken off the base.
Perhaps there was a new base hidden away somewhere, but after the intensive
lights search, no one could remember seeing one. Several attempts were made to repair it, but
with no duct tape to be found, that option seemed doomed to failure. That’s when our new friend Ken stepped up
with an idea. He left the room for a
moment and returned with the spare tire from his truck. Yep.
The whole spare tire. Let me tell
you, our Christmas tree is not going anywhere this year. Nope.
Best foundation ever. Spare tire
guy saves the day. Gotta be some way
that could be made into one of those Lifetime movies.
Psalms 42:8 says, “By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me — a
prayer to the God of my life.”
Father, thank you for surprises of
creativity. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment