Should old acquaintance be forgot

...and never brought to mind?  That's how the traditional New Year's song goes, anyway.  The last few days have been spent looking at houses out west of here, and meeting with realtors both on the buying and selling end of things. We also rented a storage space to hold some furniture and stuff we need to clear out, in order to make our current home look a bit less cluttered and sellable.


 I can't help but wonder how we'll feel when we look back on what we did this last week of 2011, or if we'll look back on it at all.  Will we fondly and nostalgically call to mind this house, which is currently being stripped of all its personal quirks and personality in order to make it more attractive to buyers?  Will we recall standing in line at WalMart this morning, buying storage tubs,  plus cheesecake and champagne for later on?  Will we idealize and wax nostalgic over the years spent here, in this home, this neighborhood, or this geographic area? Or will New Year's 2012 be a celebration of thankfulness and joy that we got the heck out of here and took our little tribe over the hills to a place with cleaner air, more scenic surroundings and better career opportunities?


Here is what I am hoping:  That exactly 365 days from today I will take a moment, perhaps in front of a nice fire or woodstove or maybe standing out in a field behind our house with chickens and goats busy around my feet, gaze off into the distance for a moment, and think back on today.  I hope I'm thankful to God for my blessings. I hope I reflect on the journey taken, reflect on how far we came in 2012, and feel proud and satisfied. I hope our family, especially our children, are well and happy pursuing the lives of their choice, and I hope the same for everyone who reads this.


I hope that wherever we are living 365 days from today, that we'll all remember to take that cup of kindness yet for Auld Lang Syne.

Christmas Feast, reloaded

Last night I was scavenging around in the refrigerator for something to make a dinner for one with, and I found these terrific Christmas leftovers.  Since I left the Christmas dinner clean-up to the kids, I had no idea what was left and what had been demolished completely.  So you can imagine my delight in finding a near-perfect replica of the meal served on The Big Night tucked neatly into Tupperware containers and stacked in the fridge.  There was prime rib, mapled sweet potatoes, green beans and horseradish sauce for the meat.  There was even leftover champagne! The only thing missing was the Yorkshire puddings I'd made, which tend to vanish off the serving plate and into people's mouths at lightning speed anyway, so I wasn't expecting to find any of those.  Maybe I'll make more next year.


This meal, unlike the first, was eaten in solitude and in the quiet of a cold, clear evening.  It gave me a chance to reflect on my blessings and sort of take stock of the year that's just passed, and my hopes and dreams for the one to come.  Christmas dinner No. 1 was sweet because it was shared with family.  Christmas dinner No.2 was sweet for its opportunity for quiet reflection and joy.

Christmas, cooking and crops.

Today our Christmas tree will come down, after a lovely month of enjoying its pretty lights.  As much as I love looking at all the bright ornaments, I am ready to get the house back in order so it can be clean and organized by the New Year.  I'm also done in the kitchen, after a long month of cooking for people during Thanksgiving, Chanukah, and then Christmas.  We won't starve the next few weeks, but my meals will consist of easy-to-make dinners that don't leave me standing in front of the stove or preparation counter for hours like I have been doing.  


Out in the garden, the cauliflower, lettuce, onions, scallions and carrots in our four raised planter beds appear healthy, but are growing slower than ever.  This time last year I was already busy harvesting and freezing our bounty from out there. Maybe it's the below-freezing nights (far more than are normal for us), or the fact that we've had crops in those beds pretty consistently now for a couple of years. The soil may be a little low on nutrients.  I'm not sure of the culprit, but after we harvest what's growing now, I'll throw some grass seed down, then plow the new green blades into the soil to enrich it while giving the beds a few weeks' fallow.  Guess the biblical mandate of a time of sabbath, rest, or fallow is good for everyone and everything, including the earth itself.  There's a time to create, and a time to rest.  

Best night of the year

Christmas Eve is absolutely my favorite night of the year.  Folklore would tell us that Samhain, or the time around Halloween, is when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest and the spirits of the next world are more present in ours.  I respectfully disagree.  To me, it's around this time of year when the veil between worlds is thinnest; when you can almost feel the tendrils of Heaven being drawn down to earth and a little nearer into our reality. 


People give more charitably this time of year.  This Christmas, for example, despite the recession, mystery "Santas" are going into Kmart stores all over the country and paying off stranger's lawaway account balances, to ensure these strangers' children have toys and gifts to open on Christmas morning.  People donate more food to the needy, and ensure the elderly have a warm meal and some company, because they recognize that no one should be alone at Christmas.  Carolers will stroll the halls of hospitals and nursing homes tonight, carrying Pointsettas and comfort to those they sing for, including those whose time on this earth is drawing short.  


I believe the repeated act of blessing others brings the ideals of the heavenly world down here to earth, and those things happen most during this time of year.  That's why I love Christmas Eve more than any other night. It's the time when the blessings flow the strongest, when those who give do so, abundantly, and those who need, receive the most.  Tomorrow it will be all about wrapping paper, electronic toys that buzz and light up, family dynamics and enough food to feed an army. But tonight is all about the blessing, and the feeling that when the night falls and our world goes quiet, this sometimes selfish and troubled planet will intersect with God's kingdom of Heaven just a little bit. And we will be the better for it.


Merry Christmas, everyone.

A Festivus for the rest of us!

At this point the holidays are backing up like jumbo jets over O'Hare. First Chanukah, then the Solstice, and December 23....Festivus!  (At least for fans of "Seinfeld.")  


Wishing everyone success in their Feats of Strength tonight.

Comin' around

Last night was the winter solstice, the shortest day and longest night of the year. Starting today, the days will get a little bit longer with each one that passes; first by just a few seconds and then as we head towards summer, by a minute or two each day.  This happens because the earth comes to a point where it hits a far spot in its elliptical path around the sun, and then begins coming back around again.  Kind of like a race car which reaches the far end of the track, then whips around the curve and begins circling back to the place it started.


I'm conscious that this particular "trip around the track" will see us leaving this area.  I think about moving every day.  When I did my ancestral family tree last year, I discovered my family has been in this country since 1635, when they left England to join the Massachusetts colony.  Soon after they left there to found a settlement in Long Island, New York.  And sometime after that, they left again and headed out to West Virginia, where they stayed put for about 200 years. But after 200 years, something made my grandfather leave West Virginia to come west to California, back in the 1940's. Maybe it was the promise of better weather.  Or plentiful jobs.  Or just the chance to reinvent himself in a new form, a new lifestyle, which would include trips to the beach instead of outside to shovel snow off the driveway.  


I come from a family of folks who have always been willing to head west and establish a beachhead in undiscovered country.  I'm no different.  I will take all that I've learned up to this point to The New Place, just as my ancestors did.  And I will start again, discovering in the process exactly where I fit in and what I'm supposed to be doing there.  


I will visit the beach, often, and I will find a good patch of land on which to keep some animals and grow some vegetables.  And by doing all these things, I will hopefully honor those who came before me, the ones who were not afraid to leave and begin afresh elsewhere, who loved rather than feared the thought of the sun setting over an unfamiliar horizon each night, until it was no longer unfamiliar to them.  


But for now, from my perspective on this far side of the sun, I will sit and I will dream about what's to come, while the nights are still long and while we bide our time through winter.  After all, what are the long nights for if not to dream?

Chanukah was a bust

We're one of those bi-faith families that celebrates both Christmas and Chanukah.  Last night was the first night of Chanukah, and it was a total wash-out.  My husband came home late from work, in one of those mysterious "wet blanket" moods men sometimes seem to get in.  So I rushed through the prayers, lit the candles, and set about feeding everyone instead of really focusing on the celebration and its significance.


The bright spot is that Chanukah lasts eight nights, which means we have seven more times this year to get it right...to say the prayers with meaning and maybe even discuss the significance of the holiday with the kids.  If Christmas gets messed up, you're done for a whole year.  I've had bad Christmases before, and it can be very depressing. There's a massive lead-up of expectations for a perfect holiday, and when that gets a throwdown -- you end up sick, breaking up with your boyfriend, having to work, or being stranded at O'Hare in a snowstorm while trying to get home -- major, severe holiday depression can set in.


Since it's more or less accepted by theologians that Christ could not possibly have been born in December and Christmas was instead grafted on to the Roman Saturnalia and even older solstice festivities, maybe Chanukah is a safer holiday to celebrate.  It's not as commercialized, and isn't trying to celebrate something that's surely a great thing, but on the wrong day.  And if things don't go right -- your spouse is a jerk or you burn some of the latkes, there's always tomorrow...one more candle, one more prayer, one more chance.