DECEMBER 11th

DECEMBER 11Th:
Thought/story: "The Three Scrooges"

Scripture: Luke 2:51-52
Event: Advanced in wisdom
Jesus Christ obeyed parents

Recipe: Indoor smores (since it's a little too cold for camping, try this indoor version)
Ingredients: 8 cups golden grahams cereal, 5 cups mini marshmallows, 1/3 c. light corn syrup,1 1/2 c. milk choc.Chips, 1 C. mini marshmallows, I tsp. Vanilla, 6 tbls., butter or margarine

Instructions: Measure cereal into large bowl. Grease 9x13 pan. Melt 5 cups marshmallows, corn syrup, margarine and choc. Chips over low heat, stirring a lot; remove from heat.. Stir in vanilla. Pour over cereal in large bowl. Mix melted ingredients with cereal quickly until completely coated with chocolate. Stir in one cup marshmallows. Make squares by pressing into pan quickly, using back of buttered spoon. Makes 24 squares.

Tradition: Have a jar full of candy that is available for children to see (but not to eat!). The object is to guess how many candies are in the jar. You could also have extended family or friends participate as they visit. On Christmas Eve reveal the winner. The winner of course wins the candy jar!

Small gift idea: Jolly ranchers gift bag - Decorate a brown sack with a large holly berry which covers most of the bag. Fill the bag with Jolly Rancher candies or Jolly Time popcorn. The outside of the bag also reads, "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas."

REDUCING CHRISTMAS STRESS - Limit Spending
The reasons are legion: all that time and money spent acquiring too many forgettable gifts; all that wrapping paper and plastic junk winding up in landfills; all that overflowing consumption in the midst of people who have so little. But beyond these preachy (albeit true) points is the fact that a materialistic holiday is too much work and not enough fun, says Bill McKibben, author of Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case for a More Joyous Christmas. Shopping is a chore that can drain the spirit and the pocketbook. And merely throwing money at the challenge of giving someone something special isn't particularly satisfying. Most of us have too much store-bought stuff already.

McKibben, who lives in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York with his wife and a 6-year old daughter, says his ideal $100-a-family-unit on holiday spending isn't an absolute, only a spur to simplicity, creativity and thought. "Doing with less materially opens up time and energy to do other kinds of things that are much more special," he says. It leaves you more time, for example, to tramp a wintry beach, fashion homemade gifts, or take the kids to the zoo. Yes, do-it-yourself gifts and special outings take time. But McKibben argues that it's time better spent - and cherished more - than hitting the malls and emptying your pockets yet
again. And even catalog shopping is plenty time-consuming if you're juggling 10 dog-eared catalogs and a 20 gift list.
 
THE THREE SCROOGES

by Lael Littke

Our whole family was surprised when Rula Mae declared that she wanted nothing for Christmas. "Nothing?" Mama asked. "Nothing," Rula Mae repeated. The rest of us stared in disbelief. Was this really our eight-year-old Rula Mae, who begged constantly for frilly dresses and white knee-high boots and a red coat with a little white fake-fur collar, to say nothing of a red patent-leather purse with a tiny red-backed mirror inside? She made the announcement just two weeks before Christmas at our Family Fiesta, which is what Mama called our family home evenings. Mama said they
should sound fun. My sister Laverne called them Family Festers, which she said was closer to the truth. Mama said Laverne's problem was being thirteen but that she'd be nice again in a few years.
"No gifts?" Darwin asked after a moment of stunned silence. "None at all?" Darwin was going on ten and had been campaigning for months for a bicycle of his own, black and silver, with a light. He'd probably have to be satisfied with our broken-down old family bike, since with a big family like ours we didn't always get what we hoped
for. "I don't want to get anything. I'm just going to give." Rula Mae smiled serenely. "It's more blessed to give than to receive."
You'd think a halo should sprout above her head, the way she said it. "She learned that in Primary," Darwin snorted. "They're always telling us that." Clearly he hadn't been taken in by the propaganda. Tootle and Max, who were seven and four, stared without saying a thing. Laverne watched through stitted eyes as if she were
trying to figure out what Rula Mae was up to. "What is it you're going to give,
Rula Mae?" she asked. "Me," Rula Mae flung out her arms. "I'm going to give me!"
Dad and Mama exchanged a glance. Clearing his throat, Dad asked, "And who is going to be the lucky recipient of this gift of you, Rula Mae?" "I'm going to give me to Sister Wanda and Sister Belle and Sister Ora Lou," Rula Mae said. "They don't have
any children. They must be very lonely." Her voice was buttery and smooth.
"For crying out loud." Laverne said. "You're eight years old, Rula Mae. If Sister Wanda and Sister Belle and Sister Ora Lou wanted a child, they'd get one that was still little and cute."
Rula Mae continued to smile.
Sister Wanda and Sister Belle and Sister Ora Lou lived in the tall red brick house out on Angel's Roost where they'd been born. None of them had ever married. Mama and Dad called them the Swenson sisters, but we kids called them the Three Scrooges because their big old house was crammed full of things they'd had when they were children, things we would love to have. But the sisters never shared any of it.
We'd never been inside their house, but we'd all had the sisters as Sunday School teachers at one time or another. They told thrilling stories about the Old
Days and about the dolls and dollhouses, the bicycles and wagons, the music boxes and books and games and dress-up clothes they had had when they were young. The things were all still there, in the attic of the old house on Angel's Roost, wasting away. Every kid in town knew that.
And every kid in town had plotted at one time or another how we might get in to play with all those things the Three Scrooges told us about.
Dad cleared his throat again. "It's a very nice thought, Rula Mae, but what about us? You can't just leave your family behind and go live with somebody else."
"Let her go,' Darwin said. "Then we'll all have more room."
Still Rula Mae smiled.
A look passed between Mama and Dad, one of those looks that said whole encyclopedias in a language we kids didn't understand. During the duration of that look, they came to some kind of understanding.
"All right," Dad said. "AlI in favor of letting Rula Mae go live with Sister Wanda and Sister Belle and Sister'Ora Lou, please signify by raising the right hand."
That's the way it was in our family. We voted on all the big things, like whether we were going to have ice cream or chocolate cake on special occasions(you couldn't vote for both) and whether we would clean our rooms before or after lunch on Saturdays (you couldn't vote for neither).
AlI of us kids raised our hands.
Dad nodded. "Majority rules. Your mother and I will speak with the Swenson sisters, Rula Mae. But did you ever consider that they might say no?"
"They won't," Rula Mae said. "They need a little girl to share their things."
And suddenly Laverne and Darwin and I knew why Rula Mae was giving herself to Sister Wanda and Sister Belle and Sister Ora Lou. Rula Mae had figured out how to get all those things in the 'Three Scrooges' attic.
Couldn't Mama and Dad see that was
what she was up to?
I was about to blat it out, but Laverne saw me open my mouth. She put a finger to her lips.
It didn't take me long to think it through. If Rula Mae was there at the Three Scrooges' house, then we could get in, too. Even Laverne wanted to see that fabled attic.
None of us knew exactly what the Swenson sisters said about Rula Mae coming to be their little girl, but Mama and Dad reported that we were all invited over to their house on Christmas Eve.
Oh, brilliant Rula Mae, to think of a way for us all to share in the glories of
that treasure-filled attic on Christmas Eve! Surely the sisters would invite us
to go up there to play while the grownups talked. Maybe they'd even let each
of us choose a gift to take home.
Rula Mae didn't pack a thing except her toothbrush to take with her on Christmas Eve. Why should she? The Swenson sisters had everything she would need.
It was snowing that night as we drove up Angel's Roost and parked our car. When Sister Belle and Sister Ora Lou opened their door, we saw they'd built a cheerful fire in the big fireplace to help warm up their parlor, which is what they called their living room.
"Come in," Sister Belle boomed, helping us remove our coats and brush off the snow. "Wanda asked us to excuse her since she's ... in the kitchen," said Sister Ora
Lou. "She's the ". . . cook in the family," finished Sister Belle.
Sister Belle was a big woman and her Christmas dress, which she'd worn to ward parties for as long as I could remember, looked like a red velvet tent. She hugged each one of us as we trooped in.
Sister Ora Lou, small and birdlike in her familiar green dress, put an arm around Rula Mae's shoulders. "Well, so this is our new little girl. We're ... right happy to have you, sweetheart," Sister Belle finished.
Rula Mae preened.
Odd odors came from the kitchen.
"Oysters," Sister Belle said when she
saw Darwin wrinkling his nose.
"Oysters?" Rula Mae said. "We always have hot dogs and popcorn on Christmas Eve."
Sister Belle's laugh was as deep and musical as the grandfather clock that bonged seven times in the parlor, and Sister Ora Lou's was like the bleating of a small goat.
"Hot dogs!" Sister Belle exclaimed.
"Papa always said Christmas Eve suppers . . . "
" . . . should be elegant," Sister Ora Lou said. "Remember the year Mama
forgot the . . . "
"Oh, mercy yes," Sister Belle interrupted, "and Wanda and I rode the toboggan
down the hill . . . "
" ••• to borrow some," Sister Ora
Lou said, and the two of them bonged and bleated again.
The toboggan! I'd forgotten there was a toboggan, too, among the treasures of
the attic.
Sister Belle put an arm around Rula
Mae's shoulders. "Well, dear, you might as well get acquainted with your new home. What would you like to see first?"
"The attic," Rula Mae said without
hesitation.
Laverne and Darwin and I stared at her in admiration. None of us would have dared to come right out and ask like that.
"All right," said Sister Belle.
"Wanda," she boomed toward the kitchen, "we're going up to the attic. Call us when the oysters and turnips are finished."
"Turnips?" Rula Mae asked.
"Family tradition," Sister Belle said. "And kidney pie, with suet pudding for
dessert. Come along now."
Rula Mae looked a little greenish as we all followed Sister Belle and Sister Ora Lou up the stairs, along a hallway, through a door, and up another flight of stairs. Dad carried Max and Mama held Tootie by the hand.
"Mercy, " Sister Belle puffed. "We haven't been up here since ... "
Sister Ora Lou spoke up. "And that
was to bring down the .•. "
"And then it didn't even work anymore." Sister Belle shook her head sadly.
That should have given us a clue, that whatever-it-was that didn't work anymore. But now that we were actually there in the fabled attic, Rula Mae, Laverne, Darwin, and I held our breaths in anticipation.
We looked around. Where were the shining toys and games and wagons and other things we'd heard stories about for so many years?
Oh, the things were there, all right, just as the sisters had said. But they were rusty, dusty, broken, faded, crumbled. The toboggan had a hole in its bottom. One of the bicycles was missing its handlebars; the tires on all three had disintegrated. The dollhouse was warped and discolored, probably from rain seeping through the attic roof.
In the dimness of the attic Rula Mae stood staring. Slowly she walked around, taking inventory of the things we'd heard so much about. She touched the rusty runner on a sled. She bent down to look at a moth-eaten doll.
She looked at the things for a long time. Then she walked over and smiled at Sister Belle and Sister Ora Lou.
"Can we go down and sit by the
fire?" she said. "Will you tell us all the
stories again?"
As we walked back down the stairs I'm sure we were all thinking the same thing: that it was only in the memories of the three sisters that the fabulous treasures of the attic were still bright and shining. And they had already shared them over and over again with us, all those wonderful stories of three little girls of another time. Scrooges? No, not at all.
They told the stories again by the fire, and when Sister Wanda in her bright blue dress (they looked like Christmas ornaments, the three sisters in red, green, and blue) served us the oyster supper (with hot dogs on the side for some of us), they shared even more stories.
I don't think the sisters were too surprised
when Rula Mae asked if they minded if she didn't come live with them after all. They said they would love to have her but realized that her family wouldn't be complete without her.
Mama invited Sister Wanda and Sister Belle and Sister Ora Lou to come to our house the next day to share our traditional Christmas dinner: roast chicken with mashed potatoes, canned com, green Jell-O, and chocolate cake with homemade ice cream. Then we all hugged each of the sisters, silently thanking them for the unnamed gift
they'd given us, and went out through the snow to our car to count through our own memories.
Darwin started. "Remember the Family ••• "
" . . . Festers?" Laverne finished.
"And the way we always . . . "
" ... voted on everything," I said.
Mama joined in. "Remember the
Christmas when Rula Mae . . ."
" . . . gave myself away," Rula Mae
giggled.
"And how glad we are," Mama prompted, "that ••• "
" ... she changed her mind," we chorused.
Our little house didn't have an attic, but we had our own store of shining
treasures.


Lael Littke hils published several young-adult novels,
Including Where the Creeks Meet and Shanny on
Her Own, which was chosen as a Junior Literary
Guild selection in 1985. Her new "Bee There" series
includes the titles Getting Rid of Rhoda and The
Mystery of Ruby's Ghost.