My Talk In Sacrament Meeting

Nick and I spoke in sacrament meeting this past sunday. Even though it was the sunday after Christmas we were still given Christmas topics. Mine was Christmas traditions and Nick's was the true meaning of Christmas. Here is what I read:

You’ll have to excuse me, but it seems as though when we were all in the preexistence and we were signing up for our preparation for earth-life classes, the Public Speaking 1010 was completely full. And somehow I got sent to earth without ever having taken the course. So, although my hands are shaky, my mouth is dry, and I fear I could pass out at any given moment, I stand before you today because my husband wouldn’t tell the bishop no! That being said, today I would like to direct my words to the young men and women in the ward. Anyone that is not between the ages of 12 and 17, you’re welcome to zone out, take this opportunity to take a nap, completely forget that I’m here.

A little introduction; I’m Sara Hendricks and my husband is Nick. We bought a home in Bridgerland Meadows and have been in the ward for 2 months. Nick and I met in Nauvoo while he was working on the pageant there and I was going to school. We got married in Arizona a year later in the Mesa Arizona temple and have been married for a little over three and a half years. We don’t have any kids, but recently adopted a puppy and he’s as much of a handful as we can take. Like everyone else, we’re up here going to school; Nick in History and me in the Deaf Education program.

Also, I want to recognize my parents who came up from Arizona to spend Christmas with us. I’m very grateful to have their familiar faces in the congregation today!

I’m also grateful for the topic I was given. Traditions are something I love, especially at this time of year; and I’m excited to share how I feel about traditions. It’s important to me to have traditions not only for our children to have something to look forward to, but also because traditions are a great way to spend time together and create a special bond.

First, I want to talk about a few traditions that are found in many homes around the world at Christmas time. One tradition that is widespread throughout the world is that of St. Nicholas. While the current view of Santa Claus is mostly the work of American propaganda and Coca Cola advertising, he had humble beginnings as a bishop in a small town called Myra. When his wealthy parents died and left him a fortune, he followed Christ’s admonition, gave all that he had to those in need, and devoted his life to God. Many Christmas traditions stem from the legends surrounding St. Nicholas and the festival celebrating his deeds.

One of the most common legends is concerning three young girls whose families were too poor to provide them with a dowry. Women without a dowry often had to turn to prostitution and this dire situation was facing these three poor girls. Bishop Nicholas heard of their plight and decided to do a secret Santa for them. Bags of gold found their way into the girls’ homes. This is why children began putting their shoes or stockings out to receive from St. Nicholas’s generosity. They would even try to bribe him with treats for him and his horse and later, his reindeer. Some versions of the story changed the bags of gold into balls of gold, which is why we put baubles on the tree and put oranges in stockings.

The tree is filled with traditional symbols of the nativity. The lights of the starry night, the Star showing the wise men the way, the gifts laid at the feet of the savior, the multitude of angels, the candy cane shepherds’ hooks.

One of the most prevalent traditions is the singing of Christmas carols. The stories behind the carols are as meaningful as the songs themselves. Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer was a story written by Robert May about his own life as a small picked-on child in reindeer form. When his wife died a few days before Christmas, he used the story to comfort his grieving daughter before handing it over to Montgomery Ward who had hired him to write it in the first place.

My favorite carol is Angels We Have Heard on High, believed to be the oldest Christmas carol. There’s record of it being sung as early as 129 AD for the bishop of Rome and is called the Westminster carol because it is sung annually in the Westminster chapel. Perhaps it was sung even earlier when the first Christmas carol was sung to the shepherds.

My husband’s family has a tradition of reading a book called ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’, by Barbara Robinson. It tells the story of a community’s nativity pageant held hostage by the Herdmans, a family of parentless hooligans who had never heard the story of the first Christmas. The boys who chose to be the wise men didn’t understand why they were bringing perfume and oil to the Christ-child, so they brought him the Christmas ham given to them in their charity basket. Imogene, the oldest and leader of the family, convinces everyone that she should play the role of Mary. As she holds the doll that will play the baby, the love of Christ fills her heart and she understands the true meaning of Christmas. And perhaps the most telling is Gladys, the youngest who plays the Angel of the Lord and terrorizes the shepherds like the avenger in her comics. She doesn’t know the actual declaration of the angel, but she gets the basic idea: “Shazaam! Hey, unto you a child is born!”

I’m sure all of us have participated in most, if not all of these traditions. Now I want to talk about some of mine and Nick's traditions. The last time we spoke in church, it was together during Christmas time about Mary and Joseph. However, this is one tradition I’m hoping to do away with. As a newly married couple, one of the most important things to me was establishing some traditions, but neither of us had many traditions growing up. I had an idea one year and decided I wanted to do it every year. I call it our “Three Wise Men” tradition. We wanted a tradition that was more Christ oriented, so we decided to have three family gifts about Christ or some sort of present or service for someone else. We’ve gotten hymn books and pictures and books about Christ to help us have the spirit in our home, but the more meaningful gifts are when we’re able to serve others. One year, Nick was talking with one of his coworkers who mentioned that she had trouble reading the scriptures and wanted a way to talk about Christ with her children. So we decided to buy a copy of the Children’s Book of Mormon stories and give it to her. We lived next to a family who we had become friends with and so we decided to share some presents with their children.

This was our fourth Christmas together and we are still developing and creating traditions for our family. A few have transferred from our past, like one day I hope to have a Christmas village around our tree with a train to circle it. We go with Nick’s family every year to look at Christmas lights; down in Salt Lake or at Thanksgiving point or Ogden. But most important is making Christ the center of our celebrations.

Like the star that guided the Wise Men to Mary and Joseph, like the declaration of the Angel to the Shepherds, like the birth of John the Baptist and the example of St. Nicholas, like Samuel the Lamanite and the day and a night and a day to symbolize the birth of Christ to the Nephites, like service and missionary work and the holiday spirit; they’re all given to us to bring us closer to Christ and to help us remember the angel’s declaration.

“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be unto all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger.” Or for those that need it a little simpler: “Shazaam! Hey, unto you a child is born!” It is now our job to take that message to the world.

TESTIMONY

Wedge's favorite game!

I realize 99% of my posts have to do with Wedge, but he gives me so much to talk about! Every time Wedge gets a drink he thinks it's fun to come pounce me and start licking my face. The reason why it's important to understand that he gets a drink before doing this is because his mouth is extra slobbery, his chin is dripping wet, and his ears are soaked. I don't know how he knows, but he literally does this EVERY time! Sometimes I think he gets a drink just to soak my face. It's like he uses my face as a wash cloth to dry his. He may not show it on the outside, but I swear he's laughing at his silly joke on the inside. His tail wags like crazy like he's thinking, "Haha, I got you good this time. Sucka!" He makes me giggle! He's the best puppy and my life is so much brighter with my two favorite boys!

Church Talk = ick!

I have to speak in church in 2 weeks and it's making me sick to my stomach. I HATE public speaking with a passion and although I got the best topic in the world, it still isn't comforting. I've avoided speaking my whole life up until I got married. Then we were asked to speak and Nick told the Bishop we would do it. I told him the only way he was getting me up there was if he spoke at the podium with me. So we gave a "team talk". Now I have to stand up there all by myself and I just don't know if I can do it.

My topic is Christmas traditions. Easy right?! I thought so too until I started to write a talk. I'm having a really hard time incorporating the Gospel into my talk. How exactly do I use scriptures with traditions? I plan on talking about different types of Christmas traditions that you find in homes across the world such as: Christmas trees, Christmas lights, Star on top of the tree, hanging wreaths, etc and why we do those things. Then I plan on talking about traditions that are done on a more individual basis like mine and Nick's "Three Wise Men" tradition. The problem is I can't seem to figure out how to make it all come together.

Ugh. I hate giving talks. Writing it is half the battle. I couldn't imagine being asked only a week in advanced. Which I guess was technically the case, but I told him I needed more time to prepare so I got it post poned for a few weeks! If it doesn't come together soon I'm afraid I'm going to be "sick" that day and just not go!

Poor Wedgie Pooh

Wedge isn't very happy with us today. He had an appointment with the vet at 8:00 this morning to get fixed. I picked him up at 1:30 in the afternoon and he was completely out of it. The nurse that went in and got him came back and said when she opened the door to pick him up he just started whining like crazy. Then another nurse said, "oh yeah, he's a big whiner, that's for sure", which is something I already knew! He's been very mellow today and he's literally slept all day. He was up long enough to eat and go to the bathroom and then back to sleep he went. He's been grunting a lot in his sleep and when he is awake he whines. My poor baby, I feel so bad for him. :( Oh yes! And if you'll notice, he has his favorite toy with him! Okay, I admit I staged it a little to make it cuter for the picture, but it was really there before, I just moved it closer. :)

Three Wise Men

I love traditions, especially at Christmas time. Nick and I started doing a tradition 2 years ago that I call the "Three Wise Men" tradition. We started out with wanting Christmas to be spread out through the whole day and not just open gifts first thing in the morning and not have anything else to look forward to for the rest of the day. I decided we shoud start a tradition where we set 3 gifts aside to represent the three wise men gifts and not open them until the evening. These gifts would be more spiritual gifts or at least gifts we find at Deseret Book! The first year we did it we got a hymn book, General Conference on CD, and I can't remember what the third gift was, but I'm sure it was a good one! :)

The following year I decided to change our tradition. Instead of buying gifts for ourselves I thought it would be a more meaningful tradition to buy gifts for other people where we saw a need. My next door neighbor at the time was struggling financially so Nick and I took over a couple of gifts for his 2 little girls. Walmart was doing a coat drive so we bought a coat to donate. Last, Nick was talking with one of his co-workers and she told him she's never read the scriptures because she doesn't understand them. So we bought her a children's version of the Book of Mormon that is full of pictures to illistrate the stories.

We haven't quite decided what we're going to do for our three gifts this year. We're taking dinner to a lady that is no longer active in the church who is having a tumor removed this week. I think we'll draw a name from a giving angel tree as well, but I'm not sure what we'll do for our third gift.

We're still working out all the kinks, but hopefully it will be a tradition we do for the rest of our lives. I hope once our lives slow down a little and we're not both working full time and going to school, we'll do more service geared gifts rather than just purchasing things for people in need, but right now that's pretty much all we have time for!

Favorite Toys!

Wedge has 3 favorite toys, but this is the cutest one that he carries around. We brought it home with us from the kennel we bought him at so it's his most familiar toy. He carries it around everywhere and when he's not carrying it he hides it so Nick and I can't play with it. It's very rare to find his duck laying on the floor. Random places we find it hidden is under the couch, behind his crate, stuffed between the CumfySac and the banana chair, and under the throw blanket. And he holds it in his mouth and tries to dig anywhere and everywhere in an effort to bury it. He's so silly, but yet it's another reason why we love him so much!

Christmas Card Pictures

Nick and I decided to take our family picture today for our Christmas cards, but the weather wasn't cooporating. I'm sure most people would love for it to be snowing while they're taking their Christmas pictures, but we had to use a timer on the camera and EVERY picture had snow flakes in all the wrong places. Wedge got burned out after a while so we were only able to get a few pictures and none of them turned out good; at least not good enough to be displayed in other people's homes! So we decided to take pictures inside by the Christmas tree instead. Not nearly as cute, but it'll have to do.

Here goes nothin...

I'm not sure what's gotten into me, but I decided to start a blog. I have no idea what I'm doing and I spent so much time trying to pick a site name and template that now I'm too tired to do anything with it! Go figure! Welp, there's always tomorrow. :)