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“A cold wind was blowing from the north, and it made the trees rustle like living things.”

December 21, 2012

Usually if I wake up, I fall back to sleep, but not this morning. I had no idea of the time as the clock in my room doesn’t work, and I haven’t felt the need to replace it. It was still really dark, but I got up anyway. The house was cold. I got downstairs, turned up the heat and made coffee. It was 4:30. The animals went right back to sleep. Fern and Gracie are on the couch and Maddie is on the table. Such lives they lead!

Winter begins in earnest at 6:15 this morning. The Sun’s path has reached its southernmost position, and tonight will be the longest night of the year. It’s the winter solstice. All the cold and snow before today has merely been a dress rehearsal. I have one sparkler left, and it will be my simple celebration on the deck to chase away the darkness.

I always think dark mornings in winter are the quietest times of day. Most people have yet to stir and few cars are on the road. My favorite memory of walking in the stillness of a dark morning was going to church one Christmas day with my brother. Our footsteps echoed in the quiet and we could see our breaths. We even whispered. A few of the houses were bright with light and through the windows we could see Christmas trees blazing with color. Our guess was little kids just couldn’t wait any longer.

I have a vivid memory of that dark morning. I remember how cold it was walking around the field below my street, and how glad I was to be where houses on both sides protected us from the wind. We crossed the railroad tracks, and the streetlights lit our way. When we got inside the church, we could hear the radiators, but the church still had a chill. Only the side altar was bright with light. A few of us sat in the front two pews. The priest said the mass without an altar boy. There was no sermon. The mass was over quickly. We hurried home.

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“It snowed last year too: I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea”

December 20, 2012

The rain has finally disappeared. The day is bright with sun. A small breeze is swaying the brown leaves left on the oak tree hanging over the deck. The birds have been constantly in and out at the feeders. I noticed a flicker at an empty suet feeder and went out right away to fill it. It is a new feeder with a long bottom so the big birds like the flicker have a place to rest their tails. The woodpeckers too seem to favor that suet feeder over the other. I still need to go out later and fill the seed feeders.

My sister is in the middle of a real winter in Colorado. Snow is on the ground and last night was going to be around 1 or 2˚. She said the Christmas lights are pretty shining through the snow. I figure if you’re stuck with that sort of weather looking for the pretty makes even the cold easier to endure.

I don’t remember when cold started to bother me. When I was little, I never noticed how cold it was. I played in the snow all day. My clothes got soaked and my lips sometimes turned blue, but I’d stay outside until my mother dragged me in, not literally but it was by that yell from the back door every kid knows. I never went right into the house but rather went down the outside steps to the cellar where I’d strip off my wet clothes and hang them on the clothesline. I’d run upstairs then run up the next set of stairs to my bedroom where I’d put on my warmest pajamas and my slippers. I remember my face, my hands and my feet were red with cold.

We always made a snowman on the front lawn. We’d ask my mother for an old hat, a carrot and buttons then we’ d look for arms. I don’t know why but snowmen always have spindly arms. They also all seem to have three buttons down the middle. Their hats differ, but their faces tend to look alike with two eyes, a carrot nose and a smile. Our snowman usually lasted a long time, but I can still remember him melting away on the warmer days. He’d get smaller and smaller until finally he’d fall apart and on the ground would be three snow balls, one with spindly arms.

 

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“As long as we know in our hearts what Christmas ought to be, Christmas is.”

December 18, 2012

As I was walking downstairs this morning, I could smell the Christmas tree. I smiled. I love that smell and can’t think of no better way to greet the morning. Right away I went over and turned on the tree lights. They brightened the room and chased away the clouds and the rain.

Yesterday Gracie and I went about doing a couple of errands. She got her nails trimmed, and while I waited, I bought her a few surprises for Christmas. I also stopped at a favorite bakery to get cookies to bring to the library for this week’s Christmas open house. The bakery owner, whom I see all the time, was there and asked what I was looking for. I told him about the open house and the library. He said he loved libraries and then he gave me three packages of his cookies as a gift to the library. How kind that was! How generous! I am forever thankful for the goodness in people.

I got a call from my friend Bill who had somehow managed to track down Patrick, another volunteer with whom we had served in Bolga. I had looked for Patrick for a while but never found him. Bill found a story in an Iowan newspaper about Patrick and send an e-mail last September asking if the Patrick he’d found was our Patrick, but Bill didn’t get an answer until now when Patrick called him. Pat’s memory is a bit fuzzy. He barely remembered Ghana let alone any of us. He asked Bill if there wasn’t also a gal in Bolga. I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone say gal. Bill told him I was that gal. I had to chuckle as did Bill. I have Patrick’s phone number and am aimin’ to give that galoot a call. I’ll introduce myself as a gal he knew from way back when.

I have a story I like to tell this time of year about my first Christmas in Ghana, my very first ever away from home. I was   homesick and sad. My mother tried to help so she sent me a small tree, ornaments from our family tree, brick crepe paper so I could make a fireplace and a small stocking to hang. I decorated my house but it didn’t help much. Besides, the weather was all wrong. It was the harmattan, the driest time of the year with a hot, dusty wind which blew each day and covered every surface in my house with sand. The heels of my feet cracked from the dryness, and I had to walk on tiptoes until the skin hardened. The only redeeming parts of the harmattan were the nights. They were cold, put a wool blanket on the bed cold. I’d leave all my windows open so I could snuggle under my blanket. It felt a bit like winter.

The nights in Bolga were quiet. They were bright with stars which seemed to blanket the sky. I was in bed trying to fall asleep on a night close to Christmas when I heard a small boy singing. His voice carried though the night air. It was the only sound I could hear. He sand We Three Kings, every verse. His voice was beautiful. I don’t know where he was. I guessed he lived in a compound near my house, but that didn’t really matter. He gave me one of the most beautiful gifts I have ever received. He gave Christmas.

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“Christmas cookies without sprinkles are like raisins without wrinkles, and like sleigh bells without tinkles are Christmas cookies without sprinkles”

December 17, 2012

A rainy dark day again today, but it is a warm day which makes the rain more tolerable. I need to go out to do a few errands a bit later, but I have a short list. Yesterday I had no intention of doing much, but I did. It all started with a potholder. I pulled one out of the drawer and found it had been gnawed. I was grossed out by the idea of a rodent in my kitchen drawer so I pulled out everything, threw away the gnawed and washed the washable. I scrubbed the drawer. In it I found a cache of rice from a bag of rice I had foolishly left in a cabinet. That beastie had to have carried each kernel through two cabinets and up to that second drawer. A feat of sorts I suppose. The rice came from a long time back so I doubt the beastie is still around. My cat has not cabinet watched for a long while. Now I can boast the neatest of kitchen drawers.

It was always an event when my mother made her Christmas sugar cookies. She had silver cookie cutters made from heavy aluminum. I remember a Christmas tree, a bell, a reindeer, Santa carrying his sack and a star. My mother did all the making, all the rolling and all the baking. We got the best job, the decorating. When the cookies were ready for our artistic touches, my mother would put on the table bowls of different colored frosting and sprinkles. My mother let us decorate any way we wanted. The trees, of course, were always green, but we decorated them with sprinkles and colored jimmies (the kind you put on ice cream which I know some of you call sprinkles. Around here they were and are jimmies). The sprinkles looked like sugar and were green or red. I’d concentrate so hard trying to sprinkle the red to look like loops of tinsel on my tree then use the colored jimmies for lights. Santa, of course, had a red suit, a white beard and a white pom-pom on the end of his hat. My sisters’ cookies were always thick with frosting. They were the heaviest to lift. The finished cookies were put on racks until the frosting was dry, but we each got to pick one to eat. Every time, we picked one of our own.

I have the same cookies cutters. One was my mother’s and the rest I collected along the way as did my sister Moe. I put the cutters out in a basket every Christmas. They remind me of that messy kitchen table, the bowls of icing and how proud we all were of our beautifully decorated cookies.

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“The great man is he who does not lose his child’s heart.”

December 16, 2012

The morning, besides being dreary, is cold at 37˚. Rain is expected later. When the alarm went off this morning, the house was cold so I stay snuggled under the covers reluctant to leave the warmth of my bed and the dog beside me, but I had no choice. It was time to get up, get dressed and go out to my usual Sunday breakfast. I think most people were wiser than I and chose to stay in bed as the roads were empty.

When I got home, I ran upstairs to get into my cozies then came back downstairs and turned on the tree lights. They are shining especially bright in the darkness of the day.

The week or so before Christmas is the longest stretch in time for any kid. The days move at the slowest pace imaginable, and counting down only makes it worse. Anticipation just can’t be contained. School drags on forever. Every kid knows the finale, Christmas Eve, is the longest night of the year, despite the calendar. Bedtime never comes. It is 4 o’clock, 4:12 and on and on. For the first in our lives, bedtime can’t come soon enough.

My parents had ways to amuse us. Every year was the drive to see the lights. In Saugus was the ultimate light show. The houses competed with one another for the glory of being the most decorated. My father would drive up and down the streets, and we’d be glued to the windows not wanting to miss a single house. Our heads would whip back and forth from one side of the street to the other. On each of houses the lights were all different colors. Not a tree or a bush was left undecorated. It was a spectacle in all its glory.

My favorite was always the trip to Boston. It didn’t happen every year so it was special. We’d walk by the department stores to see the windows with all their animated figures. Santa’s workshop was always the busiest window with elves hammering toys and Santa checking his list. We’d then walk through Boston Common which always seemed a fairy land to me. All the bare trees were hung with strings of lights, and they shined on the walkways. I don’t ever remember feeling cold. I just remember wanting to run to see everything and being filled with an excitement I could barely contain. I wanted to hold open my arms and take everything with me for always.

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“I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

December 15, 2012

Unfathomable events like yesterday happen far too frequently. That the victims were small children is beyond comprehension.

I have always believed in the innate goodness of mankind though I also know evil exists. It is just something I have never understood. At the very least, people deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. It doesn’t take much. Sometimes a smile is more than enough.

Christmas is the time for family, for going home, for being together and for celebrating those traditions which connect the family over time, through generations. A pall of sadness has fallen over Christmas. How do you celebrate a season wrapped in love after yesterday? I guess maybe you love each other more.

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“Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.”

December 14, 2012

This morning the lawns were white with frost and the cars windows would have needed scrapping. I walked across the lawn to get my papers so I could hear the crunch, that wonderful sound a freezing night brings to the morning. I could see my breath.

This room is such a mess my sensibilities are distressed. Every spare space is filled with wrapping paper, boxes, tags and presents. They are my next week’s projects. Today is sending packages and making goodies for sister as I’ll see her tomorrow. I’ll bring her favorite fudge, a recipe from a long ago friend of my mother’s, and date-nut bread, my grandmother’s recipe. The traditions continue!

When I bought my house, I didn’t have much money. My mortgage was half my month’s salary. Everything I bought was a necessity, nothing frivolous, including furniture for a while. I had a desk, a TV and a studio couch in this room and some pots and pans for the kitchen. I ate, slept and watched TV here in the den. The rest of the house was pretty empty. That first Christmas I bought a small tree. My mother gave me some ornaments, and I bought a couple of strings of lights. One night I went about making paper garlands out of construction paper. I cut the paper into strips then the strips into smaller strips. I used tape to connect the small strips to one another. There were four garlands, each a different length with the shortest at the top and the longest at the bottom. They were perfect on the tree, being colorful and making the tree more festive and hiding the lack of ornaments. I used those garlands for a lot of years. One Christmas a few years later I was sitting in the living looking at the tree, a taller one with more decorations, when I heard a strange sound from the tree, and then I heard another. I investigated and found my garlands were breaking apart. The tape had yellowed and lost its ability to hold the strips together. I grabbed my favorite tool, my stapler, and used it to keep the garlands together. It worked.

A year later when I was bringing out my tubs of decorations, I noticed the garlands had just about completely fallen apart, and, for the first time, I noticed how faded the colors had become. It didn’t matter to me, though, as I still hung the smallest of the garlands on the tree that Christmas. I still have that garland.

 

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“Christmas is a box of tree ornaments that have become part of the family.”

December 13, 2012

No disaster to report this morning. The tree is still standing, the outside lights were lit last night and all seems well with my part of the world, knock on wood I suppose. The day is a bit dreary, but I don’t mind. My to-do Christmas list is moving right along on track. Last night I wrapped the Colorado gifts and today I do the dreaded grocery shopping, mostly for Christmas baking. The last item on my must do now list is sending off those gifts; that’s for tomorrow.

I have colored lights outside, but I have white lights in the windows. Most houses have them now and many also have the white lights on their bushes and trees. When I was a kid, I never saw white lights as decorations except maybe one or two bulbs as part of a string on a tree.

Every year my dad put lights on the bushes in front of our house. The strings were filled with those huge colored bulbs you never see any more, the ones which burned so hot. In our windows were plastic white candles. They were so light-weight my mother had to tape them to the windowsills so they wouldn’t fall. The bulbs made them top-heavy. Mostly those bulbs were orange though the candelabra in the picture window had a variety of colors. When it got close to dark, we’d each run to a window and turn the bulb to get it to light. That was the only way to turn the bulbs on and off. My mother used those same window candles all of her life. When I’d visit at Christmas, I’d go from window to window to turn them on. Just before going upstairs to bed, I’d turn off the bulbs. They were always hot to the touch.

My tree has bubble lights given to me by my friends. They start perking really quickly. The ones on the tree when I was growing up seemed to take forever to perk. We’d sit in front of the tree watching them. Each of us wanted to be the first to find the bubbles. The winner would yell and point. Those were my favorite lights.

For my tree, I’m not one for designer decorations or bows of different colors or themes though that last one might be fun. I decorate with favorite ornaments. Some are from my childhood, others were hand-made by me and my mother, many came from trips, and this year I added new ones from Ghana: the really old treasures my friend gave me and a beaded star I bought in Accra. Some of my ornaments are sort of ugly, but I always put those in the front. I have a soft spot in my heart for them. I take my time decorating the tree. My ornaments are treasures, repositories of my memories, and sometimes I just sit and hold a special one in my hand and let the memories flood my heart.

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“I’ve learned that you can tell a lot a person by the way he or she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas lights.”

December 11, 2012

It really poured last night. The rain pounded the doors and windows. I got soaked. How did I get soaked you ask? Well, it was Christmas disaster number 2: the saga of the front outside lights. They didn’t light last night. The side and back were bright with color, but the front was dark. I put my sweatshirt hood up and went to the outside outlet. The timer wasn’t on; the outlet was dead. I reset it, plugged in the timer and the lights went on. It was a miracle. I got back into the house and turned around just in time to see the lights go out. I went outside and did it all over again to no avail. The outlet had gotten wet despite the cover. What to do? What to do? I took the timer out back and plugged it in an outlet on the deck. The timer still didn’t work. Did it short out I wondered? I came back inside to find out my kitchen lights didn’t work. I went downstairs to the circuit box and flipped switches. While down there, I brought up another timer and the longest extension cord in the world. I pluggedthe cord into a living room outlet, passed it behind a table so it wouldn’t be on the floor where I would definitely trip on it and fall then I took it out the front door and behind the bushes to the cords. I plugged the cords into the new timer then the timer to the world’s longest extension cord running out the front door. Everything worked. The only problem was the front door wouldn’t close over the cord so I left it ajar. At this point my sweatshirt was soaked and so were the hems of my pants and my shoes. I know I could have avoided everything and stayed inside, but I just couldn’t take half a lit house. Before I went to bed, I went outside and unplugged the extension, rolled it up as I went and brought it inside the house so I could shut the door. Today I’m hoping the outlet has dried.

I am going to decorate my tree today. Yesterday I slid it close to its resting spot but left room in the back so I can put the lights on without a struggle. Okay, without a struggle? Who am I kidding? I know that somehow something will go wrong. One year, after I’d put on all the lights, they all blew out. That was the year of the dark tree. Others years the trees fell; those were the years of the crooked trees. Another year the tree I’d bought to support the girls’ track team starting dropping needles at an alarming rate. That was the year of no tree.

Despite it all, I love Christmas. I love having a tree and sitting and just looking at it. I love Christmas carols and sugar cookies shaped liked snowmen. Today I’m going to decorate my tree, and despite everything, I am still an optimist. I have the highest hopes.

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“Gee, do they still make wooden Christmas trees?”

December 10, 2012

Last night it started raining and it has yet to stop. I find rain a bit dismal this time of year as I always think of Christmas as snow time. Maybe it’s the carols that have me hoping for an inch or two or Santa’s sleigh or how pretty the snow looks. I remember looking out the window and seeing snow falling and yelling in excitement for everyone to come and see.

Today I’m bringing you the story of my Christmas tree. I bought it yesterday, and it is beautiful, shorter than usual but just as full. I went to Hart Farm, and that wasn’t easy. You can no longer get there from here. The bridge right before Hart’s is closed for repair so that means going all the way around on Route 28, my least favorite road, but Gracie and I made the trek anyway. Walking among the Christmas trees made it all worthwhile. The smell was wonderful, and I found 2 trees, either of which could grace my living room. The man who works there is a former student, and I asked which of the trees he’d choose. One, he said, would shed its needles quickly but the other would keep them. It was an easy choice; of course, the price was hefty on the second one, but I bought it anyway, and I also bought a centerpiece of boxwood. The tree was put in my trunk and all the way home I had to hear the beep, beep, beep, the incessant beep of my car telling me the trunk was open. Did you notice it was all the way home, the long way.

I got home and tried to get the tree out of the trunk. It was stuck, but I yanked and pulled and got it out, leaned it against the car then decided to attach the new tree stand before bringing the tree inside the house. I bought the new tree stand anticipating a smaller tree. The stand fit but wouldn’t go up the trunk far enough so the tree could have water. Two nubs of branches were in the way. I cursed as I took the stand off and then went down the cellar to get the other tree stand, the stand easy enough for one person to use. I attached the bottom of the stand to the trunk then carried the tree into the house. No, carry is wrong. I lifted and stopped, lifted and stopped because of the weight of the tree. A few times the tree wouldn’t move; I couldn’t lift it. I finally figured out that’s what happens when you step on lower branches. At last the tree made it to the living room. Three low branches were broken, stepped on too many times. I lifted the tree, put in into the stand then moved it around until it was straight. I pushed in the pedal which secures the tree in place then got the funnel with the long tube. That’s new this year. It for watering the tree so I don’t have to crawl on my stomach to give it water. I hid the tube in the branches then sat on the couch to fill the funnel with water when all of a sudden the tree started to lean. I thought it would fall so I grabbed it. The funnel filled with water angled when the tree leaned and spilled water all over the floor and all over me. I cursed, cleaned up the mess and was about ready to turn this tree into a yule log but decided to try again. I went down the cellar to get a dry sweatshirt and the directions for the tree stand. Ah, the directions, why didn’t she get them in the first place. She didn’t get them because she thought she remembered how to use the stand. Wrong!

I lifted the tree out of the stand, pulled out the pedal as directed, held my foot on it, a step I hadn’t done the first time, and then placed the tree back into the stand and moved it until it was straight then I pushed in the pedal. The tree stayed straight and tall. I stopped cursing.

The tree is sitting in the middle of my living room as I have to move a few small pieces of furniture before it can sit in its rightful place then the decorating will begin. I’m betting the finished tree will make everything worthwhile.

 

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