A Letter to the Faculty and Staff of Freedom Preparatory Academy

Dear Freedom Preparatory Academy,

As my youngest child finishes eighth grade and moves on to our school district's high school, our family's fifteen years at Freedom Prep Academy come to a close. This is a good opportunity to thank all of you for the parts you have played in helping to raise my five children.

Kassidy, my oldest who is now 21, began second grade at FPA in 2005. She built friendships in elementary school that have lasted through the years, and she still gets together with some of those early friends. Madelyn, now 20, attended Kindergarten through sixth grade and was able to take advanced subjects through the elementary years that set her up well for the gifted program in middle and high schools. Andrya, 18, graduated from high school this week, but got her start working the system in Kindergarten where, we're convinced, she influenced the uniform policy to specify that dresses and pants could not be layered together! Gwen, 16, benefited from a long series of loving teachers through all her years at FPA. And Heber, 14, leaves having tried a wide variety of classes and extracurricular activities through his years.






We were initially attracted to the school for its focus on good nutrition and the excellent curriculum, especially the leveled math learning. The academics, teams, and other events at Freedom Academy have served my children well. As I think about our years with all of you, I realize there are more enriching activities than I can remember--but here are some of the offerings that our family enjoyed:

The 6th-grade etiquette dinner, which morphed into the annual Valentine lunch.

Eagle Service Unit.

Mother-daughter activities in the library (I think they were offered on Saturdays for a while).

Dances for older grades as the first children at the school aged.

Mock trial, which I had so much fun coaching!

Class parties and spirit competitions--crazy hair day was always a favorite!

Required Spanish classes, which introduced Andrya and Madelyn to their now fluency in the language.

Choirs, violin, visual, and other art classes.

Teachers and administrators who practiced Love and Logic. I know showing love in the classroom can be fraught with peril these days, but I appreciate the younger-grade teachers who gave my kids daily hugs, and the upper-grade teachers who gave high expectations and reasonable consequences.

Middle school classes that included robotics and digital media.

Science fairs, creative reports, and math competitions.

Programs such as Hope of America singing, end-of-year celebrations, and the Fourth-Grade Utah presentation (which I loved, but I did get my fill after five rounds.) ;-)

Essay contests and spelling bees.

Ballroom team, then class, and competitions.

Shakespeare Festival and school plays.

Sports, including after-school karate, track and field, cross-country, and Ultimate Frisbee.

As a parent, I've appreciated the administration's listening ear and willingness to try new things. Mrs. Herring and Mr. Ivie always opened time for me to visit when I had a concern or idea, and I love that the board is open to parent input. Some of my personal best memories have come through my volunteer hours, especially in coaching mock trial teams and the student council in the high school's beginning years. I love that the Mexico trips have become a tradition and that new teachers and parents pick up the work it takes to coordinate that each year. I am grateful for the friendships I've made with other parents and staff members.

Many of the teachers and staff who have influenced our family are no longer with the school, but we extend our thanks to all FPA team members past and present. It's been an amazing ride to watch the school grow, evolve, and expand, both in its physical facilities and its approach to teaching and enriching the lives of children. It's a great thing that an increasing number of children and families can be blessed through the Freedom Academy experience as we have been. We are sad to be leaving the Freedom Prep family, but we wish you all many more years of success in helping to form future generations.

With thanks and much love,
Mary and Kent White Family

Miracles

"Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." That phrase, uttered by a leper as recorded in Matthew 8:2 in The New Testament, was playing through my mind when I woke this morning. In the account, Jesus immediately heals the leper. I lay in today's 4:00 a.m. dark wondering if He would work a similar miracle for the world this weekend.

When President Russell M. Nelson, whom we Latter-day Saints consider to be a prophet to the world, invited the global community to join in fasting and prayer on Good Friday for relief from covid-19, I felt that we could ask for a great, immediate miracle. President Nelson urged us to petition God in the midst of this pandemic. I have faith that God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, the Master Healer, have power over the elements and infinite love for mankind. I thought if the world woke Saturday and found that coronavirus patients were well and testing revealed no new cases, that would surely be a miracle the world could not ignore. We we would have to acknowledge God's miraculous power, as well as the power of faithful fasting and prayer.

But miracles don't always work the way we want them to. In the five days between President Nelson's invitation and my own family's start to the fast, I read the petition a few times, and it didn't feel like enough. It feels like we are asking for less than a great, instantaneous miracle.

Our worldwide prayer was for the pandemic to be controlled, caregivers protected, economies to be strengthened, and life normalized. It sounded to me like we are asking for a gradual miracle. Would a gradual miracle be obvious enough to be recognized by the world?  Is there enough belief in this world that God would eradicate covid-19? Do the faithful even have enough faith to ask for instantaneous healing?

Different scriptural account, same principle:
"Help thou mine unbelief."
(If anyone knows the artist, I will give that
credit here. It's a great depiction.)

One of my favorite lines of scripture is found as part of another miracle. In Mark 9, a man brings to the disciples, and then to Jesus, his adult son who had been afflicted with a violent spirit since childhood. Jesus tells the man, in verse 23, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." With tears flowing, the father's reply bursts out, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." Jesus then commands the evil spirit to depart, which it does, leaving the man's son as if dead. Christ takes his hand and raises him to life and health. In the next two verses, the disciples ask Jesus why they weren't able to heal the man. He answers, "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting." Had the father been fasting? The story doesn't make it clear, but I assume it was Jesus who had given himself to prayer and fasting, since it was his word and his hand that healed the man. Prayer and fasting are powerful and lead to healing. I believe we invite God's power into our lives through those practices. I've seen prayer and fasting work miraculous healing for others. I'll share two such experiences.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we prayerfully fast on the first Sunday of each month. Usually we decide as individuals what to fast and pray for. Sometimes a congregation of saints will fast for a united purpose. I participated in one such fast almost two decades ago. A woman in our ward (an LDS congregation) had received news that she had a new brain tumor. A few years before, she had gone through surgery and treatments to remove a cancerous tumor, and so received regular check-ups to monitor for new tumors. A scan revealed early in the week that a new tumor had formed, and she was scheduled for surgery the following Monday. Our bishop asked everyone in the ward to fast from Saturday to Sunday that she would be healed. I think we all expected that healing to come in the form of the doctors doing their best work. Much to our surprise, God worked a different miracle. As I remember it, our bishop stood the next Sunday to report, looking at the woman who was again seated in the congregation. She had gone to the hospital Sunday, the day we were finishing our joined fast, to check in for the next day's surgery. Her doctor had ordered another brain scan to reference during the operation. The new image revealed a healthy brain. The tumor was completely gone, and this twenty-something young wife returned home to the family and friends who had been praying and fasting for her. No one could deny the miracle, and I remember being surprised that God had seen fit to heal her completely and instantaneously.

Five years ago, in my current LDS congregation, we saw another miracle of healing. At that time, there was a mysterious outbreak around the world of paralysis among children. By the end of the outbreak, 118 children in the U.S. had been affected. One of those children is our neighbor. He woke up one day unable to move one of his legs. He dragged himself to his parents' bedroom that morning. They eventually believed that he wasn't just joking around, and took him to a doctor. His symptoms matched those of other children in the news whose limbs were going paralyzed, and no one really knew why, or if recovery was possible. So we, his ward family, prayed and fasted for him. On fast Sundays, during our worship service and after taking the sacrament, members of the congregation are invited to come to the pulpit to share their testimonies. We are supposed to share our thoughts about Christ, but often those come with other anecdotes and opinions. I remember one woman standing to share her certainty amid the uncertain prognosis that this eleven-year-old boy would fully recover. I thought that was a bold and perhaps too-optimistic statement. And yet, his parents also felt the peace that all would be well for their son. Over the coming weeks, he did heal and was eventually running around the neighborhood with his friends. In the months that followed, most of the afflicted children did heal. Our neighbor's recovery was much faster than that of other patients, and it was counted as a miracle by those who fasted.

I wonder what kind of miracle the world will see this year. Will it correlate to the amount of faith demonstrated in our prayer and fasting? Will everyone wake up this weekend to discover that the virus is gone? Or will it run a shortened course with its devastating effects being reined in? Or will the miracle be increased love across the globe and better relationships between God and Their individual children?

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, whom Latter-day Saints recognize as an Apostle of the Lord, spoke about the Mark 9 miracle seven years ago. His words are still powerful today:

“Lord, I believe.” I would say to all who wish for more faith, remember this man! In moments of fear or doubt or troubling times, hold the ground you have already won, even if that ground is limited. In the growth we all have to experience in mortality, the spiritual equivalent of this boy’s affliction or this parent’s desperation is going to come to all of us...The size of your faith or the degree of your knowledge is not the issue—it is the integrity you demonstrate toward the faith you do have and the truth you already know...Let me be clear on this point: I am not asking you to pretend to faith you do not have. I am asking you to be true to the faith you do have...if you and your family want to be healed, don’t let those questions stand in the way of faith working its miracle.

This Easter weekend, I am excited to see how the Lord responds to the faith of His children of all faiths. Because I want the whole world to undeniably acknowledge God's power and care, I decided to go ahead and pray for the big, immediate healing. But perhaps my desires are not God's. Maybe He doesn't need a showy miracle to be able to still show up in His children's lives. So I tacked on to my prayer, "Lord, if Thou wilt." Whatever the miracle, I am grateful to know that we are in--and on--the Lord's hands.

Sanctuary Space: Insight Timer

My friend, Bri, told me about the Insight Timer app, which is kind of perfect because one of my favorite features of the app is that it connects people and enables friendships. More about that in a moment.

The app is great, and because you can read about it on their website or explore it for yourself, I’ll just share some of the features I use in my meditation. 

Timer

My most frequent use of the app is for timing my morning prayer. I’ve prayed morning and night, personally and with my family, pretty much all my life. The reason I first got into meditation almost ten years ago was to improve my prayers. I knew God heard me, but there wasn’t the communion in my prayers that I wanted. I hoped meditation would help me add that dimension to prayer—and it has. (Perhaps I’ll post about prayer another time.)

There is something about sitting with my ten-minute morning-prayer timer that helps me to just stay there after the laundry list of thanks and requests is done. I don’t even look at the timer while praying, and it doesn’t chime at the end. I think it’s just creating that space in time that helps me give myself permission to stay in my Sanctuary and simply be thoughtful with God. I go through my mental prayer roll of those who need Their blessings and comfort. Then my questions turn more thoughtful. I ask for advice in the projects I’m undertaking, or talk to Him about my intention for the day.

The following is part of a journal entry about five months after I began my meditation practice ten years ago.

April 15, 2010

As I continue to ponder the use of meditation, I really think it is valuable in improving prayers.  In a conversation with God, listening is the most important part.  But almost every time I’ve stopped speaking during a prayer to listen, my mind wanders away to dozens of distractions.  Meditating has begun to train my mind to be quiet and just listen . . . I think my meditation will evolve as I practice it more to help me learn the language of the Spirit and to become a part of my prayers.

When I’m done praying, I often find that I’ve gone over the timer’s ten minutes. Just as often, I’ve stayed under ten minutes, and that is fine too. However much time I spend thanking, asking, listening—communing—it feels just right.

The timer is a good tool for any meditative process. In addition to my ten-minute preset for morning prayer, I also have an hour preset for yoga, fifteen minutes for silent meditation, and ten minutes with their “zen guitar” ambient sound. The app has many background sounds and timer notifications to choose from, though I choose silence for most of mine. (I also am one of the tiny minority of people who don’t have any music playlist, but Kent has enough music in his collection to listen for months straight, so he balances us out.)

Journal

Somewhat hidden in the app is a journaling feature. Go into Profile, then Settings and scroll down to the “More” options to select Journal, Logs & Stats—and then you have more options for the journal! I’ve used it to track some of the guided meditations that I’ve especially liked. I have other journals in my life, all of them handwritten, but this part of the app could be good for a daily brain dump, especially using the microphone. The journal doesn’t seem very robust, but maybe it doesn’t need to be. If you’re a journaler, try out this feature and let me know how you like it.

Guided Meditations and Courses

Where Insight Timer really shines is its collection of guided meditations from hundreds of teachers. The teachers tag their meditations with various criteria: topics covered, whether there is background music, what type of meditation it is (I use a lot of the ones for sleep), etc. This is where you have to explore and see what types of meditations you are drawn to. When you find one you like, you can rate it and bookmark it to return to. You’ll also find teachers that you connect with, and then check out their other meditations. If you really like their content, you can donate to any teacher to support their work.

I like to bookmark intriguing meditations and then give them a listen to decide if they stay bookmarked. Those are the ones I return to repeatedly. The app manages your bookmarks well so you can sort your favorite meditations by length, topic, recently bookmarked, etc.

The following are some of my favorite guided meditations on Insight Timer:

·         “Morning Ritual” by Jason McGrice – 10 min.

·         “Honoring Life” by Sarah Blondin – 9 min.

·         “Short Calming Meditation” by Charlotte Watts – 7 min.

·         “Breathing Meditation” by Jack Kornfield – 9 min.

·         “Meditation Made Easy & Enjoyable” by Matthew Young  –  10 ½ min.

·         “Breath Awareness Meditation – Counting” by The StillPoint – 11 min.

·         “Guided Meditation for Deep Sleep” by Cory Cochiolo – 27 min.

·         “Gratitude Meditation” by Sarah McLean – 14 min.

·         “Guided Chakra Meditation” by Anika Patel – 9 min.

·         “5 Times More” by Kelly Sullivan Walden – 11 min.

·         “Working With Anxiety Guided Meditation” by Angela  Marie Patnode – 10 min.

Community

Finally, one of my favorite features of the app is its community building. The home screen shows how many people have meditated around the globe on any given day. I love being a small part of the positive energy created by people seeking peace and guidance on this planet. Even more fun, at the end of any session, the app shows the people who meditated with you. First, you see your Insight Timer friends, the people you’ve connected with on the app. Next you see people in or near your town. I love finding a stranger near me, and thinking that I might run into them in real life sometime. Third are the people in the same meditation groups with you. I belong to a few groups, but I don’t check in very often. About twice each year I look to see what quotes or talks or discussions are going on in those groups. Lastly, the app shows everyone else who used the app to meditate with you.

The home screen also shows what guided meditations your connections are listening to. I’ve occasionally found some favorites to bookmark there. For example, Sam in Park City, Utah befriended me on the app. She and I often meditate together in the morning, and I’ve found a couple morning meditations through her.

Besides simply seeing your fellow meditators, you can thank or message those who allow it through their permissions. I like to thank about half a dozen people per session. Sometimes we’ve used the internal app messenger to ask each other about our chosen tag lines. There is one meditator in South Africa who regularly sends me a beautiful message to send thoughts of kindness. It’s a safe and lovely community, and you can be as involved in it—or not—as you like.

Whether you’ve meditated for years or you want to just give it a try, I recommend the free beginner’s course on the app; it's by one of my favorite teachers. I hope you’ll find, as I have, that this app is a great tool to develop meditation practice, and therefore your mind, spirit, and connection to God.

Sanctuary Space: An Introduction

Ten years ago, Kent and I began meditating. Seven years ago, I created a meditation space in my bedroom. I now call it my Sanctuary Space. It has evolved over the years, as has my meditation practice. Here is a little update on both. I'll be editing this post as I write more detailed posts about the elements of this space, so please come back and find links if you want to learn more.

Welcome to my space. Please come in.

I like flexibility, and this space allows me to play with it. With the sheer panels layered over light-blocking curtains, the space becomes the window to the master bedroom, or cloaks the room in sleepy darkness. Inside the alcove, I can shut myself off from the rest of the house. I sometimes wonder at its power of invisibility, because if I'm on my cushion with the curtains drawn, my children never think to look for me in there. They will call all around the house and explore my bedroom, but they don't crack the curtains. Perhaps they intuit that closed curtains mean Mom is unavailable to them for the moment.

Speaking of the cushion, it is more comfortable than it looks! I often meditate and pray early in the morning (another natural deterrent to interruptive children). I like to begin with prayer, kneeling on the cushion and taking in the moonlight of winter mornings (hence the candles in the corner) or the sunrises of summer. The rolled blanket serves to support my arms and forehead if I choose to kneel prostrate. If I have time to follow prayer with a meditation, I place the blanket on the back edge of the cushion to help me sit upright. I can sit quite serenely for a half hour or more.

Overhead I've hung a branch that I pruned from our honey locust tree. I got these sweet, wooden bird cutouts to represent my family members: me and Kent, our five children, plus one extra for the children-in-law and grandchildren we'll gain, and the extended guests we seem to collect over the years. (Looking forward our Colombian 'daughter' coming this summer!) 

My friends, Kelly and her family, alter artworks and affix sculpture to their wall. I always admired their guts for doing so, but it took me years to gain the courage to add permanent words to my walls. Still, taking a Sharpie marker to the paint job has helped the space become mine. When I see a scripture or quote I like, I record it. I collect these scraps of truth-on-paper in my little wooden treasure box, and they eventually make it onto the west wall.

In addition to also serving as a blank canvas for the inspiring words I have yet to discover, the east wall (below) is home to my vision board. The board is placed at eye level so I can stand and visualize all the things I want as part of my life. (Future link and post to come.)

Resting on the floor is my all-time-favorite collection of words from Psalm 46:10. "Be still, and know that I am God." When I brought this framed quote home, I left it on the floor, intending to hang it later; but I found that while seated on the ground for prayer, having those words beside me was the perfect place for them. They are a reminder to be still. In that stillness I know my body, my mind and soul. And I work to accept the greatest invitation that is given to all: 

"Be still and know that I AM, God."

I also have a few tools that help me do the mindfulness and spiritual work of my Sanctuary Space. The one I use most is the Insight Timer app. The app lets me time my prayer, silent meditation, and yoga. Or I can choose a guided meditation to welcome the morning, set an intention, practice loving kindness, explore anxiety, or even settle into a rejuvenating nap. At the end of any meditative practice, the app shows me who in my area and around the world meditated with me, and I can send a quick message of gratitude to any of those people. It's really quite fun to connect with someone on another continent and know we both were engaging in positive energy together.

Pictured above are my other tools; I'll explain them in clockwise order. There's my earbuds for listening to guided meditations without disrupting my sleeping husband. A Chakra Reiki Healing Heart bracelet. I don't necessarily believe that different stones resonate with our chakras--or maybe I just don't understand that yet--but I do like wearing the bracelet as a reminder that I'm seeking balance in my life and striving to be loving. Plus it's nice to think about my friend, Gina, who gave it to me. The Human Charger helps keep my circadian rhythms working, even when sunlight changes with the seasons. And the timer keeps me on track at my vision board. These devices all stay tidy in my little box with my word scraps. Sometimes I keep a gratitude journal here too, but more often I write while in bed at the end of the day, and the journal stays on my headboard.



I feel lucky to have this space in my home. It really didn't make sense to be used for anything else. Kent used to share the space with me, but he now uses a chair and table on his side of the bed for his prayer, meditation, and journaling.











Whether you have a favorite little alcove, or just a favorite quiet corner in your home or garden, I encourage everyone to create a Sanctuary Space. Spending at least a few minutes here every day has become a time to connect with my fellowmen digitally or just in my thoughts. It is where I get grounded and align my plans and desires to God's work. Here I experience His peace, and often His love and interest in my life. It is a holy place I can enter daily, and it shapes the person I am becoming.

  

Duped by One-Ply

Have you ever felt tricked by a product? Let me tell you, it makes one feel like a sucker. A Dum Dum, specifically. For example, there's last month's moldy cheese I unsealed one day after purchase and three months before its expiration. It must not have been packaged correctly, but I still felt like a fool for not noticing the green fuzz building up under the translucent plastic. I threw the $3.68 purchase away, vowing to check cheese bags more thoroughly in the future.

Here's a little pertinent fun making its way around the internet.

More painful are those purchases which remind one repeatedly of having been duped. Such as the one-ply toilet paper I inadvertently bought two weeks ago. Every time I sit down and peel off a thin layer of the tissue, I am reminded of Scott's trickery.

Here's the thing: I don't think it was purely accidental.

Toilet paper was on my shopping list, so when I came to a large display on the end of a grocery aisle, I considered myself fortunate. I could get 20 double rolls of toilet paper for less than $10. In my mind--at that time, but no longer!--Scott was a good, thick, comfy brand. And I wouldn't have to comparison shop all the competing T.P.s down the length of the aisle. What luck! I'd save money and time. I glanced at the packaging, confirmed that I was buying quilted toilet paper, and set the extra large bundle in my cart.

Behold the stitching-esque quilting printed on the packaging--my downfall!

It was good timing, too, because our storage was fresh out of toilet paper, and I used the end of the current roll that night. I installed the replacement Scott roll and wenivet peacefully to bed in my naive bliss.

The dark of early morning revealed my mistake. When I woke at 6:00 a.m. to start my day by emptying my bladder, I was dismayed to discover the aforementioned thin layers of toilet paper. I swear Scott found a way to make its paper half as thick as a human hair. I wondered if my mind had played tricks on me at the store, but the light of the sunrise showed that I was sane and it was a corporation toying with me.

Shadowy rolls lurking in deceptive packaging.

Just look at the packaging. Scott didn't use clear plastic to bundle its rolls like other manufacturers. Theirs was coated in white, so that only shadows of sturdy rolls showed through. I verified again the picture of quilted toilet paper. As you know, there is no such thing as quilted one-ply. The picture distracted me in and I unsuspectingly failed to read the description, which did mention in small font that I was buying one-ply paper. Had I seen that detail, you can bet I would have become suspicious, and would then head down the tissue aisle for honest toilet paper wrapped in clear plastic.

As it is, I'm just hanging onto this bulk package for emergency storage. It's not even good for toilet papering someone's house. Such thin tissue would just be mean. So now I'm 12 days into this first roll of one-ply, and I do have to admit that it lasts a long time, which I guess will be adequate for the apocalypse. That's the only thing that will make me use the other 19 rolls. Which leads me to the silver lining I'm creating. When I unrolling a yard of one ply to quadruple up for any toileting job, I think of the scene in Dances With Wolves where the illiterate soldier wipes his bum with Lieutenant Dunbar's journal pages. That is a writer's nightmare. I'm therefore thankful to have an eternity's worth of one-ply so I won't have to ruin perfectly good literature when the (bleep) hits the fan.

Noooo...not the book!

Truly though, when the end comes and stores no longer stock toilet paper--or, for that matter, anything--use whatever you need to stay fresh, cheese bags!

Christmas Present

Mary, circa 1980

 One of my favorite Christmas traditions started inadvertently in my childhood and was picked up by my children without me directly influencing it. My four siblings and I used to fall fretfully to sleep on Christmas Eve. We didn't have visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads. Instead, we had butterflies of anticipation fluttering in our bellies, wondering what we would find under the tree the next morning. Typically, that next morning began for us as early as 1:00 a.m., and never later than 5:00 a.m. Our parents did not appreciate such an early morning following such a late night, and so they banned us from waking them before 6:00 a.m. But a ban on waking adults in the wee hours of the morning did not deter our own brains from rousing. Upon waking up in the middle of the night, we'd gather in one of our bedrooms. Sometimes the route to that bedroom meandered near the living room. We'd "unintentionally" steal glances through the French-door panes, seeing presents glowing beneath the warm, colorful lights of the tree. We never gawked, because we did want our stockings to be a surprise; but neither could we restrain ourselves from glimpsing. Once gathered in the bedroom, we would play board games and whisper guesses about what surprises might be waiting upstairs. We five had so much fun in those early Christmas mornings that you might think we'd lose track of the time. Fortunately, we all had powerful internal clocks, and we rarely missed the hour turning to six.

Another Christmas tradition.
I was always irritated to have to play Joseph.
My name should have guaranteed me the lead female role, right?

Kent's family never had problems sleeping in. Each year they celebrate a different country's Christmas on the Eve of the holiday, so the big party on the twenty-fourth kept them snoozing until late morning the next day. Apparently, though, my kids got my Christmas-clock gene. When Kassidy was in preschool and was, therefore, old enough to know what to look forward to, she and Madelyn were tapping on my shoulder at 4:00 a.m. to stir me from my "long" winter's nap. I told them they had to go back to bed until 6:00 a.m. Two hours later, we were all--myself included--disappointed to learn that Kent didn't plan to wake before eight. We compromised on seven. Then we shut our door on the children and locked it.

And so the tradition was passed on to the next generation.

Ignoring the bent knee that all elementary girls do in photos,
how can you tell this picture was posed?
Madelyn is SMILING while cleaning the playroom. ;-)

Rather than going back to bed, our preschoolers stayed up playing for three hours. In ensuing years, their younger siblings joined them. In those years, we had a loft that looked down on the front room. Our children loved to sleep there on Christmas Eve so they could peer through the railing to their presents and stockings below, trying to see what exactly was waiting for them. The loft doubled as a playroom, and the playroom doubled as a disaster zone. Toys, crayons, costumes, and remnants of contraband food were regularly strewn about creating a carpet of pain-inducing Legos and game pieces to cover the actual carpet. It literally took hours to sort and clean that room every time we attempted it. And so, that became part of the tradition, too. If the children wanted the privilege of sleeping in the playroom loft on Christmas Eve, said loft must be clean. And they did it! The nighttime hours of Christmas morning became a magical time when they rediscovered old toys and played board games by the rising light of the Christmas tree.

Eventually, the playroom became an actual bedroom, and a couple years ago, the loft was closed off for privacy. But our children have still not outgrown their childhood Christmas sleeping arrangements. Last year, we were traveling, so Cache didn't know that he had married into this strange tradition. He comes from a normal family that sleeps until 10:00 a.m. on holidays. He relented, though, when he realized how much Kassidy looked forward to having a slumber party with her siblings. When Kent and I went to bed this year, #5 had dragged the mattress from his bed all the way up the stairs to his sister's bedroom. When we parents went to bed at 11:00 p.m. the kids had not figured out sleeping arrangements beyond knowing they would all be in the former playroom. Madelyn had not even arrived yet. They worked it out sometime during the night, though, because on Christmas morning my children ages twelve through twenty-four (minus the 17-year-old in Colombia) padded down the stairs right on time at 7:00 a.m. They had all five slept in that tiny room on shared mattresses.

That was the start to a Christmas day that was unlike other years for me. We had a lovely and humble Christmas Eve meal with Kent's parents. Kent's mom had prepared copies of The Book of Mormon for each of her siblings, children, and grandchildren to use in family scripture study. The copies came complete with an explanation of each person's favorite scripture. It was a simple gift that we already treasure. Christmas morning, it was gratifying to see my children love their gifts, even though I had somewhat strayed from their Pinterest wish lists. Cache made a delicious blueberry French toast for our breakfast. As adult children left to be with others, we enjoyed a slow-paced afternoon, and then reunited in the evening at my parents' home where we held a devotional for our Savior, dinner, gifts, the annual family video, and games.



It took forty-two years, but I finally experienced my first Christmas without excited butterflies. This was also the first year that I honestly didn't care that Kent didn't have the perfect, thoughtful, romantic present for me. (In fairness to him, a gift is on its way...after it returns from being returned to sender for an incomplete address. But he tried!) I am grateful for the gifts I did receive this year, and grateful that others seemed to enjoy what I selected for them. But I am mostly grateful that I have let go of Christmas expectations. The holiday this year was two days to just enjoy being with my family. It was two days to slow down, eat, laugh, play, and share testimony. It was two days of living in the moment of Christmas present. And it was wonderful.