Browsed by
Category: holidays

Decoration Inflation

Decoration Inflation

Comments 0 Comment

I heard it first at the dentist’s office a couple weeks ago. The assistant who was prepping me for a procedure lamented that it was almost October 1. “And you know what that means,” she said. “Next thing you know it’s Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas and New Years.” 

Of course, she’s right. And I probably feel it more than she does, too, being a decade or two older. I notice this holiday speed-up not only on television, where ads for holiday films fill the airwaves, but also in the neighborhood.

It’s not that people are lighting trees and plugging in inflatable Santas just yet. But I’ve noticed a steady “decoration inflation” the last couple of years, driven, I imagine, by what’s available to buy. Which means that a home without spider webs in the trees and smiling pumpkins on the lawn looks downright miserly.

At my house, it still looks like summer.: potted geraniums on the front stoop, roses in the backyard, a flowering hosta by the garage. So I have forgone the mums and ornamental cabbage. I haven’t even bought a pumpkin yet. Here the fall decor is only what nature supplies: turning leaves and the red berries of the dogwood tree. 

Taking Care of Business

Taking Care of Business

Comments 0 Comment

Today is a work holiday, which means that it’s a Day to Get Things Done. What kind of things? Applying generous electronic gift cards to electronic accounts, for instance. 

I’m famous (or infamous) for letting gift cards go unspent. I imagine many of us are; retailers count on it. But this way, that will be harder to do (if all these pronouns make sense). 

Of course, electronic to-dos aren’t the only ones I have today. There are other, more tangible tasks: cleaning and cooking and decluttering … the endless list. Guess I’d better get to them!

(Detail of a surface that needs dusting …) 

Jammin!

Jammin!

Comments 0 Comment

Every year at Christmastime, Mom made a jam cake. It was a recipe from Dad’s side of the family, and was passed down with great care. Mom copied the recipe over several times, but she saved the old versions. Reading through them, which I did to make sure I was getting the ingredients right, was like an archaeological dig; there was the same fragility to the oldest artifact.

Once I figured out that the “modern version” (which included purple crayon scribbles, proof of its age) was indeed a fair and true copy, I still had to make the cake, which began, as it did for Mom, with an all-out search for jam with seeds. In my case, the search took me 20 miles away, to a Walmart Super Store in Sterling. (I found this highly ironic since Mom never visited a Walmart; she thought the stores were destroying small-town America — and in this case, as with so much else, she was right.) 

Once the jam was purchased and the other ingredients assembled, I proceeded to make the cake. Mom had always made a very big deal of it, as if she was making a four-tier wedding cake. How hard can it be, I wondered. 

Pretty darn hard, it turns out. There is the sheer muscle involved in stirring the thick batter. There’s separating the six eggs, beating the whites till frothy (I was convinced I had botched this part) and pre-mixing certain ingredients (such as vinegar and baking soda) before adding them to the batter. 

By the time I got the cake in the oven, it looked like a small tornado had ripped through the kitchen. But after a tense baking period (I can remember holidays where the jam cake fell — and that was not a pretty sight), the cake emerged more or intact. I couldn’t have been prouder. Now all I had to do … was frost the thing.

The Joys of 2020

The Joys of 2020

Comments 0 Comment

I don’t always write about the year’s end on New Year’s Eve. Sometimes I write about a Christmas carol or getting more sleep or any number of other topics. 

But 2020 deserves a sendoff post. A sendoff that includes “good riddance,” of course, given what a difficult and tragic year it has been for so many. But because it’s a year that has been joyous for my family, a post of gratitude and amazement, too. 

So here’s to our Seattle crew settling into new work and study and apartment, exploring the city right outside their door. And here’s to Bernadette with her amazing smile and huggable little body. And here’s to Isaiah, who beams with pleasure and shrieks with joy. 

As much as I would like to kick 2020 out the door, I can’t help but linger for a moment at all the wonder it brought us. That said, though, come on 2021. We need your sanity. We need your hope.  

(Photo: Claire Capehart)

Cake for Breakfast

Cake for Breakfast

Comments 0 Comment

This is a rare week off for me, an experiment in laziness. Should I write this post first thing in the morning?  No, I should read more about Eleanor Roosevelt from the new biography Eleanor, a Christmas gift, one of several fabulous books I received that I can’t wait to peruse.

Then I should have a piece of cake for breakfast, the amount of sweets in the house being so prodigious that I’m reduced to eating them throughout the day. It’s Red Velvet Cake, though more like Purple Velvet due to the fact that I didn’t have two ounces of red food coloring when I made it, and it’s tad dry since I once again forgot to use the timer.

Then I should take a walk, a longer one than usual (see above, re. cake) — but, of course, I must wait for the cake to settle, which means … this is the perfect time to write a post.

Wrapping Station

Wrapping Station

Comments 0 Comment

Christmas Day came and went in a blur of gifts, wrapping paper and much-loved faces, some of them on a screen this year.  But the blurring is what we can expect of the day. It is, after all, only 24 hours long, and you must sleep for at least a few of them. 

One of my pet peeves this time of year, though, is the precipitous end to the huge holiday build-up, which often comes to a screeching halt on December 26. 

In my own small way, I try to fight this tendency by stretching Christmas out at least until New Year’s Day (and this year, due to cleverly spaced weekends, through January 3) or even to the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6. 

And to that end, herewith another holiday post. This one is just to note that this year, rather than wrapping gifts upstairs, leaning over a bed (which was how Mom did it, and usually between the hours of 5 p.m. and midnight on Christmas Eve), I used the dining room table, which since the arrival of the ‘new” couch in May 2019 has been pushed in front of the fireplace. 

I wrapped gifts to the tune of the classical carols played on the radio and in full view of the tree. I hope I can use this new wrapping station next year, too. But next year, I hope the Zoom faces are once again home for the holidays.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Comments 0 Comment

It’s been a year like no other, a year of unique trials, and yet somehow, miraculously, we’ve come back to this point, which is for me, and for many, the great pause. Christmas Day. Soon to be followed by New Year’s Day and the delicious week in between. Once again I’ll re-run this blog post, one I wrote nine years ago. Merry Christmas!

12/24/11

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 banister 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 banister 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.

Solstice Miracle!

Solstice Miracle!

Comments 0 Comment

This morning while meditating we were urged to think of our body as a receptacle for a warm, golden, spacious light. Let this light flow from above the head down into each toe, intoned the narrator, let it flow up the legs to the knees, filling the stomach, the chest, the throat, the head and, from there, each finger and through the arms up to the shoulders. 

I’m still a beginner at all of this. I try to visualize this light, which looks a little like melted butterscotch. I try to think of my body as a receptacle, which means thinking of it as empty. 

A funny notion, this, to think of oneself as empty rather than full. It dawned on me today that the very notion of emptiness is in itself liberating. That means that all of the worries and to-do lists clogging up my brain are actually not there after all. 

It’s a Solstice miracle!  

Writing Cards: 2020

Writing Cards: 2020

Comments 0 Comment

It’s been a busy weekend so far, full of baking, shopping, wrapping … and writing cards. I started penning these on Friday night, which spilled over to yesterday and today, too. The reason: I’m writing more on each card. 

I was pondering this yesterday, as I scribbled messages on the back of each photo greeting (which is a vertical card this year), telling myself that if I kept up this pace I would never finish. 

But it makes sense: It’s been a long hard year, a year of isolation from friends and family. So of course, writing notes to friends and family should take precedence over any notion of timeliness! 

Luckily, this philosophy suits the general pace of mail delivery, which is just north of glacial. And who cares about that, either? 

The cards will all arrive, eventually. The last-minute packages will, too. 

White Stuff

White Stuff

Comments 0 Comment

I just peaked at the weather forecast to see what Christmas might have in store and learned that snow showers are predicted for the morning of the 25th. While I doubt this will hold up, we’ve had more snow on the ground this week than in the last two years, 

This morning I awoke to a coating of fresh flakes on yesterday’s hardened ice crust. There’s just enough of the white stuff to flock the holly and dust the deck. And since it’s only 28 degrees outside right now, it might last.

It will be a strange Christmas; that much we know. But wouldn’t it be nice if it was a white one, too?

(I took this photo during Snowmaggedon … not today!)