Mistletoe Mishaps
By Cindy McDermott

Most of us spend a lot of time in preparation for Christmas. We want everything to be perfect. We trudge in and out of stores, up and done countless aisles looking for that most excellent gift. We spend hours in the kitchen planning a menu and preparing the food. We slave over a hot oven in order to have delectable cookies - and plenty of them. We size up tree after tree in the cold night air in order to find the one that will look the best in the corner of our living room. We decorate the house and plan our party. And for all of that work we are still human and there are still a lot of things out of our control. So we know what that means: chances are good that our celebration won't be perfect!

Everyone probably has some stories to tell. Looking back over the years I've discovered that we've had our own share of mistletoe mishaps. Sometimes it's the food that goes awry, despite careful planning and preparation. Our first married Christmas Jim and I were invited to a relative's house to eat and we had a most wonderful meal. The next day our hostess called and was extremely apologetic. Apparently she had forgotten to cook the shrimp before serving it to us in the shrimp cocktail. Sounds like something that I could do! Anyway, she felt terrible. "I hope you don't get sick," she said. (We didn't.) Sometimes the winter colds and flu strike without warning. It hit our house one Christmas morning. Out of the blue, after breakfast, the first child was affected. Now, as the parent you feel really badly for the child, but for the sake of the rest of the family, the holiday goes on. But then you start to have second thoughts as the children begin dropping like flies around you. By dinner-time half of our family was sick. While serving the meal I was beginning to wonder why I had spent so much time in the kitchen when there were "only" five of us sitting down to eat! After dinner was much the same as the stomach flu cruelly, slowly claimed its victims one by one until all the children were sick. The evening culminated with Jim and I having to clean up the largest 'mess' you have ever seen. (I'll spare both of us the details.)

Jim and I survived fairly unscathed, not feeling too well ourselves - although we couldn't be sure if it was the flu or the effects of being the clean-up crew! Ugh! Then sometimes your entire holiday gets derailed - even before Christmas comes. We were living in California with Jim in the Army when we were expecting our third child. Our first two children were about 2-1/2 years and 16 months, and the newest baby was due in mid-January. It was December 19th and our little one had been admitted to the hospital because of asthma. We had spent all day there and came home exhausted. We got our oldest to bed and Jim soon followed. I stayed up a little while longer working on Christmas gifts. When I finally went to bed about midnight, my water broke. At the hospital they couldn't stop Shannon from coming, and because she was a month early, they feared that they did not have the capability to care for her if she was sick. So near dawn they flew me to the naval hospital in an army helicopter, some 100 miles away. Jim remained in Monterey for a time where Michael was at a friend's house and John was still in the hospital. To simplify a long and complicated story, Shannon was born the 20th, and she and I and John all came home on the 22nd.

Then the real work began. Jim and I pushed and ran around buying the tree and decorating, baking, and finishing the Christmas gifts. We managed to pull it all together by Christmas Eve - and then everyone fell asleep early, before our celebration even began. We did go to church Christmas morning - in the pouring rain. The next day our son was back in the hospital. And, finally, sometimes the mistletoe mishap can be in the gift. One year our family received a homemade candle. It was beautiful and obviously required a great deal of time and energy. It was a tall candle with potpourri in the wax. We lit it but had no idea what would happen! Once the flame encountered the potpourri, it set it on fire. Now, these pieces of potpourri were sizeable, so in no time at all there were several flames on top. It started getting scary when a couple of the flames joined together into one huge one!

For safety reasons we took the candle outside. The smoke drew a policeman to our house inquiring whether or not we had a bonfire permit, but when he saw the pig roasting over the top, he realized it was actually a barbeque. (Alright, a little exaggeration - but not much!) Our gift-giver might consider this a mishap, but it has actually been a continued source of great delight to us! So what does all this mean? Well, I guess it can mean that God can give us enjoyment through the unexpected. Maybe it can also remind us that the things that seem major to us often really don't matter. And, most importantly, it can prompt us to remember that the most important thing about Christmas is that it is about Jesus. He really is the Reason for the Season - mistletoe mishaps and all.