Ah, Christmas!

ShelbyMollyAndTerry

Celebrating Christmas with family ranks right up there with the best days of the year. I’m glad some of my family live near enough that I could enjoy a Christmas Eve finger-food feast (my daughter’s home in Mullins) or traditional sit-down dinner (my brother’s home in Florence). The weather cooperated, traveling was easy, and all the traditional tunes on the radio kept me company while I drove.

Some folks couldn’t get “home” for Christmas this year because of finances, or distance, or weather. The weather simply didn’t cooperate in many parts of the country and many people got stuck in airports or train stations, some even in snow drifts.  They had to get in touch by email, phone call or text message.  Or maybe on the evening news! It was a white Christmas, but it certainly wasn’t what they had in mind and I felt so sorry for them. I hope they eventually made it to their destinations.

For me, it was good to see relatives and in-laws I hadn’t seen in a while, meet some folks I didn’t already know, and watch the younger crowd having a blast with new technological toys (cell phones and cameras, for instance).  And forget about dieting for a day or two!

With the uncertain economy this year,  imagination was employed more than usual.  Instead of a dress-up, sit-down Christmas dinner, my daughter’s company had a cookout and I bet everybody enjoyed it just as much than previous catered occasions.  It’s always fun when you can come in casual clothes and don’t have to mind your manners so much, or watch the clock. Not so stressful.

I remember one stressful Christmas afternoon growing up. We were scheduled to leave the house soon to drive over to my aunt’s house in Sumter, and since everybody gave everybody else a gift in that family, mama had double-checked her list. To her dismay, she was one present short.  She was panic-stricken.  Nobody could be left out, that would be a disaster.

She searched the kitchen cupboards, looked in the clothes closets and even examined the contents of her jewel box, but everything was obviously used, not new.  Finally she settled on the gift she had opened that morning from me, a pale pink candy dish with the lid affixed by a broad satin ribbon, also pale pink.

Now, I had spent considerable time shopping for mama’s Christmas present, something just right for her that she could proudly display on the floor-to-ceiling shelves in the living room.  It was just right for serving pastel mints when entertaining her church friends, instead of one of the old glass bowls she usually used.  It came from the China Shoppe and it was perfect -  exquisite and expensive, probably the most expensive present I’d ever given her.

As she picked it up and said over her shoulder, “This will do, you don’t mind, do you?” she was already wrapping it up again, pulling out the little card I had included and scribbling somebody else’s name on a scrap of paper.

But I did mind.  I was recalling all the time I’d spent browsing the gift shops, thinking about what she had and didn’t have, so I could get her something that would be both lovely and useful.

But mama was so desperate and time was so short that I said, “No, I guess not,” and enjoyed watching somebody else open it up again later, at my aunt’s house. Oh well, it just showed that mama wasn’t immune from the Christmas frenzy that strikes all of us sometimes.  The family soon went to exchanging names so that problem didn’t arise again.

During Christmas seasons when money was tight – something like this present year – we might exchange recipes instead of bought presents.  It might be a loaf of pecan bread or a dozen home-baked oatmeal cookies, hand-printed recipes carefully attached and wrapped up in colorful paper like any other present.

It might be something personally embroidered or crocheted.  Or it could be an IOU for yard work, house work or other practical chore.  Those are still excellent gifts, by the way, especially for folks who are no longer young’uns. And some of those kinds of presents were given this year, still thoughtful and still appreciated.

Getting in touch with friends and family makes Christmas special, whether in person or not. Catching up on news and plans, chatting and laughing, sharing and listening.  Touching each other’s lives.  I’m glad I could do that again this year.

Christmas spirit, some have it, some don’t

Or, where not to shop for tires or tire repair…

Yesterday afternoon, realizing that the left rear tire on my car looked flatter than normal, I drove to the tire company where I had bought the tire a year or so ago, and that had recently checked all the tires at the time I’d had the oil changed.

I walked up to the counter and waited, and waited, and waited, while the lady behind the counter talked on the telephone discussing her Christmas turkey order.  You know, what size turkey, how many giblets and extras needed for stuffing and gravy, all those important tire business decisions.

After the phone had rung several other times, she told the turkey-provider she would ring them back, mouthed to me “be with you in a minute,” and took another call.  Transferring that one to a mechanic, she answered another line – another personal call for her.  She told that person she’d call them back.

Finally she asked if she could help me.  I explained that I needed the tires checked again, that one seemed to be going flat.  She said I would have to drive the car around to the garage and somebody back there could check the air pressure for me.

Then she turned away to pick up the phone again, I guess to re-check on her Christmas turkey order.

So, I drove the car around to the garage, where all the roll-up doors were closed and no-one was visible.  What now, I wondered.  Should I bang on one of the doors?

Just then a pick-up truck with their logo drove up, the driver parked, rolled open one of the big doors and went in.  Through the door I saw the lady from the front counter speak to him, then he came over to my car with an air gauge in his hand and asked what my problem was.

Once again I explained about the tire.   He glanced at it, said, yep, looks flat, you’ll have to go back around to the front and fill out a work order.  I asked if he was going to check the other tires and he said, you’ll have to fill out the work order first.

I looked at his expression, considered his obvious unhappiness that I was there and just said, no thanks, I believe I’ll take it somewhere else.  He shrugged like that was fine with him so that’s what I did.

I drove down the street to Cardinal Tire, parked, went in, and explained about the tire to the helpful and friendly gentleman behind the counter.  He took my keys and got a young fellow to drive the car around to their garage, where they checked all the tires, added air as needed and repaired the flat tire.  (It had a screw in it, probably from one of the construction areas out here where I live.)

The waiting room was pleasant.  I was there maybe thirty minutes, listening to the news on a big-screen TV while I read a Reader’s Digest from their magazine selection.

Then the young man drove the car back around to my parking spot, came in and explained to me what he’d found and what he’d done, said all my tires were fine now, all with 35 lbs. of air pressure in them, and returned my car keys with a cheerful smile.  And I paid the small repair bill with a smile, too.

The difference in the two places of business was dramatic.  The first one was unfriendly, unhelpful, and unprofessional.  The second was friendly, helpful, and professional.

If you want to know the name of the unhelpful tire place, I’ll tell you privately. I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt and think they were all just having a particularly stressful, bad day.

But I am quite happy to tell you the name of the helpful place, Cardinal Tire on Bentree Lane in Florence.  I hope they all have a very Merry Christmas and excellent New Year.

Anniversaries

Tim Cox at Powers Family Reunion

Tomorrow is the second anniversary of Tim’s death.   Christmas Day would have been our 24th wedding anniversary.  And Christmas Eve-Eve (23rd) would have been the 20th anniversary of Tim’s double transplant surgery in Minnesota.

Today was harder than most people will ever know for me. It took an extra effort for me to go to Sunday School and church, come home and prepare lunch for myself, chat with a friend who needed something notarized, and talk on the phone with my son for a while.

I wanted to just curl up in bed and maybe watch an old movie, but instead I checked my email and Facebook account and wrote early happy birthday notes to several Facebook pals – tomorrow is their actual birthday.

Never once did I or anyone else mention the date, although I have certainly thought about it a lot in the last few days.

I got a phone call yesterday morning from a woman asking to speak to Timothy.  I asked, “May I ask why you’re calling?”  She said she was calling from the University of Minnesota Transplant registry office.  So I told her that Tim died December 15, 2006 and that the Transplant team had been notified about it at that time.

She apologized several times, saying that the “call list” had never been updated.  She seemed truly sorry, but we didn’t speak any further than that.  I have no idea the purpose of the call, but it could have been a fund-raising call since they occasionally do that.

Also yesterday I did donate the clothing to the Hispanic ministry, as well as the Suzuki keyboard that I never use.  Annette said that they’d had a break-in at their church building and everything they owned had been stolen, including musical instruments, so they were very glad to get the keyboard.  And I was very glad they could use it.

Sally had taken me out to lunch for Christmas, then came back to the condo with me and we chatted for a while.  She was still here when Annette came, and she helped carry the items out for Annette.  We didn’t talk about the date then, either, although we did talk casually about Tim in passing.

Later on Sally emailed me the little story below.  It’s made the rounds before but it was timely and it certainly reflects the way I feel about dying.  Whenever my thoughts go back two years, I can feel Tim and the Lord re-directing my thoughts to the present, to the way things are for him now in heaven, and I make the conscious effort not to look back.

Here’s the story…
———————-
There was a young woman who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and had been given three months to live. So as she was getting her things “in order,” she contacted her pastor and had him come to her house to discuss certain aspects of her final wishes. She told him which songs she wanted sung at the service, what scriptures she would like read, and what outfit she wanted to be buried in.

Everything was in order and the pastor was preparing to leave when the young woman suddenly remembered something very important to her. “There’s one more thing,” she said excitedly.

“What’s that?” came the pastor’s reply.  “This is very important,” the young woman continued.  “I want to be buried with a fork in my right hand.”  The pastor stood looking at the young woman, not knowing quite what to say.

“That surprises you, doesn’t it?” the young woman asked.  “Well, to be honest, I’m puzzled by the request,” said the pastor.  The young woman explained. “My grandmother once told me this story, and from there on out, I have always done so. I have also always tried to pass along its message to those I love and those who are in need of encouragement.

“In all my years of attending church socials and potluck dinners, I always remember that when the dishes of the main course were being cleared, someone would inevitably lean over and say, ‘Keep your fork.’ It was my favorite part because I knew that something better was coming … like velvety chocolate cake or deep-dish apple pie, something wonderful, with substance!

“So, I just want people to see me there in that casket with a fork in my hand and I want them to wonder, ‘What’s with the fork?’  Then I want you to tell them: “Keep your fork … the best is yet to come.”

The pastor’s eyes welled up with tears of joy as he hugged the young woman good-bye.  He knew this would be one of the last times he would see her before her death. But he also knew that the young woman had a better grasp of heaven than he did. She had a better grasp of what heaven would be like than many people twice her age, with twice as much experience and knowledge. She KNEW that something better was coming.

At the funeral people were walking by the young woman’s casket and they saw the pretty dress she was wearing and the fork placed in her right hand. Over and over, the pastor heard the question “What’s with the fork?” And over and over he smiled.

During his message, the pastor told the people of the conversation he had with the young woman shortly before she died. He also told them about the fork and about what it symbolized to her.

The pastor told the people how he could not stop thinking about the fork and told them that they probably would not be able to stop thinking about it either.  He was right.  So the next time you reach down for your fork, let it remind you ever so gently, that the best is yet to come.

Friends are a very rare jewel, indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed. They lend an ear, they share a word of praise, and they always want to open their hearts to us.  Show your friends how much you care. Remember to always be there for them, even when you need them more. For you never know when it may be their time to “Keep your fork.”

Cherish the time you have, and the memories you share. Being friends with someone is not an opportunity, but a sweet responsibility.  Send this to everyone you consider a FRIEND even if it means sending back to the person who sent it to you. And keep your fork!

———————–
Those are my sentiments, too,  so I’m sharing this little story with whoever reads this.

Mama’s Christmas Room

This story was published several years ago in the News Journal, and I thought maybe it was time to share it with some new readers and friends.

About 1955 my mother had a brainstorm about Christmas decorations.  She loved them, and she wanted to make them.  Lots of them!  Seeing as how it wasn’t used in cold weather anyway, the living room became Mama’s workshop.  The living room was so cold with the door shut, it was easy to store greenery in there.  She hauled in holly branches heavy with berries, long lengths of ivy, pine boughs, magnolia leaves and pyracantha stalks, all from our own yard.  As the yard was stripped bare, the living room got more and more  crowded…

In the middle was her work area, the floor protected with newspaper.  Jars contained buttons and beads, brass fasteners and glitter.  I recall a square of chicken wire, but only the Lord knows what it was used for.  There were round bowls and square ones, plates and saucers, goblets and pitchers.  It’s a wonder we had any dishes to eat from by the time Mama got through.  Scissors, wire cutters, and pliers vied with pins, nails and thumbtacks atop her work table.

Entering into the spirit of the season, brother Harold and I decided to make decorations too!  Circle crumpled, balled-up newspaper with glue.  Sprinkle with glitter.  Attach shiny ribbon.  Hang on tree.  We soon tired of our lop-sided creations.  It was too much like work.  Thereafter I mostly helped Mama with hers.

Soon all the books came down from the shelves beside the fireplace, and Christmas went up.  Lamps were circled with something Christmassy, garlands, berries, and tiny brass balls. Tinsel was twined into nests for tiny presents.  Magnolia leaves interspersed with pyracantha berries were used to wreath square candles, home-made from paraffin in milk cartons.

The stacks of music books atop the upright piano were replaced by a manger scene, complete with camels and sheep, shepherds and angels, and of course Mary and Joseph adoring the baby Jesus.  Every doorway, every table top celebrated Christmas.

Still, the main attraction was the Christmas tree.  If there had been artificial trees back then, we wouldn’t have had one.  The smell of Christmas had to include real pine needles from a real pine tree!  That didn’t come out of our yard, thank goodness.

The lights took a long time.  If one bulb was out, the whole string was out, and of course you didn’t know which one.  That’s when Daddy went to work.  Take a bulb out of a good string, so you knew that bulb was good.  One by one, replace bulbs with the good one until the culprit was found.  My favorite and the most beautiful of all were the bubble lights.  When they warmed up, you could see and hear the colored fluid circulate up and down the glass cylinders.  Of course, once the strings were all shining brightly, they had to be  meticulously draped, round and round, up and down.

Next was the tinsel, then the glass balls, large ones on the bottom, medium ones half-way up, and small ones on top.  Harold’s assignment was the bottom branches.  I took the middle.  “Don’t put two green ones together, now. Balance!”  Next came the icicles, and  Harold and I could help with that too.  “Just one at a time, please, don’t bunch them up, don’t leave any naked spots, there’s plenty to go around.”  If Mama could have, I bet she’d have made those icicles, too.  Finally it was time for the angel hair.  We couldn’t help with that; Mama didn’t trust us quite that far.  At long last, Daddy stretched up on a kitchen chair to fasten the star to the very tip-top, and it was really Christmas!

Soon after the holidays, most of the house returned to normal.  The living room was a different story.  Mama would go in there once in a while, look at everything and smile, stay a few minutes and come out again.  Oh yes, the living room was very different.  It had taken a long time to get that room and that tree just right, and Mama wasn’t tired of it yet by New Year’s – or by the middle of January, or by the middle of February.  After all, the living room was cold and the pine needles couldn’t fall very far with all the stuff holding them in place…

Daddy mentioned the tree now and then.  I recall his patience wearing a little thin, and his puzzlement at Mama’s attitude.  Eventually he gave up nagging about the tree, and eventually Mama felt it was time.  The tree came down at Easter.

I don’t have many clear memories of that year, the weather, the politics or the family situations, but I do have a clear memory of Christmas, and Mama, and Mama’s Christmas Room, and it’s the best memory of my childhood.

Another Christmasy step taken!

Yeah! I prepared, edited, test emailed, tweaked, added photos, tested, etc., etc. and finally sent out my first digital Christmas newsletter! I had to actually prepare a snail mail version too for a few people, but it’s done, it’s done, it’s done. And I’m more in the Christmas spirit for having done it, I think…

Okay, I put up the wreath and tree

My little twinkling tree

I refuse to pull everything out of the storage closet this year, so I just lifted down the front door wreath and the small artificial tree and put them up.  The wreath looks fine as is, just needed a little fluffing of the artificial needles and metallic bow and ribbons, and the tree looks fine with only two strings of twinkling white lights on it.

I didn’t unpack the boxes with all the little musical angels and other ornaments.  I moved the little secretary desk over to center it in the sunroom windows and put the tree on that, with the old red and white tree skirt under it and a red knit scarf wound around the base to hide the tree stand.  From outside you can see the lights fine, and I am leaving them burning day and night – when I am here, that is.

I thought Misty might like to look at the tree, but she doesn’t pay it any attention this year.  She did sit and stare at it one year, when it was on a tabletop in the center of the room near the recliner.

Of course, that year it had dozens and dozens of ornaments on it too, in addition to multiple strings of lights.  Maybe the shiny balls caught her eye that year.

Misty has always had an aversion to the outdoors, however, and has never spent much time near the windows in the sunroom.  Maybe that’s it. Occasionally she goes into that room, leaps up to the rocking chair seat and makes a round of sniffs – throw pillows and chair arms -  but then she hops down and softly trots back into the living room to curl up on the sofa or armchair, her usual habitats.

Since I’m the only one who will see it, I don’t see much point in displaying all the other Christmas stuff I have acquired through the years, and there is a lot of it.

Figurines, nativity scene with Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus in the manger, neatly set into a hand-made stable (made by me when my children were small), plus accompanying sheep, camels, doves, angels, shepherds and wise men.

Then there are several versions of angels and historic Saint Nicholas figures.  Greenery.  Bows.  Candles.  Colored lights.  Right now they remain safe and secure in their various boxes on various shelves behind various other things in the storage room.

Maybe next weekend I’ll change my mind, but for now the wreath and tree are enough for me, and I enjoy sitting in my armchair with a who-done-it, the television tuned to one of the new or old classic Christmas movies, feet propped up on the ottoman.  I can sip hot coffee or cocoa and let the twinkling lights soothe me, and they actually do.

Accounting for taste

There’s an old saying, “There’s no accounting for taste,” usually an insult directed by one woman at another behind her back. It’s one of the comments Aunt Myrtle used to make when looking at some other female wearing a outfit she didn’t like. A dress that was “garish” in color, “inappropriate for daytime wear, tch, tch,” or “shows too much you-know-what (cleavage, she meant),” or “she needs a girdle or three,” observations sure to be made by Aunt Myrtle on the rare occasion I accompanied her to a restaurant for lunch. While we waited on our food she would be eyeing all the other diners in the place, critiquing each one as she went. I cringed while she critiqued.

She would call me needing a ride downtown to go shopping (she never learned to drive), and not wanting to accept a favor or be obligated in any way, she would insist on treating me to lunch as payment. Of course, these lunches weren’t usually much of a treat, because Aunt Myrtle never met a meal she really enjoyed at a restaurant. She would often complain to the cashier, or the waitress, or the manager that the meal was late in coming and not hot, or that the meat was under-done, over-done, too salty or too tough. And the vegetables were naturally too mushy, too raw, or too stringy. The result was sometimes a reduced bill or a free meal, which was her goal all along.

I learned to make myself unnoticeable during these charades by visiting the ladies room until the bill was settled. As we made our way to the car after lunch, Aunt Myrtle would say with a twinkle in her eye, “That wasn’t too bad, now was it?” It was a rhetorical question. I tried to discourage her from these lunch-time treats, and if she insisted, I would definitely choose somewhere we’d never eaten before.

The thoughts of Aunt Myrtle crossed my mind today when I was thinking about the differences in holiday fare among family members. Of course, I was thinking about food – that’s probably what did it. I was contemplating the wide variety of menus at our family holiday get-togethers, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Daddy’s family gathered in the evenings at Aunt’s Lucile’s home in Sumter (she was Aunt Myrtle’s and Daddy’s sister), and the small dining room table was covered edge to edge with a smorgasboard of delicious dishes. We ate our meal seated on chairs scattered everywhere else in the house, plates balanced on our knees, iced tea glasses at our feet or perched atop doily-covered end tables.

I don’t visually remember the turkey on that table though it was no doubt there, dressed but not stuffed. Baked ham and beef pot roast shared center stage, side by side on big platters. Green bean casserole, macaroni and cheese, cole slaw, potato salad, white rice with loads of brown gravy, cranberry sauce made with whole cranberries and orange pulp, all those usual and traditional dishes were sure to be somewhere on that table. The sideboard held all the dessert offerings, pound cake, coconut cake, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and probably fruit cake too.

Now, that menu sounds a lot like that enjoyed by Mama’s family. And it was, mostly. The difference was in the taste. Aunt Lucile’s flavorings, herbs, spices, shortening, whatever else went into the cook pot never had the same outcome as Mimi’s. Not better or worse, just different.

Stuffing versus dressing, both good old southern cornbread with sage, onions and celery. One was heavy and juicy, the other, light and spicy. Potato salad made with salad dressing versus mayonnaise. Biscuits cooked with butter versus lard, flaky versus fluffy. Pound cake with almond flavoring versus vanilla. Baked ham with brown sugar coating versus pineapple slices. Jelled cranberry sauce versus whole-berry. Although we ate basically the same foods Thanksgiving evening that we’d had for lunch, it was like a whole other meal.

The few of us kids in that family had little place to play at Aunt Lucile’s; she lived in an apartment with no yard. But it was after dark when we arrived anyway, so before and after we ate we huddled up in a corner and whispered jokes or something. We’d soon be asleep in the back seat of the car headed home, stomachs too full from the two great feasts we’d had that day. And we could expect a repeat of both occasions on Christmas day!

Aunt Myrtle aside, there really is accounting for taste, I’ve found. I like what they liked. I like both family’s versions of all those dishes. I don’t have a favorite way to stuff turkey or bake ham, except that it be one of the ways my grandmother or mother or aunts did it. Or my mother-in-law’s…