Real Life is Better Than Fiction

And the continuation of “Christmas at Martha's House” Three Sundays before Christmas: Practice was canceled due to the stomach bug. My sister Jennifer calls and guess what she has to say! “I just can’t have Grandma this year. My kids all work and I have to plan around them. Not to mention the rest of the family. But I do hope to see all of you sometime during the holidays.” I hope Grandma spares us her nostalgia about how they had to improvise during the Depression. There may not be a Depression going on in my house, but improvisation is still very much in style. I must remember to warn Tom not to call Grandma the Ghost of Christmas Past. At least not in front of Cindy. She repeats too much! I can hear it now, “Grandma, do you know what Tom calls you?” Monday: I find the roll of tape under Karen’s bed and wrap my gold boxes. What IS all that junk she has stashed under there? I hope none of it is food. Cindy’s teacher calls. “Candy canes for Kindergarten? Sure. I still have ...

In honor of Christmas I wanted to post a story that my mom wrote. She labeled it as fiction, but there are A LOT of events in this story that really happened. It is rather long so I will post half of the story this week and the other half next week. Enjoy! Christmas at Martha’s House by Jeri Doner Call me Martha. Better yet, don’t call me at all until at least the middle of January. I thought I had all the preparations for Christmas under control, until the meeting that Sunday after church. Five Sundays before Christmas: Claire, the Sunday school secretary, says, “We’re doing a play this year and I apologize for not getting together before now.” It seems the Sunday School Superintendent put her in charge and gave her a copy of the play he had chosen. It took her three weeks to convince him that it just wasn’t right for us, and to come up with another script. I’m surprised she convinced him at all. But now we’ll have to work extra hard to get it ready, if we think we can, if we ...