Category / Books

by Shelly Ngo

Reading Our Way to Christmas

I love traditions. Maybe it’s because unlike flossing your teeth or doing stomach crunches, traditions seem like fun habits to create.

Every Thursday evening, we have Backward Dinner night at our house, where we start with dessert and work our way backward through our meal: dessert, entrées, and then onto salads or starters if I’ve managed something that elaborate for dinner.

Mostly, my kids love to observe Backward Dinner Night when their friends come over to our house. Or, if we’re eating out, they get to explain to our server why we need our desserts first.

Another more recent tradition is to plan a tourist day in our own city on Veterans’ Day, which we’ll be doing again this Monday. We’ve taken the elevators to the observation deck of the Columbia Tower; had lunch at the Fairmont Olympic; gone glass blowing or cupcake tasting. In the evening, we set up our artificial Christmas tree and decorate it. No sense in waiting until December to enjoy the lights and ornaments. (Yeah, sometimes the kids talk me into a real tree as well in December.)

On Veteran’s day, we’ll also wrap our advent Christmas books. Starting on Dec. 1, we open one wrapped book (the kids rotate who gets to choose which present to unwrap) and read a Christmas bedtime story each night. The stories range from silly (Santa’s Eleven Months Off) to sweet (Redheaded Robbie’s Christmas Story); Sentimental (The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story) to iconic (How the Grinch Stole Christmas).

On Christmas Eve, we read the Nativity story.

I’ve change out a few books each year as the kids have advanced from infants to toddlers to grade school and middle school. The scratch and sniff book, The Sweet Smell of Christmas gave way to Pearl Buck’s, Christmas Day in the Morning. And the list is a blend of Christian and secular.

It’s been years of scouring bookstores and book lists and libraries to find some favorites. In case you need to purchase holiday presents for small people or want to start your own Advent book tradition, I thought I’d share my list with you—25 because it’s a nice number even if it means you’ll have to figure out which book you’ll exclude leading up to Christmas!

In random order:

  1. Redheaded Robbie’s Christmas Story, by Bill Luttrell
  2. The Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg
  3. Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry
  4. Snowmen at Night, by Mark Buehner
  5. Auntie Claus, by Elise Primavera (The three Auntie Claus books are my kids’ favorites at the moment!)
  6. Auntie Claus and the Key to Christmas, by Elise Primavera
  7. Auntie Claus, Home for the Holidays, by Elise Primavera
  8. Penny’s Christmas Jar, by Jason F. Wright
  9. How Murray Saved Christmas, by Mike Reiss
  10. Merry UnChristmas, by Mike Reiss
  11. Olive, the Other Reindeer, by J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh
  12. Mooseltoe, by Margie Palatini
  13. Christmas Day in the Morning, by Pearl S. Buck
  14. The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story, by Gloria Houston
  15. Legend of the Christmas Stocking*, by Rick Osborne
  16. A Wish to be a Christmas Tree, by Colleen Monroe
  17. The Legend of the Candy Cane*, by Lori Walburg VandenBosch
  18. A Wish for Wings That Work: An Opus Christmas Story, by Berkeley Breathed
  19. Santa’s Eleven Months Off, by Mike Reiss
  20. How Santa Got His Job, by Stephen Krensky
  21. There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow, by Lucille Colandro
  22. The Little Shepherd Girl: A Christmas Story*, by Julianne Henry, Jim Madsen
  23. Humphrey’s First Christmas*, by Carol Heyer
  24. My Dad Cancelled Christmas, by Sean Casey
  25. How the Grinch Stole Christmas, by Dr. Seuss

(I’ve noted specific Christian-themed books with an ‘*‘ so you can tailor your list in case you want to focus on or avoid the religious books suggested. I’ve also bolded my own personal favorites!)

by Shelly Ngo

Always Attend the Funeral

In the 1950s, Edward R. Murrow hosted a radio program called, This I Believe, where people from all walks of life took a few minutes to share the guiding principles by which they lived.

The show featured essays from Helen Keller, Harry Truman, Jackie Robinson, and Eleanor Roosevelt. They also broadcasted pieces from cab drivers, scientists, and secretaries.

In 2005, National Public Radio resurrected the concept and invited a new batch of contributors, famous and unknown, to share their core values. The series included everything from advice on being kind to the pizza guy to Bill Gates’ thoughts on unleashing the power of creativity.

The next year, a collection of these short essays were published into a book, This I Believe. They’re wonderful essays. Funny. Poignant. Profound. I love the brevity of the pieces because distilling your life philosophy down to 350 – 500 words forces you to get to the heart of things.

Among the many great essays, one by Deirdre Sullivan, a freelance attorney in Brooklyn, has stayed with me over the years: “Always Go to the Funeral.”

Sullivan writes about how her father forced her as a teenager to attend the funeral for her fifth-grade math teacher and her awkward expressions of sympathy to the family. Eventually, Sullivan realized that a personal philosophy of “going to funerals” meant more than that:

“I’m talking about those things that represent only inconvenience to me, but the world to the other guy. You know, the painfully under-attended birthday party. The hospital visit during happy hour…In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn’t been good versus evil. It’s hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing. In going to funerals, I’ve come to believe that while I wait to make a grand heroic gesture, I should just stick to the small inconveniences that let me share in life’s inevitable, occasional calamity.”

I’ve been to a lot of funerals: A high school friend who committed suicide. My high school journalism teacher/mentor. The younger sister of our babysitter. My friends who died along with their children in a private plane crash in Montana. The husband of my friend and colleague who took his own life a few years ago. Parents and spouses of my small group friends from church. My 40-year-old brother-in-law, Richard, who died of a rare brain disease in 2005.

This past week, my sister and brother-in-law would have celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary. Up close, I know what it meant to her to have so many people show up at Richard’s funeral 7 years ago. The salesman from a car dealership came to the funeral. Another salesman who sold home theatre systems attended Richard’s service as well. It says something about Richard, who made friends with everyone he encountered, that these folks came. Moreover, it was comforting to my sister that people showed up to grieve with her. Richard’s life mattered, and physical bodies at the funeral spoke to that.

Today, I’m attending a memorial service for a woman who passed away from cancer. I’m attending the service to honor her memory. I’m attending the memorial for her husband. And I’m going for me, because while there are some logistical inconveniences of time and travel and shuffling kids around to attend, I’ve started to realize what a privilege it is to be friends with people; an honor to celebrate births, mark life’s milestones, and be present in their grief.

Always attend the funeral.

by Shelly Ngo

The Perfect Woman

A friend emailed this morning asking if I had suggestions for books to give to high school and college graduates. I looked around at the bookshelves in my study room and suggested a few including, “Living a Life That Matters” by Rabbi Harold Kushner; a book by Dennis Trittin, “What I Wish I Knew at 18″; and “Love Does” by Bob Goff.

The books caused me think about what I consider important at 41, over what my 21-year-old self might have thought about life.

At 21, my ideas about my life looked a lot like what columnist Ellen Goodman described at a YWCA luncheon a few weeks ago.

Who was “The Ideal Woman” circa the ‘90s, Goodman asked?

The Ideal Woman got up at 5:30 a.m. and exercised with a cardio workout and weights for an hour before she woke her 2.3 children, and served them a grade-A nutritional breakfast. She ushered them out the door to school, perfectly groomed, and equipped with every completed piece of homework tucked neatly in their backpacks.

She then showered, slipped into her $1,200 Armani suit, and left for the office where she spent a rewarding day working at her creative and meaningful job that improved society, and yet also provided her with a $250,000 salary.

After work, The Ideal Woman returned home to make a Julia Child-worthy dinner with her husband while they had interesting conversations about their day, helped their children with their homework, and then gathered the family around the table to have stimulating debates over dinner about world affairs.

After dinner, she spent quality time with her 2.3 children before tucking them into bed. The ideal woman then read several journals to stay up on current events before engaging in hot, multi-orgasmic sex with her husband until midnight when she fell asleep because, well, tomorrow is another day.

Goodman’s tongue-in-cheek description made me laugh. And wince. It was awfully close to what I envisioned for my life at 21.

I wanted to be clever. And accomplished. An amazing wife and mother. I knew, theoretically, that you couldn’t have it all, but it wouldn’t hurt to aim high.

So I set out on a career path, driven by the idea that I could write about important topics; and while I was at it, end world hunger. I learned that my sphere of influence was a bit smaller than that.

I discovered that rather than change the world, I could affect (and be affected by) the lives of the three or four or five people who worked alongside me by being a good co-worker, a fair manager, and a dedicated friend. I found out that as you move up a career ladder, you sometimes lose the intimacy of deep relationships with your co-workers. I also learned that managers get to make significant decisions, but they must also handle the unpleasant decisions that sometimes negatively alter people’s lives.

Along the way, I got married, armed with feminist ideals of partnership and equality. If you had asked me about the pitfalls of marriage at the onset of my own, I would have answered that too many women submerged their own identities in marriage and lost their independence and sense of self. It’s possible that that happens. But on the other end of the spectrum, I found that it’s hard to buck traditional roles or even pretend that some gender-based differences don’t exist. Focus on making sure responsibilities are split 50/50, or that your spouse appreciates your independence, and there’s less attention paid to knitting together an intimate partnership.

It was interesting to see François Hollande be sworn in as France’s new president last week. He and his girlfriend, Valérie Trierweiler, are the first unmarried couple to occupy France’s presidential palace. Furthermore, Ms. Trierweiler is trying to figure out how to reinvent the role of first lady to fit comfortably with her own professional career as a journalist.

“I haven’t been raised to serve a husband,” she told the NY Times. “I built my entire life on the idea of independence.”

NY Times readers responded with a barrage of compliments for Trierweiler’s bold statement. I read her comment and wondered how that would work out for her.

My 41-year-old self now thinks less about gender wars and more about the ways that men and women are amazingly different. And how much I appreciate those differences. And how building a relationship requires a deep commitment to figuring out how to serve another person.

How do you find ways to meet your spouse’s needs? How can you be the person who cheers him on, appreciates his strengths, and provides some grace when it’s required?

It sucks that my marriage ended with my husband having an affair with my friend. But I also think of the countless ways I failed to appreciate the things that Eric did well; failed to see things from his point of view; or communicated harshly when I could have opted to be more kind or gentle.

I listen to girlfriends complain about their husbands, and I’m sometimes struck with how small the annoyances seem to me in comparison to the benefits of having a spouse.

I used to chafe over the division of labor in our house. I worked full-time. Eric was a stay-at-home dad. It annoyed me that I worked all day only to come home to pull a second shift with dishes to wash, the laundry, diaper duty and manage our social calendar while Eric whiled away time on the computer. Male managers at work didn’t run out at lunch time to drop off dry-cleaning and buy birthday presents for their kids’ friends. Their stay-at-home wives took care of those duties.

Yet, today, when all the responsibilities fall to me, I think I’d be heady with gratitude for any one item to be taken off my plate by someone. I guess you care less about measuring for 50/50 when you’re shouldering 100 percent.

At 41, I care (a little) less about perfection. On most days, much of my house does look like a model home. Everything’s spotlessly clean and in its place (save the children’s rooms). But truthfully, the house is a little sterile that way. When I go to the homes of many of my friends, there’s a lived-in feeling that’s comfortable and inviting. I love the conversations and the laughter we share in their houses, and I leave without remembering a single detail about their furniture or decor.

And the same is true for almost everything else we women seem to put our efforts into when we’re 21: What we wear, how thin we are, how smart we are, how successful we are in our careers.

When I think of some of my closest friends, I think of people who are genuine and caring. I enjoy my friends who are kind and loyal and fun to be around. I don’t care about their houses, their clothes, or careers. Think about the people who have meant the most to you in life, and I doubt any of us come up with a list of people who matter to us because of their degrees or successes; their athleticism or beauty.

It’s only the most partial of lists, but this is what life looks like into my fourth decade of living:

  • I (mostly) realize that idealistic standards are ridiculous
  • I’m less anxious to change the world, and I think instead about the small ways I can make a difference right around me.
  • I appreciate what is because, too often in the past, I’ve brushed aside the moment while I’ve focused on the future.
  • I’m usually happiest when I’m thinking about other people rather than myself

Would I have understood any of this at 21? I’m not sure. Usually life lessons are learned far outside of the pages of a book.

by Shelly Ngo

Neighborhood Sleepovers

It began with a tragedy. A couple, both physicians, were raising two young children in a nice suburb in Rochester, New York. And then one night, the husband shot and killed his wife before killing himself. Their 11-year old and 12-year-old ran screaming into the street.

Journalist Peter Lovenheim lived 8 or 9 houses away but hardly knew the family. What haunted him was that no one else in the neighborhood seemed to know them well either.

Lovenheim began to look into the story. On the day of the murder/suicide, the mother, fearing for their safety had tried repeatedly to call a close friend to see if she and her kids could spend the night. Her friend was out-of-town for the day. After school, the woman took her kids to the public library to do their homework to stay out of their house, but by 9 p.m., with nowhere else to go, she took them home and put them to bed.

Her husband had cancelled her cell phone service earlier that day and then disabled her car when she returned home. At that point, her best option would have been to seek out a safe haven with a neighbor, but despite the fact that the family had lived in their home for 7 years, she apparently didn’t know anyone on her street well enough to show up on someone’s doorstep. An hour later, her husband killed her and then himself.

Their children moved away to live with grandparents, and the house was put up for sale. Yet the neighborhood seemed unaffected. “Why is it,” Lovenheim wrote, “in an age of discount airlines, unlimited cell phone minutes and the Internet, when we can create community anywhere, we often don’t know the people who live next door?”

After thinking about what it takes to build a community for a while, Lovenheim came upon an odd idea: What if he had a one-night sleepover with each neighbor on his street? He started talking to his neighbors and politely inviting himself over to their homes. It was a way to really get to know people beyond what they did for a living and how many children they had. More than half of the neighbors he approached with the idea agreed to have him sleepover and then write about their lives in his book released in April, In the Neighborhood: The Search for Community on an American Street, One Sleepover at a Time.

Lovenheim’s daughter watched her Dad pack his overnight bag and head over to various neighbors’ homes for sleepovers and declared him nuts. My daughter Megan, would die of mortification if I attempted neighborhood sleepovers, but I happen to think Lovenheim’s onto something.

It’s hard work to know people well; to reach outside our reserve and reticence and get to know each other’s stories. Worse yet, knowledge might require us to get involved. In the course of Lovenheim’s sleepovers, he met a woman three doors away who was struggling with breast cancer and in need of assistance. He began to think of ways the neighbors might be able to offer her their collective support.

I’ve been fortunate to live in two neighborhoods where people intentionally reached out to one another. When my kids left on one of their first vacations with their Dad and his girlfriend, I was saying a teary goodbye in the driveway. My then next-door neighbor Allison came over to ask if I wanted to join her family for dinner. I was so relieved not to have to walk back into my silent and empty house.

Other neighbors down the street in my old neighborhood have a summer tradition of setting up an outdoor movie screen in their cul-de-sac and inviting the neighbors to come by with lawn chairs and snacks to watch family movies. Before they started the film, they helped us break-the-ice with neighbors we might not know as well by passing out “worksheets.” Find a neighbor who has the same number of kids as you do and have them sign this paper. Find someone who is traveling out of the United States this summer. And so on. It might be anathema for the introverts among us, but it always takes some effort to begin an acquaintance that could lead to comfortable, lasting friendships.

I was sad to leave my neighbors when I moved homes a year and a half ago. But Day Two in my new home, while I was messing around with the plumbing of a faulty toilet, the doorbell rang. My new next door neighbors had come over to introduce themselves and brought a dozen cupcakes as they had noticed my brood of children. If only I had unpacked my towels and had one in the bathroom! (“Hi! Let me shake your hand with my wet one. No worries, I’ve just been messing around with the toilet!” I’m sure I made a great first impression with them!)

My new neighbors host small dinner parties at each other’s homes, and I was soon invited into the fold. Three dinners at different homes so far and when we were all snowed in during an unusual Seattle snow storm last winter, most of my new neighbors in the cul-de-sac walked over to my house for a Christmas party.

Getting to know our neighbors doesn’t require slumber parties or even dinner-party efforts. Last summer, spur-of-the moment, I stopped by Trader Joe’s for desserts on my way home from work and then called the neighbors to stop by my house for dessert and coffee after dinner.

I heard about a neighborhood in Columbus, OH where, for 7 years, they have hosted “Wednesdays on the Porch.” To date, 85 neighbors have invited neighbors to visit and munch on their front porches (doesn’t even require a clean house).

In San Diego, one neighborhood hosts a parade on New Year’s Day. No one watches because everyone has to be IN the parade.

I’m curious to read about Lovenheim’s sleepover adventures. I guess I can’t help but wonder about a guy who would invite himself over to his neighbors for a sleepover and what his perspective is the morning after. Maybe after I finish the book, I’ll pull out my sleeping bag and think about which neighbors I want to know better!

by Shelly Ngo

The Write Stuff

We all have our thing. Some women appreciate men in military uniforms. Others fawn over firemen, sports heroes, movie stars, or go crazy at rock concerts. I develop crushes on men with keyboard-calloused fingers. Not music keyboards. Computer keyboards.

Wit and intellect, a way with words, and I get weak in the knees. It’s no surprise, really, that I think Tim Keller, senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, should be voted “Sexiest Man Alive.” In my mind, best-selling author Don Miller could easily be a first runner-up to wear the SMA satin sash. Or maybe the “Sexiest Man Alive” title is etched on a leather tool belt. I don’t know.

For my birthday, my girlfriend Debbie bought tickets for us to hear Don Miller talk about his latest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I felt like a recipient of the Make a Wish Foundation except I wasn’t going to Disneyland. And I’m not terminally ill that I know of.

I had to promise Debbie that I wasn’t going to rush the platform and throw underwear on the stage. Don was, after all, speaking at the Eastside Foursquare Church. Worshipful conduct was in order. Maybe an alabaster jar and some perfume…

Don spent an hour talking about the components of great stories: the narrative arc, the protagonist and antagonist, conflict, climax and denouement. Well, maybe Don didn’t say “denouement,” but there was a great section on story arcs. Story arcs may not sound humorous, but when Don’s narrating it, characters and conflict are seriously funny.

Turns out the upcoming film version of Don’s New York Times bestseller, Blue Like Jazz strays a bit from reality because Don’s actual life writ large is too boring for the big screen. (That’s not my opinion. I think men in front of computer monitors are studs.) The filmmakers decided Don’s life needed some gentle embellishment.

As Don explains it, great stories–in movies or in real life–are all about a series of events. It’s what someone is actually doing more than what a character thinks or feels. That’s not to say that a good film has to be an action movie—car chases and cool stunts—or that what a character thinks and feels is irrelevant. But no one can see what someone thinks unless it’s demonstrated through actions. You don’t know what someone feels unless he shows you.

To make a movie interesting, you have to a string together a series of events with a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it. More than that, what he wants has to matter.

“If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers…Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo. But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful,” Don writes. “The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.”

Don went on to talk about how assiduously we avoid pain and conflict in our lives. Yet grand stories are about the transformation of a character; and pain and conflict are the main tools that produce change in our lives.

Nobody changes because they have something happy happen to them, Don says. We change through hardship and pain and through the pressure of difficult experiences.

That’s a concept. Embrace challenges. Welcome pain as an element that’s going to produce a grand story in your life. I’m conflicted over the concept of conflict in my life, but when I’m thinking of lifelong wishes, it occurs to me that ultimately, we really are all terminally ill. Some of us just know the timing a bit better than others.

When the credits roll, it would be nice to have lived a grand narrative. It would be great to invest my time and energy into actions that make a difference in the end.

My life? It’s the stuff that movies are made of. I’ll tell you all about it while I’m folding the laundry…

by Shelly Ngo

A Mouse Tale

There are many grand, classic novels delving into the themes of transgression, forgiveness and, sometimes, redemption. I’m adding another one to the list: Beverly Cleary’s, “The Mouse and the Motorcycle.”

I know. We’re not talking Victor Hugo and the bishop’s candlesticks here. But it so happens that Ralph the Mouse and Jean Valjean both know a thing or two about the transforming nature of grace.

I had forgotten this, ahem, mouse tale, until I dug it out and read it aloud to my kids last week. Whimsical is so overused, but the story really is a fun and fanciful story of young Ralph who lives at the decaying Mountain View Inn and Keith, a little boy who checks into the hotel with his family.

Keith has a shiny toy motorcycle that Ralph rides around the hotel until the fateful day that Ralph lands in a heap of bed linens and, in a desperate attempt to escape the washing machine, loses Keith’s motorcycle.

At first, Keith is devastated and angry. The motorcycle was his favorite toy—the one he had saved his allowance to buy. But after a day, Keith initiates a conversation with the guilt-ridden mouse and asks what Ralph and his family would like for breakfast.

“You mean we still get room service? After what I did?”

“Sure.” Keith pulled his knees up under his chin and wrapped his arms around his legs.

“You mean you aren’t mad at me anymore?” asked Ralph.

“I guess you might say I’m mad but not real mad,” Keith decided. “I’ve been lying here thinking. It wouldn’t be right for me to be real mad, because I get into messes myself. My mom and dad tell me I don’t stop to use my head.”

Ralph and Keith begin to swap stories of the ways they’ve gotten into trouble. They’re both hasty to jump into things before learning how to do something properly. They commiserate over their impatience to grow up. And in the stories of their common struggles, their friendship is rekindled.

I’m trying to remember to switch from mouse voice to little boy voice as I’m reading aloud, but mostly, my mind is thinking about what Keith said: “It wouldn’t be right for me to be real mad, because I get into messes myself.”

Kind of reminds me of the story of the servant, forgiven by the King of his staggering debt, who responds by rushing out and demanding compensation from a debtor who owed him a trifling amount. I’m like that at times—forgetful of the unmerited grace I have received; harboring my anger at someone who’s done me wrong. All the while, I’m oblivious, or worse yet, indifferent, to the ways I’ve hurt those around me.

I’m not minimizing the wrongs that happen in this world. On a grand scale, genocides, slavery, robbing children of their innocence—all of these are horrific injustices that deserve our outrage. On a more day-to-day level, we struggle with betrayals of trust and friendship. Or we are the victims of slander. Or adultery. Or just plain mean-spiritedness. Somebody cheats or steals or lies and seems to get away with it. Sometimes, on every level, we really are right.

My pastor friend, Clarence Schilt, astutely observes, “We do the most sinning when we are right, and right is not happening.” When terrible things happen to us, we are angry. Self-pitying. We want a heart-felt apology and some groveling or retribution. Mysteriously, though, we want grace, not justice, applied to our own transgressions.

The kids and I threw out our bedtime protocols of one chapter a night and read the final three chapters in a single evening.

I never feel myself growing, Keith tells Ralph near the end of the tale.

“You wait long enough, and you will be a grown-up.” Ralph felt as if he had said something very wise as he slipped the rubber band on his crash helmet around his whiskers.

“I guess so.” Keith slumped back on the pillows. “But it takes so long.”

“I grew up, didn’t I?” asked Ralph. “You said yourself I had become a responsible mouse.”

“Yes, you did,” said Keith thoughtfully. “I guess that’s part of the secret. Just getting bigger isn’t enough. You have to learn things like not taking off down a steep hill on a bicycle when you aren’t used to hand brakes. Stuff like that.”

Once again, Keith is right. Getting bigger isn’t enough. Growing up is learning about grace from a boy and a mouse and a motorcycle.