Christmas

Merry Christmas!

/ momshieb / 8 Comments

Now take off those rose colored glasses.

After everything we’ve been through in the past year, it sure is tempting to feel sorry for ourselves. Christmas without family is just plain sad. No family parties. No traditional family foods. No swap gifts or big family photos. For the first time in 35 years, we don’t have even one of our children under our roof of Christmas morning.

Not one measly kid.

Boo-hoo, poor us!

In the face of our pitiful pandemic celebrations, it’s easy to look back at every Christmas of the past through the lens of perfection. Compared to this year, it seems like every single holiday of my life was filled with fresh snow, happy children, and perfectly cooked meals shared with smiling loved ones.

Oh, and tastefully decorated trees, too.

When I look back on all the years of Christmas, I’m sure that I looked exactly like this lovely blond woman wrapped in her white furs and yuletide evergreens. I can clearly remember the sweet ringing of silver bells as our horse carried us over the snow……..

But naturally, that’s all bull pucky.

So as I sit here listening the rain pouring down on my snowless roof, in my completely quiet house, I am thinking back on Christmases past.

And you know what I am remembering?

Some of them were pretty bad!

For example, I remember the year when we put up our very first full sized fresh tree. Our daughter was three years old, and this was the first time we were living in a house instead of a cramped apartment or my parents basement.

We spent more money than we had on a beautiful tree, took hours to decorate it perfectly, and stand it in our window. And two hours later our sweet little girl was covered in hives. Dear Lord, was she allergic to the tree??? We called the doctor, who said, “I don’t know.”

So out went the tree, and off to the store went my husband. He came back with one of the only fake trees left. It was a gorgeous pretend blue spruce and it cost three times what the overpriced real tree had cost.

But we set it up, and we went on to use if for about 20 years.

THAT was a tough Christmas.

Then there was the year when we took that same fake tree out of the basement closet and dragged it upstairs to the living room. As we unwrapped the tarp, we found the branches filled with bits of fiberglass insulation, pieces of cloth and dozens of bird seeds.

The mice, it seemed, had been nesting all year in our tree. When we opened the cardboard boxes containing all of our ornaments, we found that they were full of mouse poop and seed shells, too. As the Mother of three very young kids, I reacted with typical mother serenity.

I put EVERY washable ornament in the bathtub and filled it with hot water and bleach. I soaked the crap out of those things. I threw away a bunch of stuff, sprayed bleach water on a bunch of stuff and vacuumed that poor tree to within an inch of it’s life. The kids cried. I cried.

Eventually the tree went up and we lit multiple candles to cover the smell of bleach.

Good times, good times.

One Christmas we all had strep throat. Well, four out of five of us did, anyway. Dad had his tonsils out as a kid, so he was healthy. But I was as sick as a dog, and so were all three of the kids. We skipped the extended family Christmas Eve gathering at my parent’s house, because we were all feverish, sick and aching. As I recall, we were all asleep by 7pm. We got up to open Santa’s gifts, but everyone was wrapped in a blanket and shivering again by 9 am.

I distinctly remember that Christmas dinner that year was Cream of Wheat cereal.

And I will never forget the year that we finally retired the old fake spruce. That extravagant expenditure ended up being the bargain of the century, because it lasted for so many years. But when it’s plastic needles started to fall off and it’s branches were mostly bent out of shape, we decided it was time to go for a real tree.

That was the year I convinced my now college aged sons to help me cut down a local pine. See, we basically live in a freakin’ pine forest. It seemed silly to pay for a tree. It was also the middle of the big recession, around 2009, and most of the homes in our neighborhood were empty. The pines were beginning to crowd onto lawns.

So, environmentally conscious woman that I am, I grabbed a hand saw and headed out with my strong young sons. And off we went. We found a nice healthy white pine growing along the road, and down it came.

It was only after we tried to hang ornaments on it that we realized white pines are WAY to weak and floppy to be Christmas trees.

That year was our “Charlie Brown’s Tree” year. We had to tie the damn thing to a hook we stuck in the wall.

  • Buon Natale!

So you can see that not every Christmas in my life was perfect. I’m going to guess that a lot of yours weren’t so perfect either.

But you know what?

These are some of our favorite stories now. These are the stories that make us laugh and appreciate each other and share a common warm memory.

So I’m thinking that one day, in the not so distant future, we’ll be laughing at our Zoom dinners, our distanced visits and our Christmas texts.

It’s time to take off those rose colored glasses and start appreciating what we still have right now.

Merry Christmas. Happy Hannukah. Festive Solstice to you all.

I Refuse to Cancel Christmas!

/ momshieb / 17 Comments

One tiny microscopic virus is not going to rob me of the joy of Christmas. No how, no way. I know my rights as an American.

I refuse to skip my Christmas festivities.

But you know what?

I am going to postpone them.

My husband and I aren’t putting up a tree this year. Without any family or friends around to see them, why drag the boxes of ornaments out of the attic? Why move the furniture and untangle the lights? Everything can just stay all snug in the attic for now.

Instead of hanging lights and baking cookies, this year I’m spending my time planning. I’m making lists of names, designing decorations, planning a menu.

Because next summer, I am going to throw the biggest freakin’ party in the history of parties. Not since Bilbo Baggins threw his big eleventy-first birthday party has there been such an outrageously festive event.

I plan to have this event somewhere outdoors, just so everyone can fit. But there will be an indoor venue there, too, because it’s been way too long since we’ve been able to gather indoors and be all squashed together.

My giant celebration will include the introduction of my newest grandchild, little Max, because so many of our family and friends have yet to meet him. It will also be a birthday party, because he’ll have turned one year old in April. And while we’re giving gifts and eating cake, we’ll also celebrate the birthdays of Max’s older siblings, his parents, his grandfathers and grandmothers and all of his aunts and uncles.

The day will include a fabulous wedding, too, since my son and his partner had to postpone their plans for last August. We’ll have tons of champagne, piles of appetizers and live music by every band we haven’t been able to see in the past year. There’ll be toasts, and dancing and reunions of old friends along with the exchanging of vows.

The main food of the day will be turkey with all the trimmings. I mean the whole shebang; stuffing, dressing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, green beans and squash and fifteen kinds of pie. I can hardly wait to start cooking!

To set the mood for the day, there will be lots of sparkling decorations all over the venue. We’ll choose a place with some nice big pine trees, and we’ll wrap some of them in colored lights and hang red, green and gold balls on them. Maybe everyone will bring a gift to swap!!!

Every fifteen minutes, a bell will ring, and everyone will hug the person next to them. The hugs will be long and fervent and filled with affection and joy. People will kiss each other on the cheeks, or even on the lips, if you can imagine such a thing. There will be a lot of shouting and laughing while large groups of guests stand less than two feet from each other.

At least ten times during the party, everyone will throw an arm around someone’s shoulder while we all sing loudly. This will happen mostly in the indoor part of the event space, of course, so that we can achieve maximum mingling of breath.

And just to make the party a truly exciting and unique event, I’m going to ask everyone who attends to wear a costume and carry around a plastic pumpkin! Oooh, I have a great idea…..I’ll give out little candy bars as wedding favors!

At midnight, fireworks will be sent into the night sky and everyone will clap, cheer, wave various and sundry flags and shout “Happy New World!”

Naturally, before the party winds down near dawn, everyone will go out into the grassy field next to the giant dance floor/stage. As the sun rises, all of the kids will hunt for colored eggs and hidden candy. Then we’ll all have a big brunch on the lawn.

I can’t wait.

I’m thinking of calling it “Postpone-a-palooza.”

You want to come?

An Ode to 2020

/ momshieb / 6 Comments

In the first month of Covid
2020 gave to me
A shortage of P.P.E.

In the second month of Covid
2020 gave to me
Two rubber gloves
And a shortage of P.P.E.

In the third month of Covid
2020 gave to me
Three sanitizers
Two rubber gloves
And a shortage of P.P.E.

In the fourth month of Covid
2020 gave to me
Four science nerds
Three sanitizers
Two rubber gloves
And a shortage of P.P.E.

In the fifth month of Covid
2020 gave to me
Five Murder Hornet Stings!
Four science nerds
Three sanitizers
Two rubber gloves
And a shortage of P.P.E.



In the sixth month of Covid
2020 gave to me
Six feet of distance
Five Murder Hornet Stings!
Four science nerds
Three sanitizers
Two rubber gloves
And a shortage of P.P.E.

In the seventh month of Covid
2020 sent to me
Seven Charmins missing
Six feet of distance
Five Murder Hornet Stings!
Four science nerds
Three sanitizers
Two rubber gloves
And a shortage of P.P.E.


In the eighth month of Covid
2020 sent to me
Eight masks a-slipping
Seven Charmins missing
Six feet of distance
Five Murder Hornet Stings!
Four science nerds
Three sanitizers
Two rubber gloves
And a shortage of P.P.E.

In the ninth month of Covid
2020 sent to me
Nine glasses fogging
Eight masks a-slipping
Seven Charmins missing
Six feet of distance
Five Murder Hornet Stings!
Four science nerds
Three sanitizers
Two rubber gloves
And a shortage of P.P.E.

In the tenth month of Covid
2020 sent to me
Ten families Zooming
Nine glasses fogging
Eight masks a-slipping
Seven Charmins missing
Six feet of distance
Five Murder Hornet Stings!
Four science nerds
Three sanitizers
Two rubber gloves
And a shortage of P.P.E.

In the eleventh month of Covid
2020 sent to me
Eleven schools in lockdown
Ten families Zooming
Nine glasses fogging
Eight masks a-slipping
Seven Charmins missing
Six feet of distance
Five Murder Hornet Stings!
Four science nerds
Three sanitizers
Two rubber gloves
And a shortage of P.P.E.

In the twelfth month of Covid
2020 sent to me
Twelve vaccine trials
Eleven schools in lockdown
Ten families Zooming
Nine glasses fogging
Eight masks a-slipping
Seven Charmins missing
Six feet of distance
Five Murder Hornet Stings!
Four science nerds
Three sanitizers
Two rubber gloves
And a shortage of P.P.E.

Dear Christmas Charities

/ momshieb / 10 Comments

Dear various groups of needy children, hospital patients, veterans, abandoned pets, sick nuns, lonely old people and lost souls.

I understand that we have entered the season of giving.

Believe me, I give.

I shop regularly at Unicef Market, where everything I buy provides food, water and medicine to kids around the world. I donate to my local food bank and to programs for homeless folks in my community. I really do try to be as generous as I can to as many causes as I can.

But here’s where I absolutely draw the line and will not cough up one single tiny coppery penny.

If you send me an unsolicited envelope full of swag, and then expect me to “donate” as a way of paying for it, you can just fuggedaboudit.

Want to see what I got in the mail today, along with a fake letter from a little child supposedly named “Joseph”? I got this:

I will not name this “charity,” but it is supposed to be raising funds for children in need. According the enclosed paperwork, the money is desperately needed for the education, shelter and care of these young ones.

M’Kay…..so why did they spend the money to send me a dreamcatcher, three notepads, a set of Christmas stickers, a page of return address labels, a pen, a page of Christmas gift tags, four Christmas cards (individually wrapped) and a freakin’ pair of kids gloves?

ALL of it wrapped in cellophane, decorated, and packaged along with 5 pages of paperwork and the “letter” from Joseph.

It makes me sick.

In order to actually raise money for these kids (if in fact there are any kids), the organization would need to offset the costs of all of this swag, plus the printing, plus the postage.

I estimate that my package alone cost in the area of five dollars. I’d have to donate six for them to get any profit, right?

But if they sent our one package to every household on my street, that would be 20 houses for $100. I know that one house is empty, so that’s a loss. I believe that most people toss out junk mail, so perhaps 10% would send in a donation.

If they are that lucky, and 10% donate ten bucks, they break even.

But if they just sent the information, and maybe a link to a website, that same $100 donation would give them a good return, right?

So why do these groups do this? Why do they send out huge packages of unwanted stuff to complete strangers around the country?

Because of guilt.

They are relying on the fact that most people are good and decent and don’t want to take something without giving back. They are counting on the idea that enough of us will think, “Gosh, a pair of gloves! And all these pretty stickers! I need to send them at least something…..”

Not this wise old woman. I am not falling for that trick.

Instead, I will keep every one of the unsolicited goodies and will put them to good use.

Then I’ll take the estimated value, add in a donation amount, and send the money to Unicef.

Buon Natale

/ momshieb / 4 Comments

My Dad used to say it that way. My Grampa did, too. And my PapaNonni said, “Buon Natale”. In our house we didn’t say it in English when the whole family was around.

Buon Natale.

For my whole life, those two words have meant the sharing of good food, of laughter, of presents, of long stories told it two languages.

Buon Natale meant the meal of seven fishes, with shrimp and calamari and especially with octopus cooked by my Sicilian Grampa who pronounced it “boopie.”

The magic of the celebration meant gathering with cousins we saw only two or three times a year. It meant catching up with each other’s news, introducing new boyfriends, new fiances, new babies.

Buon Natale. Every year the location of our family party would rotate between the houses of my mother’s siblings. Some things would change, as people moved and families grew, but many many things stayed the same. The boopie, the calamari, the red Santa hats, the bottles of good Scotch under the tree.

Years have passed for me. Decades have passed now.

So many of those we loved have left us. Grampa, the original boopie chef, has been gone for more than thirty years. Our Nana left us more than ten years ago. We’ve lost my Dad, my sweet, funny brother-in-law, and my hilarious and brilliant Uncle.

But you know what?

We gathered again today. We hugged, and kissed and wished each other Buon Natale. There was wine and good Scotch. There was boopie and shrimp and calamari and calzone. We had ricotta pie and wonderful desserts.

Mostly, though, we had a new generation of little cousins who play together and laugh together only once or twice a year. We had laughs and memories and a few quiet tears.

We had each other. We had tradition and repetition and time to look back and remember that the joy of the season is really about celebrating how lucky we’ve been to have known and loved each other.

I don’t know what the future will bring, or how long traditions should hold.

But I know that my daughter will be hosting her brothers and us on Christmas. And I know that she’ll be cooking boopie.

Buon Natale e felice anno nuovo a tutti.

Well, I don’t have a picture of boopie.

Life is such a winding road

/ momshieb / 10 Comments

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It’s a funny thing, but this Christmas has me thinking about death.   Oh, not in a scary, sad, “ghost of Christmas future” kind of way.  More like in a “So I wonder what happens next” sort of way.

My oldest child got married in July, and two of my closest friends are about to become grandparents.

I’m thinking about the fact that my generation is in the process of taking the next step up the ladder, making way for a whole new generation of young parents and their babies.  I’m thinking that life has carried me along the winding road to where I am now, and that everything that has happened before now has led me to be ready for this next step upwards.

I don’t mind thinking about my own turn as “Nonni”, whenever it comes my way.  I don’t mind leaving the parenting to a younger set.  I don’t mind being the one who will one day get to cuddle, spoil, tickle and hand back.  I’m ready.  Life is a winding road, but it leads us all to the next phase.

And I’m thinking so much about my Dad.  He loved babies, he loved kids, he loved holidays and crowds and too much food and really good conversation and chaos and laughter.  He loved us.   A lot.

My Dad died six years ago.  For me,  the world seemed to stop turning after his death; how could the world go on without him?  But gradually I realized that the seasons continued, the days flowed by, the children grew and my hair went slowly grayer.  My life went on, but I also began to understand that his did, too.  I felt him, I “saw him”, I talked to him in my dreams.

I have felt my father’s hand and his hug and his breath many times over the past six years.  A few months after his death, my daughter needed emergency surgery.  When she slowly awoke from her anesthesia, she told me, “I was with Grampa. He was wearing a flannel shirt and he sat with me, holding my hand. We were at a little round table. I felt so safe with him there.”  She told me that she saw my Dad look at his watch, then look up at her.  She told me that he said, “You’ll be OK now.  Time to go.”  He got up, hugged her, and left.

And she woke up, looking at me.  She knew that he was with her.  I knew it too, because I felt it deep, deep in my heart.

This morning I read the blog of a wise old curmudgeon who goes by the humorous name of “Daddy Bear”.   In his thoughtful post “New Year Thinkering”, Daddy Bear thought about his own death.  He phrased his ‘thinkering’ in such a lovely way that I understood that a lot of people hold my belief that life goes on, even after death has found us. You should read his gentle words. You will find comfort and inspiration.

This Christmas, I had my children around me.  I felt my father in the room with us, smiling and laughing and enjoying the love that they feel for each other. For Dad, family was everything. He valued his family more than anything else in his life. I felt his spirit in the laughter and joy of my boys on Christmas. He would have been so proud of the love that my children feel for each other!

This Christmas, I gathered with a huge group of my cousins and their children, eating the same traditional Christmas foods that go back generations.  We ate octopus (“pulpi”) and squid and shrimp, cooked the same way that my Grandpa taught us to cook them. My Grandpa who has been gone for 28 years.  We ate “Nana pizza” cooked exactly the right way by my sweet niece Angela, who copied her Nana exactly, although Nana has been gone for seven years now.  And it occurred to me, as I hugged my cousins and ate my “boopie” and drank my wine, that my grandparents have achieved a kind of immortality through all of us and all of our children.

Life is a long and winding road, and none of us can ever predict the roadblocks or the washouts or the detours.  Still, we go on, because we can’t turn around.  Life is a winding, bumpy road, but we are committed to reaching its end.  Life is a funny, surprising adventurous road, and sometimes I think we all wish we could pull into a rest area and just let the traffic go on by.

But we stay on the road, because we have no choice.  We bump along, enjoying the scenery as much as we can. Eventually, we come to the parking lot, where our personal road comes to an end.

But our kids drive on, past where we have stopped. They carry our hearts, our smiles, our round eyes, our preference for salty over sweet.  They drive right on, covering their own winding, bumpy roads, long after we have stopped driving.

And we live on, because our children and their children carry our spirits within them.  We live on, because even after we shed these achy old bones, our hearts stay close to those we love.

This Christmas, I am thinking quite a lot about true immortality, and about the many ways that each of us will live on. We will all live on through those who have loved us. If we leave behind a loving and happy family, how much more secure is our immortality!

Dedicating this post to my funny, smart, loving, feisty, immortal Uncle Bob.

Your Every Christmas Wish

/ momshieb / 11 Comments

603733_10200837417355233_1874374034_nWhen I was little, I could fill myself with the feeling of Christmas by lying in bed in the glow of the orange window lights. The bulbs were hot, so hot that we had to be very careful to keep the shades hight above them, and the curtains fully open.  The warm orange glow was so different from the usual pale nightlight glow that as we fell asleep, my sister and I would feel as if we were being wrapped in magic.  I can still conjure the feeling of drifting to sleep with my face turned toward that orange, orange light. Waiting for Santa and for the magic of Christmas morning.

As I got a little bit older, into my teens, I learned to lie on the rug with all of the lamps in the room off. I would lie as close to the Christmas tree as I could, after turning all of its big bright colored lights on. I’d look up into the branches and squint my eyes a bit. The fat, bright lights would reflect in the long silvery strands of tinsel and I would get that feeling in my stomach; that “Christmas” feeling.  I’d think about what gift I might get (new albums by Joan Baez, Fleetwood Mac, Judy Collins were high on my list).  I would be filled with giddy anticipation and that magic feeling would flood me again.

Then I became a Mom. Christmas was more magical than ever.  That feeling, that magical Christmas feeling was all about them.  I could fill myself with the magical feeling of Christmas by looking at their beautiful eyes, reflecting the glowing lights of our tree. Motherhood is magic; Motherhood on Christmas morning is indescribable.

Now they’re all grown up.  Our familiar fake spruce tree is long gone.  I sit here alone in my quiet house, resting up a bit before the big family celebrations begin.  I’m thinking about later tonight, and tomorrow morning. I’m thinking about the few hours when I can gather all of them around me, my beautiful daughter and her smiley eyed husband, my two handsome sons, my husband.  I think about “that Christmas feeling”, and how much I’m looking forward to holding it close.  Tomorrow that feeling will come when there is a moment with all of us in this room.  There will be half filled coffee cups everywhere, and piles of wrapping paper on the floor.  The house will smell of bacon, and the dogs will be watching eagerly for a crumb to fall. Paul will be wrapped in a blanket, dozing a bit.  I’ll stand in the dining room for a minute. I’ll look around the room.  I’ll stand where I can see all of them, all of their familiar faces.  The conversation will be completely casual, about nothing much.  Someone will say something funny, like they always do, and everyone will laugh together.  I’ll wipe my hands on my apron, look from face to sweet face, and laugh along with them.

I’ll be filled once again with the magical orange light and sparkly tinsel feelings of Christmas.

The Sound of Elementary School

/ momshieb / 10 Comments

cyberscooty-kids_smiling

Ah, the magical sounds of elementary school in mid-December!  Such sweet music!  Truly.

Of course, I am not always able to appreciate the subtle loveliness of children’s voices in the week before the big vacation break.  I sometimes fail to appreciate the joy that they are sharing on the first day of Hannukah and a week before Christmas.

Sometimes, in spite of my best efforts, I find my own voice raised to scary levels as I desperately try to corral them long enough to walk down the hall to music.  There are moments, I must admit, when I am hard pressed to find the positives as 24 just-about-hysterical ten year olds attempt to work together to solve math problems in this sugar heightened time of year.

At times, it is all I can do to remain calm as I patiently repeat my mantra, “If you can hear my voice, clap once. If you can hear my voice, clap twice. If you can hear my voice, clap three times.”   At any other time of year, there is silence by the time I get to three.

Today I had to resort to, “If you can hear my voice, clap seventeen times and then stare at anybody who is still talking.”

Sigh.

But you know what? The joyful noise manages to penetrate through to me in spite of my hoarseness and my minor frustrations.

The joyful noise of happy, excited, well loved, well nourished children seeps into my ears and my heart and my soul, and I end my December days thinking, “I am so incredibly lucky to be here.”

Here are some of the sounds of our school in the past two days.

One of my little girls was dancing around in the meeting area, twirling and flinging her arms out with joy.  Her hair was flying, and her gorgeous turquoise eyes were gleaming. “Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, she sang in a husky voice.  I was trying to gather the children for a math lesson at the time.   “Honey”, I said to her, “I can see that you’re excited for Christmas.”

“No, I’m not!” she replied as she twirled, “I’m Jewish!”

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Two little first graders were walking in from recess, holding hands.  Both were flushed with the cold, and both were singing. “On the First Day of Christmas, my chula gave to me….”  The tiny blonde waved at me with the hand that wasn’t holding her friend’s.  Her black haired, dark eyed friend grinned at me, and the song resumed, “A partridge inapin free!”

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And there is the sound of tapping, drumming, clanging, pinging that goes on all day as little restless bodies do their very best to contain their excitement and hold in the giddiness.  Tapping on the desk, drumming on the book, clanging the pen on the back of a chair.

They can’t help it.  Music is joy, and they are joyful.

Sometimes I want to smother that joy, just for a second. Just so I can get them to sit still while I hand out the math paper.

Then I think of the children in other places, where war is raging, or famine is rampant. I think of children who are sad, or scared, or lonely, or lost.

And I look out at the churning mass of December joy in front of me, and all I can do is sing.

“On the first day of Christmas, my chula gave to me…….”

Thank you, Dad.

/ momshieb / 18 Comments

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My Dad loved to work with wood.  He told me that he loved the feel of the wood in his hands, and the look of the grain while he was working with it.

My Dad taught me how to refinish furniture.  We had an old maple dresser, a roughed up piece of furniture that Paul had used in his childhood.  I looked at it and saw the scratches and dents, and wanted to throw it out to buy a new one.  But Dad looked at it and saw treasure.  He showed me that the drawers had been made solid and strong, without a single nail or screw. He taught me the words “dovetail” and “mortise”.  He taught me that maple is one of the strongest, most durable woods, and that it is now so expensive that I’d never be able to buy it.

“Look,” he told me, pulling out the drawer, “You’ll get rid of this, and you’ll end up with particle board drawers and a laminate top. It won’t last ten years.”

We brought the old bureau into Dad’s garage, and he showed me how to strip it of its varnish, how to sand it smooth.  He taught me to use a “tack cloth” to remove the wood dust, and then the two of us stained the now gleaming wood.  I thought that we would put varnish on it, to protect it, but he told me that we should use wax instead.  So we waxed it, we smoothed it, we polished it.

It was beautiful.

i put it in my daughter’s room, and later in my sons’.  It was filled with pajamas and shirts and socks.  It had stickers applied, and wax dripped on it from various candles.  But it was still beautiful.  And sturdy.

My Dad was creative.  He used his love of wood to make beautiful gifts for his grandchildren.  When my boys were very small, Dad made them wooden trains.  One for each of them.  Every car was lovingly sanded and shaped and put together.  Every car was inscribed with the name of the little boy who owned it.  They used to lie on the living room floor, pushing those trains around mountains of pillows, using them to transport plastic “army guys”, letting them crash down the stairs.    I can see them now, two little tow headed boys with big green eyes, dressed in red pajamas, so deeply engrossed in their games that they don’t even see the Mother who stands there watching them with so much love.

My Dad is gone now.  There won’t be any more furniture refinished, or trains built, or sheds put up in the yard.  I miss him every single day, but I miss him most at Christmas.

So this year, as I was thinking about decorating for the holiday season, I picked up the wooden trains from where they had been resting on the living room floor.  They had been sitting, untouched, under the branches of a big old dragon tree, gathering dust. I brought them into the kitchen.  I wanted to clean them up, but I knew from Dad that I shouldn’t immerse them in water. Instead, I wiped them clean with a damp cloth, then rubbed every bit of them with lemon oil.  As the shine returned to the wood, I could see the grain in each piece.  I ran my fingers over the lovingly carved names, and put the trains together again.

I placed them on the shelf above my front door; a place of honor.  There they sit now, with a Christmas candle, and a basket of greens, and a pretty wooden sled that my Aunt Ann gave me years ago.

I am looking at them now. So sweet.  So well crafted. So filled with memories and with love.

I wonder what I will be able to create when it is my turn to love a grandchild.

Thank you, Dad!

The Green Man

/ momshieb / 13 Comments

Whose tracks are these?

Whose tracks are these?

Sometimes I can feel my pagan ancestors rising up inside me.

Oh, I know.   I am a very modern American, living in the far too overcrowded Northeast.  I grew up in the suburbs of Boston, and went to college in that teeming city. What pagan past?

I was raised as a Catholic: how “anti-pagan” can you possibly get? I went to church in a nice modern building.  I learned to pray under bright electric lights.

And yet, sometimes I can feel my ancient pagan past rising up inside of me, speaking of fears and dreams and magic that is a part of my bones.  A pagan past that somehow has never been smoothed away by education or social interaction or modern technology.

I feel it on hot summer nights, when the moon rises over the wetlands behind our house. When I lie awake to hear the sounds of rushing water and hunting owls and cicadas crying in the woods. On those nights, the world of pagan spirits seems benign and gentle, and I am lulled by its pull on my heart.

But in winter, I feel those ancient spirits in a darker and more frightening way.

In winter, the wind and the night conspire to remind me of  how my ancestors once felt about the shortest day, and the onset of the darkness.

I live in a place where there are woods almost all around me.  For three seasons of the year, this is a great gift.  I see deer and fox and raccoons and pheasants wandering under those trees. For three seasons of the year, the woods mean abundant life, and peace and health and comfort.  We listen for the “peepers” in spring, to signal that the great awakening has begun, and that everything is about to burst into bloom.   In summer, we listen for the sound of hunting owls, the calls of coyotes, the singing of night birds.  And in the fall, sometimes we can even hear the smacking sound of antlers as deer and moose turn on the testosterone and fight for the best of the females.

For those three seasons, it feels exhilarating and exciting to be a part of the natural world.

But in winter, everything is so different.

SONY DSCIn winter, I look out my kitchen window and I see the spindly shapes of the leafless branches, the sinister twists of the trees against the glowering sky.  In winter, when I look into the woods from the safety of my deck, I hear the sounds of branches creaking and of wind moving restlessly through the pines.

In the winter, the woods are dark so early, and there are so many shadows.  I look out to find the moon, but when it rises from behind the frozen wetlands, it looks as if it is covered in frost.

When I go outside in the early winter light, I find strange tracks in the snow, and I imagine the dangerous predators who stalk around our house while we sleep.

When I come home after dark, to our quiet, nearly empty neighborhood, and into my quiet, nearly empty house, I feel the ancient winter spirits nipping at my heels and I shiver in fear until I am inside, and the fire is lit and the kitchen is filled with good warm smells.

At those moments, on those dark winter nights, I can understand why the ancients celebrated the beauty and hopefulness of the evergreens.  I know why they honored “The Green Man” with his ever lasting life and his ability to stand up to the darkness.

I am in no hurry to take my Christmas tree out of my living room, or to throw out the baskets of pine boughs on my hutch.

My pagan self is resisting the angry bite of the swirling snow as I light the candles and simmer the soup, and throw another log on the fire.

Happy Winter Solstice.  Happy New Year.  May we all endure until the coming of spring!