Keeping the Christmas Spirit Year Round

I love Christmas: the music, decorations, picking out the perfect gift, gathering with family, worshipping, receiving a thoughtful present, eating my mother-in-laws Christmas cookies, and of course finishing the Advent calendar. It is a time of year that our blessings are incredibly close and visual. We live in them for a month and it feels good.

Until that comfort that traditions provide begin to feel heavy. For me that happens right around December 27th. I knew it when we attended church on the First Sunday of Christmas and sung old hymns celebrating Emanuel, and it felt like an over played tune. Many of the songs were the same that were sung by a packed sanctuary just four days earlier. It’s amazing how quickly the build up can fade and we can turn our focus towards reclaiming space in our home and time on our calendar.

As I took down the tree and decorations this year I contemplated how quickly our family transitioned from anticipation to routine living. Last week at this time, our house was ROCKIN’. The elation of the coming Christmas was more then anyone could handle. There were plans, food, fun, melt downs, sugar and something beyond excitement. Today, the kids are quietly playing in their respective rooms enjoying space. I’m able to type in the middle of the day with all three children home. It’s a little jarring how quickly and all-encompassing this shift occurred.

The build up and diffusion makes me think of another Christ story. The events of Holy week are hitting me a new way today. While our family hasn’t turned into a riotous mob, the climate is totally different then last week. The parallel of anticipation, excitement and joy with the following week of irritation, normal and anger is hitting close to home. The human condition crosses cultures, time periods and faiths, and understanding that again and again is such an amazing gift.

We certainly can’t live in the heightened excitement of Advent for the whole year. We would run ourselves ragged, and there are so many good and important things that come from understanding “normal” and stability in the home. But maybe we can live with the awareness of how fleeting and unreliable our emotions are. When frustrated with our kids, spouse, family or friends maybe we could remember how quickly the entire climate of our lives can change in just a week. This seems like a tangible way to make Christmas a part of my everyday.

Teacher Gifts that Continue to Teach

A few years back we began making a change in how we approach gift giving to the teachers that impact the lives of our children. These (primarily) women share their passion, concern, strength and insight with our kids 183 days a year. They help to smooth out rough edges and allow us to see our kids in a new light. Knowing how much they give our family, it seemed odd to write a dollar amount next to a name and seek out a gift that would fulfill that line item obligation.

The elementary school the boys attend has a sister school in Tanzania that they were introduced to in first grade. Since then, we have decided to make a donation for both Christmas and the end of the year to the organization (Friends of Africa Education) that partners with the school. It’s not as glitzy as a cute homemade ornament or practical as a Caribou gift card, but I hope that it honors and celebrates the incredible work that these women do.

During our drop off drive this morning we discussed what a donation like this can do in a school in a developing nation and the gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” was cut by a titch. When I explained some of the costs of running a school and how donated money can help meet those needs, Kyle said, “Whoa. They must have like five ducky fundraisers every year.” 

Trying to find a way to describe the disparity between disposable income that can be used to generate extra funds for schools or organizations in our community and living on a meager wage in a developing country I went back to the, “if there were only 100 people in the world” speech to describe our unimaginable wealth by world standards. “By the simple fact that our family owns two vehicles, we are among the world’s richest people. If there were only 100 people in the world, we would be the richest person in the world.” A moment of silence filled the van that always feels like a victory, because the information is sinking is being absorbed in a new way.

My poet son, the old soul spoke up. “I wish there were only 100 people in the world. That way we could help them all. We could go to the same school. We could all take care of each other.” Now it was my turn for silence. 

Isn’t this the rub of living with wealth but being surrounded by those that seemingly have more? The math would be just the same if we recognized our wealth and how we could use it to help others, but there is still that relational gap that allows us to create categories of “us” and “them.” Kids don’t have this. Kids are amazingly open to “us” and “we.”

Our sons will drop off cards today with a little message inside thanking their teachers and sharing of the donation made in their honor. Even without knowing, they have once again blessed our family with a new insight and helped shape our children into givers and people who are able to look beyond themselves.

Legacy Binder Part Two

In my previous post I shared a template of the excel file created to give a quick overview of our family finances to those who would care for our family in the even of the death of either Ryan, myself or God forbid, both of us. Since we are not guaranteed tomorrow, it seems a loving gesture to lay out for our spouse or loved ones who would need to step in and assume the leadership of our family finances in the event of our death. Today I’m going to outline the physical structure of the Legacy Binder, what documents to include and who should see your the fruits of your hard work. Basically there are three tasks at hand: collect, store and share

Collect:

I felt a little like Jason Bourne locating and storing all of my documents in one place. I remember vividly the scene where he opens a safe and finds an assortment of passports, birth certificates, currencies and weapons. Before you rush to assume that you’re friends with an international hit woman, let me assure you, I am not. I found the collection part of this task to be kind of fun. I knew where all of these items were throughout the house. Having them safely stashed in one spot felt great.

I included the following items in our Legacy Binder: 

• “Irreplaceable documents” for each member of our family such as passports, birth certificates, social security cards, an adoption decree and our marriage license. 
• Life Insurance Policies for both Ryan and I.
• Notarized, signed wills for both Ryan and I.
• Mortgage Paperwork signed at our closing and the payoff document from our second mortgage.
• Vehicle Titles for each of our cars.
• Savings Bonds.
• A paper copy of the Summery of our Legacy Binder.
• Wills and Health Care Directives given to us by our parents and those who have asked us to care for their children in the event of their deaths.

Store:

The binder I used to gather all these documents is a simple accordion style binder that I  picked up in Target. It has 13 slots and each category of documents gets it’s own file. We’ve chosen to place the binder in our fire proof safe. The key is that those who would need access know where the Legacy Binder is and how to get it.

Share:

It was exciting to get all of this information together, and we felt it was important to share it with the Godparents of our children who would raise our kiddos in the event the death of both Ryan and I. We felt like it was important that they know the assets that are in place to care for our children now and what insurance policies would kick as well. The conversation was pretty awkward and unceremonious but the peace of mind I had was worth it. My hope is that we can briefly revisit this topic every year or so until the kids all reach age 21, at which point our wills state they would have access to our money without any oversight.

The peace of mind that comes from this act of love is worth an afternoon or two of tracking down papers and passwords. As the new year approaches maybe this project will be your first goal of 2015. I’d love to hear how this post lands with you and yours and what you plan to include in your family Legacy Binder.

Legacy Binder - Part One

Somewhere between surgery, a cancer diagnosis and radiation it dawned on me that I’m really not getting out of us this life alive. Wait, I mean I'm getting out of this scrape fine, but in the bigger scheme, we each are going to come to the end of our life at some point. The more I pondered my own mortality, the more I realized that it was time to line things up so that when faced with loss, those left to care for our family would be given a big hug wrapped in a simple accordion binder of papers.  

I dubbed it “The Legacy Binder” as a nod to Dave Ramsey, and it is now stored in our safe with a Summary Copy given to my brother and his wife. The time commitment in gathering the pertinent information and creating the Summary Copy took about six hours. Today’s blog will focus on creating the “Legacy Summary” which is basically a compilation of your assets, liabilities, contacts and logins. The goal of this document is to create a user handbook for whoever is to assume your families financial responsibilities in the event of your death. 

Assets and Liabilities

For our family this document included information about our home mortgage, our bank accounts, our savings accounts (for each member of the family), retirement plans (through work and our financial planner), college savings plans for each of our children and our vehicles. Contact information, account numbers, login access and a balance summary was provided for each account. 

At this time the only outstanding debt that we have is our mortgage but this page may be a good place to summarize your debts as well. The goal is for your loved ones to have a quick walk through of your finances in the the even of your death.

Insurance

The Page is devoted to the variety of insurance plans that we care as a family. I included the overall contact for the benefits department of my husbands employer and then broke up into the types of coverage we have. For each category, I listed each policy held by individual members of our family, the company issuing policies, pertinent numbers and a summary of the benefits. 

Contact Information

We have a large family, and anyone responsible for notifying loved ones in the event of a tragedy shouldn’t have to search for phone numbers and addresses. To figure out which information to include here I just kind of walked through a typical week and who would need to know something big happened in our family. I also included our family doctor and dentist. My thoughts in generating this list is, “How can I love my family well if I were not here?” As a mom so much of this is in my head, and it felt really good to get it down on paper.

Passwords / Logins & Auto-with drawls

On this page I set up a list of companies that we pay through automatic deposits, the date the money leaves our checking account and login and password to access those accounts. The goal is to organize the way the business of our family runs so that someone else could more easily step in and manage in my absence. Especially for ordering a pizza.

I was spurred on to begin this project because of fear, and in tackling it, I found tremendous peace. Gathering this information goes a lot faster then you’d imagine and you’ll reap the benefits for a good long time. With the new year approaching, I’d encourage you to take some time and create your own Legacy Binder for your family.

My next blog will be a description of creating the physical binder with those irreplaceable documents that may be floating around your house. So hang onto any papers you used to create your Legacy Summary for a few more days.

$8.99 for a Life of Gratitude

We have run out of thank you cards for the third or fourth time this year. I’m not talking about the eight piece post cards that you get when you buy party invitations but the big 50 box sets. We need more, and I am struck by the fact that each time we purchase more thank you cards, it reinforces just how blessed we are.

We have a large family that showers our kids with love and kindness; special dinners and gifts; sleep overs and events; generosity that other families wish for. We don’t send notes out for every gesture, but we send them out for a lot. We try to cultivate a culture of gratitude and finding a chicken scratch message from an eight year old on my pillow at night is evidence that some of this is taking hold.

This has been a year in which our family has been humbled with the truth just how much we need our people and community. While all doctors and tests assured me that the cancer was relatively safe and manageable, it scared the hell out of me and in varying degrees, the rest of the family too. We were picked up and held in so many good and generous ways. As time and space allowed, I’d grab a pen and pile of thank you notes and write messages again and again.

I added thank you notes to the shopping list again and the thought struck me that perhaps this is  a way to measure the fullness of our lives. My hunch is that the more thank you cards you buy, the less you complain about the purchase. The more notes you write, the more blessings you see in your life. The more time you take to acknowledge the generosity of others, the more giving you yourself become. 

I need to buy some more thank you cards today, and I’ll happily pay the $8.99 to enjoy the good life that comes from recognizing the goodness and kindness in others.

The Face in the Review Mirror

Driving home from drop off this morning I looked in the review mirror and saw my girl belting Elsa’s anthem with her eyes closed. She was feeling every bit of the words, “Let it go, let it go, I’ll rise like the break of dawn. Let it go, let it go, that perfect girl is gone!” I kept thinking about how this moment, and thousands of others never would have happened had we not first attended an informational meeting about foster care. Our girl was 3 months old and receiving loving care in her home at the time of our first foster care meeting. The opening greeting still chills me. “Thank you for coming to this meeting. Our kids deserve a full room of adults who are interested in learning more about caring for them.” 

That initial full house thinned to a handful of couples who continued their training to become licensed providers. I often left the training with a pounding headache and clenched teeth from learning of the ways kids are hurt and how those deep wounds manifest in behavior. I was scared about meeting biological families and we seriously considered installing an alarm system. We questioned if we could really pull this off. Could we deal with loss? Could our kids stomach uncertainty? Could our family manage the unpredictability? Would I actually need to get a cell phone?

Initially we decided we would keep taking steps forward until we got a clear and firm “stop” in our prayers. We got those feelings several times. Two additional kids at one time, too much. Children who have abused others, no. Subjecting our daughter to a transient home, not now. But we’ve found that in understanding where our boundaries are, we are in fact free to say “yes” to that which exists within that sphere. 

The large families with varying shades and hues that joined us at the annual foster care Christmas celebration earlier this week blow me away with their love and grace. There are so many good people in the world that willingly stretch to meet the needs of the least. I used to look at these families and think, “There’s no way I could do that.” Now I look and realize that it doesn’t matter the number of children you care for, because it matters to the one in front of you profoundly. Thank God these families are willing to open their homes so readily. And thank God there are families like ours, that are still willing to re-open their doors, even if it is with caution.

Our family is preparing to re-enter the world of fostering. We’re going to dip our toes with the turn of the calendar in the respite care program. This feels like the extent of our “yes” for now, but you never quite know how that will twist and change with additional time. These kids deserve us to stretch and learn where our boundaries are.