Christmas – Page 4 – My Truant Pen

Christmas was coming and Darcy the Dragon was thinking…

I love Christmas. This is probably not a shocking admission. Heck, you probably love Christmas too. There are people who, for various reasons, do not like Christmas. They are a minority.

My very absolute favorite part of Christmas is the Christmas music. Music is intensely evocative to me and holds the flavor of a moment even if I listen to it often. In this case, Roger Whittaker’s Christmas Album (specifically Darcy the Dragon) transports me magically back to a golden stage of childhood when the trees were 12 feet tall (no really), the packages under the tree held unutterable delights, we made Christmas cookies, and the weather cooperated and provided snow. There’s a flurry of light and darkness, sweet scents and spicy, excitement and peace all wrapped up into a gift of memory.

When I turn on the Christmas music, it transports my daily passage of life into a memory to be created, and reminds me that we are in the special time, the time apart.

Tonight I will bring out the Advent calendar that I bought last year to help Grey count down the days. In the past twelve months he’s learned about seasons, months, holidays and repetitions. Of course, he still doesn’t QUITE understand how it all works, but I think the count-down will be very meaningful to him.

This weekend, we will go get our tree and decorate. (I would have done it this weekend, but I was completely exhausted from keeping Thane out of trouble in our normal, reasonably childproofed house. Add in a Christmas tree, and he might never get out of his high chair again.) Grey will be feverish with delight, and with the candy canes, hot cocoa and Christmas cookies I plan to ply him with. The UPS guy will renew his “nightly stop” status. I’ve already begun my Christmas cards, and if all goes really well they might get mailed out as early as next week. (Really, really well. OK, probably the week after.) I love the Christmas cards because I sit and I really think about the person I know and love at the other end. It’s like a prayer, or meditation of love to write the cards. (By the way, Grey has started noticing that he doesn’t get any mail. If any of you are planning on sending us a card, Grey would LOVE it if the card was addressed to him!)

I also save up my “sick time” each year — usually nearly a week. If no one gets sick (and we’re disgustingly healthy) then I take a day a week off for the month of December. So tomorrow I am taking off. No real plans, but to enjoy myself and the season.

And of course the Christmas tableau! I won’t be playing the part of Mary this year, and I do not have a baby to offer up as the Christ child (both my sons — October babies — served in that role). But I’ll play my trumpet and there will be light and darkness and children and songs.

The older I get, the less the stuff of Christmas matters. I get so much joy out of buying presents for the small people in my life, I really don’t covet much for myself anymore. (In fact, for Christmas this year I’m requesting donations to Path International.) I’m sure my 4 year old son doesn’t feel that way. I didn’t at four, or fourteen for that matter.

Perhaps the greatest gift of Christmas with children is wondering how this will all play out in their minds and memories. I remember the cardboard fireplace my parents put up the year I was four. I remember the cabbage patch play set I got the year my brother was born. There are so many glimmering, golden memories of anticipation and delight. I can only hope that my sons’ memories are as full of Christmas goodness when they set about celebrating with their own children some day.

Things I like

The internet can be full of negativity. Twitter feeds and Facebook updates are often either a) inscrutable b) what’s happening at ComicCon or Blogher (what happens if you want to attend both?!) or c) complaining. I confess, I’m just as guilty of this as the next girl. Well, that and coffee-related posts. I had a few whiny posts playing around in my head. They involve having to schedule time to shower and the utter insanity of my next 7 days.

Instead, though, I thought I’d give a list of some things that please me, and continue to please me.

Mt. Rainier and Adam, two of my top favorites

1) The great outdoors. Ok, this is no surprise given that half my posts this summer are OMG CAMPING! But I had forgotten or underestimated just how restorative and joyful it is to look at a horizon of mountains and trees and breathe an unhurried breath.

2) Lois McMaster Bujold What can this woman not write? And it all translates beautifully to audiobook (not universally true). This is how I’ve gotten through, uh, 6 months of pumping in the server room.

3) Sateen sheets. I already have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, but when my sheets are sooooooo soft and comfy it seems completely unfair. Then I get two boys bouncing on top of me, and I narrowly avoid a foot to the face and I get up. But man, those sheets are awesome.

4) My house/town. Every time I walk up the steps I’m happy. Every time I take a two block stroll to post some letters and make a deposit at the ATM, walking home past the crowds coming out of the local theater well… it’s an awesome home in a great location filled with the things I love best.

5) Northwest Art. I just love looking at it. It seems mysterious and ancient and reminds me of my long-childhood daydreams. Did you know that the NW was once called New Albion? If I’d known that when I was, say, 12, I might possibly have died from overexcitement. Two great tastes that taste great together.

6) Advice columns. I can’t get enough of them. My favorite was when two letter writers sent the same problem (from their opposite perspectives) to Anne Landers and Dear Abby on the same day.

7) The internet. It’s great time-sink, but it helps me feel connected and informed. Plus, I don’t think I ever would’ve written, despite wanting to, without the maybe-audience of teh intarwebs.

8 ) America’s Test Kitchen. Their recipe books are fantastic. I love how they not only contain really good recipes, but they define their criteria for good and explain the different things they tried to combat the different problems that arose. So now I have not only a great recipe but an understanding of what I can do if I ever want to branch out on my own.

9) The concept of tea. I still have this fantasy about the perfect pot of tea, the quiet moments, the stillness and listening, the poetry. Even when so many of my other daydreams have abandoned me, this one somehow remains.

10) Christmas. It never gets old. I never get past it. It is always a hallowed, golden time to me — full of light, possibility and the sensation of being set apart. I start wishing it was Christmas in about June.

What about you? What’s something in your life that continues to bring you pleasure?

Wrapping up the unwrapping

I have trouble finding online time when I need to take care of both boys (and not at work). Finding it while my parents were here and wacky hijinks were ensuing? Not so much.

To sum up:
*Christmas was really wonderful. I got an embarrassing proportion of the goodies.
*The after-Christmas clothes shopping was amazing. I got, uh, 4 really nice-looking sweaters (in a nice, washable fabric), 3 jeans that fit the me I am right now, a really nice skirt, a sporty (but cold) shirt, and three pairs of fun tights for much, much less money than you’d expect.
*I have now finally been to Cape Cod — all the way to P-town. I am happy to report that it’s cold. And windy.
*The living room has been repainted. It looks much better, but I’m no longer convinced it was the right color of cream. Also, the ceiling really needs to be redone, I think.
*And what goes better in a newly repainted living room than a SWEET big-screen tv, with a bonus $250 unexpected rebate due to my previous switch to Comcast? (FTW!)
*Thane is the sweetest, most kissable, best-sleeping baby in the world.
*Grey is like a barrel o’ monkeys — tons of fun with an astonishing amount of energy.
*I’m really a good cook. All the meals I made came out well, and I made a lot of tasty meals.
*I really like Avatar. It’s nice to have a tv show I’m enjoying watching with la famiglia.
*I will miss my family greatly. Sniff sniff. Imagine having to do my own dishes? And whole hours will pass without puns!
*On the other hand, it is sort of nice to have some quiet. That was in short supply with the number of adults extant more than doubled.

I’m a happy woman.

Dear Santa

When I was singing that I wanted a white Christmas, I meant six or seven inches of fluffy white snow that feel after all expected guests had arrived.

Right now it’s so cold here on Boston I’m not willing to go out without good cause — not with the baby. It’s only December 22nd and my parents are warning that they may not be able to make it out of Seattle on Christmas. Worse, I fear they’re right. I want my mommy and daddy!!!! Waaaaaa!!!!!

Also, I’m getting cabin fever. This never ends well.

Christmas Night

Fortune smiles on me.

Last night, after a leisurely day of doing stuff (including baking spritz cookies) Skarps and I headed to church. I was, once again, Mary in the Christmas tableaux. There is something about sitting up at the front of the church, with bright lights shining on you, knowing without looking that the pews are filled with parents, holding their children in velvet finery, eager and excited for what tonight and tomorrow will bring, and staring lovingly at a doll laid in a hay-filled manger, that brings the sacred close. My husband standing close by me, silently pretending to be the patient one who claimed a son who was not his. Sitting still in my blue gown and my chilly sandalled feet, I can only think of how much love there must have been that first night. Love of Mary, for this son she had brought into the world in such uncertain and difficult circumstance, love of Mary for the husband who guided her and protected her while honoring her purity, love of Mary for the God for whom she risked everything. There is Joseph, so kind where many other men would have turned their backs, loving his wife and the boy he will raise as his own son. The shepherds came to see the spectacle. The wise men came to see the king. And if God can be ascribed human emotions, how bitter sweet it must have been. To have a part of your own divinity be seperated from you, to have it live, breathe, eat and need tending. And to know that the worst of all things will happen. But yet, there is beauty in that moment of birth — whether it was ever there in fact, the moment has been beautiful in the imaginations of so many, it is beautiful by common consent.

Sitting up there, half-blinded by lights and blinking hard, I felt every piece of the history, pageantry, doctrine, faith, tradition, and hymns. I stole a forbidden glance at one of the shepherds. He was young, a first-grader named Noah, and oh-so sincere. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the wonder of the angel Gabriel’s message, next to his father where the podium usually stands. He knows the truth. He could tell it to you if you asked.

And then my husband, in the guise of Joseph, carefully escorted me down to the pews. And quickly I shed my blue robes and snuck around the church to play “O Holy Night” and “Joy to the World” on my trumpet. And afterwards I stood with my newly-returned-from-Puerto-Rico Sunday School kid next to me, and talked and rejoiced in my friends.

In the car, my husband and I sang through the Christmas section of a borrowed hymnal.

At his parents house, in front of the fire, we sang for them of the six-winged Seraphim. The cherubim with sleepless eyes.

Today, I have recieved a wealth of gifts. But the best of them were the joy in my grand-parents-in-laws’ faces as we talked to them. The enthusiasm with which my nephew exhorted us as we attempted to put together his pirate ship gift. The care with which my brother-in-law cooked our Christmas dinner. The health and vigor with which my father-in-law ate too much of it. The delight of calling my familiy, and comparing gift notes.

I got things, too. Many things. But the best things of this season are not things at all, but the chance to be a spiritual being. The chance to tell people you love them, and to hear it back. And the opportunity to be, just for a moment, Mary gazing at the Jesus-child in his manger, wondering at all those who came to honor his birth, and treasuring the memories of it in your heart.

A holy time of year

This morning, in the midst of my routine and sleepwalking life, was a truly unexpected moment. I was travelling my morning commute (the sans husband one, sadly). I was passing the Wyoming graveyard, which is large and low, and sometimes misty in the mornings. This morning it was pale in filtered morning sunlight, with iced-over snow between marble tombstones. I was passing between it’s high stone walls and a strip of houses backed between graveyard and gray cliff this morning, when I saw low movement. I braked, so as not to hit whatever it was. And there, 7 miles from the center of Boston, in the quiet urban landscape between rowhomes and tombstones, walked a red fox. His tail was bushy. He looked energetic and cheerful, crossing in front of me. Against the paleness of the morning, he was brightly and vividly red.

How does this fox come to find a home in the midst of thick habitations? Does he make his living on pets incautiously let outdoors? Is he on some journey, headed towards less and less hospitable lands? Why was I given to see him in this time between Solstice and Christmas?

There are rational answers for all, but I do not feel the siren call of rationality. To the opposite, right now I yearn for mystery and nature, the unknown and unknowable, for purpose and intent in the universe without my necessarily needing to know what that purpose is.

And today, this morning, I saw a red fox in the Wyoming graveyard, beshrouded in snow.