Gracious Living

I spent 4 hours listening to the Little House on the Prairie audiobook this week while doing some work, and I am just bursting with some great insights! This is the book where the Ingalls family moves from their Little House in the Big Woods (of Wisconsin) and head west to Kansas in a covered wagon.



One of the main points that stood out to me was the family's ability to maintain a very normal lifestyle while traveling. They were basically on an extended campout, and rarely passed through any towns or saw any people.



Each morning they woke with the sun (if not sooner) and began the chores. Water had to be carried from the nearest creek for coffee and for washing breakfast dishes. The horses must be taken to water as well. Ma would begin making breakfast while the girls made their beds in the wagon.



Mary and Laura and Baby Carrie washed their faces and combed their hair and dressed nicely each day. After breakfast, Ma and the girls would wash and wipe the dishes and clean up the campsite. They would gather up all the twigs and throw them in the fire.



If it was a wash day, Ma would heat water that Pa had carried from the creek to do her laundry in. She would wash all the clothing and bedding, and then lay it out on the clean grass to dry in the sun. And then . . . gasp! She would iron. Out in the middle of the prairie, with no people and no towns, Ma sill ironed the clothes!

When the family gathered around to eat, Ma and Pa sat on the wagon bench, and Laura and Mary sat on the wagon tongue. They held their tin plates in their laps. Mary and Laura shared their tin cup of water.

There were times when Ma would remind Laura not to talk with her mouth full, or not to sing 'at table.' Laura thought to herself, "there is no table" but the rule held fast!

Mary and Laura must wear their sunbonnet while playing, to avoid becoming 'brown as an Indian.'

So, in the middle of the wide, wide prairie the Ingalls family continued to live as if they were in polite society. I think Ma felt so strongly that the wild country they were traveling in would not make her girls into wild hoodlums, that she insisted on living exactly the way they had back in their little log home in Wisconsin.

Contrast that with today. Every time I go into the grocery store I see at least one person wearing pajama pants and house shoes to shop. Or worse.

It seems that many people don't care. Simple grooming has become too troublesome for some. Table manners in restaurants (or at home) don't exist anymore. Children have little or no standards to meet regarding their behavior.

I'm not preaching the need for makeup and salon-styled hair, or drinking tea with your pinky stuck out just so, or even the popular "children should be seen and not heard" (although some days I have contemplated enacting that one).

But if Ma and her girls could maintain a gracious standard of living from their covered wagon in the middle of nowhere, is it too much for us to accomplish in our modern society?

I don't think so!

Christmas on the Prairie

We all know that years ago Christmas was very slim compared to today. So the following story is not surprising, yet it is very touching. I get a tear or two every time I read it:


Something was shining bright in Laura's stocking. She squealed and jumped out of bed. So did Mary, but Laura beat her to the fireplace. And the shining thing was a glittering new cup.


Mary had one exactly like it.


Those new tin cups were their very own. Now they each had a cup to drink out of. Laura jumped up and down and shouted and laughed, but Mary stood still and looked with shining eyes at her own tin cup.


What's the big deal about new cups? Up until this time, Mary and Laura would share a cup of water between them. Now they could EACH have a cup!


There was more in their stockings: a peppermint stick, a heart-shaped cake made by Ma, and a bright, shining new penny!


They had never even though of such a thing as having a penny. Think of having a whole penny for our very own. Think of having a cup and a cake and a stick of candy and a penny.


There had never been such a Christmas.
Taken from Little House on the Prairie in the chapter entitled Mr. Edwards Meets Santa Claus.


Sounds so simple, doesn't it? I know we live in a different time, and a much different world. But I am determined to simplify Christmas for my kids with every year that goes by. Instead of raising our spending limit, I'm trying to spend little and make it meaningful.


When I was a child, my parents and aunt decided it would be fun to do something similar for myself, my sister, and our cousins. In our stockings that Christmas we received a tin cup, a penny, and a peppermint stick (along with a few modern goodies!). And you know, I still have that tin cup and I will remember that Christmas for the rest of my life.


This Christmas morning, when you and your family are enjoying new gifts, I hope you will pause for a minute and remember a Christmas long ago and two little girls who were happy with new tin cups.