The Christianville Spirit: Another Lesson from "The Book of Moms"

The Christianville Spirit

The Spirit that Keeps Learning with Hope and Resilience 

January 10th, 2018-TCS # 578

Howdy Y’all, My Readers! That is how We say Hello in Texas! So, Boy do I have a Story to tell you! and, Believe it or not, It fits This Year’s Theme Perfectly. You See, My Mom and I have a Great Relationship and Most of The Life Lessons that She was taught me have been Anywhere from Easy to Medium. This Lesson that I am about to tell you, was a rather Hard Lesson. A Lesson from a Section of “The Book Of Moms” that must have been Classified because I’m not sure that I was aware of This Section. You See, Whenever I ask My Mom about Why She does certain things, She always told me that “It’s in The Book of Moms” and Every Mom gets one. So, What was This Lesson about? Imagine This with Me, If You will? You’re My Mom, You have One Son that lives with You, Home Sweet Home in Texas. Honestly, I don’t Plan on living that far away from My Mom, so No Worries There. Very Easy! Your Second Son, aka My Brother, Michael lives in Colorado. He lives in Colorado which is 12 Hours Away also, The Equivalent of The Same Amount of Hours from Texas to Atlanta where Grandma Honey lives. Getting Harder Now, right? Said Drive to Colorado, whether You go up to Amarillo, through New Mexico and Up, or Up I-35 through Oklahoma and then, The Dreaded I-70 in Kansas and over. Much less Entertaining than driving to Atlanta with Lots of Trees, pretty much a Straight Shot. Let’s Add in that It is Nearing Christmas and All of Michael’s Friends are coming down to Texas to celebrate Christmas here. Limited Space with 4 Grown Adults and 3 Big Dogs in Their Car! Add in also that It is Winter Time and Winter Time in Colorado is Very Unpredictable. If in fact, It snows and Your on The Highway, You might have to get Chains for The Car or Your Stuck. and, Finally, either You don’t have Anyone to Watch The Dogs (Because We were Originally just taking Paco) or No One that We knew, Knew The Dogs well enough. Quite a Difficult Situation! Do You Trying Your Hardest to Get Michael down Here? Tried It. He has to Work a Few Days in between and could not get off. Find Anyone to Watch The Dogs? Most People were Out of Town or had More than One Dog and We were not sure if They would get along. Dogs are like that, Ya Know. Well, Here comes that Lesson that Both of us had to Learn. One is that Priorities Matter, Especially when It comes to Family. and, The Most Difficult Lesson, as a Mother or Parent (Not that I have any clue what it is like to be Parent!) You go beyond Any Lengths to get to Your Child and Make Him Happy. The Other Alternative was to Stay and He would have Christmas by Himself. So, Mommas Gotta Do, What Mommas Gotta Do! So, We all packed Ourselves into Our SUV, All 3 Dogs Included (one who can not Walk on a Leash) and Hit The Road! Yes, Really, I still can not believe We did This! It started off Easy, but We learned to sway things differently. When Getting Out of The Car to go to The Bathroom, I had to remember to look for The Dog’s Head before I closed The Car Door.

 Drive Throughs with 3 Dogs curious what You are doing (Medium Sized and The One who can not walk on a Leash is a Bigger Dog) that is Not Going to Happen and Believe Me, We tried it twice! I am Proud of Myself though, I had to go into Place Our Order and Pay for It while My Mom sat with The Dogs. I was able to recite an Order for both Myself and My Mom at an McDonald’s in Kansas. A Help in My Independence! Had a Few Mishaps with The Dogs going to Denver and coming home. One Highlight of This Crazy Trip was that We had to Stop to Let The Dogs out to go Potty, and I had to clean stuff off My Shoe because I stepped in Someone Else’s Dog Poop at the Stop before. Anyway, At Exit 71 (I Think) on I-70 in Kansas, We found a Sonic with a Fenced-In Kids Playground and Fenced-In Dog Park next to Each Other. So, Thank God, No One was There, but, We let Our Dogs run in The Dog Park without Their Leashes. Although, It only lasted a Few Minutes, They had the Grandest Time that They had on Our Trip. It was Freezing Cold at The Moment and Afterwords, We hopped The Dogs, One at a Time into The Car and Warmed Up, Sure It was 20 Degrees with a Wind Chill of 14 Fahrenheit but, It was a Moment of Hilarity and A bit of Hard Lesson Learning Fun in The Process. Once We got to Denver, that is Where The Fun was just beginning. The Night of The 23rd, The First Night that We were there, I realized that Michael did not have a Tree in His House, so My Brother and I, in The Freezing Cold, went to a Christmas Tree Lot and Found a 5 Foot Real Christmas Tree. Yes, Really My Readers! A Real Christmas Tree! Lesson 2 from My Classic Christmas Brother! The Lady at The Tree Lot was Very Nice to sold it to us for Less than She asked and She even hugged both of us after Loading The Tree into Michael’s Truck. A Merry Christmas Indeed! After My Brother and I got back to His House with The Tree and Pizza, We ate Pizza and then, We started decorating it. The Classic Way! Now, at The First, I will admit I was a Little Judgmental about a 5 Foot Tree, when We had a 6 or 7 Foot one back at Home, Not a Real one. Actually, We have not done a Real Christmas Tree in quite some time, but It felt really good to do one again. And, Actually, 5 Foot was actually a Perfect Size, Not too Big and Not too Small. Anyway, after We started Decorating it, It started Snowing outside. Yes, Snowing! It snowed Several Inches, I think Snowed around 4 Inches. At The Moment, In My Heart and Mind, It made This Crazy Trip worth it! Snow on The Ground, A Real Christmas Tree, and Some Classic Christmas Music (as in like Bing Cosby, kind of Classics; the Stuff You never hear anymore kind of Classics!). Actually, While Decorating, We listened to Willie Nelson Christmas and on Christmas Day was Soft Christmas Music, it really was Peaceful. Christmas Eve, We just spend around The House and Watching Movies and TV Shows. Christmas Morning, We opened Gifts and With My Brother’s Classic Christmas that meant Michael-Made Gifts. Michael’s Gift to My Mom was by far The Best Gift, I have seen. Of Course, to Michael, Having not only Us and The Dogs was Probably The Best Gift that We could give him and He was Very Grateful for It. Honestly, in a Crazy Way, I was Grateful for It as well. I got a Real Christmas Tree, Some Classic Music, Quality Brother Time (Which both of Us really needed), and Best of all, That Snow I mentioned earlier, It stayed on The Ground until after Christmas Day, Therefore by definition It was a White Christmas! Was This Trip Hard to get to? Yeah. The Lesson was too. But, The Big Question, was it Worth It? Heck Yeah! I guess Mom was Right, sometimes, Even The Hardest Lessons reap Some some Really Good Rewards! All in all, I believe that as Crazy as It was, It was One of The Best Christmases that We had had in Quite Some Time!

Thanks for Reading The Christianville Spirit. Time with Family is worth all The Craziness to get there!