When Christmas Comes Around

When I sit down to write on this blog, I think of you, the one who will be reading the words here. Some say they write for themselves, and though it's true that I can't imagine a life without writing, there is a lot that goes in my personal journals and has never been read by anyone. This online space that I am fortunate enough to have cultivated here, is tended to with the promise to myself that anyone who clicks over, doesn't leave without feeling a part of how we are all in this together---sharing lives and moments of laughter, love, hardship and hope.

I want you to feel inspired, motivated, maybe discover a new point of view, and more than anything, less alone.

With a heart bursting with gratitude, I thank you for reading this blog. You have changed my life, and I wish you could feel the joy you bring with your support and encouragement.

Happy holidays, my friends, and may you have moments that fill you with everything you need.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being part of my life.

 

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That One Christmas You'll Always Remember

Some remember stacks of gifts under the tree, others recall having someone special home with them. We share holiday stories of finally getting the puppy we asked for or the dollhouse we dreamed of.

My most sparkling Christmas was of a night when I had everything I wanted.

I am honored that our local public radio station, WUWM, allowed me to share it with their audience:

http://wuwm.com/post/essay-magic-memory#.VJW8OcMDqVc.facebook


Merry Holidays and the Happiest of New Year's to you, my friends.

xo

When They Come Home

It was a long three month stay away. My firstborn is home from his first semester at college and tonight, nothing can take away my smile. There's more dinner dishes in the sink and the washer is back to groaning again from use. The refrigerator door opened and closed enough times tonight that I thought we'd go burn through a light bulb.

My son is good, he looks healthy, happy, and comes alive when he talks of life on campus. I listen to his voice fill the kitchen and his laugh grips my heart hard enough to hurt.

Our family sits around him, asking their questions. His father asks him about classes, grades. I think how the week before, he wasn't here. The yogurt turns sour because he's not home to eat it. The orange juice goes tart and the bananas turn brown for the same reason. After three months, I still haven't learned how to shop for a household that doesn't have him in it.

It's been a good first semester away from home for him. School is one hundred percent what he dreamed it would be.

When he passes a mirror, he tells me he's been eating less starch, more protein, and how good this looks on him. I stop myself from saying how easy it is to look good when you're 19. He's solid, strong, and hugging him feels like you're encircling a tree. When I ask how he's sleeping, feeling, he says great. He adds, working hard, too, and meeting the coolest people. His mood is fantastic, and his eyes dance with the details of his days.

I had a hint once of what life like this would be like for the both of us. He had just begun school, still so little. When I picked him up after four hours, he was unstoppable as he bubbled over with news of projects, books, what the teacher said. His joy was palpable, but my uncensored reaction to realizing his life was now going to contain parts without me in it, struck me smack in the chest.

Time rushes past. It doesn't seem like we are part of the years we're in, but around us, are the souvenirs from along the way. I see the foot stool I painted green for him, the one he once needed to reach the sink. How is it that it still occupies this same corner? As if it's ever going back to its original purpose.

It's hard to not say, tell me everything.

I wait until we have time alone to ask him where he gets his hair cut, is there a really good pasta place close by, did it feel strange the first night he wasn't home?

Are your boots warm enough?

Do you use a buddy system when you go out? please say yes

Why don't I ever see pictures of you with a hat on? do you need another one?

If I know the small things, then I can see him clearly in the days he's not here, I can envision 9:01 or 2:50 or 11:09.

Things feel different. The duffel bag on the floor of his room reminds me whenever I walk past that this is a visit. Ponder that. Your child visiting.

I watch my son as he talks about the life he has now, the one that's his. I am amazed at how well I take it. I was always certain, I mean a million dollars bet certain, that when he left, I would have been lost. I pictured myself walking in circles, befuddled, needing to learn the new way to live with one of my children gone. Instead, I find myself thrilled for him, relieved that he's adapted, grateful that he is happy. I feel all of these things at the same time as the lump in my throat.

He's home, but not in the same way as he was home his first 18 years, and yet, I am OK. I marvel at the power of love, so strong for someone else that it can override what I should be feeling now, what I thought I would be -- an ache of the heart.

 

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The Days of December

Nine days to go. It'll soon be Christmas Eve at our house, and my first son will be home from college. I think of how my second boy will have just one more Christmas with us, then he'll be on his own, too. I've got the third littlest still with me for a good chunk of years, but we all know what they say about time, and how it flies.

It's the thought of them, how this is their life, that fuels me. I feel bone weary this year, December has been a tough month for our nation and for our world. December is emotionally trying for me as it is, with the weight of loss of the ones no longer with us. When too much of the news on TV and radio start to feel like boulders on my back, I turn everything off and turn everything toward making life for my children.

Surprisingly, or not, I do December without a to-do list. I gave myself a pass on not keeping up with anything that magazines or the internet tell me I need, decades ago. I never had it in me, and I didn't see it growing up, so with that, I wouldn't notice if something was missing. Like expectations.

I meet the basics, a clean home, some juniper berries and cedar branches from the yard put around the stairs and front door, small gifts, and a prelit tree in the corner. This is good, and when I spend an hour adding twinkling lights around the fireplace, it's magical.

That's my style, and my family accepts it along with me. What they see others do, if it's going all out, they're fine with. I always hope that the people who do so much more than I do, do it because they feel the love for it. That it fills their tank to have their December be one that is full of splendor, in their eyes. With my whole heart, I hope it's done with no resentment, and that with each string of lights they put up, there's a sparkle of anticipation. I hope it's the joy of spreading cheer that propels them, and not the pressure of the season.

This is not to say I haven't had holiday seasons in my life where I've tried something that didn't feel natural to me. The year I had a subscription to Real Simple magazine (a gift from someone I think truly wanted me to be more like them) the theme was “Scandinavian Christmas.” Every room featured in the issue's pages were done in icy blue and glittery snow white. I tried it. I left the traditional red and green decorations from the Christmas years before packed away in the basement, and I went to a home decorating store and filled the back of the minivan with shimmering pale blues and sequined white branches. I drove everything home, pushed the house doors open, and then threw the whole scheme in the rooms. I looked around and felt like I was in someone else's house, one that was a chilly ice skating rink of an abode and left me muttering "Where's my sweater, I need my sweater."

Another year, I tried to do what I saw everyone else preparing to do at the grocery store, their shopping carts filled with 10 pound bags of flour and packs of 20 sticks of creamery butter. If children across America were going to have cookies for Christmas, then my children would too. After a weekend of baking and a constantly hot oven, I turned out a kitchen table-full of cookies on cooling racks. The product of all those hours of rolling and cutting were gone in two hours when my husband walked in through the door famished from work.

I've had lots of Christmas Year adventures where I spent time doing what I thought I was supposed to be. Like the year of collection displaying. I gathered small wooden Christmas trees and placed them atop the piano. I packed nutcrackers, big and small, and then carried them throughout the house, tucking them here and there. The kids didn't like nutcrackers in the bathroom, "I feel watched, mom." I had a year of miniature white Christmas tree candles, too. Kind of feels like you have double vision in Lilliput.

The year of the mini white Christmas trees was followed by the year of crackled silver glass, followed by the year of bunches of red berries tied to any protruding knobbed surface. I even held two holiday parties one year. Between cleaning the house and arranging the food, I was a stressed out disaster. Hostessing is not my in blood and I couldn't make myself like it no matter how loud the siren call from Real Simple's Holiday Table edition.

Through this entire process of trying on to see who I am for the holidays, I found out one thing. Who I am is someone who enjoys looking forward to the day in December where I see the smiles from being together and the delight in finding just the right gift. I'm someone who likes it slow, unhurried, with the day spread out before us and no one paying never no mind to any clock.

We have just two weeks left before the year ends. If we listen to what our hearts and bodies tell us, we'll strike the balance we need. Elf on a shelf, Secret Santa, or a minimalist season like me, it's your choice. Garland the heck out of it all, dip everything in glitter and sparkles, because it gives you joy. Or find contentment and satisfaction in a three feet bough set simply against the corner.

I only send wishes for you to be in the moments, and not feel like you should do more, haven't done enough, or that you've done too much. There should be no need to defend what feels right. Whether that means falling asleep with garland wrapped around your neck while you whisper Rudolph's name, or your family looks at their gifts and asks, "Hey, isn't that the wrapping paper from my birthday?" It's red, close enough.

Take care, my friends. Happy holidays to you.
*Clock just moved to midnight. Only eight days left until we're all together. 

xo

 

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What's Christmas Like When You're Allergic to Evergreens?

Made in China. My kids could recognize those three words on any gold foil tag by the time they were 3 years old. And not in a sound-it-out way but an "Oh! Yeah. It all has to be Made in China for Mama for Christmas. Right, mama? Cuz mama's 'lergic to real things. Look for the tags that say Made in China, guys."

It took me years to figure out I was allergic to evergreen. I had no idea the itchy hands, burning eyes, scratchy throat, husky Demi Moore voice, were all symptoms of a Coniferous Attack on my body. Hard to believe, but here I am, to tell it.

We would bring home garland, ready to deck the halls, our car trunk full of boughs and red velvet for festooning, and no sooner did I began to swaddle and swirl the house mantle and bannisters, when I'd begin itching. Just like a Gold Bond commercial. Oh that darn itch, that darn itch. Pine trees made me suddenly 88 years old. I attributed it to dry skin, it was winter, after all, and we were outside running errands all day. So I'd go through bottles and bottles of lotion feeling temporary relief and then, right back to the burn and the itch. (sexy bit of writing here today, isn't it?)

Until we moved into this house. This lot has evergreens all over the back of it. I believe in live and let live, but there was this heavy bough on a pine branch that slapped my leg every time I was in the back of the yard, and the fresh thing had to go. I held it taut one day, while sawing at it with a rusty dull blade we inherited from the previous homeowners. About five effortless minutes of saw saw saw, and it was that darn burning itch like I had at Christmas. But in the day's light, I could see itty bitty bumps all over my hands where I was holding the evergreen.

Did we both just say it at the same time? Aha!

Evergreen! Evergreen is the culprit! I rushed into the house to tell everybody inside that I don't have winter eczema but an allergy to evergreen! Hmmm, go figure, no one seemed too astounded with this seismic shift to my life. To be fair, it was summer, and talk of garland and evergreen mantle swags don't get anyone excited in July.

Today, we have tubs of Made in China faux greenery in our basement. China's finest work, I mean, their finest, sits front and center in our front room. A Real Feel Artificial Christmas Tree, a glorious 9 feet tall branched prelit wonder, graces the corner of our house for the world to see.

I revere it, the kids respect it. We assemble it, top, middle, bottom, and fan out its branches. We stand back, and ooh and ahh while youngest plugs it in.

Fake? Naaah, sir, this tree is not fake. Fake is a word used for the plastic tree experiments of 1963. When you could see the sorrowful attempts of those that wanted to be modern and get a plastic tree. What was left standing after a multi-personned attempt at construction was something that looked like the one and only time my husband tried to save us money by giving our then 12 month old son a Flowbee hairchopcut.

No, our tree is no fake. What stands in our front picture window, is a life saving member of the family. This tree is as real as the beautiful non-itch of my hands.

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 Looking for more? I also write here:
Huffington Post

Purple Clover

MetroParent

mamalode