Counting Turkey Feathers!

November 23, 2010

>When upon the holidays you are strangely lost,
When you are stressed out with all the many costs,
Count your many turkey feathers, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what you can get done!
Count your turkey feathers, name them one by one,
Count your turkey feathers, see what God has done;
Count your turkey feathers, name them one by one,
Count your many turkey feathers, see what God has done!

Okay, I admit I’ve entered into my seasonal stress fest. Too much to do, too little time and too little money usually adds up to at least one major hissy fit between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s my own personal tradition that I bring to the Kuss holiday season.

Well, not this year! I’m determined to change this tradition if it kills me, and it might, because containing the explosion could lead to an implosion, which doesn’t sound all that healthy. Nevertheless, I’m going to do my bestest just to go with whatever flow comes along and enjoy the glorious moments, while ignoring the not so glorious.

Now that I’ve said that I’ve just invited the devil to test my rather flimsy mettle. Oh Lord, help me!

I’ve already had plenty of practice this school year with the whole family battling a bad case of Senioritis. We’re all ready to graduate from this stressful year of meeting community service requirements, visiting and applying to colleges, trying to come up with money for a senior trip and another car for the one going off to college, and trying to come up with a job and a life for the one graduating from college, while keeping a little money for the old folks who’ll soon be left on their own to wander the echoing empty rooms in a muttering daze. I can’t say that I’ve been exactly hissy fit free during the last few months–I mean, really people, deep-seated hissy addiction isn’t easy to beat–but at least I haven’t had the time to get entrenched in a full out fit that keeps on hissing long after the provocation has dissipated. (I like that sentence a lot!)

Plus my husband has been, as always, a major source of spiritual help. For quite some time now–ever since we’ve been together, which is getting close to forever–he has taken it upon his laid back and nearly comatose-with-calmness self to gently remind me, when he sees the steam beginning to leak from my eyes, to “Count Your Blessings, Debbie!” As those of you who are perhaps the more uncalm type such as I am may be able to relate, such a reminder doesn’t always(basically never) produce the results intended by the calm one. No, generally, such a reminder just makes the steam burst out in a torrent of volcanic hot stuff that shocks the calm one with wondrous alarm. This has happened over and over and over. You’d think the calm one would take a hint that maybe the less calm one will not react with the hoped for “Oh, of course, you’re right. I’ll do that starting right now!” Poor calm one. He just doesn’t get the whole volcanic cycle.

So anyway, of course he’s right, and I do know that, but in the midst of an eruption, I don’t want to be told what a pit of burning sludge I am and how easily I could change that. No, I want to get there my own personal self without any help from the Sensible One, other than a heartfelt expression of “Poor Baby.” And I do eventually manage to wade through the red hot lava to the other side where all my blessings are lined up before me ready to count off like well-trained soldiers. By that time, the calm one is long gone, however, so he rarely sees what a special time I’ve had scalding myself as I’ve waded through the muck to Blessing Villa. He misses out on so much by hiding from the showers of lava.

This is what I’ve decided to do. When I feel a stress fit coming on, I’m going to gently remind myself to count my blessings. But in order to do that without hearing the voice of the perfectly calm man reminding me to do that, and thus making me stubbornly rebellious, I’m going to rename my blessings, “turkey feathers” and count them instead. Then it sounds more like an idea sent straight from God to me without the husband go-between. Such a simple solution! And I have so many turkey feathers to count, that I’ll end up with enough turkeys to stock my internal freezer all the way into next year and beyond. Turkeys in the freezer beat out hot, burning lava any day, don’t you think?

I feel another hymn of praise coming on:

>Showers of lava, showers of lava we don’t need!
Mercy drops round us are falling,
But for the turkey feathers we plead!

Works for me! All you uncalm types may steal this idea for your own use. Glad to be of help. Happy Thanksgiving!