Man plans, God laughs: Powerful holiday stories from readers – Terry Pluto’s Faith & You
Some people wait until the last second to buy a Christmas tree.
CLEVELAND, Ohio – Last week, I wrote about ending up at a Waffle House late one Christmas evening. I didn’t plan it that way.
Nothing wrong with bacon, eggs and hashbrowns.
Circumstances led to me taking care of my father for the holidays. The place was fairly empty, mostly people from the nearby hospital, a few police and other lone wolves looking for a well-lit place with basic food.
Often, God's plans are better than ours but it takes times to figure that out.
That’s Yiddish for “Man plans, God laughs.”
I asked readers if they had any “Man plans, God laughs” stories.
About my plans ...
Sometimes I feel like I am God’s own personal jester … My dad wanted to be a minister. I wanted to be a teacher. He ended up being a teacher, and me a minister.
I wanted to be a parish pastor. I have ended up being a hospice chaplain. I planned on retiring at 65. I’m now 70. You can’t retire from a “lifestyle.” Funny man. How God howls.
I was conducting a funeral service for a veteran where only his two daughters and their spouses attended. Before we began, one his daughters shared Proverbs 16:9: “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”
“We plan and God laughs!”
– Chuck
About my red underwear
One Christmas when I was 15, my mother had a Christmas Eve party. My Dad was gone by then. They placed a blindfold on me and took me to the tree. At that age, young women did not wear silk panties. They removed the blindfold … Behold, a RED pair of silk panties hung on the tree! The company laughed. I did too, but was red-faced over this one! I think God laughed over the fun for everyone that evening.
– Norma
About losing a husband
I was wondering how our first Christmas would go without my husband. God seemed to know what to do. All my kids were sick. I spent the day driving to their homes to drop off their gifts and having a short visit It took all the pressure off of expectations.
– Diane
About my bacon & eggs
We buried my Dad on Christmas Eve, 1981. It was a long three weeks leading up to Dad’s passing. I did not think of grocery shopping or much of anything during this time.
Christmas dinner (for Mom and my three teen children) consisted of bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast/jelly, orange juice and coffee. Sitting around the kitchen table, we laughed, cried, hugged and got through it. That menu was my Dad’s favorite meal. He loved it for dinner!
– Maryann
About Santa deniers!
I raised my son with the traditions of my parents. On Christmas Eve, my father would wait until my sister and I would go to bed. He would go out to buy a tree, decorate it in the front room.
Then he’d place all the presents that were hidden under the tree. Cookies and milk were also set out. It took them most of the night to do this.
Early in the morning when we came down those steps, he said our faces were priceless and aglow!
When we had our own son, we went through the same Christmas Eve traditions. We were unaware my son bragged to his friends what happened on Christmas Eve at our house.
His friends told their parents that they couldn’t understand why they bought their tree. Santa brought ours on Christmas Eve. The parents said the kids were sobbing. The parents told the kids they shouldn’t believe in Santa, the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny.
– Rich
About life & death
The Lord allowed brain cancer to enter my wife in September of 2008. She had brain surgery … I will talk about my bride. I will not date or remarry. My only fear is we do not recognize each other in heaven, for there are many rooms.
They say memories do not love you back – despite your love of the memory. I disagree. I feel my wife’s love through the memory of my bride. It was 37 years of marriage. She was 58. You would have loved her … She was full of love.
Our whole life we planned on me going first. My dad died at 42 as did both grandfathers. We had life insurance on me, not her. I elected out of social security back in 1980, Form 4361. She would be collecting now. I can’t. My brothers paid in and they died. One at age 58 and the other 59. Go figure.
– Al
About Christmas & surgery
I’m the grandma now who has Christmas at my house. I’d make lots of cookies for giveaway trays. This year I wanted to invite my niece and her children. They moved back here after living in a different state. However, in November, I was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time. The first was 20 years ago.
A lot fewer cookies were baked due to biopsies and other tests. I just had surgery last Wednesday so it’s going to be a low-key Christmas this year. Maybe God wasn’t laughing as much as saying I needed a break this year. Yes, I’ll be at church on Christmas actually thanking Him because the prognosis is good.
– Loretta
About a hospital Christmas
My 16th birthday was Jan. 28, 1977. Three weeks earlier, my father had a severe stroke at the age of 58. He was still in the hospital. My Mom baked and decorated a cake. We brought the whole thing up to my Dad’s room to sing, blow out candles, etc.
A blizzard hit Northeast Ohio that day, bad enough to close the grocery stores and businesses. One of the nurses on the floor was working her last day before going on maternity leave.
The other nurses bought a cake as a send-off for her. But the blizzard meant they couldn’t even get it from the store. As we each were having a piece of Mom’s cake, one of the nurses came in and told us about their cake-less situation. Mom looked at me. I looked at her. We smiled at each other, and Mom passed her the cake plate. So that cake did double duty.
– Ann
About Papa’s famous latkes
I am 81 years old and have been making latkes (potato pancakes) by hand (grating potatoes and onions) for Hanukkah for more years than I can remember. There was the lingering smell of the fried potato/onion/oil in the kitchen.
It takes many hours to prepare my recipe.
I loved having our granddaughters visit for our holiday dinner, watching them enjoy the latkes with some apple sauce. This year, I reluctantly hung up my grater – with some coaxing from my wife of 58 years. It’s because our family wasn’t in town for Hanukkah.
Since it was going to be just my wife and me in Cleveland, it really wasn’t worth the effort to make the latkes for only the two of us.
But I received a text from my granddaughter in California. She wanted my latke recipe so that she could make them for her office staff party. I tried to convince her it’s really labor-intensive, plus grating potatoes and especially onions is not a fun job. I suggested she go buy some frozen latkes and heat them.
She must take after me to some degree (stubborn) because she insisted that she was going to grate the ingredients by hand and fry them in her apartment kitchen. And she did!
I talked to her afterward and she said they came out as good as she remembers when I made them for our family Hanukkah dinners. Even though Papa’s World-Famous Latkes weren’t made in Cleveland this year, they were made in Southern California.
– Alan
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