It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Often we find our attitude not where it should be this time of year.  This year, right before Thanksgiving my car decided to have some major problems.  Three weeks later and quite a bit of money later and it was fixed, or so we thought.  Those costly repairs cut into our budget which is already tight.  So a week after Thanksgiving I've been able to drive my car to school, happy to have it running again.  My husband takes the car to the store and when he returns he says, "Well I guess I'll be driving you to school until you have your break,  Your steel belts are poking through on your tires."  I went into the house and thought, "Really Lord?  We just spent two paychecks on the car and then this,  and now I have nothing for Christmas." My mother asked when I was setting up the tree and I told her I didn't know if I was going to put one up.  There was nothing to go under it.  My husband heard me and reminded me that we had experienced tighter Christmases.

Our first Christmas together he brought home a small live tree.  It fit on our coffee table. The kids were so excited.  The year before my children and I  had borrowed a tree from my sister's storage unit  and we had made paper and wooden ornaments and colored them with markers.  I was a newly divorced mother of two. My kids reminded me that we had those ornaments to place on the tree.  By the third day the tree had almost no needles left on it.  My son remarked that it was beautiful just like the one on Charlie Brown.  He then reminded me of the reason we celebrated Christmas.

On this occasion my husband  was my reminder.  So, two days later I called my daughter and asked if her daughter could spend Friday night with us.  School was out for Christmas break and she could help me set up our tree.  It was a wonderful time as my granddaughter Haylee talked about each ornament.  Some of them were ornaments we had given to our children, some were the ones we had made.  She proclaimed the tree was beautiful.  We waited until her mother picked her up  to put the candy canes on the tree.  Both my daughter Angie and my grand-daughter Haylee have this honor each year.  My daughter was looking at the ornaments and picked up a bell shaped piece of construction paper with her kindergarten picture on it.  Her eyes misted over and she said, "Now I have one of these on my tree with my daughter on it."  I realized that the tree was a symbol of memories.  If I never have anything to put UNDER the tree I have memories covering it.  I have several ornaments that were my father's.   He has been gone since 1999.  It has always been a tradition to give an ornament to everyone.  When the kids got their own place they had a baggie of ornaments to start off their decorating.  I have not made any for them or my grand kids yet.  I do know what I will be making though.
I look forward to this years traditions.  We open gifts on Christmas Eve so that the kids can visit in-laws and other relatives on Christmas day.  We always have dinner and then read the story from Luke before we ever open presents.  Christmas day is a day we celebrate Christ's birthday.  When the kids were little we had a birthday cake for him.
I may only have a couple of gifts under the tree this year but the family that sits around it is what is most important.  Besides, we have the greatest gift of all.  We have the gift of God's son.  What more could I ask for?

I hope that as you prepare for this busy time of year you find the peace, love and memories to carry you through.  May you find a reason to celebrate in the face of hard times.

God Bless You All!

India Was One by an Indian

Publisher:  CreateSpace
Pages:  368
Genre:  Adult Historical Fiction
Source:  Review copy from author

Extended Description from Smashwords:

…Suddenly, he saw something shiny at the bottom of the abyss. He squinted his eyes to see what it was. He ran back to his binoculars and turned them to see what it was. Sharp barbed wires that separated the two mountains came into focus. He had come as far as he could in his country. But she was standing in another country.
He was in South India and she was in North India…
Have you ever imagined India being divided into two countries? What happens to the millions of Indians who are from South India but are now residing in North India? Kaahi & Jai were two such people who got trapped in this situation. Everything was going smoothly for them and suddenly, their world turned upside down.  How will they get together? Will India become one again?
Take an exciting journey with them from their college days in Mumbai to their life in the US and back to India when they find out that India is divided.

My Thoughts:

When asked to review this book I agreed in part because over the last two years in my schoo,l our Indian population has grown.  As an IB global school we have been given glimpses into their culture.   This book filled in a lot of the missing details.  We meet Jai and Kaahi.  These two young people come from two different areas of India.  Their cultures also differ somewhat.  They fall in love and get married.  The very interesting thing is that all through this book you learn interesting facts about India.  They have very bright and colorful weddings where the festivities last for days.  White is worn for funerals.  Completely opposite of here, in America.  I like their reasoning better.  Color expresses so much and I agree.  After they are married they move to LA where they encounter another culture.  As they are beginning to settle in to their new life, things back home start to go bad.  The country is divided politically into North and South and they travel back to check on family members.  They must separate as one of them is from the North, and the other is from the South.  The underlying message from this is to let us know that love conquers all and that no matter what the differences are, people can still find ways to unite.  Maybe this is a lesson we need to be reminded of here in the USA.

Student Saturday: 39 Clues: Vespers rising - Rick Riordan, Peter Lerangis, Gordon Korman, and Jude Watson

Publisher:  Scholastic
Pages:  240
Genre:  Mystery
Reviewer:  Austin

This was the best book I have ever read.  I could not put it down.  As a mystery reader, I was anxious to unlock the Cahill family secrets in this book.  Four different authors wrote sections of the book involving separate characters in each section.  This book gives a history of the Cahills and Vespers, which ties together the 11 book series about the Cahill family and upcoming series about the Vesters.

Set in 1507, the first  section by Rick Riordan is a historic tale about the family of the very intelligent alchemist Gideon Cahill, his children (Luke, Tomas, Jane and Katherine), and their enemy Damien Vesper.  The story begins in the Cahill mansion in a remote location on the coast of the Irish mainland.  Damien Vesper has been trying to escape the plague (Black Death) which has taken over most of his kingdom in Ireland and had Gideon Cahill work on a formula to cure it.  Gideon Cahill gave each of his children a vial of serum he invented that when put together would keep them safe from the plague vial of serum he invented that when put together would keep them safe from  his father that holds all of the family secrets, which gets passed on to his family about his death.

The second section, written by Peter Lerangis, is about Gideon's very determined and intelligent daughter, Madeleine Cahill, and Happens in 1526.  It starts out in her alchemy classroom in Ireland where she is learning the science hoping to be like her father..  She takes a job as a governess at the castle of King Henry the VIII.  Madeleine's mission is to protect the ring she got from her family, which she hides to keep it safe from the wrong hands.  She also must reunite the Cahill family, and stay hidden from the Vespers at all costs.

Gordon Korman wrote the third section about 13-year old Grace Cahill, a fearless but kind descendant of Gideon Cahill.  This section starts out in her home in Monte Carlo where she finds a coded message with a clue on where she can find the ring hidden by Madeline.  She travels to Casablanca in Africa during the World War II in 1942.  There she first saw George S. Patton who turns out to be a Vesper who steals the ring from Grace.  Once she discovers what happened to the ring, she recovered it.

Jude Watson wrote the final section about Dan and Amy Cahill who are the orphaned grandchildren of Grace, which is set in present times.  Dan and Amy are accompanied by their Uncle Fiske when they go to Grace's Chalet in the Himalayan mountain range.  They are on a mission to find Gideon's ring.  When they find the ring they barely escape a Vesper named Casper Wyoming.  Amy finds a way to make the ring a part of her watch to hide it from the Vespers.  The Chills have won for now.

I really enjoyed this book.  Most of all I liked the hidden secrets and solving the mystery along with the characters.  Like other mysteries I have read, this book took me to may places I have never traveled.  I highly recommend it to anyone my age who likes a good mystery.