Christmas 2025

 

December 27, 2025

Food: charcuterie board, rolls, ham balls, potatoes, sweet potatoes, mixed vegetables, 

salad, cranberry, pie, cookies, ice cream, coffee, and punch

Thirty-seven people shared the day. 

Fun: The children waited patiently through singing and photo sessions. 

Then it was finally time for gifts.

Samuel

Emma

Bags of goodies and gift cards for restaurants

Fellowship

Emma and great-grandson Malcom

Gene, Jay, and Daryl

Josh and his Great-aunt Carol

Pop and the boys

Archery practice

Ordered By The Lord

    Psalm 37:23 says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." We understand God is in control of the universe and He guides us through life. Sometimes we don't understand why things happen but believe God knows what He is doing. Sometimes it is immediately clear that God was directing our steps. We had an experience like that this week.

   Leroy's brother had surgery on his neck to clear a blockage in an artery in his neck. Surgery was successful and he went home. A few days later he went to church on Sunday morning. During church he passed out and was rushed to the ER. They decided he passed out due to low blood pressure. While he was being checked, he said something didn't feel right at his neck. The nurses saw his neck ballooning out. The artery had sprung a leak. He was rushed into the operating room and given a trach so he could breathe. Repairs were made to the artery and he was taken to a room in the ICU with a respirator. He is still in ICU but making progress every day and breathing on his own again through the trach.

   If he had not gone to church Sunday morning, he would have died at home alone. Being surrounded by people when he passed out saved his life. If he had not been in the ER when the artery sprung a leak, it would have been curtains. His time was not up yet. He was at the right  place at the right time twice that morning. 

   Truly, our steps are ordered by the Lord. I want to remember that when I don't understand what is happening.

Winter Wonderland

    Christmas is just eight days away. According to one of the songs we are hearing this month, "it's the season to be jolly." I don't agree with what being jolly means to some people, but it is a time for good cheer, happiness and laughter. In light of that, here are a few things to add a pinch of jolly laughter to your day.

     One of the songs often heard this time of year is Winter Wonderland. I have heard that song all my life and misunderstood some of the words until yesterday. The second verse begins with, "Later on we'll conspire as we dream by the fire." I always thought it was, "later on we'll perspire as we sit by the fire." It took 78 trips around the sun for me to catch that one!

      My nieces' daughter was walking in the city looking at Christmas displays and saw a reindeer. It did not have a red nose. She said, "That's not Rudolph so it must be Olive." Olive? She thought the song said, "Olive, the other reindeer."

    My sister was in her forties when she got it that another song says "Ah, believer," instead of "ah de liebe." She thought it didn't make sense to stick a PA Dutch word in there but that's what she thought she heard.

    When our son Dale was a preschooler he thought people were making fun of him when they sang, "in excelsis deo." He thought it was "in eggshells is Dale."

    Our granddaughter sang Joy to the World, but in her version the words were "and heaven and manger scene."

   

Thanks to God

  On the cusp of Thanksgiving Day, I look back on a year that has been full of blessings and challenges. Last Thanksgiving I had just come home from the hospital with a hip replacement. Our daughter came for a week to care for me and brought a smoked turkey for a dinner with all of our children that were able to come. I had a month of therapy and recovered well.  After five years of being too stubborn to go and suffering for it, the new joint swings smoothly and is pain free. What a blessing!

   We went on with life until Easter when our children noticed Leroy was short of breath. Tests showed that the stents that were put in three years ago were clogged and he needed three bypasses. The surgery was done on May 23. I was glad I was back to normal and could take care of him when he came home. He went for a month of therapy three times a week.

   We had already planned to give up gardening but that was confirmation it was the right decision. Gerald came and seeded grass in the small remanent of what had once been a huge vegetable garden. With plenty of produce farmers in the area, we had no trouble finding fresh vegetables to eat. I did plant a couple tomatoes in a raised bed, but that was it.

   We had a good weekend with our descendants at a cabin in June. It happened to be Father's Day. For the first time since our children began marrying, all of them were with their father on Father's Day. How special!

    As the year went on, medical issues began piling up. There were the annual dentist visits and vision tests. Mine showed that the one lens I had been given in cataract surgery three years ago had clouded and needed to be cleaned. Add three more appointments to have that done. Having clear vision is a blessing!

    The end of August I had an episode that scared our children and landed me in the ER. I wore a heart monitor for a month after that. When it showed nothing needing immediate attention, I was cleared to drive again. I'm thankful for that because Leroy's health was slipping and we would be in trouble if I couldn't drive.

   He had the rare side effect of getting hiccups in the hospital after his heart surgery. Nothing the doctor tried has helped and six months later he is still hiccupping. It is wearing him out. He has an appointment next week with a neurologist and we are hoping he has some ideas that will help. Sometimes the hiccupping stops for as much as a week but then it comes back again.

   In October Leroy finally had a hearing test and got two hearing aids. He needed them for years already but kept procrastinating. Now I don't have to shout or repeat everything I say. That is a blessing!

    In November I had a CT scan. It is five years since my kidney cancer surgery and this was the last time I needed to have a scan. I have "graduated" and am a grateful cancer survivor! 

   There is another month left in 2025 and we will both have another birthday. It is a blessing the future is hidden from us. I rest in the fact that it is known to God and His ways are right and perfect. Whatever comes in the future, He is already there and will take us through just like He did this year.

It Might Have Been

 

   It's November 13 again. The day we remember Steve. He was born early in the morning of November 13, 1975, and lived with us for eighteen  years. Here he is on his 18th birthday in 1993.

   Seven weeks later, on January 2, 1994, Steve's life on earth ended when the passenger side of the car he was riding in slammed into a tree. That was thirty-one years ago. Today would have been his 50th birthday. What would he have done in these thirty-one years? Who would he have married? Would he have had children? People who are fifty have grandchildren. There are so many things we will never know. I often think of what John Greenleaf Whitter wrote in the poem Maud Miller.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

  In my mind, Steve is forever eighteen. How would he look at age 50? AI took a guess with and without hair. He was born bald and didn't need a haircut until he was four. I think he probably would have had hair only a few years and been bald like his brothers if he was here today. But then, eternity is timeless and ageless so if people have hair in heaven it probably doesn't fall out. 

     Today we remember Steve and treasure the memories we made while he was still with  us. We rest in knowing God is good and makes no mistakes. Someday we will understand why Steve left time for eternity after eighteen short years on earth.

   

Things I Don't Care About

    When I was a teenager what other people thought and did was very important to me. I wanted to fit in, to be accepted, and gain approval. This desire affected the way I dressed, where I went, and the words I said. Back in the day, we used words like "groovy (cool), split (leave), far out (amazing), square (uncool), dig it (understand).

   No girl today would want to wear the stiff slips or other silly things we wore to be in style. But they wear other things to be in style that they will one day look back on and wonder why they thought that was so stunning. And it doesn't take twenty years for that to happen. A few years ago it was the IN thing for a woman to wear a scarf around her neck. That soon died out. How that came and went is a mystery to me.

   The older I get, the less I care what other people think and do. I don't feel compelled to keep up with the crowd. I don't care if

• I'm not in style
• I don't know current slang words
• I don't have a late model car
• I wear the same dresses for ten years or more
• I have had the same things on my walls for decades
• My cooking doesn't wow anybody
• I have to stay sitting in church when everyone else stands
• I need to ask for help with techy problems
• I'm not where "everybody" is going (especially on Black Friday!)
• I don't know what is happening in politics every day
• I don't get a wrapped gift on my birthday
• My days of foreign travel are over
• My house has a dated look, hopelessly out of style

    Today I am content with the life and things I have. God is good and I am abundantly blessed.

Indians In The Cellar

   My newest book is being released today. When two Indians seek refuge at her Pennsylvania Mennonite home in1763, ten-year-old Anna is terrified.. As she learned to know the old couple Anna learned that Indians are people just like everyone else. They have talents and emotions. They have things to teach us. And they are loved by the God who created them.

   The book can be purchased online from CAM Books.

https://cambooks.org/shop/cam-published-books/new-releases/indians-in-the-cellar/