Emmanuel

As I heard in a sermon on Christmas Eve, the book of Matthew begins and ends with the promise that God is with us. The promise comes first in Matthew 1:23:

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

The promise is repeated in Jesus’ final words before his ascension, in the very last verse of the book (Matthew 28:20):

 “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

I quoted these verses from the English Standard Version, which spells Emmanuel with an I rather than an E, but I prefer the spelling in the King James Version. That’s partly because of its association with another E word.

E also stands for ‘evergreen.” The evergreen trees that we use at Christmas remind us that Christians have everlasting life with Christ. Yes, He is with us.

My wish for you as we head into 2019 is that you may be aware of His presence throughout the coming year.

A Christmas Cross

Christmas is about Christ’s birth, but it is also about His death and resurrection, and we can’t separate those events. He came as a baby to share our humanity and die for our salvation. The cross in the picture hangs in my kitchen all year long to remind me of that.

As you can see, the cut-outs in the cross portray the nativity scene. The center of the crossbar shows Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus, who is lying in the manger. A star shines above and angels herald the birth on each side. In my opinion, the scenes below the crossbar are backwards since the first visitors (the shepherds and sheep) are placed at the bottom while the later-arriving wise men are above them.

More importantly, this cross is incomplete. Neither Jesus’ birth nor His death would have meant anything without His resurrection. But the Christmas cross is still a good reminder about the all-important connection between Christmas and Holy Week.

The true meaning of Christmas is Easter, so remember that as you celebrate tomorrow.

A Season for Creches

Christmas is family and presents and parties and . . . Yes, those are big parts of the season for some of us, but all of them would be meaningless without Christ. The Christmas celebration is about Christ’s birth, which brought Him to earth to die for our salvation. So the best Christmas decorations are the manger scenes that remind us of the reason for the season.

Today’s blog post highlights some of my favorite creches from recent years, beginning with the one at the top of the page. This is the creche that has adorned the fellowship area in my church for decades. The photo is from 2008, but it could have been taken in 2018.

I also love this creche that I photographed in the sanctuary of the Church of Ste. Genevieve at Ste. Genevieve, Missouri in 2013.

Inside a church is a logical place to find creches, but they create a better witness when they are outside where they can be seen by people who might not walk through the doors. This next creche sits in front of Trinity Lutheran Church in Millstadt, Illinois (my daughter and son-in-law’s church).

Some outdoor displays are more elaborate than others. In 2010, Caroline and Pete took us to see the Way of Lights at Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, Illinois. The grounds contain many Biblical pictures drawn in lights, and they are beautiful. The first one below is a traditional nativity scene, but I am even more impressed by the second, which shows the city of Bethlehem.

Then there are the more personal creches, by which I mean the ones Roland and I own or have owned. The first photo shows the nativity scene that sat outside our house before we moved to the condo. Caroline and Pete have it now, and it is still in use. The second shows one I crocheted many years ago and have put out every year since.

Everyone should have at least one creche in their house at Christmas time to remind them of the reason for the season.

I’d feel lost without mine.

More Than a Decoration

Several weeks ago, Marni Jacobson wrote a column chiding people who decorate their Christmas tree the same way every year. It reminded me of another column she wrote six years ago where she sang the praises of designer trees and essentially told her readers to abandon the traditional ones.                                                                              

Both times I thought, “I should send her a letter disagreeing with her positions,” and both times I didn’t do it. So I was happy when I read her column this week and saw all the letters she received from readers who feel as I do.

Even though I haven’t written any letters, I did respond to the first column with a blog post. I am reprinting it here with a few minor changes to bring it up-to-date.

More Than a Decoration

A Christmas tree isn’t just a decoration. It reflects family and memories and love.


Thursday’s “At Home” column by Marni Jameson [November 22, 2012, in our local paper] talked about her visit to a Christmas tree exhibit with artistic trees of all shapes, colors, and materials. They included one made of apple-green Tupperware bowls and one shaped like the Eiffel Tower. Then Marni gave readers tips on how to create their own designer trees.


Much as I enjoy Marni Jameson’s column, this time I disagree with her. I’m all for creativity, but I don’t want a designer tree. 


I want one that creates memories of Christmases past and hints at those to come.

The second picture shows the year I got my doll house. A wonderful Christmas with a scrawny tree covered in hand-made decorations. The paper chains are the most obvious here, and we had at least two kinds. Our tree topper was a cardboard star covered with aluminum foil, and the best ornaments were . . . well, I’ll tell you about them in a minute.

I remember only four store-bought things that ornamented our Christmas trees as I grew up. Strings of lights, shiny round balls (like the one in the top picture), long plastic ornaments that resembled the icicles hanging from the eves, and tinsel.

The best ornaments were the ones my father made from goose or turkey wishbones. He dried the wishbones and painted them silver. I’m not sure how many there were originally, but I have two that hang on my tree every year. You can see one of them in the first picture.

The third picture shows the type of tree we had when my children were growing up. By now, most of the ornaments were commercially made, but they still had memories attached. The mouse I bought at a dime store when I moved out on my own, the cloth Santa that always hung at the bottom of the tree because toddlers couldn’t destroy it, and the ornaments Roland’s parents gave us each year. We also used the ones Caroline and John made in school until they took most of those with them when they left home.

Even though the children are grown up now, the tradition continues. In 2018, our tree (shown in the last picture) still wears the Santa, the ornaments from Roland’s parents, and the two wishbones. Unfortunately the mouse broke last year [see my November 13, 2017 post]. Although we still have him, he is carefully stowed away and didn’t make it onto the tree this year. And part of the tradition has moved to other homes. The stocking I crocheted for Caroline hangs in her living room along with the one I made for Pete the year they got married. John has taken his stocking, too.

So don’t let anyone convince you that a Christmas tree is just art or décor.

It is family and memories and love.

Don't Sell Your Books for Free

I subscribe to a service called BookBub, which notifies me of daily e-book deals. The prices for a Kindle version range from $2.99 to free.

Although I’d had bad luck with free books in the past, I decided to try one or two of those “deals.” After all, what did I have to lose?

A lot, as I will explain two paragraphs down.

Free means badly written by an author who clearly has no understanding of the principles of fiction writing. I’m sure there are exceptions, but that is what it has meant every time I’ve gotten a Kindle book for that price. And that includes those books advertised as having “over 5000 five-star Goodreads ratings.” I’m convinced that these authors join a network of writers who agree to give five-star ratings to each other’s books without even reading them.

I’m a busy woman who already has a long reading list. Any time spent on a bad book is time I can’t spend on a good one. And although I’m much better than I used to be, something in me still balks at putting a book down before I have finished it. So I don’t buy free books.

The main reason to give away free books is to generate paid sales. If people will love your book, they will rave about it and tell all their friends (Facebook or otherwise), who will then rush out and buy it. Or if it is the first in a series, the people who receive the free one will pay for the subsequent ones. That’s the theory, anyway.

These authors of these substandard books probably believe they are good writers, but there are only two reasons why conventional (as opposed to experimental) books don’t sell. The author is either a poor marketer (which I understand very well) or a bad writer.

If you are a poor marketer, I doubt that giving away free books is enough to overcome it, and if you are a bad writer, the practice can actually be counterproductive.

Given an interesting concept, I might take a chance and spend a few dollars to buy a book. I have bought several of the $1.99 and $2.99 books highlighted on BookBub, and most have been worth it. If the book I paid for is bad, I won’t buy another from the same writer. But at least that person has made a portion of the money I already spent. If the book is free, the writer doesn’t even get that.

So before you sell your book for free, pay a professional to do a substantive edit, or find a group of beta readers who will be brutally honest with you.

You’ll regret it if you don’t.