Naturally Christmas

Scarcity is where gratitude begins. I believe this is true and I'm trying to teach it to my children. It's not easy, really, I'd like them to have three pairs of Sunday shoes and all the sweaters in the world but I know I'm happiest with a small selection so I encourage them that way.

If I look forward to one small tea latte in town I enjoy it much more than if I buy two large sized lattes in the same day and gulp them down . Somehow, material treats lose their special joy of savouring if there is too much, too often. Mind you, when treating others, that is perhaps a time to be grand and generous.

Some scarcity happens naturally. A sugar shortage across Western Canada naturally makes me grateful for two cups of sugar as I stir it into the melted butter for peanut brittle. Sparkles of joy glisten as the sweet flow melts into caramel around the candy thermometer. If it wasn't for the Rogers sugar strike, I would totally skip that flash of happiness. Those empty sugar shelves in all the stores cause gratitude for my full sugar bucket.

Even in art, scarcity is a good thing. If I set boundaries with mediums and subjects, I am much more inspired. Think Inside The Box is the subject of a Ted Talk I love. An artist who was successful in precise pointillism developed a hand shake and despaired about his art until he decided to go with the shake. As he delved further into boundaries and limitations, he discovered his inspirations surged and his creativity was on fire. Other artists I have talked to deliberately set boundaries as a way to push and stretch the creative muscle in their brains. If it's all wide open with too many choices, the minds gets stuck in an indecisive whir. Perhaps that is why I create less if I scroll online to look at art. Even if the online art is amazing, it doesn't inspire me to make my own like what happens when my hands are busy at other work.

Eric Nielson likes to talk about creativity and music. He also likes strolling though the local grocery store everyday so I often get in a visit with him. Last visit, we discussed a Johnny Cash poem in the light of Christmas. He was telling me Christmas is the best when you keep it basic and he thought Christmas caroling was an important basic tradition. Then he talked about this poem Johnny Cash recites. He told me Johnny Cash had an older brother Jack who was killed in a sawmill. Johnny had a special bond with Jack. Somehow that gave more depth to the poem for me.

Here is Christmas As I Knew It by Johnny Cash:

One day near Christmas when I was just a child

Mama called us together, mama tried to smile

She said, "You know the cotton crop hasn't been too good this year

There's just no spending money and well, at least we're all here.

I hope you won't expect a lot of Christmas presents this year.

Just be thankful that there is plenty to eat.

That's quite a blessing, it'll make things a little more pleasant.

And us kids got to thinking how really blessed we were

At least we were all healthy and best of all we had her

Roy cut down a Christmas tree, and we drug it home Jack and me

Daddy killed a squirrel and Louise made the bread

Reba decorated the tree with popcorn strings before we went to bed

Mama and daddy sacrificed 'cause this Christmas was lean, but

After all there was the babies Tom and Joanne

...Babies need a few things

I whittled a whistle for my brother Jack and

Though we fought now and then

When I gave Jack that whistle he knew I thought the world of him

Mama made the girl's dresses out of flour sacks

And when she ironed them down

You couldn't tell that they hadn't come from town

A share cropper family across the road didn't have it as good as us

They didn't even have a light, and it was way past dusk

And mama said, "Well I bet they don't even have coal oil

Or beans to boil

Let alone apples and oranges and such"

Me and Jack took a jar of coal oil and some hickernuts we'd found

We walked to the share cropper's porch and set them down

A poor old ragged lady eased open the door

She picked up the coal oil and hickernuts and said

"I sure do thank you" and quickly closed the door

We started back home me and Jack

And about halfway we stopped looked back

In the share cropper's window at last was a light

So for one of the neighbors and for us, it was a good Christmas night

Christmas came and Christmas went

Christmas that year was heaven sent

And Daddy put on his gum boots

Waited for the thaw

Back home in Dyess, Arkansas

In our scarcity, as we work with it, we can inspire and encourage others. One light can spark another flame. Perhaps courage in the face of personal scarcity is the best gift of all.

This Christmas I hope to embrace the limitations. I want scarcity to show me what Christmas is really about. I want to realize how rich we really are. If we run out of sugar, I have a stock of the most gorgeous glass bottles full of amber cane syrup, prepared and bottled in love by my Georgia family. No, I won't be with them in person but I'll be with them in heart and I was blessed to be able to send Mandy's lovely soaps down to them.

When I slice life down to the basics, I find the natural simplicity of things has much more flavour than the sugarcoated commercials show. I want to savour and share the simplicity of a natural Christmas this year and all year.

"Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Luke 6:38