Christmas 2012

For the first time I planned a facebook status ahead of time. I had to wait until Christmas Eve to post: "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight." I hadn't realized Christmas had become so empty to me until this year when it was full again.

Not even discovering most of our ornaments were covered in mold could dampen my spirit.

My mother's cousin made me the heart ornament when I was very, very young.  I made the reindeer in 4-H in 6th grade and bought the reindeer head at a church craft fair. It was my favorite because it held a Hershey kiss. The tape was my two best Jenny's playing Christmas carols on the piano, ca. 1990.

It was sad to lose them, but happy to put the tree up with the surviving ornaments. Of course they were virtually all glass or ceramic. 

The clatter that woke me that night was more of a crash as the whole thing fell to the floor. I'd like to blame the three cats and a Chip and Dale routine but it was my faulty tree stand engineering. One of the most important ornaments of all broke. 

My grandmother and I painted ceramic ornaments together long before there was a Hobby Lobby and hers were always perfect. This was one of the first. Thankfully it was a clean break, I found the missing part and super glue did the trick. Saved for another year!

Holiday tip: More is better applies to trees. I put up three. Small, medium and large. After the collapsed first try I divided and conquered. Each tree got its own personality just glowed with love, sparkle and light. What more is there to Christmas, anyway?

I learned the meaning of  faith in action from those who came into my life as answered prayers this year. A few people were Clarence to my Mr. Bailey this year, teaching me what Christmas should be. 

These ladies top the list with their compassion, grace and indomitable spirit. When I think about whom I want to emulate, they come to mind. 

Another person new to my life this year reminded me of the joy in giving for giving's sake, not for trying to impress or outspend. I got to play Santa for him, distributing gifts he bought for people he doesn't know just because. 

It inspired me to do the same. Two families got bags full of gifts this year whom I barely know and who don't know it was me. 

Honestly, that brought more joy to me than even baking cookies with these two did (though it was close). 

Their portrayals of Mary and a shepherd came pretty close, too.

After our church service last Sunday we went to theirs to watch her suck on her teeth like an old man (one front tooth gone, one loose, though two front teeth were not all she wanted for Christmas) and him sing Gloria In Excelsis Deo like a miniature Pavarotti.

Monday we took them shopping to buy Christmas presents for their parents (wait, for them? not for us? huh?), ate out, wrapped said presents (their sister is a master bow girl) and made cookies. We don't see them often, but I hope these little moments make an impression. 

Our Christmas Eve service will be memorable, that's for sure. We were asked to come early and be ushers. I wore my new silk scarf that is shiny pale green on one side and shimmery red on the other with lots of fringe.

When we arrived, it was discovered that a dozen people had been asked to be ushers. We sorted that out - I thought - until just before the service started and someone else came and asked us to serve Communion. So when it came time to usher we sat a few beats until we got "the eye" and rushed up to do our job.

When it was Communion time eight of us came forward to do the job of four. On top of that, someone had to be dispatched to the kitchen for more bread and two wine goblets was nowhere near enough.

I served the overflow crowd bread while Jack stood as arm candy at the front of the line. We were all glad it was over, especially when we opened the doors and found it was snowing!

Christmas morning I made Jack his pie-spiced latte and we settle in to savor our tree. He opened lots of packages connected to his big gift (see Home Makeover: Office Edition) and I opened a giant box. A real sheepskin and a set of pearls!

After the tree we picked up someone with nowhere else to go and went to the community dinner at the Catholic school gym for which Jack helped cook nine turkeys. My dessert was this impromptu performance of several hymns by my mustachioed Pavarotti and his merry band (aka members of our church choir).

I am so grateful for so very much this year. Christmas illustrated the sweetness in our new life. So many of our prayers have been answered. As we look to a new year, I pray to be a vehicle for someone else's answered prayers. Amen.

He's checking his list

Jack has a collection of cowboy Santas. They are in various poses so they can be identified thus. One rides a palomino horse mid-jump with his arm up in the air (very Wyoming). Another simply plods along like Mary on her donkey (come to think of it...), and one holds a rope about to throw a loop. He hasn't kept many things along his travels, but these always find their way home. This year, they got their own little windowsill tableau complete with lighting and ribbon.



I have a penchant for vintage type things (see: my husband) and a few years ago while trolling a consignment store I found the coolest old stuffed Santa.



Jack didn't agree.

"What was that movie where they had they evil little doll that killed people?"
"Chuckie?"
"Yeah - Chuckie! That's Chuckie's Christmas! Get that thing out of here."

Well, maybe he IS like Chuckie, since he keeps turning up somehow.

My Santa (I lovingly refer to him as "creepy Santa") doesn't stand up well on his own, to I stuck him in a nice supportive corner.

Enter CWC (the feline version, not the one on my paycheck).

By some Christmas miracle, the cat has not bothered the tree or ornaments much at all. We took precautions; we created a restricted zone on the bottom branches for sturdy or squishy ornaments. The top half, tied to the wall, is very shiny. It has all the glass and ceramics. We figured it would stand up to whatever she could throw at it (her body, Sluggo, you know, whatever she could), but she seemed only to appreciate it as a nice place to hide beneath and tease Mater.

Every morning this week, however, I woke up to this:



Poor Santa don't get no respect.
Jack was fine with this, of course.
"Leave him there," was his preference.

But this morning, his beloveds were violated. The regal cowboy Santa had been unceremoniously displaced from his position of honor. Unbroken, but definitely disgraced.

"Listen, cat," Jack addressed Princess Kitty under the tree. "There are Santa's you can mess with and Santa's you can't. Get it straight."

Onamentation

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Originally uploaded by coralinad

"That is the most beautiful tree I've ever had," he said last night.
"Don't we say that every year?" I asked.
"I don't," he replied.

This tree really is perfect. It actually fits all of our ornaments! Turns out I cannot part with ornaments. They are the ticks and tocks of my life. There is the ice skater and snowman that my grandmother painted with me when I was four. The GO VEGETARIANS collage a friend made for me when I was 16. Evidence of my 4-H craftiness. The rainbow needlepoint my grandfather took to making when he could no longer do much else. And of course, the souvenirs. Two from Iowa State University which was kind enough to hire me out of library school. One from the Shaker village at Sabbath Day lake where my mother and her cousin and I toured last summer.

The best one of all - the one that is front and center on our tree - is the tiny ox yoke Jack bought on our first date at the National Historic Trails Museum. Who could have predicted?

"I didn't know it was going to get me yoked!"

Saturday morning ritual, Christmas style

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Originally uploaded by coralinad

"What can I make for breakfast that isn't the same old thing?" asked Jack, propped against the stove.

The same old thing for him is what most people only get to eat when they go out for breakfast. Hash browns, sausage and two eggs, sunny side up.

I just started piling things on the counter. That's how I like to cook, throwing things together and seeing what happens. I grabbed a green pepper, leftover hash browns from yesterday, an onion, the 99-cent mushrooms, sausage and eggs.

A frittata?

"Ok," said the man who had never heard the word a year ago. He was off. I went back the the table piled with Christmas cards. Last night I abandoned ship on my attempt to rubber stamp them, but by Jeeves, I wasn't going to waste all those blank cards so I painted them. Weak, but honest.

I turned on Pandora's Christmas station and began writing. Breakfast was lovely, especially with the last minute addition of red pepper flakes, which make everything better.

At 8:56 am, he turned on National Public Radio. Our Saturdays are bookended by public broadcasting. In the morning, it is Car Talk and Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me on NPR and the evening ends with As Time Goes By on PBS.

Amid stories of men hiding antique car restorations from their wives and mysterious smells and sounds coming from Isuzus and Subarus, we drafted cards to loved ones. We live hundreds if not thousands of miles from most of the people we love, and are positively rotten about staying in touch. But how to sum up all we feel and all we'd like to share in one greeting card? A few years ago we started writing the summary Christmas letter. Impersonal, perhaps, but informative. Plus, I like to add pictures. Of course.

He wrote to his people and I wrote to mine. I didn't subject any of his people to my handmade cards. They got cute Leanin' Tree cards. The Santa card in the photo was honestly the best one. Sad, I know. My dove looked like an albino goose. The ornament could have passed as a flushed Easter egg. Apologies to all my friends and family. But hopefully they'll love me anyway. I've done weirder things to them, I'm sure.