"New Year's Eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights." --Hamilton Wright Mabie

"I think I'll keep my hemorrhoid cream...we're getting older, you never know when it'll come in handy." --Pete Hoffman

I wonder how White Elephant gift exchanges came about? Did someone decide that they wanted a socially acceptable way to pawn some of their I-don't-want-this-but-it's-still-too-nice-to-throw-away stuff? I'm still pondering this question, especially after my experience last night with it. Get a whole bunch of college age through adults together in a room and have them all bring a white elephant gift--definition undefined, by the way. 'Useless to you, or useless to everyone else'. Big range. Which is how our leader ended up with hemorrhoid cream (and kept it, mind you), and I ended up with men's Depends. Ah Christmas traditions--it's a beautiful thing.

"Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower." --Hans Christian Anderson

In just one moment, the fragility of life is made real to us. What is it about humans that we are so easily convinced that we are invincible? But we believe it, every day and every way, until something comes along and rocks our world. It can be just one phone call, one trip to the emergency room, and we realize everything we've taken for granted and not given thanks for. We 'just live', and forget all of the sunshine and flowers and freedom that we have. Today I was reminded of that, and it is propelling me towards the Father to thank Him for all the sunshine, freedom and flowers I have in my life. 

"I have a photographic memory--I'm just out of developer." --Pat McMahon

"Deciding whether or not to trust a person is like deciding whether or not to climb a tree, because you might get a wonderful view from the highest branch, or you might simply get covered in sap, and for this reason many people choose to spend their time alone and indoors, where it is harder to get a splinter." --Lemony Snicket

Right now I'm definitely weighing these odds, and feeling like I'm getting covered in sap. Unfortunately, I'm already halfway up the 'trusting tree': far enough up the tree that it would be much harder and more painful to inch my way back down, but not high enough to see the view. And very, very sap-sticky. 

(Sometimes I get my best quotes from other people. This one is care of Leah Stegman via facebook sometime last week.) =]

"We all need a little magic in our lives, Pearl. We need something to lift us out of our everyday lives and give us something to hope in." --James, from Midnight Pearls (by Debbie Viguie)

I love finding little bits of truth hidden in unlikely places. My favorite is reading a non-Christian book and stumbling across sentences like this--sentences that reflect the Great Truth, and likely the author didn't even know what she was writing. My mom's argument is that all good stories ultimately reflect the Great Story: the story of Fall and broken relationship that ultimately ends with the Prince and happily ever after.

"Mary had a little Lamb,

Poor Joseph was shocked and awed--

His only option it seemed was adoption:

So Joseph adopted the Lamb of God."

--Johnny Hart (cartoonist)

Merry Christmas everyone! May today be a day that the reality of God with us strikes you anew. 

The twelve words of Christmas:

"A Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord."

--c/o Louie Giglio

Everyone talks and debates about the 12 days of Christmas, with their rumored double meanings and everything else. But Louie Giglio--a speaker who rubs shoulders every Sunday with his buddies David Crowder and Chris Tomlin--points out that the 12 words of Christmas are really the most important: the words that the angels said to the shepherds. The words that announced His arrival to the weary world. The most common words of this season nowadays are 'Merry Christmas!' But these 'twelve words of Christmas' will always be the most important words of the season.

 "Tomorrow's Christmas Eve, today's Christmas Adam...that makes yesterday Christmas Animals." --Dad

I don't know when this whole idea of 'Christmas Adam' (since Adam came before Eve) came about...but my dad has really been going to town with it this year. Well, if Adam came before Eve, why not go farther back? The animals were created before Adam, and the plants before that...we've been getting updates all week as to which 'Christmas' day it is. At least today's is semi-recognized by the general public. 

"Nothing was perfect about the first Christmas--except the Baby." --Louie Giglio

Nothing. Not one thing was right--there was no magical Christmas music playing in the background, no gracious shepherds or mighty kings humbled at the sight of the Babe. The perfection that we weave around our Christmas celebrations now was most certainly not how it started. The scandal around Mary's pregnancy and the fact that Joseph didn't have her lawfully stoned, the stable (probably an indentation-like cave that animals sought refuge in), the animals that did NOT smell nice, the manger that wasn't clean, the shepherds who were a rough and bawdy bunch, and the fact that Joseph had to deliver the baby (and probably felt a little pressure about it, since, you know, it was GOD and everything). The Magi didn't even show up for another two years. 
Events in my life the past week have led me to this place of contemplation. Christmas is a wonderful time--a celebration, out of the ordinary, meant to stop us from normal life and rejoice in the fact that Jesus came down. But the pressure for it all to be 'perfect'--now that is totally man-made. And the very un-perfect reality I (and most of us) are living in right now doesn't seem to fit with the 'perfection' of the season. So please, this joyful Christmas season, stop and ponder with me--amidst the pain, and the mess, and the stress and un-perfection--stop and ponder the fact that perfection does not need to exist for God's purposes to be accomplished. Perfection does not need to be present to have a joyful Yuletide. He came into a mess of a world; the perfect, unblemished Baby came into the broken world to bring us the promise of perfection. This Christmas, remember that nothing was perfect about that first Christmas--nothing except the most important part: the Baby.

"He became the Son of Man that we might become the sons of God. Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, child of a peasant woman. He had neither wealth nor influence, neither training nor education; yet in infancy he startled a king; in boyhood He puzzled the doctors. In manhood He walked upon the billows and hushed the sea to sleep. He healed the multitudes without medicine and made no charge for His services. He never wrote a book, yet all the libraries of the world could not hold the books that could be written about Him. He never wrote a song, yet He has furnished the theme of more songs than all songwriters combined. He never founded a college, yet all the colleges together cannot boast of as many students as He."He was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor." --Mrs. Charles E. Cowman ('Springs in the Valley' devotional)

"There are 768 teaspoons in a gallon--is that helpful?" --Dad

The biggest Christmas tradition around our house is cookie-making. My dad is the one who delves in and is the Cookie Maestro--even the super-finnicky Austrian pastry recipes that were passed down through my mom's side of the family. (This is a far cry from the man who--years ago--was trying to make the American favorite of Peanut Butter Blossoms and started with a cup of flour in the mixer and then added the peanut butter--cement, anyone?) But my dad is also an engineer--if an Excel spreadsheet and some simple math is going to help things run more smoothly, he's all about it. Which is why, last year, he sat down with all of our cookie recipes (I think there are 10 or 12 of them) and made a master shopping list. Our cookie recipes use a massive amount of ingredients--several pounds of flour, almost as much sugar, multiple bottles of vanilla flavoring and enough butter to make even Julia Child proud. So over this past weekend my dad had the list out, trying to figure out what we actually needed from the store--this involved some math on his part, because we do keep some of the ingredients around our house--he just needed to figure out how much more of any given thing we needed. In the process of figuring out how many more bottles of vanilla we needed, he figured out that there were 768 teaspoons to a gallon, offered this information, and looked up at us with a face that clearly stated he thought he was being helpful. =] No Dad, we do not use quite that many teaspoons of vanilla--and even if we did, I don't think you can buy vanilla by the gallon. Welcome to the holidays around our house--it's always a surprise.

" 'Lo, he abhors not the virgin's womb.' Who writes that?" --Marty Lamain

So we're standing in choir practice before our annual Christmas concert. We're running through the parts for 'O Come All Ye Faithful'--a strange version, with a virtually unheard of verse that includes the above phrase. We sing through it and Marty (who was standing behind me, and in rare form) begins a running commentary, complete with motions: He feigns taking a drag of weed, and mimics writing 'Lo, he abhors not the virgin's womb'. "Who actually writes that?" It made the rehearsal enjoyable, though we giggled so hard that the next few minutes of rehearsal were lost on us--or, at least me.

"Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful."  --Norman Peale

"Whatever you would do, begin it. Boldness has courage, genius, and magic in it." --Goethe

Well, here it is, ladies and gents! Many of you have encouraged me to start a blog with my facebook-famous 'Quote of the Day' for quite some time. You have prevailed, I have caved, and here it is! It is my hope that in this blog you will find a little sunshine, a little inspiration, a little laugh, or all three. I will do my best to vary the contents of the quotes so that there is good variety and 'something for everyone'. As it is on facebook, the quote sources will include movies, books, songs, and of course, my hilarious friends. A freedom that I will have on this blog is that I can provide back stories to the quotes if need be (this will usually be the case when it's a situational quote). The quotes will, as always, reflect something of my life that day: whether it be something that happened, something that inspired me, or something that reflects my inner state of being. So as much as it is enjoyable to read, it will at the same time be something of an autobiography. 

Enjoy--I know I will. =]