Mellow Christmas Moments...

It has been a lovely Christmas here, enjoyed all the more because Peter and I have learned (finally?) to relax, to make fewer and less elaborate plans, and to go with the flow and enjoy what comes.

The grandkids are the center of our attention, and sometimes their parents need to make adjustments in scheduling. Case in point: Augie was sick with the flu Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We still gathered at their house, but we delayed the start and kept things fairly low-key. Abby still made wonderful meals and Peter contributed a side dish and a pie, and we were grateful that we were all--even Augie--healthy enough to enjoy them.

Compared to other years, we seemed to go easy on gifts for the grands, or at least we didn't go as far overboard as usual. Abby and Eric's home gained 5,000 new Lego pieces on Thursday, but thankfully not all came from us. Our gifts to one another were both satisfying and modest, and we didn't have to stay up all night wrapping.

At one point I found myself watching part of the Christmas Eve Mass from St. Peter's in Rome. I grew up Catholic and I've avoided watching that Mass for years now, but this time I was drawn in by the music. As a teen and young adult, I played the organ for three different church choirs, and on this Christmas Eve I found myself singing along quietly with some of the Gregorian Chant. It didn't make me want to go back to church, but it did reach something deep inside. Memories of Christmases long ago, certainly, and of my family back then. And also the basic urge that humans feel to honor something greater than ourselves.

It's not that I've abandoned that urge; I've pursued it in lots of places and lots of ways. And it's been on my mind as I visit with my youngest brother David, who two weeks ago entered an assisted living and hospice facility.

In fact, this urge to honor something greater than ourselves reached out and tapped me on the shoulder while I was buying Christmas cards last week. It seemed to tell me to stop rushing around, to be mindful of others, to think about my priorities. Maybe it's just a silly card, and all those things were already in my head. But sometimes it takes a gentle hint to make me listen.

So, dear blog friends, I hope your holiday season is long and mellow and filled with sweet moments along with whatever harsh slices of reality elbow their way in. I hope as you review 2014 and look forward to 2015, you'll find love and enjoyment and fulfillment and deep pleasures that go way beyond the schedules and to-do lists that sometimes distract us from our real happiness.

As the card (created by Pamela Zagarenski with art by Daniel Ladinsky and produced by sacredbee) says:

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This post linked to the GRAND Social
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Hanging on to Christmas

The way I see the world, Christmas lasts right through New Year's Day. I suppose one reason I can't let it go is that I'm never quite ready for it, so I spend most of the time before Christmas in a state of denial that lasts right up until December 24.

I'm usually still in bed at 9 a.m. that day when I tune in public radio's Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College in Cambridge, England. The announcer solemnly intones a description of the service, the music, and the scene (it's 4 p.m. and the shadows are lengthening), and then comes the sound of one young boy soprano filling the chapel with the opening of "Once in Royal David's City." I always imagine the chosen boy, nervous beyond anything in his life to this point, in the moments before he sings. And he always sings like an angel. The hymn builds in strength and volume through five verses until the whole choir and the congregation have joined in and the organ has added both bass and treble, and when it all comes to an end you can hear people shifting position, probably from standing to sitting, and someone reads a Bible passage. I often continue listening, but none of the rest has the same impact on me. Christmas has begun.

When I think back to my childhood Christmases, I do remember gathering with the family to open presents, both on Christmas Eve (presents from the family) and Christmas morning (from Santa). It was nice, but I don't recall the glow or thrill that some people report. I never spent time paging through the Sears catalog to pick out a specific doll or dress or toy. My younger brothers were always eager to get on with the opening of gifts. They probably asked for toys they saw advertised on television. One year they snooped around and found their gifts--and thereby spoiled their own fun.

But my strongest Christmas memories begin when I was a bit older. At 12 or so, I began to play the organ for the elementary school girls' choir, and we worked a few Christmas carols into our repertoire. I played throughout high school, and we always sang the 11 a.m. high mass on Christmas Day. I came to love the music, and the performing of it. But the parish men's choir was my favorite; I would stay awake with my radio on to hear them sing at midnight mass. Finally, when I attended my first two years of college in my home town, I got to play for them as well. The music was beautiful, and participating in it was a glorious experience. I'm no longer a church-going person, but that music--a combination of Gregorian chant and lovely classic carols--is at the heart of my Christmas memories. It's why I love the annual Lessons and Carols broadcast and it's why the Christmas playlist on our iPod includes not only Willy Nelson and Barbra Streisand and Manhattan Transfer (and oh so many others) but also classical groups like the King's College Choir.

On Christmas Eve this year, I happened to leave the television running after the 10 p.m. news. NBC began to broadcast a tape of midnight mass from St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. I went to turn it off, but something caught my ear. The choir was singing part of the mass, which I recognized as the Gloria. I didn't think I recognized the version. But suddenly I was singing along. Words and melody came out of my mouth though I swear they weren't in my head. I sat down and watched for a while. The service did not move me. But the music left me thinking about, or more accurately feeling, Christmases past and experiences that were an important part of who I was/am.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this memoir, I try to stay in Christmas mode well after The Day. And so I continue to revel in my Christmas memories and in the warmth of this year's particularly wonderful celebrations. I was planning to tell you about those celebrations today, in this post, but now that I've lingered so long in the past, that story will have to wait.

I hope you, too, have some special memories to warm your heart at what happens, at least here in Minnesota, to be a VERY cold time! 

-- Nancy

P.S. The heart ornament at top is one of a dozen hand-embroidered ornaments made for me by my mother shortly before she died. The tree with green ribbon was made by Jeanie at The Marmelade Gypsy, and the round "Froliche Weinachten" came from Connie at Far Side of Fifty. There's a story behind it. 

Roosting under the tree

A couple of days ago, the kids were looking at our Christmas tree, spotting ornaments that have become familiar to them and ornaments that bear their own faces from years past.

That got Augie looking deep into the tree, admiring the way he could see lights far inside. And that led to the four of us plus Mali the cat lying under the tree for a view from underneath. Augie kept saying, "Color and light." It looked like this:

When their dad arrived to pick them up from our play date, we looked like this (and then he got under there, too):

We had talked about the fact that we usually stand the tree in a snowbank in the back yard and let birds roost in it while they wait to use the feeders. So Augie decided we were roosting under the tree.

Augie wondered why we had so many lights..."numberless," he called them. Yes, he knew that "numberless" means "too many to count." But then Pa said he knew exactly how many there were. Eight strings of 50 each makes 400. So they agreed that only the ornaments were numberless.

We'll have our tree for another week. Then, if we get more snow or figure out another way to stand the tree in the yard, it will serve as a roosting place for a few months. And then it will be spring!

Dancing our way through Christmas

Our grandkids love to dance. ViMae will tell you she wants to be a ballerina, and she can show you her best moves and her several tutus. She wanted to take classes, but around here you have to be four to enroll. So in the meantime, she twirls and spins and practices raising her leg to there. Augie joins in by grabbing her arm and swinging her around until one or both fall down. Then they laugh and do it again.

This fall Peter and I took them both to some free noontime presentations by the St. Paul City Ballet. The sessions graduated from barre exercises to snippets of a ballet-in-progress, and finally fully costumed excerpts from the company's holiday production. The Enchanted Toy Shop borrows some music from The Nutcracker; Augie recognized it as being from Disney's Fantasia. They love the Nutcracker Suite portion of Fantasia, and Augie can hear two notes of music and tell you exactly what it corresponds to--for example, the dancing mushrooms, the turnips, or his favorite, "the flowers that fall down over a waterfall."

We explained that the music was first written for a ballet, and the kids said they'd like to see it. Cue another great opportunity. A local dance school was presenting a 20-minute version of Act 2 of The Nutcracker at Rosedale Mall on Wednesday evenings before Christmas. We met the kids and their parents for dinner and then found the performance just as it began. The kids made a beeline for chairs up front and watched every step. This was no virtuoso performance, but it was up close and lively, and the kids thoroughly enjoyed it.

A few days later, we watched parts of two new DVDs--Act 2 of the Nutcracker followed by the corresponding segment of Fantasia. They loved both, and they danced around the den the whole time we were watching.

On Christmas morning at their house, The Nutcracker was playing as they opened gifts, and again they danced. Look at that picture of Augie, wearing his elf hat and red pajamas, dancing like the "action elf" he claims to be.

It will be some time before they are old enough to sit through a full-length performance, but a Christmas Nutcracker is definitely in their futures.

We wish you a...

...Merry Christmas! And if Christmas isn't your holiday, have a wonderful weekend!

We'll be with the grandkids and their parents, seeing Christmas through the excitement of children. And that is the best gift we could ask for.

I began Christmas Eve day as I always do: listening to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College in Cambridge, England. Every year it opens with the pure soprano voice of a young boy singing "Once in Royal David's City," and every year I get chills the instant I hear it. Somewhere deep inside me lives the girl who loved midnight Mass and whose greatest musical performance thrill was playing the organ for the parish men's choir for two years. (Remember, beating Bob Dylan in a talent contest wasn't especially significant until several years later when he became uber-famous.)

The Festival is broadcast around the world by American Public Media and the BBC; you can learn more about it on the APM web site and listen to it until December 31 on the BBC site.

May you, too, encounter something during this holiday that stirs fond memories and deep satisfaction within. And just for good measure, a couple of bonus pix:

Best Flash Mob Ever - Hallelujah Chorus

I've never seen a flash mob in person. I didn't know much about them--mostly associated them with mischief. Well, this one is the opposite of mischief. It gives a whole new meaning to the concept of Shock and Awe. Enjoy.



(If the embedded version doesn't work for you, try this link.

P.S. According to Blogger, this is my 250th post.

Saying farewell to the Christmas season

The American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis this morning held a traditional Julgransplundring celebration. Translation: the plundering of the Christmas tree. Folks sang and danced around the julgran (Christmas tree) and made party hats and traditional ornaments. After a final dance, children “plundered” the tree of its edible decorations.

We happened to be taking down our tree while that party was underway. No singing and dancing here, thank you, but by our own tradition we did have the Christmas music playing. Each year on the Saturday after January 6, Peter takes off the ornaments and I pack them away along with other decorations. He hauls the tree outside and stands it in a snowbank near the bird feeders to provide a little shelter until the snow melts and the tree falls over (it will be months yet). We sweep up a bushel of needles and push the furniture back into place. I like that we do it together.

I used to be sad about putting away the trappings of Christmas. This year I'm okay with it, and quite satisfied to see what the next weeks and months will bring. As a newly retired person. I feel a kind of freedom I haven't known in many, many years. And a couple of loving and lovable children will continue to show up every morning eager to begin a new day with Pa and me. So farewell, Christmas season, and hello again, real life. Let's see what you've got.

One last thought. I've mentioned before that every ornament we use has meaning, and each year usually brings something to symbolize a new phase or activity. The lovely handmade ornament here came as a giveaway from the talented Jeanie at The Marmelade Gypsy, so now I have a beautiful symbol of my membership in the blogging community. Thanks, Jeanie!

A noisy Christmas!

Christmas Day was wonderful....Peter and I spending a quiet morning, then him cooking and us getting ready for the kids, who arrived mid-afternoon....

There were lots of wonderful presents, but the ones I photographed with the new video camera were...DRUMS. We have new bongo drums for Vi and a new tomtom for Augie...which just happens to fit onto "Pa's" sparkly red drum kit. They've been drumming on everything in the house (okay, no glass or pottery or people) for a long time now, so the noise is nothing new. And they both love drumming.



Addendum: Yes, they both spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in their jammies. Augie occasionally insists on this. With all the excitement involved in the Big Holidays, I think it's great that they can feel comfortable this way!

Christmas eve

Grandma got a new video camera for Christmas, and she opened it early to use it for the holiday. The viewfinder flips forward so the kids can see themselves...a great feature since they love to watch themselves! Christmas Eve was a very casual get-together with the kids. Our plans to order Chinese food fell through (the restaurant was closed) so Abby made some wonderful chicken dumpling soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. We were so much luckier than all the folks who couldn't be with family because of the snow!

Still working on video from Christmas Day...more complicated than I expected!

Christmas favorites, part 3

Several of our ornaments are really old, including the foursome seen here. The Father Christmas figure was on Peter's great-grandmother's tree back at the turn of the century (1900, not 2000). He found an identical one in an old farmhouse he was cleaning out years ago, so we have two of them. The little house was on his parents' tree, as were the two glass ornaments. My parents had many of the striped orbs, too, so the few we have are meaningful to me as well.

The elaborately antlered reindeer in baseball togs is a new acquisition in honor of Blitzen and of our great passion for minor-league baseball (specifically, the St. Paul Saints). Behind this guy is a satin-trimmed styrofoam ornament I made when I was about 13. My mom got the idea (and the pattern for the six satin segments) from Good Housekeeping, which she and I studied every year for new decorations and recipes. Several of my siblings made ornaments; I have three that I made, and I'm still very fond of them.

The up side of insomnia...

I probably shouldn't have spent all day eating nothing but pecan brittle...but it was so good, and I didn't feel like going out to forage for lunch, and besides I was being polite because it was a homemade gift from my new boss.

And at the end of the day, I shouldn't have gone to bed without finishing my gift-wrapping project, telling myself I'd finish in the morning. Those and whatever unknown factors might be at work have me up in the middle of the night, drinking peppermint tea and finishing the wrapping project. And now I'm showing it to you.

Last year our son-in-law's mom sent them some reusable fabric bags. We loved them, loved the whole idea. I ran out and bought tons of fabric (I'm good at buying tons of fabric) and then forgot about it until Thanksgiving. So I haven't made nearly as many as I wanted to, but some is better than none.

Not only are reusable bags environmentally friendly (assuming they will be used for years) but they can handle really awkward packages. In this case, a bottle of champagne, a large can of Poppycock, and some chocolate. Because of the standing items, I even made these in the shape of a grocery bag, with four sides and a bottom. I gave each bag a built-in tie; I turned the upper edge inside and ran two lines of stitching as a channel for the yarn. The overall effect is a bit lumpy, but I didn't have to (a) wrap each item separately or (b) buy paper gift bags. The rest of the bags I'm making are flat, so they go together much faster than the one you see here.

Now if only I could get a few hours of sleep before I go to work....

The tree is decorated...

...I've taken a few pictures, I finished shopping, and now I just have wrapping... which is more complicated than it sounds, but more about that another day.

Meanwhile, the lovely Monique-aka-Surferwife23 has given me an award. It comes with tasks--tell 10 things that make me happy and then pass it on to 10 others. I'm gonna do the first part today, so here goes:

Ten Things That Make Me Happy (and I'm not going to count the grandkids; that seems too easy):

1. Getting my first blog award--thanks, Surferwife!

2. Strawberry limoncello martinis. Olive Garden makes 'em, and now so does my husband. I'll post his recipe some day soon.

3. All by itself, limoncello Italian liqueur is nice, too. I'm sipping it right now.

4. Joni Mitchell's "I Wish I had a River"--it's so wonderfully melancholy. The first time I heard it, it was being sung by the Robert Downey Jr. character on Ally McBeal (the first hint that he was going to leave her, if I remember right). I actually had a little crush on that character. Sigh.

5. The smell of sugared almonds that fills one of the malls here at Christmas, and the taste of them when we bring home a couple of jumbo bags.

6. The fact that our daughter Abby dropped off a sample of her own home-made sugared almonds this morning, on her way to work.

7. Pioneer Woman. Her approach to cooking is encouraging and fun, her cookbook is a best-seller, her posts from the book tour showed how much she loves people, and her romantic stories about Marlboro Man and their kids are heartwarming. I used to think she was the Martha Stewart of the west, but if she turns out to be the next Oprah, you heard it here first.

8. With our grandkids, riding the carousel that we saved, and which we operate at Como Park in St. Paul. I'll tell that story some day.

9. Knowing that the book we coauthored with longtime baseball man Wayne Terwilliger is a good piece of work, that it's in the Library of Congress, and that it's still available on Amazon. That's another story I haven't told here.

10. Working only half-time and, truth be told, looking forward to retirement. There is so much I want to do outside of work, and I think it's coming within view.

So that's my list...as soon as I post I'll think of 10 more things, I'm sure. I still have to pass along the award, but I'm saving that for another day.

Christmas favorites, part 2

Shortly before she died almost 30 years ago (and I still miss her) my mother embroidered ornaments for me and my siblings. I have about a dozen including this poinsettia, two Christmas trees, a star, an angel, a wreath, and others. Of course I carefully distribute them around the tree, interspersed with other handmade ornaments--things I made as a kid, things Peter and Abby made, and quite a few Santas needlepointed by Peter's mother, who died last March.

In this photo from a couple of years ago (our tree will go up next week), we see a beautiful blown-glass orb that was a wedding gift, a clever Santa suit that we bought on a trip, a dainty bird-in-a-nest that is sort of outdoorsy and sort of Victorian, and a regal reindeer.

Both the kids' tree and ours have several reindeer. It seems that every year beginning when Abby was very young, Blitzen has left her a Christmas letter and a gift of a reindeer that he fancies looks like himself. His letters have offered advice and encouragement through all of her life changes, but apparently he also can be a little full of himself, or so I'm told. Anyway, once in a while Peter and I spot a really special, audacious reindeer that we add to our tree as a kind of tribute to good old Blitzen.

Memories...on someone else's tree!

Yesterday Connie, of Far Side of Fifty, posted a photo of a nice old ornament she'd found at an antique shop. The ornament featured Schumachers New Prague Hotel--which I recognized at once. It's where Peter and I spent the first night of our honeymoon just over 24 years ago.

That's us in the photo, with my lovely stepdaughter Abby, minutes after we were married in the living room of my best friends. If we look like we're in shock...we were. We met April 15, he asked me to marry him June 14, and we were married September 27. I've taken longer to pick out shoes. We were very practical about the whole thing. Couldn't take time off for a big honeymoon, so we headed for a two-day tour of southern Minnesota. (I went back to work on Monday and was still shaken. My employees threw me a little party and sent me home, where I spent a couple of days practicing the word "h-h-husband.")

In her post about the ornament, Connie provided some background on Schumachers, a historic small hotel with a wonderful restaurant. The restaurant featured Czech and German dishes prepared by the owner and fabulous chef John Schumacher. We had really enjoyed the food, and we went back for lunch or dinner several times before the hotel and restaurant closed in 2005.

But surprise...Connie's post said Schumachers had reopened. A quick Google search confirmed that the restaurant is back in business and the hotel has been remodeled (the twelve fairly small rooms are now six suites). The food will still include some European specialties but it will be lighter, a bit less expensive, and not designed to require a three-hour dining extravaganza--all good things, I'd say. Now that I know, I can't wait to get back there. And with our 25th anniversary coming up this year, we may need to check out the accommodations.

I'm so glad Connie decided to write about that ornament and that I was reading her blog! How about you...have you made a cool discovery while blogging?

P.S. Connie sent us the ornament and it now hangs on our Christmas tree every year! Thanks so much, Connie. 

Christmas favorites

Our ornaments are like a blended family...his, hers, and ours. Shortly before I "married them," Peter and Abby had one Christmas where money was tight and they spent time making gifts and ornaments. (She told him it was the best Christmas ever, because of the time they spent together.) This lace-ribbon star is one of their projects, and it's always in a place of honor on the tree. (Warning to Abby: spoiler ahead.) We can't remember who originally owned the little set of cooking utensils shown in this picture, but given Augie's and Abby's interest in baking, I have a hunch it will migrate to their tree soon.

Santa's younger brother

Every year at this time, Peter lets his hair and beard grow and dons a Santa hat I made for him years ago (with a bell in the tip to add to the merriment). He wears his favorite red cardigan and gets smiles wherever he goes.

Kids, parents, sales people, check-out cashiers, other shoppers...everybody is more friendly when he is wearing this hat than when he is, as he says, "just another fat guy in a red sweater." His favorite exchange was with a tough-looking young black man who suddenly lit up with a big smile and said, "Merry Christmas, dude." If someone asks, "Are you Santa Claus," he answers, "I'm his good-looking younger brother."

Yesterday we took the kids to a mall. A woman started chatting him up, asking has he been busy and how many kids have come through. She thought he was the mall's Santa arriving to pose for pictures. I guess if his regular work ever falls through....

Christmas giving

Nobody quite believes it, but we really have cut back on Christmas spending. Peter LOVES to give the perfect gift, and on our first Christmas together (24 years ago) I was stunned by the number of gifts and the measures to which he'd gone to find just the right things. I began to match the numbers of gifts, though never the amount of diligent searching for hard-to-find items. We devoted enormous amounts of time specially wrapping our gifts, sometimes elaborately disguising the packages and always writing hints on the gift tags.

Twelve or 15 years ago, we began to buy holiday gifts for needy families. I organized an annual project at work to provide gifts for 36 families headed by single mothers working to get out of homelessness and into stable homes. (They participate in a program run by the local YWCA; the moms spend two years learning job, homemaking, parenting, and life skills.)

Each year Peter, Abby, and I would select one or more families and go to Target with wish lists provided by the moms. We'd select items for each family member until we'd reached our budget (translation: exceeded our intended budget by at least 20 percent) and felt we'd gotten a nice balance of gifts. If the mom only listed clothes for the kids, we got each one a small toy as well. If we got her household gifts, we added bath and body lotion. And maybe some candy for the family. It made us feel SO GOOD to select things that we knew were needed...cookware, for example, that would help someone feed her family, hopefully for a long time to come.

The satisfaction of doing that project soon made us reflect on our own gift-giving. We still love it, but with more simplicity and less excess than before.

It might have been tempting to overdo with the grandkids, but we don't. (No, really, we don't.) At their young ages, they are easily overwhelmed with too much stuff, including too many packages to open. And their parents wisely don't want them to equate Christmas with Tons Of Huge Presents. (Besides, we introduce new books and playthings periodically through the year, just to keep daycare fresh, so it's not like we deprive ourselves of the fun of giving them things.)

We've bought a few things for their Christmas, and we'll buy a few more, and we'll wrap them up and have great fun. But just at this moment the thing I'm looking forward to, the thing that gives me a little tickle of excitement, is shopping for the family I've adopted for this year, a mom and her daughters who otherwise wouldn't have gifts. I'll be getting the mom some pots & pans and a radio and some socks, and each of the girls some clothes and a doll. And I will enjoy it so much that it feels more self-indulgent than charitable. But that's often true of things we do for others.

P.S. I edited this post slightly after posting.