December 2012 – Mama's Empty Nest

Our three-act play comes to a close

Posted on December 31, 2012April 14, 2025 by Mama's Empty Nest

If “all the world’s a stage,” as Shakespeare wrote in his comedy, As You Like It, then this past year – 2012 – proved to be a three-act play for us here at Mama’s Empty Nest.

Yes, this year was theatrical. Many actors, who were family and friends, played their roles superbly.

The elaborate sets contained beautiful changes of scenery.

Costumes? Oh yes, exquisitely adorned gowns and fancy suits of finery.

Makeup. Flowers. Hair design. Lighting. Music and dancing.

All of these aspects played a vital part in this theatrical endeavor. Countless behind the scenes workers helped make the production successful.

The story, written by God, author of the universe, was a love story enacted in three parts.

The plot contained several emotional ups and downs, particularly seen in the role of The Mother.

The dialogue consisted of promises and vows with a few speeches thrown in for good measure.

It was a long-running play, lasting for most of the year, but it garnered rave reviews. All of the cast members received gifts and accolades as they took their bows at curtain call.

Principal cast members gathered for a cast party at Christmas to celebrate not only the Savior’s birth but the year of the play. And they all counted the blessings received during this very special year.

As the footlights start to dim and the final curtain draws to a close on this amazing year, the play, The Year of the Weddings, also comes to an end. What a wondrous year it has been!

But a brand new one awaits. A year full of opportunity and fresh beginnings. Tonight as we ring out the old year and ring in the new, The Year of the Weddings will become lodged in our memories and a new production will commence.

Tomorrow we open with a brand new performance, a “book” with 365 blank pages. As I gaze upon tomorrow’s blank page and consider the pages to come, I intend to write a good “book.” How about you?

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts…” ~ William Shakespeare

snow, Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday: dreamin’ of a white day after Christmas

Posted on December 26, 2012April 14, 2025 by Mama's Empty Nest

blessings, Christmas

From our house to yours

Posted on December 25, 2012April 14, 2025 by Mama's Empty Nest

Here at Mama’s Empty Nest,

we all wish every one of our family, friends, and blog readers

a most blessed Merry Christmas

from our house to yours!

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Isaiah 9:6

Christmas, Home, Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday: Home for Christmas

Posted on December 19, 2012April 14, 2025 by Mama's Empty Nest

Christmas, memories, nostalgia

Tis the season for nostalgia

Posted on December 18, 2012September 16, 2025 by Mama's Empty Nest

“Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!” ~Charles Dickens

It happens every year in December. Once Thanksgiving gets pushed out of the way by the onset of Christmas songs non-stop on the radio, we start hauling out the holly, lights, and tinsel, and the Christmas season gets launched at Mama’s Empty Nest.

And just like clockwork, I commence remembering past Christmases. What is it about this holiday celebration that elicits so much nostalgia? My birthdays don’t produce such a foray into the past. I don’t reminisce about Easter or the Fourth of July or any other holiday quite as much as I do Christmas.

Thoughts of Christmas always take me back. To my childhood. To remembrances of family now gone, my parents and grandparents. To my childhood home. To memories of decorating the Christmas tree, or getting that one special present, or riding in the back seat of the car bundled up in hat, mittens, and scarf exclaiming oohs and aahs while our family observed brightly colored Christmas lights decorating houses in our area.

Christmas invokes remembrances of the hustle and bustle of downtown Christmas shopping when the air was brisk and my breath made visible vapor and my parents’ arms were loaded with Christmas packages to take home and wrap.

It reminds me of home baked aromas of goodness filling the house and the scent of pine in the living room from the real Christmas fir tree. I close my eyes and remember how it sounded to hear bells jingling outside your house and how my heart seemed to skip a beat at the prospect of Santa and his reindeer up on the rooftop.

I can envision the old-fashioned glass Christmas ornaments placed on the tree, the tinsel and shiny icicles hanging from the boughs. Christmas time meant carols played and sung at the upright piano. It meant worshiping the new born King at church services. It meant ribbon candy, and candy canes, and a sweet smelling orange at the bottom of my Christmas stocking.

Augusta E. Rundel wrote, “Christmas… that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance — a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.”

Yes, that’s it. I’m spellbound by Christmas, engulfed in the enchantment of nostalgia. The Ghost of Christmas Past comes to visit me, but he never allows the other ghostly visages from A Christmas Carol the opportunity to show themselves.

That strong sense of nostalgia for Christmas past proved why I thoroughly enjoyed a little excursion Papa and I took one Sunday afternoon recently.

Here in our little town, a stately Federal style house built in 1842 serves as home for our county’s historical museum/genealogy society.

A weekend Christmas Open House at this house enticed my sense of old fashioned sentimentality enough to want to take a tour and the opportunity to get a glimpse of Christmas from yesteryear.

Each room of the house sported a different Christmas tree and decorations, many of them vintage, sprucing up the antiques and relics on display.

It was a nostalgic wonderland, a trip down memory lane. My husband, being the history and military buff that he is, enjoyed the “military room” immensely.

I loved the parlor with its antique organ, piano, and furnishings bedecked with old fashioned Christmas decorations; the sewing room with its display of hand-made antique quilts; and the kitchen with its homey and familiar cooking utensils from the past all festooned with yesterday’s Christmas flair.

Each room of the house caused my mind to wander with memories of my parents and grandparents. In the kitchen, tin cookie cutters decorating the tree were exactly like those my mother used to bake Christmas cookies. Vintage Christmas greeting cards festooned a pine garland and reminded me of my grandmother as did the old sewing machine and kitchen utensils.

Interesting tidbits of history related to us by museum volunteers enhanced our walk down Christmas memory lane. It truly was a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

As we departed the house and stepped back into the 21^st century, climbed in our car, checked our cell phones for texts or missed calls, and drove back home, I pondered.

What will our children remember about Christmas? Will they wax nostalgic for the traditions and special memories their dad and I tried to create for them? Or will it just be another holiday like so many others?

Each December as they ready their homes for Christmas, will they remember and relive special memories of us and growing up in Mama’s Empty Nest?

Only time will tell.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday: When there’s no snow in the country

Posted on December 12, 2012April 14, 2025 by Mama's Empty Nest

Christmas

Once a year

Posted on December 11, 2012April 14, 2025 by Mama's Empty Nest

It’s so easy, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve been asking yourself this Christmas season.

Pull into a crowded parking lot at the nearest Wal-Mart or whatever store you frequent, cruise the lot for an empty spot, jump out of the car with your long list of must-haves to join the throng of Christmas shoppers.

On the way inside the store, you hear the familiar ringing of a bell and you spy the volunteer bell-ringer with the Salvation Army kettle. You’re in a hurry, but you reach in your pocket or wallet or purse and dig out whatever you can find – some change or a couple of bucks. Throw it in the kettle, accept the “thank you, Merry Christmas” and scurry on your way.

You walk inside your house of worship. There’s an “angel tree” in the foyer. Gift tags with the only identifying items such as “3-yr-old girl wants a baby doll, wears size 4T clothing.” You choose a tag, purchase a few items, and send those off to be distributed to the child in need.

Your civic group participates in Operation Christmas Child with Samaritan’s Purse. You dutifully find shoe boxes, shop for small toys and school supplies, soap and toothpaste, and cram the boxes full and write a check so the boxes might be shipped to the other side of the world into a child’s eager hands in time for Christmas.

Your favorite hair salon/doctor/grocery store sponsors a food drive to replenish a food pantry and another local business holds a winter coat drive. You pack up some canned goods, drop them off. You rummage in the front hall closet and dig out those still good but unwanted winter coats and donate them.

You might even take your kids for the day to volunteer distributing bags of groceries with Christmas dinner items packed inside to families in need of food.

And you call this charity. You call this good will. You call this helping those in need. You call it whatever you want to call it because it makes you feel like you’ve done something to help. Something to serve. Something.

And this something proves easy when you do this once a year.

It’s Christmas. We think about those who go without during this holiday season and it’s easy to open our hearts and our wallets or check books. Because isn’t that what we should do? Isn’t that what makes us feel like we’re spreading Christmas cheer? Or isn’t that what makes us feel good?

Yes. Yes. And yes. But…..you ask yourself…why do you only perform these good deeds at Christmas time? Where is your generosity the rest of the year?

And what would happen if you actually gave all through the year? In March. Or August. Or every month of the year.

What if you provided a summer picnic to a needy family? What if you purchased a fan to cool off a summer’s day for someone who can’t afford one?

What if you donated food staples to the food pantry all year long because really, are people only going hungry at Christmas time?

What if you helped a child, one who needs food, clothing, school supplies, and a little toy to bring a smile to his or her face, for 12 months or 12 years?

What if you gave your time to spend it with someone who is lonely? Someone who is hurting, someone who is grieving?

What if you prayed every day for God to help those who desperately need Him in their lives and to use you in any way He sees fit to teach them about His saving grace?

What if you focused on the feelings of those in need instead of focusing on your own good feeling when you give?

What if you opened your heart every day of the year and not just once a year in December?

Wouldn’t that be something?

weddings

Not just joining hands but hearts

Posted on December 6, 2012April 14, 2025 by Mama's Empty Nest

blogIMG_0891 — My three children showing off their wedding rings

“Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts.” ~ William Shakespeare

The joining of hands led to lots of heart joining this year. Our family’s “Year of the Weddings” is coming to a close. What a year it has been!

We began January 2012 in the middle of planning one wedding – our middle daughter’s – and realizing we must gear up for two more.

Son became engaged the day after Christmas last year and oldest daughter received her marriage proposal at New Year’s.

In the course of the year, I’ve answered a lot of questions from friends about all three of our adult children heading for matrimony.

Here are answers to those questions for my blog readers:

No, I did not in my wildest dreams ever imagine that all of our children would marry the same year! When they were small, I often thought about their wedding days and prayed they would find godly mates, but never once envisioned this happening.
Yes, I spent a lot of time in prayer for my offspring to be blessed with marriages. This just goes to show you that old saying, “be careful what you pray for” is true. God answered my prayers…boom, boom, boom.
Yes, I not only like my new children-in-law, I love them. Each one of them is a joy, an amazing addition to our family. I just told someone the other day, better marriage partners for my offspring couldn’t be found if I had picked them myself. They complement each other and fit together so well.
Yes, I purchased and wore three different dresses to the three different weddings. And I found each one of those mother of the groom dresses on the sale rack! Fortunate me!
Yes, each wedding was entirely different. Each one of the three couples has their own style, so different from their siblings. Middle daughter is the nostalgic one. The lover of antiques and old things, simple and practical. She loves to chronicle life with pictures, so her wedding had a simple vintage theme with photography whimsy thrown in. Son and daughter-in-law’s wedding was grand and beautiful, a fairy tale come true with a real life Princess and Prince Charming. Oldest daughter loves elegance and sophistication. Her all-white wedding décor at the reception reflected that, along with bits and pieces of Honduran flair since she and her beloved met one another on a short-term mission trip in that country.
Yes, I realize that Papa and I may become grandparents in the same fashion. Three in one year. But that remains to be seen because for now, all three couples tell us that is a long way off in the future. Time will tell, won’t it?
Yes, I cried. A lot.

For the first wedding, I was a nervous wreck and stressed out. Sleep deprivation and worry over wedding details caused me to be a bit numb for middle daughter’s wedding, so weeping was minimal.

Plus she exuded infectious happiness to be marrying her true love, so the tears that threatened to spill out were tears of happiness. I almost succumbed to crying during the ceremony because the two of them just looked so sweet and so much in love, but I managed to squelch the tears.

Son’s wedding proved a little different. My son was ecstatic and eager to take the responsibility of having a wife, so I was proud of him and happy for him. But there’s something heart-wrenching about watching your son marry. At the rehearsal, I found myself choked up and tears flowed. At the wedding, watching my son become emotional caused me to force myself to keep my emotions in check. Not an easy task.

The realization that

I wouldn’t be the most important woman in my son’s life caused me to shed some tears. But that’s exactly what must happen; mom must step aside and allow her son’s wife to become the most important woman to him and rightly so.

For our last wedding, oldest daughter’s, I was much more relaxed and enjoyed myself immensely at the reception. But still there were tears. A few days before the wedding, I sobbed. Knowing my daughter, who had just returned from far away to live near home a year before, would be moving away again caused some of my tears.

blogDSCN0069 — Holding hands with her daddy before Wedding #3

As we waited for the ceremony to begin, I glanced at my oldest, my first-born, sitting with her daddy, holding his hand. She expressed to him that she felt like crying and he spoke quietly to her and her alone. She smiled up at him.

I felt emotions well up in me and the floodgate of tears threatened to break once more. So I grabbed my camera and took pictures instead.

So yes, there were many tears. And there was much laughter. And there was so much joy! Our year of the weddings has come to a close.

Now, it’s beginning to look like Christmas and our new family with three wonderful additions, will all be home for Christmas Eve. Eight of us now, instead of five. Our hands will be joined as we pray around the dinner table and our hearts will forever be linked as a family.