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Category: holidays

Decoration Inflation

Decoration Inflation

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It used to be a pumpkin beside the door. But the ante has been raised and now more houses than not feature dangling skeletons, inflatable jack-o-lanterns or witches that have flown — splat! — into trees. Some neighbors string orange lights or garland their mail boxes with autumn swag.

I enjoy these tokens of the season — because they’re fun and they add variety and texture to life — but I bristle at decoration inflation, at a decorating season that stretches from October 1 through mid January.

So I’ve established a modest compromise. A few fall tokens (all of them souvenirs of when the girls were young), an autumn wreath and, come mid-December, colored lights around the door and on the front bushes. It’s decoration without inflation.


(Claire made these tombstones from paper and croquet wickets when she was in fourth grade. )

All That Glimmers

All That Glimmers

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I stepped outside last night right after dark to catch a glimpse of Lexington’s fireworks. A neighbor told me he had viewed the display from the backyard of a house three doors down, so I figured there was a chance.

At first I saw only smoke, evidence of local fire crackers and bottle rockets. But from time to time I’d hear the deep boom of the real thing. And then I spotted the colors, the reds and greens barely visible through the trees. Light forms pulsing up and out.

It was a cool evening and fireflies were winking ever upward in the sky. There were more than I see at home, more than I’d seen any other night this year. Their glimmers mixed with the manufactured ones in the sky. The effect was of a fairy land of dancing light. It was a mutual rejoicing, of earth and of all the creatures on earth.

It wasn’t what I saw later on television, the spectacular fireworks from the nation’s capital (pictured above) that I watched last year from across the river. Last night’s light show was too ephemeral to be photographed. It was a moment of holding my breath. It was a moment of wonder.

Ale & Cobblestones: An Alternative 4th

Ale & Cobblestones: An Alternative 4th

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Sometimes I’m glad it’s a holiday because I want to celebrate the holiday. Other times I’m glad it’s a holiday because I need a day off.  The lack of patriotic imagery at the top of the page will explain how I feel about today.

Actually, I’ve been laughing this morning over something I heard on the radio driving to Kentucky yesterday. It’s about an ad campaign for Newcastle Brown Ale, imagining if Britain had won the war.

“Coast-to-coast cobblestones, shoe shines on every corner, all the fish head pie you can eat. And at the end of the day you’d kick back and surf through all five of our government-run television stations.”

That’s dialogue from one of the spots. Other advantages of “Great Britain 2”: Lovely accents, free health care (if you don’t mind waiting a couple of years for an appointment) and colorful curse words.

The ads are hilarious. But don’t take my word for it. Listen for yourself. And dream about driving on the left, eating mushy peas and having tea and scones every afternoon.

Happy 4th!

After Love

After Love

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In memory of the poet Maxine Kumin, who died eight days ago, and of St. Valentine’s Day:

After Love

Afterward, the compromise.
Bodies resume their boundaries.
 
These legs, for instance, mine.
Your arms take you back in.
 
Spoons of our fingers, lips
admit their ownership.
 
The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajar
 
and overhead, a plane
singsongs coming down.
 
Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when
 
the wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self
 
lay lightly down, and slept.

Maxine Kumin, “After Love” from Selected Poems, 1960-1990. Copyright © 1970 by Maxine Kumin.

Radiant Way

Radiant Way

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For me it’s a return to work after two weeks off — a good day to celebrate the Epiphany, a feast that marks revelation, the manifestation of the divine and, in the words of James Joyce (courtesy of the Writer’s Almanac), the “sudden ‘revelation of the whatness of a thing,’ the moment when ‘the soul of the commonest object … seems to us radiant.'”

The workaday world sorely needs some radiance, some shining representation of its meaning and purpose.

So today, on my return, I will look for it.

Begin Again

Begin Again

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Twelve hours into the new year and it still feels like early morning. One late-night reveler in my family just returned from her evening out. Another sent a text at 3:02 a.m., as if she was ringing in 2014 in California — only she was 20 miles away.

I caught up with our oldest daughter at midnight her time, 6 p.m. here. She was celebrating with fellow Peace Corps volunteers at a work station in northern Benin.

As for me, I woke up unsure whether I was in Virginia or Kentucky.

Disorientation: It’s good for the soul. And not a bad way to begin again.

Fast Away

Fast Away

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As the old year passes, I take to the road. No time yet to mull over 2013. That will happen today, when I’m driving.

Meanwhile, a photo I snapped yesterday — sleeping vines, dried tendrils. Not unlike the palm of a hand or the expanse of a road map. Crinkled, worn, main arteries obvious now that leaves have gone.

Here at the cusp of a new year, it’s not hard to see where I’m going, where I’ve been.

Appreciation

Appreciation

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Our
old house has seen better days. The siding is dented, the walkway is
cracked, the yard is muddy and tracked with Copper’s paw prints. Inside
is one of the fullest and most aromatic trees we’ve ever chopped down.
Cards line the mantel, the fridge is so full it takes ten minutes to
find the cream cheese. Which is to say we are as ready as we will ever
be. The family is gathering. I need to make one more trip to the grocery
store.

This morning I thought about a scene from one of my
favorite Christmas movies, one I hope we’ll have time to watch in the
next few days. In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Jimmy Stewart has just
learned he faces bank fraud and prison, and as he comes home beside
himself with worry, he grabs the knob of the bannister in his old house — and it comes off in his hand. He is exasperated at this; it seems to represent his failures and shortcomings.

By
the end of the movie, after he’s been visited by an angel, after his
family and friends have rallied around him in an unprecedented way,
after he’s had a chance to see what the world would have been like
without him — he grabs the bannister knob again. And once again, it
comes off in his hand. But this time, he kisses it. The house is still
cold and drafty and in need of repair. But it has been sanctified by
friendship and love and solidarity.

Christmas doesn’t take away
our problems. But it counters them with joy. It reminds us to appreciate
the humble, familiar things that surround us every day, and to draw
strength from the people we love. And surely there is a bit of the
miraculous in that.

Photo: Flow TV

This is a re-post from December 24, 2011. Merry Christmas!
It’s a Wrap!

It’s a Wrap!

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Gift wrapping can be a meditative experience. Last night as I was cutting and taping and smoothing edges, I thought about my
system, that it’s a little like painting. I spend as much time prepping as I do
actually wrapping.

Prepping means finding the items, removing their price tags,
matching them with their gift receipts, swaddling them in tissue paper and arranging them in a box. Only then can the wrapping begin. Of course there are
items that need no boxes. Books are good for this. Or other things (can’t be too specific here or I would spoil some surprises) that come already boxed. God bless ’em.

And then there are gift bags. I’ve been late
to jump aboard the gift bag train. Seems like cheating to me. But when it’s 11 p.m. and the back is hurting from bending over the bed (which is how I always
wrap gifts and probably always will), the gift bags and the perky colored
tissue paper start to look pretty good.

I finished a lot of wrap-prep and even some
wrapping last night. Enough to tell me how much more buying I have to do. So now – yes, I know, I know – I will have even more
wrapping to do tonight. What can I say? ‘Tis the season.

Checking It Twice

Checking It Twice

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This year, for the first time, my Christmas list is electronic. I’m using the “notes” feature of my smart phone.

It has worked surprisingly well — with one exception. There’s no easy way to “check off” the purchased items. I’m making do by typing an asterisk beside each one.

How I wish I could draw a thick black line or make a decisive “X” through the gifts I’ve bought. I suppose I could just delete them, but that’s no fun.

Makes me realize that a list is not just about what I have to do; it’s about what I’ve already done. Checking off the finished tasks makes me feel competent and efficient — which at this time of year I most decidedly am not! All the more reason to crave the illusion.

It’s a pathetic little revelation, but a revelation just the same!