Christmas

I have so missed planning and preparing for company in my own little place. I invited my parents and brother & his wife to come up for lunch the Saturday before Christmas. My father couldn't make it but the rest of them did. I made tofu fajitas with refried beans and I fixed some spanish rise. I guess they turned out ok because they all ate until they were full.

While I was cooking the tofu the fragrace of the spices were filling the house and Guy asked me, "What's that smell?" I told him, "That's the smell of your mother cooking. I know it rarely happens. Try not to get used to it."

I do wish I had a real kitchen with at least a half size oven and stove and a normal sized sink.I get by but I would like to do more cooking in order to keep a healthy diet, especially being a wana-be vegan in a non-vegan friendly state. I feel like my health might be suffering from lack of protien and other nutrients it needs. But that's another subject.

So, after lunch we took Trax to downtown Salt Lake where we listened to some carrolers, Guy got his picture taken with Santa Clause and we wandered through the lights at Temple Square for a minute until we had to stop in the visitors center so Grandma could take a potty break.

It was a little freaky to be in there, honestly. The first thing I noticed were these brief video clips of these endocrinated children being asked questions about families. They were all so confident in their answers. A kind of chill went up my spine but not from the cold.

My mother had to have a copy of this pedigree chart from an ancestor that they were apparently out of and they had to scour the place to find one. In the mean time Guy was falling asleep and I got stopped by some sister missionaries. One from Peru and another one from France.

My mother joined the conversation and it lead to her mentioning that I went on a mission. I walked the walk and talked the talk enough to avoid creating waves. It's situations like that that tend to make my mother emotional. I had the pleasure of carrying Guy on my back, who was passed out until we got home.

My mom rode back with us and we stayed at my parents' house from Saturday night to Tuesday Morning. I even went to church with them. I was fine about it until the Sacrament was passed. I had forgotten about the silent giveaway. So began the psychology of it all, in my head. I thought, do I take the Sacrament and ignore the fact that I know that they know that they would not consider me to be worthy, but take it as a token of my own faith regardless? Or do I decline it out of respect for their beliefs of worthiness and openly admit that I am not worhty. In my heart I wanted to decline simply becuase I am still on the fence about Jesus Christ and I disagree about whether I am "worthy" or not.

So, how do I portray that to the people sitting around me when my son asked me why I'm not taking the bread or the water. He started to regurgitate my recent nutritional food lecture to me. He obviously doesn't understand what it's for but that doesn't bother me.

Anyway, I made it through the one hour Christmas program. It was interesting to be there and observe and listen with new ears and eyes. I was more uneasy about it than I expected, yet I was good at not letting it show.