Christmas Morning Wifesaver
mmm ...oh the delicacies of Christmas morning brunch. The "Wifesaver"! What a funny name for a recipe. Our family has celebrated with this wonderful brunch treat every Christmas Day Morning for countless years now. I have no clue how many and I am finding that there are a few of you out there also who celebrate with this delight.
Funny enough, I have never been a casserole, stroganoff, chilli, lasagna, spaghetti girl. I think that it was WAY too many years on the road travelling and encountering every traditional church potluck imagineable where all the suprises of every little granny's cupboards are thrown together to make some sort of casserole, soup or assorted combination thereof. ick...gross... Let me tell you we had some pretty scary surprises many a time which definately put me off to any of the above. To this day I have never made one of those meals.
HOWEVER, until the Christmas Morning Wifesaver ...it is a combination of eggs, ham, cheese, breadcrumbs and other tasty treats combined into a layered cake sort of lasagna pan form. As close to a casserole of sorts that I like. So yummy ... you must all now run out and find that recipe for your next festive holiday! hahaaaa:) Only question ... why is it called "Christmas Morning WifeSaver?" hhmmmm...never thought to ask my mom that. Perhaps, it is because you can prepare it all the night before and then it should be called "Christmas Eve Wife Stealer?" ok. lame joke. Nevertheless, perhaps I will find out one day when I am a wife myself and can experience the mystical "saving" of this recipe.
All this talk above to say - Christmas Day was spent at the Ruis' ... and yes, once again, the "Wifesaver" appeared! They too have adopted this tradition into their family. ahhhhahaha.... another little piece of "home" for me.
In between the Christmas Day Wifesaver and the 4pm Turkey Feast - can you say SPANDEX! Anita and I decided to head out to the streets of Tujunga with an assorted box filled with shampoos, conditioners and the remainder of the children's toys from the night before. We wanted to meet and give out Christmas gifts to some of the homeless, tent communities and friends that we would meet on the street.
As we were driving down Foothill Blvd. on the way to a trailer park I spotted out of the corner of my eye an older gentleman barefoot hobbling on his bandaged, cut open feet. You could tell that he was having difficulty walking so anita and I pulled around and approached this man seeing if he was ok. We met Robin for the first time, whose face was red and swollen, hair matted, urine stained levi's, tattered slippers in one hand and the other bracing his fragile body against the cement wall. Looked like he could not remember the last bath he had and definately the smell matched that. I started to ask him about his feet and noticed very quickly that the bandages hadn't been changed for quite some time ...his feet were stained black with yellow pussing wounds mixed with blood and other were creating such pain he was having difficulty even standing. We asked him where he was going and all he wanted was to get to the dollar store to buy a pad of lined paper for his binder. He was a writer. We carefully asked him if we could drive him to the dollar store and then back to his house so that he would not have to walk any further on his feet. He complied and so off we went ending with a painful prayer of healing and comfort with and for Robyn as we dropped him off at his adult residence.
We met a couple other people that day in Tujunga and as I got to thinking about it afterwards realized that our encounters on Christmas Day really should be no different than any other day. I have to say it felt so good to be able to step outside the normal/typical christmas celebrations - to look beyond myself and my little world to again re-sensitize myself to random 'others' around me. Interesting how we need to intentionally be looking for the opportunities to keep ourselves in the face of the outcast when our cultural norms and comforts really actually isolate us from the earthiness and rawness of such realities. Perhaps it is because our own brokenness overwhelms us most days that it makes us hard to look outward.
Really, who are the lepers of our day? The outcast? The ones who Jesus walked with, talked with, broke bread with? Are they still not all around us ... and really not that hard to find. We just have to be willing to look past the peripherie and beyond "me" to really SEE.
Father, I pray that again and again you would help me to not be so 'inward' that I miss the constant beauty of the 'outward' all around me. And that beauty can come in all shapes, sizes and yes, even smells.
Funny enough, I have never been a casserole, stroganoff, chilli, lasagna, spaghetti girl. I think that it was WAY too many years on the road travelling and encountering every traditional church potluck imagineable where all the suprises of every little granny's cupboards are thrown together to make some sort of casserole, soup or assorted combination thereof. ick...gross... Let me tell you we had some pretty scary surprises many a time which definately put me off to any of the above. To this day I have never made one of those meals.
HOWEVER, until the Christmas Morning Wifesaver ...it is a combination of eggs, ham, cheese, breadcrumbs and other tasty treats combined into a layered cake sort of lasagna pan form. As close to a casserole of sorts that I like. So yummy ... you must all now run out and find that recipe for your next festive holiday! hahaaaa:) Only question ... why is it called "Christmas Morning WifeSaver?" hhmmmm...never thought to ask my mom that. Perhaps, it is because you can prepare it all the night before and then it should be called "Christmas Eve Wife Stealer?" ok. lame joke. Nevertheless, perhaps I will find out one day when I am a wife myself and can experience the mystical "saving" of this recipe.
All this talk above to say - Christmas Day was spent at the Ruis' ... and yes, once again, the "Wifesaver" appeared! They too have adopted this tradition into their family. ahhhhahaha.... another little piece of "home" for me.
In between the Christmas Day Wifesaver and the 4pm Turkey Feast - can you say SPANDEX! Anita and I decided to head out to the streets of Tujunga with an assorted box filled with shampoos, conditioners and the remainder of the children's toys from the night before. We wanted to meet and give out Christmas gifts to some of the homeless, tent communities and friends that we would meet on the street.
As we were driving down Foothill Blvd. on the way to a trailer park I spotted out of the corner of my eye an older gentleman barefoot hobbling on his bandaged, cut open feet. You could tell that he was having difficulty walking so anita and I pulled around and approached this man seeing if he was ok. We met Robin for the first time, whose face was red and swollen, hair matted, urine stained levi's, tattered slippers in one hand and the other bracing his fragile body against the cement wall. Looked like he could not remember the last bath he had and definately the smell matched that. I started to ask him about his feet and noticed very quickly that the bandages hadn't been changed for quite some time ...his feet were stained black with yellow pussing wounds mixed with blood and other were creating such pain he was having difficulty even standing. We asked him where he was going and all he wanted was to get to the dollar store to buy a pad of lined paper for his binder. He was a writer. We carefully asked him if we could drive him to the dollar store and then back to his house so that he would not have to walk any further on his feet. He complied and so off we went ending with a painful prayer of healing and comfort with and for Robyn as we dropped him off at his adult residence.
We met a couple other people that day in Tujunga and as I got to thinking about it afterwards realized that our encounters on Christmas Day really should be no different than any other day. I have to say it felt so good to be able to step outside the normal/typical christmas celebrations - to look beyond myself and my little world to again re-sensitize myself to random 'others' around me. Interesting how we need to intentionally be looking for the opportunities to keep ourselves in the face of the outcast when our cultural norms and comforts really actually isolate us from the earthiness and rawness of such realities. Perhaps it is because our own brokenness overwhelms us most days that it makes us hard to look outward.
Really, who are the lepers of our day? The outcast? The ones who Jesus walked with, talked with, broke bread with? Are they still not all around us ... and really not that hard to find. We just have to be willing to look past the peripherie and beyond "me" to really SEE.
Father, I pray that again and again you would help me to not be so 'inward' that I miss the constant beauty of the 'outward' all around me. And that beauty can come in all shapes, sizes and yes, even smells.
2 Comments:
Sounds like a pretty intense Christmas day for you. Awesome that you got to spend it with the Ruis family. I was hoping for something like that for you (since, to my knowledge, there aren't too many people that are close enough to be family equivalents).
We had an interesting spin to our gather at my in-laws too. Justin, my brother-in-law, has been spending some time at the drop-ins and has become friends with, probably many, but in particular a guy who called him Christmas Eve (we're German, so we celebrate Christmas Eve) and poured out his heart on Justin that someone had pulled a gun on him earlier and was threatening his life along with his wife and two young children. Justin was obviously shaken up, and had promised this guy that we would, as a family, pray for him (naturally). This chaotic event was probably the closest I've gotten to the heart of Christmas - that is, of course, the closest I've gotten to it at a Christmas gathering or celebration.
Bless you Sheri!!
Hey my mother in law introduced me too the wifesaver thing a few years ago. I was going to make it this year but I didn't get the recipe in time.
Sounds like it was a good Christmas Day for you and the people you met.
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