Browsed by
Category: holidays

Shopping Season

Shopping Season

Comments 0 Comment

What’s the saying, when the going gets tough, the tough go … shopping?

As Americans hit the malls and big box stores, as they weed through websites in search of cyber deals, I think about the pastime of shopping, what it can do for you and what it can’t.

My mother liked to shop. If she had time to kill she would while it away in a store or two.

This is not the way I unwind. Put me in a darkened movie theater or downstairs in the basement with an episode of “The Crown.” For me, shopping is a means to an end.

But the shopping season is upon us, so today I’ll do my bit for the economy. Not with joy or gladness but with a sense of duty.

Gratitude on Ice

Gratitude on Ice

Comments 0 Comment

It’s one of the coldest Thanksgivings on record here, with wind chills in the teens and temperatures that won’t make it out of the 30s. A perfect day to stay inside, chop onions, peel potatoes and baste the turkey, all in a steamy kitchen.

Though it’s tempting to put heat at the top of the list of things I’m most grateful for today, I’m going to push it aside for friends and family. We haven’t celebrated Thanksgiving here for a couple of years, Suzanne and Appolinaire having stepped in as the hosts with the most lately, but today the clan (minus Celia, who’s in Seattle) is gathering here, and by late afternoon there will be a full house.

It has lately been made clear to me (as if I didn’t already know it), just how important family and friends are. Not just for celebrations like today’s, but for the dreary mornings and frantic evenings of life. So on a day for giving thanks, my heart is full of love for the people who make life worth living for me. Not just today but every day.

Sweet Start

Sweet Start

Comments 0 Comment

There was dancing last night to ring in the new year, and so many desserts that I was forced to take a bite of each one. Woke up this morning to a bright new year and a temperature of six (6)!

Weather like this requires a roaring fire, a bit of the bubbly … and dancing, all of which were in ample supply at last night’s gathering.

Add some sparkle and glitz … and it’s not a bad way to enter the new year.

I Wonder as I Wander

I Wonder as I Wander

Comments 0 Comment

The Christmas music season is drawing to a close. My favorite classical station stopped the carols cold-turkey on December 26, though we’ll be singing holiday hymns at church for another couple of weeks. Time to give a nod to a song I’ve heard often this season, a relatively new entry to the Christmas canon, “I Wonder as I Wander.”

It’s a haunting melody in a minor key, more “We Three Kings” than “Joy to the World.” But it is lovely and soft, a light snowfall on a still night. And … it was written by a Kentuckian, John Jacob Niles, a noted balladeer who collected Appalachian tunes later popularized by folk singers in the 1950s and ’60s.

I met John Jacob Niles several times at a Christmas Eve gathering hosted annually by my kindergarten teacher, Grace Cramer Webber, who became a friend of my mother’s. Like Niles, Webber was both behind and ahead of her time.

It isn’t easy to have your carol enter the Christmas canon — but Niles’ song has done just that.  As I listen I wonder, too. Not just about the birth of the baby Jesus, but about the power of music to take us places we otherwise couldn’t go.

Shopping Local

Shopping Local

Comments 0 Comment

Let empty boxes collect at curbsides, let the men in brown dash from truck to stoop. But last-minute shoppers unwilling to pay for overnight shipping (or maybe just people like me, who enjoy a bit of the hustle bustle) were out full force yesterday at the mall.

It felt good to be jostling with other shoppers, to be part of the public square. I’ve been worrying about the public square lately, wondering if its day has passed. Many of the young folks I know shop solely online, and recent forays to the mall have only confirmed the threatened condition of old-time getting and spending.

But yesterday drew out the folks who only shop this time of year: dazed men wandering with shopping bags; the very young and the very old; working folk who seem more at home behind a desk than checking out spatulas in Williams and Sonoma; parents jostling toddlers in the line to see Santa.

All of this in a glorious cacophony of squeaking toys, shouting kids and the nth rendition of “I Saw Mama Kissing Santa Claus.”

I didn’t have to go to the mall yesterday; I was buying a few extra gifts that everyone could live without. But I’m glad I came.

The News

The News

Comments 0 Comment

For most of the year I grab the Washington Post from the driveway and read it on the way to work. Now I’m reading a different kind of news.

Friends from Groton, Massachusetts, have downsized to Bonita Beach, Florida. Family from South Carolina has met family from Sweden. There have been travels to Italy and Kenya and North Carolina. Children have grown, dogs have been photographed in Santa hats and people I love have lived another year.

Time is always passing, but this is when and how we mark it. Not with rue or agitation. But with joy and gratitude.

Season’s Savoring

Season’s Savoring

Comments 0 Comment

Recent rushed mornings have meant no chance to do what I’m doing now — to sit in front of the Christmas tree, typing on this machine and taking in this colorful scene.

This year, a bonus: I’ve wrapped enough presents ahead of time to put them under the tree — rather than transporting them directly from the wrapping station to the car, on their way to Ellen’s house, where we’ve spent Christmas these last few years.

The goal now is to savor, not to rush or worry or strive for that one last gift. Gone are the days when someone begged for a retired beanie baby available only from eBay auction or a Playmobil dollhouse requiring hours of assembly.  People will be happy with what they receive.

I plan to do a lot more savoring in the next few days.

Whitish

Whitish

Comments 0 Comment

A later-than-I-intended walk puts me out the door right as the snow started to fall. A fine sleet at first, but now that it’s gotten started, a coating of white on deck and road.

I like walking in the beginnings of snowfalls, the world hushed and waiting. Today’s totals will be less than Saturday’s, but any snow this time of year is a bonus.

Will there be a white Christmas? I doubt it. But I’ll take a whitish Christmas, too.

Dark and Low

Dark and Low

Comments 0 Comment

Winter has come to northern Virginia. We’ve fought it for weeks, one unseasonably warm day after another. But today the clouds are dark and low, and the trees are almost bare. When I look out the window I hear the words and the melody in my head: “All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray. California Dreamin’ on such a winter’s day.”

Why does it come as something of a relief, these clouds, this low sky? As if warmth has outworn its welcome. I love warm days. But there comes a point when they seem outdated. It’s time for days like this, days that invite staying home and being still.

Not an option for me today or for the next few weeks, but the great pause will soon be here, the holidays and year’s end. I don’t want to speed up my life too much — there are exciting moments in between — but I’m looking forward to a little rest.

In Harmony

In Harmony

Comments 0 Comment

Last night was my fourth Singalong Messiah, and I marveled as always at how a random crew of sopranos, altos, basses and tenors can come together in minutes to make an ensemble. 

What struck me this year was the harmony, that in this most discordant of times, we came together to make music. And that the beauty of the music came not just from melody but from polyphony, from pitches that are pleasing when heard together. 
Alone, we were warbling sopranos, plodding basses, energetic tenors and earnest altos. Together we were a choir. Obviously not the smoothest and most rehearsed but a choir just the same.
It was a good way to usher in the Christmas season.