Tales from Columbia Court

A little bit of festive crafting.  There are always a few handmade cards amongst the mix, but in the main we use a printed photo card to send to friends and family.

There is something therapeutic about drawing and colouring.  Nothing very fancy or particularly artistic, but a little bit of me going into the gift of giving.

I’m using some pencils that I treated myself to a little while ago, along with an ‘adult’ colouring book.  This purchase caused some amusement amongst my friends.

Small boy is just impressed mummy can colour between the lines!

This is the third year we have been to this festival.  There is a programme of music to go along with the display of nativity scenes and various choirs, musicians and groups come along and play for the those in attendance.  As we arrived this year a group of women danced and sang to traditional Hawaiian music. Later there was a harpist and then a soloist sang to piano accompaniment.  All very accomplished and provided a beautiful backdrop of seasonal ambiance.

I have never seen so many different sets before we came here.  I also was not familiar with the term of creche to describe a ‘tableau of Christ’s Nativity’.

This year one of the quizzes was to find the different materials that had been used and we enjoyed wandering slowly so that we could spot the various ones on our list.  At the base of the tables there is continuous row of poinsettias which circle the room.

Mice, snowmen, bears and leprechauns bringing gifts of a rainbow, gold and potatoes.

Beautiful pieces of stained glass, an angelic hymn book and a rotating scene provided by the movement of a windmill.

These knitted figures remind me of the ones we have hosted when they have been on a tour of homes during Advent prior to returning to church at the Christingle service.

Different countries, different materials, different sizes and shapes all telling the same story.  The miracle of the birth of a baby boy, wrapped in swaddling bands, lying in a manger.

Creche Festival 2015

We watched a great video this week at our MOPs meeting.  There was a lot packed into it and a range of themes that all seemed to connect and resonate no matter what season of life you are in or what your situation.  This is one of the things I love about being part of this group – the way you have the space to watch something or listen to someone speak and then have time to actually hear the words they are saying.  Time to actively listen and to then swirl those words around in your head and actually reflect on them and what they mean for you.

The other thing I love about the mom’s groups I am part of is the food and the fellowship.  One of the groups has 80 ladies this year and the other fluctuates somewhere between 10 and 20.  But each of these groups has smaller groups within and so you get to know someone and hear a little of their story, their journey in this life.

A little over a year ago, after a period of stagnation of an empty blog, I started writing and then paused (the doing got in the way and I stopped making space for the writing).  Anyway, at the beginning I was a little lost and working out who I was and what my identity was on this adventure and into this phase of my life, was part of my internal whirling of thoughts.

Identity came up again this week as part of our mom’s group discussions and I’m finding it interesting to revisit and rediscover where I am with it all.

I’m not saying that I know the answer to the “Who am I?” question but I think I have learned quite a bit about what makes me tick and what I need to sustain myself.

I’m a firm believer that we never stop learning and that a passion for books and the written word opens a whole world of understanding and knowledge that is just there for the taking.  The power of the internet opens up even more information and admittedly you have to filter and be able to critique what is there and at times take it all with a large pinch of salt.

I have been able to recognise the things that build my happiness, the things that centre me and secure me in myself and in my life.  I have been able to see beyond the roles that I have played in the past and see the essence of what elements of those roles made me, me.  I take time to open my eyes every now and then and take in the view – to look up from the busy and to see beyond my patch of desert to the green of the hills.  I know where to seek out my ‘happy places’ – those places that are full of nature and have the ability to fill your soul.

I was telling someone this week that I think this has been the first time in my life when I have been living part of my life on a set timescale.  A set period of time.  A date in the diary for when we pack it all up and move back home.  It provides a focus that hasn’t been there before.

There is a need to be more intentional.  A desire to ensure that there are pockets of quality family time.  A plan that ensures that weekends don’t just vanish with routine chores and that we make space to create memories to look back on.

In reality life should be like this always though….shouldn’t it?  And perhaps in the main it is, but perhaps we just need to be more aware and take a moment to breathe it all in.

“…..with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.”

Tomorrow night sometime after 7pm we will find out if these words have stuck in our small boys head as he has his first performance of his very first school Christmas musical.

He keeps telling me that he has a different part about the shepherds, but the email with the script definitely has his name against this bit…..so I guess we will find out.  If all goes horribly wrong he has a second attempt on the last morning of term.

At his preschool graduation, well one of them anyway (story for another time…), he led the whole room in the Pledge of Allegiance.  As the only British child in the group, he managed to carry that off pretty well, so all in all I’m not too concerned.

Those were the words I woke to this morning.  Our Advent Fairy has successfully made her first delivery!

Last night we came home from school and gymnastics and unpacked the calendar.  This year our boy has decided that it should be placed on his bedside table.  The last two years it has been in the playroom.  The playroom was a good location, she could check that all were sound asleep and make her delivery in peace.  Although, sometimes she was busy with the number of deliveries needed and she would drop off later in the day and sometimes (very rarely) she just didn’t think the behaviour was good enough in this house!

Anyway the promised piece of chocolate arrived safely this morning, so all is well with the world as far as a small boy is concerned.

Advent Calendar

As I dropped him into class today he started to ask his friends if they had had chocolate this morning.  I suspect the conversations around other families being different and having different rules will be expanded to include that families can have different traditions too.

I love the magic that comes with Christmas.  I love the Christmas message; the story of birth and I love the way it draws families together to spend time with each other and to create special memories.

I’ve been busy doing.  Busy with Halloween, busy with mom’s groups, busy with birthday, busy with ski trips and busy with thanksgiving.  But I’ve been wanting to write and haven’t found the time in the panic of the next thing in the diary;  and now we are heading towards Christmas at full pelt and last night was the panic of cards and missing postal dates….again!!

So this morning whilst getting up for the day and doing the school run after a break of a week – which has been glorious – I have decided to set myself a challenge.  Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent.  Tonight the Advent Calendar will be unpacked and our Advent Fairy will make her first visit.  Tomorrow I will post something on the blog and I will continue to put something, a few words or a picture or two for each day of Advent.  Ok, I’ve said it out loud now, so I am committed…..lets see how we get on!

It’s amazing how much noise they can make….toes did eventually turn pink with cold….

We had a storm.  A storm of rumbling thunder, the crash of lightning and then the thrashing of rain that came down in sheets.  Very quickly the garden began to flood and we watched with wonder and awe as the storm threw down hailstones with the rain and they bounced off the grass and splashed into the growing puddles of flood water on the patio.

We ventured out a little to feel the wet on our faces and on our toes, then running back into the house to shelter and watch from the windows and doors.

It all happened very quickly, in less than an hour there was a significant amount of water – we watched the street become a river and I was glad that the flow was moving away from us – then as quickly as it came, the storm ended.

We went out into the garden to put our feet in icy puddles and to watch the rainbow appear overhead.  The pile of hailstones we had watch grow on the trampoline tempted us to explore.  My climbing onto the trampoline was purely with the desire to capture a photograph or two – some of the hailstones were pretty large and to be fair a rare sight in the desert.  For a child however, what an amazing thing to bounce in!

Scattered in number and size – Mother Nature at work.

But of course, once you’re on a trampoline the wobble of the fabric beneath your feet brings out another desire and before you know it you are bouncing too, because, just when was the last time you bounced in hailstones?

So the 15th October has been marked in the diary.

Over the next few hours and days we heard about other’s stories.  The amount of water that came down in such a short amount of time created rivers of not only water, but also mud.  Roads were blocked, houses were damaged and cars and trucks were stranded in the mudslides created by the storm.  The lack of vegetation from drought and fires over recent months meant there was nothing holding the soil in place and the photographs on individual’s news feeds on social media and from the press were sobering to review.  Then there was the news that someone had lost their life.  A vehicle had been pushed into a storm drain, flipped onto its side and became buried under six feet of mud.

It’s a little haunting now to think back to the storm and the innocent fun we were having in the aftermath of the rain.  My adult memory of this day is tempered with the grown up world view, of my wider knowledge of what occurred and the compassion I feel for those affected.  Hopefully my child will stay kid like in his memory and it will be of enormous hailstones, chilly toes and squeals of pleasure at the noise and bounce of the trampoline.