“Girls, girls, GIRLS!”

December 18, 2024

“Girls, girls, GIRLS!”

No, this is not a dance, nor a bawdy house of women entertaining men, or the other way around. I’ll get to that in a minute.

Christmas is coming and things are getting wild in many a household where children are getting excited and think they can’t wait for the big day, or days.

Here at our house, the Christmas tree is finally up, the various manger scenes are staged around the house, our biggest manger scene decorates the entire top of our piano. Thanks to our dear neighbor Barbara who made clay figurines and gave them to me one Christmas, which I was drafted (and happy) to paint, however we wanted, by the following Christmas. Those figurines have been going strong 40 some years.

Going back 40 years, my oldest daughter reminded me today of how I used to calm our daughters down when things started getting wild. Not just at Christmas but anytime in the year.

We owned only a few videos that we played and one of their favorites was the old classic “Cinderella.” If you recall, the ugly stepsisters in that story or movie were frequently found clashing with each other, tearing clothing or objects on their jealous days.

Well, recently my oldest daughter was having one of those days with her three sons, ages 11, 9 and 6, heating up for Christmas. They were bickering loudly in the back seats of the minivan. My daughter said she was reminded of how I would sometimes say “girls, girls, GIRLS” in an operatic overly-dramatic voice like the stepmother in Cinderella when I wanted their attention or cooperation.

But my daughter didn’t say that. Instead she started chuckling to herself, which was so weird for the boys to hear her laughing in the middle of their squabbling that they stopped their wrangling and asked what was so funny.

Thus my old reminder for our three daughters, (then ages roughly 6, 9, and 11) came circling or gushing back to her at just the right moment, and she relaxed. And she couldn’t help laughing, because they did settle down and changed course a bit.

Another line I used to use with our daughters also came from the Cinderella video. If our daughters were all lazing around their rooms like say on a Saturday morning when they were supposed to be picking up books and toys and dolls and stuff, I had another Cinderella classic line to dig up. As in, when the wicked stepmother would get that mean look on her face and scold her poor young Cinderella with “Oh, I see we have timmmme…. on our hands,” she’d look Cinderella crossly in the face and dragged out the word “time.” Which of course was a reminder to Cinderella to get busy with her endless chores, and kinda worked for my poor little Cinderellas too. It also kind of worked when they were complaining about being bored…

So if things are getting a little upshtona (a Pennsylvania Dutch word, I think, for a big mess, correct me if I’m wrong, dear sisters), which MY mother used to use if indeed our house was messy with Christmas doings–just take a big breath or so, sit down in your favorite chair, look around the house, and treasure each and every minute you have with those little ones … and the bigger 11 or 16-year-olds too.

It’s almost Christmas.

Mary and Joseph didn’t have a great time either juggling along a dusty road to their destination in Bethlehem to pay taxes (of course our local property taxes come this time of year, too). And Mary, greatly bloated with the precious baby still inside her, had to ride jostling on the donkey.

Enjoy. Savor. Gather your kids or grown-ups around as you can, and cherish the moments.

Merry Christmas.