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.

His name is my name, too

Jack is really John.
For generations - since Adam and Eve, he says - the first male Schmidt has always been (and must always be) named John.
Jack's youngest son, Jacob, will become a father tomorrow. And, as he will be the first boy Schmidt of this generation, he will be a John.
It is common for the new John to be given his father's name as his middle name, but wait - that would make him - John Jacob Schmidt. Hear the Jingleheimer in there? It's implied.

Update: Jacob Alexander was born Oct. 11. He may not be a John, but he's a healthy happy grandson!

The wicked stepmother

It was an out of body moment, really.

It was our first official date. I knew he had been married before and had children, but the details were fuzzy. When I got them and did the math I was suddenly on the hood of the truck looking back in at myself.

This man, with whom I was so enamored I drove over a thousand miles for a date, had five children? And two of them were older than me? That's a lot for a girl to digest. (And even more so for the children!)

Fast forward a few years. Everyone seems to have adapted remarkably well to this sitcom scenario in which we live. Before we got married, Jack asked all of his children how they felt about it.

Most responded along the lines of "we just want you to be happy, and she makes you happy." One smiled in mock relief that she was off the hook for taking care of him when he got old. The youngest declared she was the youngest of his children and preferred to stay that way.

I agreed with the latter request, but told the other one that as soon as he got old I was shipping him to live with her!

This family is full of humor and good nature and they accepted this Yankee in with open-arms. We just got back from visiting them and I am again awed by how gracious and welcoming they are to me. The situation is strange - at least outside of Hollywood - but somehow it works. This last week I was struck by how the bond I have with Jack shapes the bonds I have to his family.

Two of Jack's five children might be older than I am, but with all of them my feelings are colored by the way he treasures them. His need for them to be happy and successful is catching. On paper, I am the stepmother to a woman nearly six years older than I am.

It is ridiculous and inappropriate to assign "mother" in any way to such a relationship, but it perhaps not incorrect. I want to be a person on whom they can rely. A resource in their journey, to help in any way I can.

I am not their mother. I am not their sister or cousin. None of us has a template for how to navigate this relationship. We do not have a shared history. But for me there is a sense of responsibility that defies explanation. I feel the urge the mother hen has to nudge the chick in the right direction, to where he can gain traction. Who am I to presume I know better than they? Good question. I told you - it's odd!

There is a lot of discussion about how fractured family trees have become and indeed, they are certainly pruned in new ways, but as long as we are open to relationships our trees will blossom.

What I do know is that watching my husband puff with pride when his chicks gather fills my heart and make me love him - and them - all the more.

Their inheritance

IMG_0012
Originally uploaded by coralinad

Some families pass down precious gems, metals, jewelry, works of art. All Jack's kids can hope for is cast iron. Seasoned to perfection and maybe even a bit historical if you count the brief two hundred years we call history out here.

On the left are the skillets, found at garage sales, abandoned in basements and gifted from people unwilling to move the behemoths. We use them every day. Every day. Often multiple skillets multiple times. That Saladmaster purchase was sort of a waste.

On the right are the Dutch ovens. Jack is a Dutch oven cook. He gives classes and even spouts poetry about it (see below). Most people can handle cobbler and beans, but Jack's motto is that anything that can go in a regular oven you can cook outside in a Dutch oven. He's done cheesecake, pizza, apple pie, ice cream, fish fillets and even a turducken.

Jack's afterlife plan is to divide his ashes into the Dutch ovens and give them to the kids. Good news kids - the price of cast iron doubled this summer. Your oven might buy you a new Wii!

Ode to the Dutch Oven (download Jack's recitation)
By Bruce Kiskaddon

Mind that Dutch oven,so greasy and black,
that you put in a wagon or tote in a pack,
the biscuits it makes aren't bad by no means,
and its got the world cheated for cooking up beans.

If you've got a Dutch oven you can always get by
you can bake, you can broil, you can stew, you can fry.
First you take that old oven and its thrown to the heat
while the cook peels some taters and cuts down some meat,
then he throws some fire down into a hole, next goes the oven
on top some more coals.

I'll always remember how old coose did
when he took that old gunchhook and lifted the lid.
He was mighty graceful about doing that trick;
the old greasy sackers, they just used a green stick.

Boy howdy we all made a general attack
when the horse with the oven went to slipping his pack.
We put our old ponies into a long lope
and built a big loop at the end of our rope.

Them old waddies, they knew what to expect:
no biscuits no more if that oven got wrecked.
We didn't know much about praying or loving,
but I reckon we worshiped that greasy old oven.

An old timer smiles as his memory turns back
to that old Dutch oven in wagon or pack.