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The Joys of 2020

The Joys of 2020

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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

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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

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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!

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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!

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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

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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

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I just peeked 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!)

Door-to-Door

Door-to-Door

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The boxes come in and the boxes go out. In this very different holiday season, I never know what I’ll find when I open the door. A large box or a small envelope. A package that arrives seemingly in the middle of the night — another that arrives during a snow and sleet storm. A box of oranges or a carton of long-awaited gifts — ones I’m giving others that still have to be mailed to distant destinations.

News reports tell of an overwhelmed post office. And no wonder! I feel like they might be overwhelmed just with our stuff alone. 

I’m not a comfortable online shopper. I’d rather see and touch the items I buy before making the purchase. But these days we have little choice. Even before the pandemic, brick-and-mortar stores had begun to limit their selections, to offer to order things for you from their store. 

It’s a more distant and less friendly world we inhabit now, to be sure. I’m hoping that the boxes I send release the warmth I feel when packing them. 

A Paco

A Paco

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A week into December the house gradually assumes a Christmas character. The tree that was biding its time in a bucket is now gracing the far corner of the living room. The piano has its nutcrackers, the Beethoven bust its Santa hat. The jolly cloth wreath is tacked up in the kitchen and silver snowflakes hang from the chandelier. 

But the tree has no ornaments, the banister no greenery and no cards yet grace the mantel. Maybe they will all be as late as mine this year — mine which I just go around to ordering. 

There’s a term I remember from my musical days: “a paco.” It means a little or gradually. It means we’re not going to thunder into the next passage but tiptoe into it gingerly.

That’s the way I feel about Christmas this year. The holiday will be so different, with family members unable to travel here. So best to approach it with caution, to lure it like a shy young bird. Little by little. 

Getting the Tree: 2020

Getting the Tree: 2020

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I worried it wouldn’t be the same this year. No girls along, for the first time in decades. And, more to the point, no Snickers Gap. The little cut-your-own place discovered in the early aughts and now a juggernaut of traffic jams and parking woes.

So instead, it was the tree lot on the corner. Ah, but what a lot and what a corner. The latter an old crossroads with a picturesque white church on a hill. And by going after dark, there was magic at work: piped-in carols, icicle lights in the trees, happy volunteers slapping their mittened hands together to stay warm. 

We found a tree within a few minutes, an aromatic Douglas fir — probably the earliest Christmas tree we’ve ever purchased — and got it home and into a bucket, where it now sits drinking happily. 

Like so much else this year, it’s closer to home, stripped down … but memorable just the same.