transact costar: The Schandorff Family ? Christmas week: When joy is elusive.

Welcome to Christmas week! As I was deciding what to blog about this week, it seemed that Christmas was an obvious choice. But what specifically might be interesting to our family, friends and curious onlookers? Pics of the kids making Christmas cookies? Our ladies Christmas party this past week? Decorations around our house, or around town? The MAF staff Christmas party? The party for special needs kids at a local school? Yes! Yes, yes, yes and yes. So I?m doing it all. (Not to say that everyone will be interested in everthing? but I?ll let them be the judge of that). And thus, Christmas week was born on our blog. Here?s post #1: Christmas around our home.

Rewind about three weeks. I was feeling sorry for myself. In fact, I was throwing myself a pretty awesome pity party. My family and friends were invited too. But wait ? they lived in another country! And the wallowing deepened. Not to say that there wasn?t genuine emotion there ? grief over being separated from family and friends during a time of year steeped in family traditions and parties with friends. But I was in a funk and couldn?t seem to get out of it.

It was still 85 degrees outside. Palm trees swayed in the breeze. And this is Christmas??I tried decorating?the house, but it did nothing for my Christmas spirit.

I turned on Christmas music. But the weather outside wasn?t frightful ? if anything, it was beautiful. Sun and warmth in early December?- who was I to complain? But there were no delightful fires, either ? just the smell of burning trash wafting in through my windows. And a white Christmas? You?ve got to be kidding me. The music was turned off.

I needed a major dose of joy. Enter, The Apparent Project. I was shopping for Christmas presents, and there it was. JOY. With a capital J.?Hammered into metal.?I bought it for $5, took it home, and set it on a windowsill.

I passed it multiple times per day. I glanced at it as I walked through the room. It stared at me while I washed the dishes.?Joy. Joy to the World. The Savior reigns. The Savior had come, in tiny vulnerability. He had suffered grief and loss. He experienced the mundane. He was separated from family and knew what it was to feel alone. He understood. And if I had such a Savior, what was there left to feel but joy? No, make that Joy, with a capital J.

My mood didn?t change overnight. Sadness lingered. But slowly, joy entered. It was in the cards and letters that began arriving in the mail.

It hung on our tree: painted on to wooden snowflakes that my grandfather had carved, hanging on gilded ribbon that traveled from Russia and was gifted to us by my?father-in-law,?twisted into wire strung around?glazed clay by my sister-in-law?s creative hands, and wrapped tightly into paper turned into bells?and globes by Haitian artisans earning their living. It shone brightly in warm colors flung across the greenery by my grinning son.

Joy came in bright, unexpected colors one morning, given to me by a smiling little girl and her mother ? a new friend.

I enclosed anticipated joy in cloth bags ? fabric sent by Tim?s mom, who sent so much to make our Christmas merry. I stored away gifts from family, friends, old coworkers, and even strangers, and marveled at how much love there was. Distance may separate us, but my family was right here in my house with me.