LifeTrac with Chuck Swindoll is a presentation of Insight for Living Canada.
Our idea of Christmas is what I would call a Martha Stewart Wonder Woman Christmas
(laughter), not an Erma Bombeck leftover fiasco. Charlie this past week gave me correspondence from
Martha Stewart to Erma Bombeck. And I thought you would like to hear this. (laughter) Two letters.
The first is from Martha to Erma. “Hi Erma,
“This perfectly delightful note is being sent on paper I made myself (laughter) just to tell
you what I’ve been up to. Since it snowed last night, I got up early and made a sled
with (laughter) . . . with old barn wood and with a glue gun. (laughter) I handpainted it
in gold leaf, and got out my loom, and made a blanket (laughter) in peach and mauves.
“By then, it was time to start making the place mats and napkins
for my 20 breakfast guests. I’m serving the old Stewart special twelve-course breakfast, but
I’ll let you in on a little secret: I didn’t have time to make the table and
the chairs this morning (laughter), so I’ve used the ones that I have on hand.
And then, while the homemade bread was rising, I took antique candle molds and made the dishes
(exactly the same shade of pink) to use for breakfast. These were made from Hungarian clay,
which you can get in almost any Hungarian craft store. (laughter)
“Well, I must run now. I need to finish the buttonholes on the dress I’m wearing for
breakfast. I’ll get out the sled and drive this note to the post office as soon as the glue dries
on the envelope I’ll be making. (laughter) I hope my breakfast guests don’t stay too long--I have
40,000 cranberries to string with bay leaves before my speaking engagement at noon. (laughter)
“Love, Martha Stewart. (laughter)
This is Erma, back to Martha.
“Dear Martha, “I’m writing
this on the back of an old shopping list (laughter), pay no attention to the coffee
and jelly stains. I’m 20 minutes late getting my daughter up for school, packing a lunch with one
hand, on the phone with the dog pound, seems old Ruff needs bailing out, again. (laughter)
“Burnt my arm on the curling iron when I was trying to make those cute curly fries (laughter),
how DO they do that? (laughter) Still can’t find the scissors to cut out some snowflakes,
tried using an old disposable razor . . . trashed the tablecloth. (laughter) (pffft)
“Tried that cranberry thing, frozen cranberries get mushed up after I defrosted them in the
microwave. Oh, and don’t use Fruity Pebbles as a substitute on that Rice Krispie snowball recipe
(laughter), unle . . . unless you happen to like a disgusting shade that resembles puke!” (laughter)
That’s my favorite line, “it resembled puke!” “Oops, the smoke alarm is
going off. I’ll talk to you later. “Love, Erma.” (laughter) (applause)
Most of us have this . . . have this idealistic idea about Christmas.
Let me just kind of set the record straight. It was not . . . it is not perfect now and it won’t
be perfect ne . . . next Christmas, and I can tell you for sure, it wasn’t perfect the first one.
It was really messy.
In your efforts to create a perfect Christmas . . . are you missing the true meaning?
Listen to more LifeTrac messages with Chuck Swindoll
at lifetrac dot C A. That’s l-i-f-e-t-r-a-c. LifeTrac. Where Life and Truth Meet
The preceding LifeTrac presentation was brought to you by Insight for Living Canada.
The original message "A Relationship, a Courtship...a
Miracle" was copyrighted in 1998 and this LifeTrac sound recording was copyrighted in
2010 by Charles R. Swindoll Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide