Priorities

It happens every year, but it never ceases to amaze me. There are the same old toys and books in my house that are magnets to the children who visit, even drawing them away from the bells and whistles of the shiny new Christmas toys that have scarcely been unwrapped. This is going to sound like a commercial for Matchbox and Mattel and Melissa and Doug, but, wait for it. There may be something, in the old toys that will play with our emotions, too, and from which we may even make spiritual application. 

This Melissa and Doug ice cream store, complete with reusable menus and scoops and all kinds of cones, dishes and toppings, is literally, all year long, in the middle of our walking space, almost as quickly as it’s been put away. This was a gift from cousins Michelle and Abel, and I wish I had a nickel for every wooden ice cream order served from my living room!  Not many days go by, but what a child comes into my kitchen, menu in hand, asking me to check the boxes beside the flavors I’d like to order. Just so it will take a little longer to fill the order, I usually order at least three scoops of various flavors with a topping and a cherry on top. Younger kids learn about sequencing and stacking and colors.  Older ones learn about money and making change, addition and multiplication…and all kids love to run the store. (At Christmas time, we sometimes even let them run a real popsicle shop or operate the little snow-cone machine for the relatives who visit.)

This little tractor pedal car was mine when I was two years old. Because it needs some WD-40, and I was squeak-crazy, I put it under my old silver tree, in a tight little spot. This year it would be so hard to get, that it would stay right there under that tree. But no. That tractor squeaked through my kitchen multiple times daily. A few times, it was even the ice cream delivery truck. (And, no…those old Shiny-Brite ornaments did not all survive.)

Then there are these marble towers that my dad made decades ago. They have been favorites for three generations now. The marbles make a thunder-rumble as they roll down the wooden tracks (Loud is always better!), but I am amazed at how intently and how long the kids watch the marbles. I have to be sure I have these on a big rug, to reduce the noise, and sometimes I even set the tall tower on a cookie sheet or biscuit pan, so the marbles will be contained when they reach the bottom and come rolling out onto the surface. These marbles roll every single time the kids come. (They find their marbles when they arrive, and I just about lose mine!)

I can’t leave out the Jolly Postman books. I highly recommend this little series. They take a fun little while to read, but kids can’t wait to get the next letter; a correspondence that’s been delivered to someone in the story poem, out of a sturdy envelope. There’s an envelope on each page opening of the books. Some have games or puzzles or jokes inside the letters. All are fun surprises. My grandchildren wanted to read the Jolly Postman even on Christmas Day and even though they have heard it over and over. 

At our big family Christmas, I noticed little Ashton in the study playing with old Matchbox cars WHILE we were all in the living room opening gifts. Matchbox and Hot Wheels never get old for little boys of all ages. Tracks for racing are fun, but not necessary. Kids make parking lots and traffic jams and load the cars into larger vehicles. 

Finally, this doll is alternately Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf and the sweet old grandmother. And all three are required every time these cousins get together. They want to know where she is and when I am telling this story to them. As you can imagine, there are all kinds of wardrobe mishaps and they love that silliness. Sometimes the plot goes a bit off-grid.

Oh yes, one more…If you zoom into the tree, you can see a little wooden train. Somehow this train has survived about 38 years. Its cars and logs and bottles and people were collected on birthdays and Christmases in another century (wow…that’s hard to say!) for the little boy who now preaches for the North Jackson church. But that train never “stays put” around that tree. Strewn and scattered and often animated by children who still can make-believe, it often steals the Christmas morning show.

Stockings were full and Santa Claus definitely lightened his bag in our living room. All of that was lots of fun. But, as I’m cleaning up the clutter and finding the “left-behinds” it occurs to me that we adults are like children in so many ways. We, too, make mental lists of things we really want. We may not ever put them on the list to mail to Santa, but we think they will make us happy. If I could just replace this old car…If I could get that promotion…If I could buy, instead of renting…If I had those sneakers or that new i-phone….

In my own life, I think back to the first Christmas I was married. I made aprons for all the female relatives for Christmas. I made them from the same brown floral fabric (discarded by someone else) from which I had made the little cafe’ curtains for that little two bedroom house we purchased for 17K.  One of those aprons came back to me last year when my sweet mother-in-law went to a place where there are no messes to clean. Hannah has it now. (And we went into debt to buy that house. We did not know Dave Ramsey.) I saved my Corn Flakes boxes to wrap my gifts in. My sofa was that classic old “velour-y” wagon wheel and wheat, brown and orange, overstuffed specimen, that someone had discarded from the seventies. We were actually making payments to the antiques dealer, across the highway, for the bed on which we were sleeping. 

I probably wished for more and better. I probably had a “Santa list” a mile long and most of the things on that list, I am enjoying today. But, when the real measure of satisfaction and contentment is examined—when I really take stock of my happiness quota—well, I cannot say that I am happier today than I was in that little house in Henderson, Tennessee, all those years ago. Things aren’t the measure. New things aren’t the treasure that we think they will be. In fact, my favorite things (except for my kids and grandkids) are the same things I had then. I had that old Dickson Bible that my mother and dad gave me upon graduation, from which I was learning sustaining truths. I had my Mother’s Titus 2 wisdom in my daily life—I mean just whenever I asked! How I miss that favorite thing! I had a godly husband who was preaching the Word. I had confidence in salvation and correction in Scripture. I prayed to heaven from that bed we had purchased from Mrs. Frye on credit. I had 24/7 extended credit, from the Christian banker in that little town, just in case we had emergencies (and we did, sometimes.) I had a godly woman in that town, who would have given me anything—ANYTHING—I needed, if she had it or could get it. I had children to teach in that local church and I had Mrs. Lora Laycook, who taught me to teach them. I had warmth in that little house and a big yard in which all our elders would come and eat homemade ice cream. I had a little dog named Nicodemus and 50 high school kids who thought my house was was theirs. Their parents lived in some nice, big houses, but they always seemed to want to be in my old teeny one, instead. 

I am not more content today than I was then. I am, metaphorically, still playing with the toys that I’ve had all along. It’s not the granting of the material wishes that brings joy. It’s the discovery that there are some important staple tractors and books and marble towers that I’ve had all along. 

As Glenn and I ponder what life looks like at 66, we are amazed and we are reflectively peaceful. It’s busy. It’s chaotic. It’s demanding. I can’t find time to make curtains any more, or take care of little Nicodemuses or big youth groups. There are other little hearts that have stolen mine…and my time. There are women who study with me and I am pushed to keep up with the dig. There are travels that require thought and preparation for presentations. There are wonderful new women who need to know the gospel.There are simply new things around every turn. But it’s the things we’ve had all along that are sustaining us. It’s the basic things that are never under the Christmas tree or purchased with green or plastic. And I find myself going to the basics, for this sustenance, even while the new things are being unwrapped. 

It’s these things, even more than any classic toy, that I want to be sure are always in every room where family gathers. Wisdom from years of living, hospitality, the Word, prayer, support of the family in Him, salvation….May I choose these, every single time.