Funny how a bowl of pears can delight me so much. There’s something about the glass, the fruit, the light that captures my attention over and over.

Sometimes gray hair sparkles. It shines. The light hits those silvers and just gleams off the top of a head, but the trick is when your friends are getting older and you’re not sure if they’re going gray and you just feel kinda awkward about saying anything out loud so you don’t. (Which is really the perfect thing because if you can’t say something nice we all know it’s best to say nothing at all.)

I’m here to say that I’m done coloring my hair. Yes indeed, that is gray hair you’ll be seeing on my crown.

I reserve the right to color my hair again someday. I may hate the silvers and decide to go deep brunette again. I may love the silvers and accentuate the whole noggin with purple stripes. Who knows? The world is my oyster! But for today, I’m done coloring my hair.

I’ve been covering up gray hair for around seven years now. In my early 30’s gray equaled shame in my mind. I’m not even sure why I bought into the message that gray was shameful, but I did. Each offending hair was first plucked out and then later covered with a mess of hair dye. I love my hairstylist—she’s a longtime friend who always makes me feel like a million bucks in her chair. She’s done a terrific job of coloring my hair all these years! But I am just over it. I don’t want to spend the big bucks on it anymore. I find it’s hard to match my dark color as time goes on. I’d like to skip the chemicals on my scalp. But most importantly, I’m not ashamed of the gray any longer.

Why did I fear the change in hair color years ago? Everyone says it’s because gray makes you look old. But NEWSFLASH, I wasn’t old then. I’m not old now. And WHAT’S WRONG WITH OLD? For real people, what is wrong with age? We have got serious problems in our society. We’ve got 50 year olds trying to look like they’re 25. For what and why???

I love being a woman. I really like lipstick and have no intention of giving it up in order to go au naturel on my lips. While I’m fine with the natural color God gave my lips, I do like to jazz it up a bit. Hair is no different. Silver stripes are a choice I’m making and I’m cool with that. I’ve read up quite a bit on going gray young and it’s fascinating to me how many women are insulted for making this choice. Hear me now: you don’t have a say in my hair coloring choices, friends. Do what you want with your own head. Too many women are treated rudely for this choice in particular and I think that kind of commentary needs to end. One gal was called a witch the other day! (Be careful who you call witch, right? You may just end up with a spell cast on you; I’m thinking some sort of animal tail or your mouth closed a la Neo in The Matrix.)

Men tend to be called sexy when they go gray—think George Clooney—and women are called witches. Let’s change the dialogue here, people. In so many ways, let’s be kind to one another. You can start with me.

PS: One last weird thing I’ve noticed when I’ve mentioned I’m letting my silver hair grow… Almost every woman then talks about her own choices, often with defensiveness. Listen to me when I say that I’m really not judging you or staring at your head—you do you and I’ll support you in it.

First opportunity for Christmas treats and I pick caramel popcorn. Yum.

Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible is what you grab for reading material when you’re leaving your parents’ house and your child wants to go swing at Pioneers Park. The swing, you know, is a magical place for singing and exploring miles of imaginary worlds. It takes some time to swing. As it turns out, it also takes some time to read Matthew Henry’s Commentary on THE WHOLE BIBLE.

I remember talking with my tablemates at Horn Creek Camp (good old PYA!) about what table manners they had been taught growing up. A few funny things came to my attention, like the fact that some kids heard that you could reach across the table as long as one of your feet was on the ground. I knew that one was, uh, so. not. true.

Fast forward to yesterday when I reached for a cookie sheet and spied plastic IKEA placemats purchased last year. I’ve never used them with Livia, but just glimpsing them made me ask this question on Facebook:

I’m curious about my generation & younger… Are you all teaching your kids table manners—from how to eat/talk appropriately at the table to how to set a table? Were you explicitly taught these things as a kid? Have you ever been in a situation where you really didn’t know how to conduct yourself at a dinner?

I felt an immediate need to write a disclaimer like, “PARENTS OF LITTLE CHILDREN, I AM NOT JUDGING YOU.” But I held back because there was no judgement intended in my fairly straightforward question. It’s okay to ask questions—truly we don’t need to hold each others’ hands, right? But now I’m going to say it for real. Sweet parents of small children, you are not judged. I know you’re working so hard to feed your kid three square meals and a million snacks a day. I know you’re tired. Stop reading now if you’d like.

My mom probably deserves 100% of the credit for teaching us Lawton kids table manners. I’m sure dad reinforced her teaching and certainly wanted us to be polite and respectful at the table, but all the lessons taught came from mom. (This is the part where I write that my childhood memories are a giant blur. I remember very random things, mostly feelings—but my brothers tend to remember more specifics so they are free to add to the conversation here.) We ate at the dinner table almost exclusively. My mom and dad fed us healthy food and we didn’t always like it. Okay, so we were kind of terrible. I’m sure dinnertime wasn’t always pleasant when you served kids who didn’t like spaghetti. But we were sure as heck taught table manners. Mouths closed. Ask to be excused before leaving. No reaching, but ask for dishes to be passed. We knew where the silverware all went and how to set the table. The more fancy stuff came later, but because we had good training as smaller children, fine dining never really seemed daunting.

I am not as good a teacher as my mom.

We don’t always eat at the dinner table. There are only three of us and we have a LOT of together time. I don’t always make my child set the table because, let’s face it, it’s faster if I do it. I have more training to do—my 12 year old is not quite ready for the world yet (imagine that). But I want her to be ready when she leaves our home. I want her to feel comfortable eating appropriately on a date as well as in her boss’s home someday. I’d like her to wait for the hostess to sit before diving into any meal or dessert. I want her to know how to signal to the wait staff that she has finished her meal, and I’d like for her to establish her own dinner times with confidence in a home of her own someday.

In the bigger picture, I see table etiquette as a small part of my job as a mom. There are a million things I’m trying to instill in my daughter and I’m praying much of it sticks.

This one. She gives me a nudge in the costume department and I can’t help but join her in some sort of crazy scheme. All the elf love for Redeemer tonight. Yummy treats, great company, and as always, a hilarious white elephant tradition was upheld. We now have a literal white elephant in the house. Maybe he’ll show up on the DPP. You never know.

My server was down last night, but really and truly I shot this and posted it to the Facebook DPP page before midnight. But just barely! I forgot my camera all day long and did one of those “what can I shoot” searches around the house just before 11pm. The go-to at that time of night, without natural light, is lights of course. I had a few other funky shots and knew this one would be interesting as well. The lines within the image and the strange blue bokeh intrigued me. It was the clear winner for Day 9 of the December Photo Project.

Christmas trees contain a little bit of magic, I think.