"Christmas is coming, that happy holiday.  

I'm going to celebrate in my own special way!"

When I was a kid we had a tape all about celebrating Christmas all around the world.  One of the songs had the above line in it and 

I sing it to my kids 

over and over.

Those two lines.

They TOTALLY love it when I do that.

Or not.

But it's a bit of a misnomer.

Because Christmas is not all that happy all the time.

 It's also stressful, I cry from the anxiety of forced gatherings that I really don't want to attend because I feel like a total loser in certain settings, I have to be super organised,  

and how much I am supposed to be donating??!! 

I can't donate every time I am asked and 

I feel like a jerk saying "No." 

But if I said "Yes." every time, 

my kids would have nothing Christmas morning! 

For real!! 

Then there is sorrow from broken relationships and, 

to top it all off, 

I can't eat the baking I do!!!!

However, this year, after MONTHS of wrestling with how much I 

hate, loath, detest and dread Christmas,

I think I have turned a corner.

And the simple truth is,

this year money is not as tight

so Christmas is more fun.

I have tried for years to make Christmas about anything else other than buying presents.

It's about: 

family time

Jesus

friend parties

Advent

Christmas music

baking

making presents

watching Christmas movies

going to Christmas concerts

decorating a Christmas tree

skating

tobogganing

But the simple truth is unless your ENTIRE circle of people agrees with Christmas being OTHER than buying gifts,

Christmas is extra hard.

I know AMAZING people who are so against consumerism or are not Christian and stick to their guns and don't engage in Christmas celebrations and/or gift giving and I think they are phenomenal.

Because it's really really hard to tow that line when an entire culture/society is ramming "Christmas is about presents." down your throat.

So back to buying presents.

Ha!

Christmas is about presents.

And Jesus being born.

You cannot separate presents from celebrating Jesus's birth.

I don't care what you say.

I have TRIED and it's impossible.

Unless we ran away for all of December to a country where Christmas is not celebrated.  Then I suppose I would believe you that it can happen.  Like if you had to hide in your house with all the lights off and quietly sing Away In a Manger.

That scenario I could believe.

I think the tricky bit is trying to stay true to giving gifts out of love, using self-discipline (ie - not going into debt or being super greedy),  not buying to the lie of Christmas consumerism and being able to fully embrace the beauty that is celebrating the birth of Jesus.

And I DO believe this is possible.

Christmas is more fun this year because we can afford it.

We can buy our kids a few things they want.

And it's fun to do because we rarely buy them new toys!

Jon and me can get something nice.

And everyone else, 

well, 

you get what you get from us and you don't get to be upset because we are not Santa and we did our best.

Here's the thing.

I would rather spend my $60 budget on each kid & Jon, bake lots and give it away, buy a few bottles of wine to share with friends and family when they stop by, go to a Christmas eve service or midnight Mass and call it Merry Christmas.

For me, this is a liberated Christmas season.

I am trying to find that illusive middle ground of celebrating Christmas in a way that is true to what I believe is important

family time

Jesus

friend parties

Advent

Christmas music

baking

making presents

watching Christmas movies

going to Christmas concerts

decorating a Christmas tree

skating

tobogganing

And recognising that there are social norms and expectations and it's ok if I give in to some of those to.

So I'm reading this book called

Jesus Feminist.

And I am surprised by the feelings coming up to the surface of my heart and the memories that are flooding my mind.

Christian feminism is nothing new to me.

I kind of lived and breathed it for many years of my life.

Anything feminist theology I could find I would devour.

I'm pretty sure it's the only thing I have ever truly studied.

This morning, after reading a chapter of Jesus Feminist and having tears rolling down my face, I asked Jesus why this matters to me so much.

And because He is so kind, I was reminded of when my pursuit of equality in the church began.

Once upon a time I went to a church with a husband and wife that were joint pastors and I loved her preaching more than his.  This was the first time I had ever heard of a women being a preacher and given the same position of leadership in the church as a man.

Then we moved to Edmonton.

And I started working in a coffee shop with the most 

amazing Sikh boss.

I loved her.

And her husband and brother were ass-holes.

They treated her horribly.

At the same coffee shop, I worked with a girl that went to a church where women were kept under the thumb of men.  They were not valued as equals.  She had been adopted as an older child into a strict Christian family and she was wrestling with being a good Christian.  Her church put a premium on not cutting a woman's hair ever and that they always wear a skirt.  I made assumptions about other things that her version of Christianity would deem important.

We did not know what to make of each other.

Also at this time, I was taking a class at North American Baptist college about monotheistic religions.  As part of this class we went to a Sikh temple and a Muslim mosque.  I was struck with how the women were treated.  As visitors to each of these places of worship, we were treated very kindly.  However, as a woman in the mosque and the temple, it was not difficult to notice I was not considered equal to the men.  In the temple I was relegated to the back of the room and the men were at the front.  At the mosque, all the women were put in a small upstairs room with no windows and the imam was on the overhead speakers. The message was loud and clear to me.

Women are not equal those places.

I started to question how my Christian church experience was different.

If Jesus was real then how women were treated needed to look different.  Because if Christianity treated women the same as every other religion, than it was no better than being a Sikh or a Muslim.

Finding my equality in Christianity was a matter of 

following Jesus or not.

Re-reading that sentence makes me cry.

I think it's so sad that I was so unsure of my place in the kingdom of heaven as a woman that I was willing to walk away from my faith if I could not find anything that said I mattered to Jesus the same as a man.

I took a lot of flack for diving so heavy into feminist theology and I often was very defensive and aggressive because of the un-willingness for other Christians to engage in talking about women in the church.

They were obviously wrong and needed to be corrected!!!

Yeah.

I have mellowed a lot.

At some point I got tired of fighting

(Hallelujah and all the angels rejoiced)

and I made a quiet peace with what the church was and that the best I could ever do was always go to a church where women were given some place of leadership.

I have made my peace that I just won't talk about 
Christian feminism with most people 

because they really don't care 

or 

they really do care that I am really wrong.

This beautiful little book is a 

"warm waterfall washing over my wounds"

Because I love feminist theology 
and 
the beauty it holds.

I have not owned that for some time now.

I have wanted to read this book for months.

True confession,
I took it out this week to "stir the pot" at Thanksgiving.

Because sometimes I can be a total shit.

Obviously God redeems bad behaviour because this book is hitting me deeply and I was not expecting that.

Until next time,
Rachelle

This morning we all walked Nav to school.

All being me, Rohk and Nav.

A mushroom village.

Rohk took his breakfast smoothie with him for the ride.

We stopped at a little city garden on our way home.

These were so pretty.

Our sandbox is almost equal parts sand to leaves this time of year.

I really care about my "flower" box.  Can you tell?

Last night we had a fire and threw some copper in it.

The fire was a very cool orange and green.

I have started to receive April Cornell catalogues, by request.

The majority of what they sell is really ugly.

But this gem!!   I would love to own this.

I hope your collective weeks are full of beauty, manageable stress, children that don't fight to much, suppers that are easy & tasty and most of all, that you know how much you are loved.

Rachelle

This is a picture of some wallpaper I bought.

4 rolls of it actually.

I think it's weird and fun.

And it was $1 a roll at Ikea.

For now it sits under my bed, 

waiting for a house where I have a room to put it in.

I'm cleaning up my pictures on my laptop.

Here are some pictures I took that I must have had a reason for but now I forget.

Nav turned 9 this summer!

I don't think I posted pictures, so here you go.

Naveed was not interested in letting me bake and decorate her a cake this year.   So this is an ice cream cake that she decorated and loved.

We did a full day of party celebrations with all of Nav's favourite people.  Some friends in the morning, some in the afternoon, a family supper, friends and Olympics after supper.

It ended up being a very gentle celebratory day.

I hope we do the same for her next year.

One of Nav's cherished friends does not like icecream or cake but loves unbaked cookies.   So when that friend was over we had these.  For the other friend's, they had Slurpee's and for the evening friends - cupcakes!  At some point in the day my camera died so we are without pictures.

And I'm ok with that.

I have started to NOT take pictures on purpose and just be present in the moment that is happening.  It does mean that I have only a few pictures from this summer but I know that means I was fully in the moment of whatever it was we were doing.

So back to more pictures I took!

HA!

Summer is not summer until we have made it to the track for some races.  It is always a highlight of my summer.

This is my Foodie Club's 7th year and we welcomed a new member this year.  After 7 years of meeting with these women I can't imagine my life without them.

It was lovely just living this summer and intentionally being off the internet and social media as much as I could get away with.

And now, I find it just as lovely sitting down to look at my pictures and remember what a lovely summer it was.

Today I plan on working in my kitchen all afternoon, 

listening to Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban.

I am in the mood to make bread or buns or something.

Happy Thursday everyone!

Good Morning!

This was a breakfast I had in August.  Isn't it pretty?

My breakfast this morning was not as photo-worthy, peanut butter stirred into greek yogurt with some slivered almonds.

Anyway...

This space, my little blog, is often where I am able to articulate my thoughts.  When I sit to type, the words that come out here have been ruminating for some time.

Here, I write my thoughts coherently vs random in-coherent personal journaling.

For some time now I have been longing for a deeper understanding of prayer.   It's been a quiet longing, sitting on the side lines for some time now.

Truth be told, I live to pray.

I dont' say this in a pious way.

It's just who I am.

I can't not pray.

My prayers are often short.

They are often without words.

Sometimes they are angry.

Tears are not uncommon.

Confession and desperation, praise, thanks and questions.

So many questions.

Prayer is my favourite because there are no right or wrongs, all that is required of me is to show up.

Sometimes I show-up and I know my heart is hard.

I pray out of fear, not faith.

I pray out of Christian superstition and some weird perceived need to appease.  To say the right thing.

More and more, God is showing me when I do this and gently corrects me heart attitude.

At some point this summer I purchased two books on prayer.

The beauty of living in a small city with an inordinate amount of Christians giving away books to the local thrift store!

It will take me a while to get through these books, I am not in a rush and I feel that they require pondering, not consuming.

From "With Open Hands"

"When you dare to let go and surrender one of those many fears, your hand relaxes and your palms spread out in a gesture of receiving.  You must have patience, of course, before your hands are completely open and their muscles relaxed."

From "Prayer"

(This one made me cry this morning.  I always pay attention to the things that make me cry.)

"One small word of counsel before we strike out onto this disciplined journey into the holy place; healthy prayer necessitates frequent experiences of the common, earthy, run-of-the-mill variety.  Like walks, and talks and good wholesome laughter.  Like work in the yard, and chitchat with the neighbours, and washing windows.  Like loving our spouse, and playing with our kids, and working with our colleagues.  To be spiritually fit to scale the Himalayas of the spirit, we need regular exercise in the hills and valleys of ordinary life."

And this.

Isaiah 64:1-8

Oh, that you would burst from the heavens and come down!
    How the mountains would quake in your presence!
 As fire causes wood to burn
    and water to boil,
your coming would make the nations tremble.
    Then your enemies would learn the reason for your fame!
 When you came down long ago,
    you did awesome deeds beyond our highest expectations.
    And oh, how the mountains quaked!
 For since the world began,
    no ear has heard
and no eye has seen a God like you,
    who works for those who wait for him!
 You welcome those who gladly do good,
    who follow godly ways.
But you have been very angry with us,
    for we are not godly.
We are constant sinners;how can people like us be saved?
 We are all infected and impure with sin.
    When we display our righteous deeds,
    they are nothing but filthy rags.
Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall,
    and our sins sweep us away like the wind.
 Yet no one calls on your name
    or pleads with you for mercy.
Therefore, you have turned away from us
    and turned us over to our sins.

 And yet, O Lord, you are our Father.
    We are the clay, and you are the potter.
    We all are formed by your hand.

And so, dear readers, these are my thoughts.

I hope your day is filled with beauty.   

Olympics are on our screens pretty much non stop.

Jon and me do not love sports.

We kind of avoid them like the plague.

But the Olympics?

That's another story.

Nav is getting into them and Rohk remains un-interested.

So far Rugby Sevens has been my favourite to watch.

Those women are kick-ass awesome!

When we are not watching athletes compete for medals,

I have been cleaning and purging like a mad woman.

I'm in a mood.

My home feels lighter because I know the closets and drawers and shelves are emptier.

The kiddo's had a good room purge of their accumulated junk and now I can focus on camping this weekend and getting Nav ready for bible camp next week.

My girl, the nine year old that she is, will be going to bible camp for the first time ever next week!  She is soo excited!! Both me and Jon loved bible camp so we really hope Nav does as well.  It was her birthday present from us and my parents.

In recent years we have started moving away from giving presents and towards giving experiences.  Like bible camp.

The older I get, the more I shun the idea of giving stuff for the sake of giving stuff.  I would rather have less and experience more with the people love.

I've stopped asking my kids what they want for birthdays or Christmas because I think it sends the wrong message. (I just pay attention to them and what they like.) If the build up to these celebrations is about fulfilling a wish list, the beauty of the day is lost.  

I love giving my kids good gifts, and they have had some pretty amazing ones.  But I would rather they be excited to plan an entire day of birthday celebrations just the way they want it to be with their favourite people than focus on the one gift they want and they might not get.  

I would rather focus on the season of advent and go to lots of Christmas concerts with loved ones instead of putting all our energies towards one morning of excess just because we are supposed to do that on Christmas morning.

Birthday's get to look a certain way around here because in general, you are allowed to do whatever you want for a birthday.

Birthday celebrations are my very favourite.

Breaking away from the Christmas usual is infinitely  more difficult.  Every year, I dread more and more the Christmas season.

The combination of not being able to eat Christmas baking and the ability to buy perfect presents have led me to question everything about how Christmas is celebrated. 

And I have decided that Christmas stinks.

The expectations for what it needs to look like, how much I need to buying and giving and donating...

It's a money grab for everyone and I'm really over it.

So I sound super bitter!

Here is a list of things that make me happy:

Summer holidays rule
Star Trek (the original series) is perfect to have on while I bake
I love my bike
Rohk making jello this morning was pure joy
Nav crafting all day, every day
Inside jokes with Jon

This meme

found here