Posted on December 13, 2004
Just as some well-known singer was raised on country sunshine, I was raised on Christmas Carols. I learned them, one word at a time, in the various Catholic schools I attended; and I demonstrated my knowledge of them in more than one Christmas pageant.
Today, I enjoy listening to them on radio, on CD, and even when I’m waiting for the person at the other end of the telephone line to take my order for a certain gift. In fact, it’s the only time of the year I’m willing to listen to forced entertainment via the phone.
Now that I’ve acquired an interest in playing the piano, I’m also interested in learning to play – you guessed it – Christmas Carols. My teacher, who is of a different religious persuasion, will just have to muddle through.
I’ve purchased three books of carols, all of varying degrees of difficulty; and I’m working diligently to create a repertoire before my sons arrive on Christmas Eve. There’s Charlie Brown’s favorite tune, “Christmas Time Is Here,” with its rather discordant modern notes. I put this against “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” with its equally chord-based and traditional notes.
The only requirement is that the songs must be in a relatively slow tempo, as I haven’t mastered eighth notes and quarter notes yet. Maybe next year. And that’s the cool thing about Christmas Carols . . . there will always be a next year.
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Posted on December 12, 2004
Arrived in the Big Apple this afternoon, although I always hesitate to call New York City that since I don’t know where the expression came from. Nevertheless, I’m here to work three days at Fred Flare, the company my son and his partner own and operate. This is always a busy time of year for them, and I’m an extra pair of hands.
Flying into New York is a humbling experience for someone who’s spent most of her adult life in and around the Chicago area. Windy City residents (I DO know where that moniker comes from) chafe at the thought of being second to anyone else. Perhaps it has to do with Midwestern pride.
But when you’re coming into Laguardia Airport and see the Manhattan skyline in the distance, there simply isn’t any comparison. All those tall buildings so densely packed together on that tiny island! It’s a wonder the whole thing hasn’t sunk into the harbors surrounding it.
Of course, flying into O’Hare Airport often provides a thrilling aerial view of Chicago and its famous lakefront, but the sheer size of the skyline simply can’t compete with New York’s. Neither can the density of the population or the amazing variety of ethic diversity one sees on the streets. Or the number of restaurants in a single block. Or the availability of taxis.
I haven’t been to New York in a couple years, and that familiar surge of adrenaline at being back in one of the world’s greatest cities tells me it has been too long between visits.
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Posted on December 11, 2004
A couple days ago, my favorite aunt read my mini-essay about old friends who visit at the holiday and it recalled her own special friend. She emailed me to add “The Little Match Girl” to my list.
Ah, Hans Christian Andersen’s little match girl, a story guaranteed to make the reader cry. I hadn’t thought of her in years, but as I write this essay I recall the general flow of the tale. I hope my Aunt Alice corrects me if I miss any pertinent details.
It is New Year’s Eve. The match girl is poor and alone and trying to sell her matches to passers-by. But the night air is cold and most people are already inside their homes celebrating. She stands in a doorway for protection against the elements.
When nobody comes by to purchase her matches, the little girl lights one after another to keep warm. With their temporary relief from the cold, the matches also offer visions of a better life. One, in particular, reveals the girl’s Grandmother, who has passed away. “Oh, Grandmother, take me with you,” implores the girl. And in the morning, the child is found dead with spent matches about her body.
Does this sound like a joyous holiday tale? Of course not. But, although the sadness of the story cannot be denied, its real value lies in helping us remember those who are less fortunate than we are. Every needy person is a little match girl.
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Posted on December 10, 2004
I’ve been under the weather. It doesn’t matter whether it is the flu, or a chest cold, or a sinus infection – the result is the same. I do not feel like myself, although I’m not sure who I feel like instead. Maybe an immigration processor. One on Ellis Island.
The bug that resides in me is waiting for immigration clearance, so that it can find another home. But for some reason, rather than flitting through my body and moving on, it has been detained. It must stay here, in me, until the proper papers have been processed and the proper waiting period has been enforced.
Regarding papers, I offer cash register receipts from Walgreen’s to testify that I have purchased the correct over-the-counter medication to make me feel better. Not that they do. But at least I have complied. As for the proper waiting period, I believe this means living through the next seven to ten days, so that my bug can de-bug itself before moving on. I’m in Day Five.
I visited the real Ellis Island on two occasions and was struck with how flesh-and-blood immigrants could be torn from their families at a moment’s notice to spend a required quarantine time in the facility’s medical units. How frightening that must have been, especially if the person involved did not speak English.
I doubt my bug speaks English either, but I have less sympathy for it. I wish it only to be gone.
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Posted on December 9, 2004
The party Earl’s friends, Don and Sue, throw each year is a study in logistics, space, and attendees. Even though I gave it ten minutes yesterday, I didn’t even scratch the surface. So all you party planners out there, listen up!
When we arrive at the house, either Don or Sue is there at the front door to greet us. We shed our coats and our gift to the host and hostess and are ushered into the living room, which spreads into the family room behind it. The bar is located there, and Don offers us our favorite alcoholic beverage. He makes a mean drink, and we chat a few moments; but then he needs to resume door duty again, so we are on our own.
We move about the room, nodding to familiar faces, smiling this way and that, never really engaging in serious conversation. Every end table and side table has a strategically placed appetizer, which we sample as we go. Finally, we spot Don’s brother and his wife, so we make a beeline for them in the hope of engaging in conversation of the cocktail circuit variety.
I notice that there are more guests, approximately sixty people, than there are places to sit. This means we need to keep moving. And we do. I also notice that the ages of those on the guest list range from infants in arms to grandparents. It’s a wide-open family affair, regardless of actual affiliation.
Then there is the buffet supper that Sue creates and serves from her galley kitchen. The attached garage was long ago converted to a formal dining room; and this is where the buffet is served. On actual plates with actual silverware, mind you. How Sue manages to have a plate for that many people is beyond the comprehension of this only child. Yet, now that I think of it, Sue is an only child too.
We eat, we go back for seconds, which are always available. And, then there are the desserts. Which, if we were smarter, should take the place of the second helpings since we can’t manage any more food. But coffee still goes down.
The noise, the children, the adults, the food, the house – it is indeed the Grand Finale of All Parties, made so mostly because Don and Sue appear to enjoy doing it and making everyone else feel special along the way.
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Posted on December 8, 2004
Earl’s friends, Sue and Don, throw what I call the Grand Finale of Holiday Parties each year. They’ve been at it a long time and have it down to a science.
First the computer-generated invitation arrives before Thanksgiving, announcing the date and time. The location is always the same: Don and Sue’s home in Park Ridge, Illinois.
I imagine the guest list ebbs and flows, but we have been regulars for the ten years Earl and I have been together.
Nothing else happens from the guests’ point of view until the day of the big event. Then we scramble to purchase a host/hostess gift, usually a bottle of wine or a plant that joins other bottles and plants when we arrive at the home. It’s not very imaginative on our part, but it’s part of the routine.
The first year I went with Earl, I studied the collection of Santa Clauses that graced the fireplace mantel. Then I studied the tree in the front room. Earl roamed around sampling appetizers and catching up with friends he knew from previous lives. I think he enjoyed it more than I did. But time, and effort, have a way of making things more enjoyable.
I don’t know which anniversary of my first party this year is, but I’m looking forward to it more than before. I’ve come to know some of the regulars and can hold a decent conversation. Earl and I and Don and Sue have gotten together throughout the years, so I have some personal memories with them as well. I even know their grown children’s names without prompting. In addition, we’ve gotten to know their next-door neighbors, since they have a home in Michigan.
Enjoying an annual party is a progressive sort of thing. The first year, it’s pretty much dull and boring. The second year, maybe less so. But, given enough time and enough effort, any Grand Finale is worth attending. If you’re just starting out on a scenario that’s similar, take my word for it.
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Posted on December 7, 2004
Ten years ago today my stepfather, Ollie, died in his sleep while my Mother was taking houseguests to the airport. It was early in the morning and she left him in bed, with a kiss no doubt, whispering that she would be back soon to fix his breakfast. When she returned from the seventy-mile round trip to and from the Little Rock Airport, he was gone.
It wasn’t necessarily unexpected, since Ollie was eighty-six, a full ten years older than my Mother. He had been in decline for some time, and Mother seemed to know this too. Yet, when the moment happened and she returned from the airport to discover it, the loss was overwhelming.
Ollie adored my Mother. When other people walked out on her, he walked in. She could do no wrong his eyes, which is a rather myopic view. But it worked for them. Where she was aggressive, he was passive. Not in a negative sense, but rather in a manner of waiting until she needed support. Then he was always there. He was quiet, yet intelligent. Hard working, yet relaxed. A man of few words, yet every word counted.
After he died, I found photos of Ollie taken when he was a soldier during World War II. He was thirty-five at the time of induction and probably found military life less to his liking that working in the shoe pattern factory from which he’d retire fifty years down the road. Yet, these photos show the same stoicism, the same gentleness, and the same resolve that I came to know when he married my Mother.
I think it’s fitting he left this earth on the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, not because of his military heroics but because he reminded me that true heroics often mean simply being there, time after time after time. And he was.
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Posted on December 6, 2004
‘Tis the season for that annual event, the holiday blank party. For the word ‘blank’ you can substitute office, block, neighborhood, cookie exchange, tree trimming, or a bevy of other words that provide a roadmap of who is coming and what the theme is.
Now I am not particularly a party animal. My idea of a great night out is to have dinner in a lovely restaurant with Earl, other family members, or close friends. Preferably not all at the same time either. When the meal is over, we return to our respective homes, and I’m probably the first one in my jammies.
So just thinking about the onslaught of holiday blank parties fatigues me.
Next week we’re doing the holiday real estate office party, for which I am a member of the decorating committee. This means one night from the week given over to trimming the office tree, hanging lights, and arranging tablecloths since our party is at the office rather than at a restaurant where they do all that for you. (Why we do it that way is another ten-minute meditation.) Then there’s the party itself, from 5 p.m. to whenever, whenever being when the last real estate agent decides to return to his or her own dwelling rather than camp out at the office. I assure you, the last person will not be me.
Then there’s the holiday appreciation party for the Berrien County Sheriff’s Deputies. I don’t have to do any preparation for this event; instead I just show up on Earl’s arm (figuratively speaking) and smile at other deputies and their arm huggers. It’s a down home affair, catered by a local restaurant in the also local FOP Hall. Not exactly the Ritz, but sweet in its own way because any pause in the day’s activity to honor volunteers like Earl who put their lives on the line is always sweet.
At week’s end, there’s the Grand Finale of Holiday Parties. This is held in the home of Earl’s longtime friends, Sue and Don, in Park Ridge, Illinois. We will travel from Michigan and we will dress to attend.
We’ve been going to the Grand Finale as long as I’ve known Earl, and I suspect he attended long before I showed up on the scene. It’s an amazing display of logistics, space, and attendees. In fact, it deserves it’s own ten-minute essay.
For that, tune it on December 8.
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Posted on December 5, 2004
It started with the story of Frosty, which I read years ago. The original story of Frosty, that is. I think it was in a Reader’s Digest, but I can’t quite remember for sure. All I know is that long before Frosty made the holiday music hit parade, or Jackie Vernon provided the melancholy voice for the animated television version, or the sequel arrived on the scene, I loved snowmen. With or without their felt top hats.
So I began a small collection of them that I pull out and display every year at Christmas. There’s the little pillow with a mere outline of Frosty on it and the saying, “I’ll be back again someday.” There’s the cuddly snowman with arms and legs holding a sign that says, “Some of my best friends are flakes.” And the quilt whose squares hold different versions of snowmen. And the one that is carved and painted with an actual twig for a nose. And the three that could be a snowy version of carolers.
As I reminisce, I think of Grant Wood’s famous painting “American Gothic” and giggle at the thought that someone might do a rendition with snow people instead of the somber farm couple. Cranberries could be Mrs. Snowman’s necklace and a broom could replace the haying fork in Mr. Snowman’s hand.
Or what about that famous painting, “Paris, A Rainy Day” by Gustave Caillebotte? A clever artist could turn the dapper men and women walking under umbrellas near the Paris train station into equally dapper Frostys. Then the work would be titled “Paris, A Snowy Day.” Umbrellas would be optional.
If Cajun artist George Rodrigue can make a name for himself inserting blue dogs into the paintings of the Masters, then I bet there is someone out there who will do the same for snowmen. If that person is reading this, you can count on me to purchase your work.
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Posted on December 4, 2004
The Christmas season is peopled with many visitors who make an annual appearance and warm the heart.
Jim and Della, from O. Henry’s short story “The Gift of the Magi,” never fail to make me remember the selflessness of real love. In case you are not familiar with this couple, Jim sells his one valuable possession, a handsome pocket watch, to buy his new wife a beautiful set of combs for her hair. She, at the same time, allows a hairdresser to cut her long tresses for the sum of twenty dollars, with which she purchases a worthy chain for her husband’s watch.
Then there is the fourth Magi. Tradition has it that there were originally four Wise Men who searched for the Infant long ago. But the fourth one became distracted with helping others along the way and arrived too late at the manger. He spent the rest of his life searching for Jesus, only to meet him on Calgary thirty-three years later.
The drummer boy also stops by to relay how his gift to the Infant was a tune on his drum.
My favorite visitor, however, is The Littlest Angel by Charles Tazewell. The littlest angel doesn’t even have a name, but he is famous for making heaven an unruly place. After all he is only “four years, six months, five days, seven hours, and forty-two minutes of age” when he arrives at his new celestial home. The balance of the story tells how the angel finally adjusts to Heaven and how he offers a unique gift when Jesus is born.
These characters may reveal themselves in story and song, but they are just as important as any real-life friend or family member who visit. I urge you to make their acquaintance.
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