1/365 Poinsettias and Families

"Thanks for taking care of them while I was gone," I tell Lynn (all names in this blog are changed), standing at her front door.

"How was your trip?" she asks.

"Oh, you know, it was good. Christmas. Hectic, but not really. Kids did well, it was good."

She smiles, not sure if she believes me. "It's been 23 years with Pat's family and I'm just now getting used to it." I think about things I've said in the past in the same spirit.

"Fourteen for me," I admit.

"I didn't get to them on Monday," she switches tracks. Talking about the poinsettias at church. "But I was there yesterday and watered everything."

"Good, then," I take my keys. "I'll stop by tomorrow and make sure everything is set for Sunday."

Poinsettias. I've heard so many stories about how to care for them, I just don't know anymore. Hal, the new guy who helped with Christmas decorating, seemed to think they could be kept alive forever as a houseplant. I just don't know if I believe him, though. They don't seem very sturdy. But I know I can get them through to the end of Christmas season, which is two weeks from now. This coming week they especially need to still look nice.

This Sunday is Migration Mass, our parish's big shindig that winds up on the front page of our diocesan newspaper most years. People come from all over. It's a big production on one of my favorite Sundays of the year--Epiphany Sunday, the day the foreign magi come to visit the Christ child, thus becoming the first gentiles grafted into the People of God. I don't usually go, frankly. It has never felt right to me when I do go. One year I left after the homily. But I think I need to go this year. I need to suck it up and be a part of the parish family even when it irritates me and feels like a show.

Kind of like Christmas morning at relatives' houses. When I give in and just let it flow, you know? It's ok. Pleasant, even--and this year it was downright enjoyable now that I've let it stop being about me, all about me, in my own head and just let myself be there. I can do the same at church. As Jane will say next week at coffee, "it is what it is." And then it'll be back to Ordinary Time soon enough.