Category Archives: Family

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Memorials

Remembering Grandma (As My Perfect Mother-in-Law)

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In memory of my mother-in-law Doretta, who passed away at the beginning of March, I reprint this post from October 2012.  See previous post for more about my husband’s lovely mother. 

I have the perfect mother-in-law. The only down side to this is that I’m unable to participate in the swapping of mother-in-law horror stories. I’ve heard many such accounts, and other than gasps of incredulity, I have nothing to add. I’ve listened in amazement to tales of the mother-in-law who “helps” with the new baby by bellowing orders, complaints, and increasingly outlandish requests from a command center on the family room sofa. I’ve heard about the M.I.L. who, determined to ensure that her son’s house run on her rules or not at all, regards each visit as an opportunity for a hostile takeover. I’ve listened to anecdotes about the M.I.L. whose sensitive temperament is constantly wounded by imagined slights tossed off by a cruel daughter-in-law. And I’ve heard everything in between.

With my mother in law, there is no drama.  She is sweet, good, and uncomplicated.  She is kind,  thoughtful and intelligent.  During visits to our home, she asks how she may help.  She is not overbearing.  She does not insist, but she never offers out of empty politesse.  It has taken me a while, but I’ve learned to accept her assistance.  I come from what may be a predominately Southern tradition of automatically refusing the first few offers of guests’ help, thereby forcing them to insist or be considered rude.  Now, when Grandma* asks if I need help with dinner, I tend to say Yes, please! She is a calm, easy presence, and it’s a pleasure to share the house, and the chores, with her.

Like everyone in H’s family, his mother welcomed me warmly at our first meeting, now over twenty years ago.  She has never implied (as some mothers of sons are known to do), that no living woman could be a worthy companion of the god-like boy-child she birthed.  She has a deservedly high opinion of H, and she has always treated me as his equal.

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H’s mother is a loving grandmother to our daughter and to her other four grandchildren.  Gentle and fun, she laughs easily, and she remembers what it was like to be a child.  I’ve heard about grandparents who cannot be trusted with their own grandchildren.  This was never an issue with either set of my daughter’s grandparents, thankfully.  When D was nearly three, my husband and I, along with my parents, took a trip to France, leaving our daughter in the care of Grandma and Grandpa.  We missed our baby girl, but we had no worries about her welfare, either emotional or physical, during those ten days.  We knew she was in devoted and capable hands.

Grandma’s attitude is generally one of meekness, and some might take her for a pushover.  This, however, is not the case.  When she feels strongly that righteousness is on her side, she is tough, patient and determined to persevere. One year, when H’s windsurfing board went missing in Cape Cod, she summoned Grandpa to accompany her on a walk.  With slow, thorough deliberation, she surveyed the property carefully, until she discovered H’s board leaning up against the wall of another cottage way across the green.  Thanks to her gracious yet firm intervention, H’s board was soon being carried back to its rightful place by those who, no doubt, had removed it.

The photo above shows our daughter with Grandma at Cape Cod.  In D’s younger years, she always urged H and me to go out for date night during our vacation, so she could enjoy a full evening of food and fun with Grandma and Grandpa.

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Grandma is always ready for a game with a grandchild, whether it’s air hockey, Chinese Checkers, Candyland or Chutes & Ladders.

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Grandpa is a lucky man, and he knows it.  He has Grandma by his side, no matter what.  During their long marriage they’ve had their share of hell and high water, in addition to many joys.  They are a formidable team, and together, with their strong faith in God’s love and grace, they know they can weather any storm.  Grandma has a gift for finding and sharing that kernel of sweetness within the tough husk of the bad.

Thank you, Grandma, for enriching the lives of all those you touch.  Happy Birthday, and many more to follow!

*When I speak to my mother-in-law, I call her by her first name, which is an unusual, pretty name.  But here, I will refer to her as Grandma. When I wrote about H’s father, her husband, I referred to him as Grandpa (June 2012), so I’ll be consistent.

Community, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Memorials

Goodbye, to Grandma

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At one of her favorite spots, with a book at the picnic table outside her family’s Cape Cod rental cottage

My dear mother-in-law Doretta passed away in the early hours of March 4th.  Since her beloved husband Jim left this world in October of 2022, she’d been lonely.  She didn’t complain.  But when asked, or when his name was mentioned, she’d always say, “I just miss him so much.”  She carried on, despite her sadness and the growing physical challenges of Parkinsons’ and Addison’s Disease. 

I  had the pleasure of seeing her most Wednesday nights for the past several years. During the height of the pandemic, she joined my mother and me and other friends for an online Bible study through our church here in Virginia.  As her mobility decreased, attending her local Rochester church, and getting out at all, became increasingly difficult.  Our mid-week virtual gathering had become one of her few fellowship opportunities, and she appreciated the warm welcome our group extended to her.  With my husband’s and his sister’s help, she learned to use Zoom on her iPad in order to join us.  This was quite the feat, considering Jim had always been the one to deal with any and all tech matters.  During the sessions we’d often hear Barney the cockatiel chirping away happily in the background.  Barney, like Doretta, had been bereft after Jim’s passing.  An odd, cantankerous bird, he was prone to hissing with apparent vehemence at everyone who was not his best pal Jim.  Over the past two years, he warmed up to Doretta, and the two became good company.  It was her nightly ritual to sit with him in the family room,  watching TV or reading.  She found that he got particularly chirpy during the musical performances on old Lawrence Welk re-runs.  

At about age three, in her hometown of Jamestown, NY

Doretta was determined not to relocate from her house, which she and Jim had built as newlyweds in 1965. Thanks to the help of my sister-in-law Julie, who lives locally,  several regular care-givers, many walkers and two stair lifts, one to the basement and another to the second floor, she had been able to remain in the home she loved so much.  When my husband returned there the morning after his mom’s passing, on the table beside her favorite chair, he found her Bible, some recent books from our Zoom studies, and a manual on coping with Parkinsons’.  He saw them as a testament to her quiet, patient perseverance.  Throughout adversity, her faith was strong.  Life tossed many hardships her way, but she pushed through, with a kind, encouraging word for others.  She was a light bearer in our often dark world.  It feels odd not seeing Doretta’s Zoom square on Wednesday nights, not to see her sweet smiling face, not to hear Barney’s tweets. I like to think of her in that heavenly cloud of witnesses, reunited joyfully with her darling Jim.

   

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Food, Nature

Maple Sugaring in Virginia

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As my husband made plans for maple sugaring, he learned to keep a close eye on the weather, and to be prepared to act.  We’d always thought of February as the prime maple sugar month.  But H learned last year that it’s the temperature, not the specific time of year, that determines the best sugaring conditions.  The perfect fluctuation of temperatures, in fact, is necessary.  Cold nights, when the thermometer dips below freezing, and warming, sunny days, are what gets the sap really flowing.  During the second week of January, when temperatures ranged from the twenties to the forties, H tapped several sugar maples in my mother’s yard.  Soon, the white pails were filling with sap.  He checked them each night, emptying the liquid into a larger bucket for storage in our basement fridge.

He began the long boiling process on a weekend when he had few other projects.   Every gallon of sap requires about an hour of boiling time.  He’d collected about twelve gallons, and he boiled six gallons at a time.  To avoid turning our kitchen into an ultra-high-humidity zone during six hours of boiling, H began the process outside on the grill.  Once the amount of liquid had been reduced by about 80%, he finished the process inside.  The longer the liquid is boiled, the more viscous it becomes. During this final phase, our house was filled with the heavenly scent of sugar-rich steam. 

The reason that most maple sugar comes from northern locales is that the sugar content of maples is higher there.  Sugar maples in northern states and Canada typically have a sap to syrup ratio of about 40-1,  so that forty gallons of sap yields one gallon of syrup.  Farther south, as here in Virginia, that ratio is about 70 – 1. 

After the boiling process is finished, the syrup is filtered to remove any impurities. 

A bit of early-season syrup, light in color.

My husband found that the sap from the earliest part of the season produced syrup that was light in color.  Longer boiling does not affect the color, (unless reduced to the point of burning, of course).   In taste, this early harvest was subtle.  It was sugary, with only slight hints of maple flavor.  

The late-season sap resulted in syrup that was a dark mahogany color.  The flavor was bright and robust.  It was pure maple essence.  It takes more sap, and more boiling time for maple sugaring here in Virginia than in western New York, but the end result, we know now, is equally tasty.  Mid-Atlantic maples can produce a liquid gold as fine as their Yankee cousins. 

Hours spent around the big pot of bubbling sap, inhaling the sweetness of the steam, are apt to inspire contemplation.  “Amazing, isn’t it, that we can extract this liquid from trees in our own yard and turn it into this great-tasting stuff,” my husband remarked.  “And it’s even more amazing that the sap is there in the first place.  There’s enough to nourish the tree, and plenty left over for us.  If God were to boast about his wonders, this should be included.”

I agreed, and the biblical conversation between God and Job immediately came to mind: 

Who created a channel for the torrents of rain?  Who laid out the path for the lightning? 

Who makes the rain fall on barren land, in a desert where no one lives?

Who sends rain to satisfy the parched ground and make the tender grass spring up?

Does the rain have a father?  Who gives birth to the dew?

Who is the mother of the ice?  Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens? (Job 38: 25- 29, New Living Translation)

God directs Job’s attention to his supreme authority over the skies, the seas, over light and darkness, and to the unique characteristics of his many, fantastically varied creatures, including lions and goats, the wild donkey, the ox, the horse and the eagle.  The miracle of maple syrup could well be included among these marvels, it seems to me.  Perhaps in words like these:  

Who commands and compels the life-blood of the trees of the forest?  Who sets the sweet sap rising and flowing in the maples?  Who sends it forth to nurture and bless the woodpecker and the shepherd?

So  yes, every taste of our homemade maple syrup is yet another reminder of the bounty of God’s  gifts.  It’s best enjoyed, in our opinion, over buckwheat pancakes made from the Cartwright family recipe.  Our syrup may be from Southern trees, but my husband’s sugar-making experience is rooted in the wilds of upstate New York.  The seeds were planted long ago during his first family visit to the remote Maple Tree Inn.  One of life’s sweet pleasures still flourishes, across the miles and years.  Grandpa Stan would be proud.

 

Community, Family, Food, Nature, Walking the Dog

Sugar Shack Reprise

My husband taps a maple tree in my mother’s front yard here in Virginia.

Among my husband’s most cherished childhood memories are family outings to a remote location in western New York to feast on pancakes and locally made maple syrup.  His grandfather Stan was a man of big, enthusiastic appetites, and he was a huge fan of maple syrup.  He began the tradition of a mid-winter journey from Rochester, sixty-five miles south to Cartwright’s Maple Tree Inn.  Stan’s appreciation for maple syrup lives on in my husband.  Last year, he decided to tap some of our Virginia maples and see what might result. His efforts were rewarded, and he repeated the process again this year, with certain modifications.  His local syrup making will be the subject of my next post.  But first, back to the sugar shack that started it all. 

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North to the Sugar Shack (first posted February 22, 2013)

The snowy landscape behind Cartwright’s, February 2013.

Last weekend, we drove to upstate New York for pancakes. Not just for pancakes.  Pancakes and maple syrup.  We met H’s family at Cartwright’s Maple Tree Inn, a glorified sugar shack located, really, in the middle of nowhere.  Its actual address is County Road 15A, Angelica, NY (2 miles from Short Tract), which, in the language of our GPS system, is “not on any digitized road.”  Despite its truly out-of-the-way location in the midst of snow-covered fields, it’s a popular spot, with big crowds on weekends.  It’s only open during the maple sugar season, which typically runs from mid-February through March or mid-April, depending on the weather.  H’s family has been trekking out to Cartwright’s for decades, and now it’s among our winter traditions, even though our drive is far longer.  Of course, we don’t return directly to Virginia, but spend the weekend visiting H’s family in Rochester.

Our daughter in front of the Maple Tree Inn, 2013.

The Cartwrights began producing maple syrup on their farm in the 1850s. The Maple Tree Inn dates from 1963, when the family decided to build a restaurant specializing in Grandma’s buckwheat pancakes served with their own maple syrup. In the adjacent shop, the syrup, maple butter and maple sugar cakes became available directly to the public. The somewhat ramshackle building has been expanded over the years and is now fairly large. It will win no awards for architectural style, but that’s not the point. In the chain-store sameness that dominates so much of our country today, the Maple Tree Inn offers a unique, quirky, authentic experience. It’s living history, and it’s worth a visit.

Before I met my husband, I had never tasted true maple syrup. The first time we ate together at PJ’s Pancake House in Princeton, I was surprised to see him pull a small container of pure maple syrup from his pocket. At the time, PJ’s didn’t serve the real stuff, although that has since changed. I didn’t understand what the big deal was. Growing up, when Daddy made pancakes on Saturday mornings, we used the typical supermarket syrup–Log Cabin, Aunt Jemima–whatever. H was no food snob, so I found his insistence on unadulterated maple syrup mystifying. That is, until that day at PJ’s, when I tasted the liquid from that little jar. H was right. There is no topping the perfection of the stuff that comes straight from the tree.

Visitors to the Maple Tree Inn are welcome to descend into the building’s lower level to learn how the sap is boiled down, in huge wood-fired evaporators, to its golden maple essence. Several years ago, a Cartwright grandson, no more than twelve or so, gave us a comprehensive tour that began in the frozen fields where we could examine the taps on the trees and see the liquid running into the buckets. This is not an option at IHOP.

These days, the rarified nuances of maple syrup, like those of chocolate, coffee and small-batch bourbons, are earnestly discussed at considerable length, using wine-lingo terms such as terroir.  H doesn’t do this, although he can and does enjoy discerning, in blind taste tests, the variations between light, medium, and dark amber syrups.  My palette will never attain such a degree of sophistication, but I can say this: a little true maple syrup makes life sweeter.

After a walk to explore the area around Cartwright’s, Kiko kept vigil in the car during our meal. Animal advocates need not be alarmed–he had his sheepskin bed and blanket if he needed to hunker down for warmth. Before this trip, in case it was particularly cold, we bought him a red plaid fleece coat. The temperature wasn’t low enough to warrant it, and he appeared perfectly comfortable, peering out from the front seat, when we returned. For his wait, he was rewarded with an extra sausage patty that H’s grandmother had carefully saved for him.

Kiko and I explored the area around Cartwright’s.

Kiko and D atop a tall snowpile on an earlier visit to Cartwright’s, in 2009. Kiko looks almost exactly the same as he did four years ago, when he was two. D, on the other hand, has changed.

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Next up:  my husband’s foray into maple syrup making in Virginia.

Family, Nature

The Latest in Snow

Tuesday’s snow arrived, just as predicted. The small flakes gradually grew larger, and they fell steadily, hour after hour. The present, middle-aged me would likely have said Enough! Unlike the past two years, we’ve had our share of the white stuff this winter. It seemed that the deep snow of January 6 might just be with us forever, thanks to regularly frigid temperatures. We bid goodbye to its last persistent dregs only about a week ago, and it was strange to see actual lawn again. But, as I wrote in my last post, I had recently been in conversation with my much younger, severely snow-deprived self. She advised me to relax and enjoy. It was another lovely snowfall, after all.

The present me is grateful for today’s warming trend, accompanied by rain.  Goodbye snow!  No need to hurry back.  Why not wait a year or so before visiting again?  

Community, Family, Friendship, Nature

Winter Icing

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Last week’s winter storm brought ice to our part of Northern Virginia.  We awoke to a translucent landscape.   It took me back to a time in my Atlanta childhood when I had little first-hand experience with snow, at least any that I could remember.  My parents would wax nostalgic about family fun in the snow  when I was a baby in Lexington,  Kentucky.  They seemed surprised that I carried no tender memories of making a snowman with Daddy when I was a year old.  I grew up feeling sorely snow-deprived.  Every once in a while, snow might be predicted, but typically, what we got instead, in Atlanta, was ice. 

“First snow, Atlanta, 1971.” I’m standing between two friends in my childhood back yard.

The current Virginia weather prompted me to rummage through a shoe box of 1970s photos at my mother’s house. I was searching for a particular picture of me and two friends. It had been taken in our back yard on a day when school had been canceled due to a winter weather event, whether snow or ice, I couldn’t recall. But I remembered that the three of us had that characteristically awkward, disheveled, waif-like look of most ten to twelve year olds from that era.

I found the photo quickly.  It was a rare snow picture.  On the back I’d printed: First snow, Atlanta, 1971.  While it obviously wasn’t the city’s first-ever snow, it apparently  was mine, in that location.  We’d moved to the neighborhood only three years before.  My old green and red swing set is visible at back left, long before it became an arbor for wisteria vines.   I’d forgotten that that our yard had been such a wide open expanse in those early years.  By the time we sold the house, in 2017, trees, shrubs and foliage had grown up dramatically, creating the look of a sheltered, enclosed garden. The corner of the garage, at back right, hadn’t been visible like that for many years, nor had the homes on the street behind. 

The details of that winter day in 1971 are hazy.  Seems like we wandered around and gaped, in awe, at the alien snow-covered landscape.  We weren’t well-equipped for actual snow play.  Cold, wet feet and hands prevented us from staying out very long.   My husband is amused at how ill-dressed we were for the circumstances, in corduroys or jeans, and sneakers.  This was Atlanta, not Rochester, I remind him.  Few, if any of my friends had snow boots or ski wear; we would have outgrown them before they were ever needed.  Winter in Atlanta was less a season than an exotic, fleetingly ephemeral sensation.   

My memories of Atlanta ice storms are more distinctly fixed in my memory than the snow days.  Growing up, I considered any form of frozen precipitation a welcome break from the usual.  Ice, snow’s cousin, was our more frequent visitor, and I found its effects fascinating.  As I roamed the icy yard last week, I saw it again with the eyes of a much younger me. 

I loved how frozen droplets, their motion captured mid-air, dangled from dogwood branches.  I saw, with wonder, that every individual privet leaf had been perfectly encased in ice.  Each leaf was twinned with its own ice copy that could be carefully removed.  Amazing!

I enjoyed hearing and feeling  the ice-clad blades of grass crunch beneath my feet as I walked. 

I liked how the light filtering through ice-covered branches gave the sky a lavender tinge.  

Suddenly, I was brought back to the present by a sharp sound resembling a gunshot.  The birds at the feeder vanished in a whoosh, and pine boughs came crashing down.  The temperature was rising, and the sleet had turned to rain, but the pines all around our house were bending lower and lower with the extra water weight.  The power went out.  There were more gunshot-like sounds. I could see cars slowing down out front, avoiding a couple of newly downed limbs.  

We were fortunate in having only minimal damage to trees from last week’s ice.  This week’s winter storm is just now beginning.  Small snowflakes are starting to fall.  Accumulation of three to six inches is predicted for the metro DC area.  The ten-year old me from 1971 would be ecstatic (and far better prepared, in terms of apparel.)

Wherever you are, may winter wow you with its beauty, rather than its destructive power. 

 

Community, Family, Nature

Witness to an Occultation. . .and to What Else?

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Our daughter called on Monday evening to inform us of a quickly approaching astronomical event: the lunar occultation of Mars. As an aerospace engineer who minored in astronomy, she’s up on all that sort of stuff. I think she was somewhat surprised when I knew exactly what she was talking about. In preparation for my recent post on shadows cast by the nearly full February Wolf moon, I’d read that the moon would occult, or hide, Mars briefly on the night of January 13. To us Earthlings, Mars appears particularly big and bright now. It’s nearing the point in its orbit at which it’s closest to Earth. The side we’re seeing is fully lit by the sun, so the planet appears especially red. Those of us in the continental United States and parts of Africa had the chance Monday, under clear skies, to watch Mars, looking like a glowing red dot, move closer and closer to the moon until it disappeared behind it. After a while, it appeared again on the other side.

Thanks to our daughter’s reminder, around 8:45 I began stepping outside at regular intervals to observe the celestial show.  Fortunately, it was another beautifully clear night. Through my bird-watching binoculars, I could distinctly see the tiny red jewel of Mars as it sidled up to the bright white globe of the moon.  After a bit, it disappeared behind the moon.  About a half hour afterwards, Mars emerged on the opposite side of the moon. 

I would have missed the evening’s distant, silent spectacle, had my daughter not called.  It made me consider, with wonder, what unseen curiosities and marvels, large and small, may be regularly unfolding around me. Often, they’re essentially invisible, as I’m lost in my head, preoccupied.  Sometimes it’s with a cumbersome, amorphous anxiety.  Or with small worries that tend to loom ever larger the more I dwell on them. 

Every once in a while, I happen to glance outside at exactly the right moment to see a bird that’s not among the crowd of regulars around our feeders: a brown creeper hopping with zesty deliberateness  up the pine,  a golden-crowned kinglet flitting lightly among the leaves of the Japanese maple, a hermit thrush absolutely motionless on the bird bath.  And the next moment, the bird is gone.  What others come and go, without my ever knowing? 

What mysteries are taking place in the skies above, and in the ground below?  When this human-made world is too much with me, when people disappoint (just as I have been known to let down those who care about me), when institutions founder, when things prove faulty, when I’m close to feeling overwhelmed, I can remember to do this:  Look out.  Look up.  Or down.  Direct my attention to the everyday glories transpiring all around me.  Change my perspective. 

Right now, outside my window, the shadows are blue on the white snow.  Two Carolina wrens are hanging upside down from the suet feeder, pecking mightily.  A squirrel, the one with the fluffy ear tufts, perches atop a chair, looking thoughtful, its little hands clasped together.  When evening comes, I can watch the now waning moon as it rises above the trees.  I can remember to look for Mars, and for the bright stars of Orion.  I likely won’t see another lunar occultation for a while.  But I may witness something that will inspire awe and take me out of myself for a precious while. 

On the first day of the recent snow, our feeder area was a lively spot.
Yesterday, deer searched for greenery in our front yard.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Holiday

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas. . .

The Christmas season always speeds by, but with every year, it zips past at a faster pace. This year especially, it’s a blur. Is it the lack of that extra week, due to Thanksgiving’s later date? That our daughter wasn’t with us for quite as long? Is it my advancing age? It certainly does seem that time moves more and more quickly the older I get.

My husband, who is younger, agrees.   We find ourselves looking at the Christmas tree after dinner and marveling at the fact that December 25 and its accompanying festivities are all in the rear view mirror. We did the usual decorative preparations–the indoor/outdoor lighting, the wreaths, a small forest of Christmas trees at our house and my mother’s. We shopped for our family and and others, we wrapped gifts. We enjoyed a celebratory pre-Christmas dinner out with our daughter and her fiance. Post-Christmas, our two families walked and talked through an extensive light show at a local garden park. Of course, there was the not-to-be missed Live Nativity and Christmas Eve worship service. We opened gifts and shared Christmas dinner with my mother.  No crucial elements were missing. Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention? Not living in the moment? Looking back, it seems as though I was too busy to be mindful.

And then, yesterday, on the final day of Christmas, it snowed.  A big, beautiful, drifting snow.  Now it really looks like Christmas.  And it just so happens that I have time to breathe in and out fully, and to enjoy that Christmas feeling.  No appointments, no projects that must be tackled immediately.  Now, I can be present.

So, at a point at which most people are taking down their Christmas decorations, or have boxed them up days ago, I will be savoring them. 

My husband is typically not one for issuing decrees.  He’s never played the bossy guy with me, as he knows it would do him no good.  But he has decreed that January 6th must be the final evening for the outdoor spotlights and interior window candles.  This is a stretch for him.  Growing up, his family took down the tree down sometimes even before they ushered in the new year.  Although a church-goer all his life, he wasn’t aware, until I informed him, of the tradition of leaving the decorations up until Epiphany.  We can’t turn the lights out until the Magi arrive!  How will they find the baby Jesus without simulated stars to guide them? 

My husband fears that without his guidance, I’d leave the decorations up until Easter.  But I wouldn’t.  They’d be out before Valentine’s Day.  I may attempt to negotiate a few extra days with the exterior lights and the candles.  Because with the snow, the illuminated house looks extra pretty.  I could say that.  Or because it’s the middle of the week, when his days are spent at the office.  He’d probably rather not spend an evening packing up the candles, right?  (He puts them up, and he takes them down.)

I’ll probably let him get his way with the lights that are in his charge.  But all the other interior lights and decorations–those are in my purview.  With those, I’ll take my time.  I’ll relish this white Christmas in the post-Christmas season. 

 

Community, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Holiday

Live Nativity 2024

The Christmas Eve live nativity is one of our church’s most beloved traditions, very popular with the local community.  For several hours on the afternoon of December 24, the painted nativity figures arranged in the creche are joined by a group of living, breathing beasties. My daughter and I haven’t missed the event yet. 

The sweet, sturdy little burro was back.  I love his floppy, velvety ears and thick, buff-colored coat. He’s the furry embodiment of patient, calm endurance.  How appropriate that his long-ago forbear carried Mary and her unborn child across the rugged paths from Nazareth to Bethlehem. 

The donkey’s partner was not the gray hump-backed ox of previous years, but a petite black cow.  The two seemed perfectly content to munch hay and be admired by a continuing parade of humans. 

A goat and a sheep hunkered down in the hay, apparently intent on sleep, but repeatedly awakened by small, curious, caressing hands. 

The camel this year was Moses, a determined snuggler.  As if on cue, he rested his heavy head on the shoulder of any person who stepped up next to him for a photo op. 

These two kids were unsure about being in immediate proximity to Moses’s enormous face, so their dad held them at a slight distance. Moses, always easy-going, nestled his head on his trainer’s shoulder, instead.

During the hours that Moses the camel and his hirsute entourage are holding court, the inanimate nativity figures recede into the background. But once Moses and the other animals have been led back to their trailer (and are likely on on their way to their next gig in Northern Virginia), the painted figures remain in their places in the simple wooden creche.  But on Christmas Eve there is an essential addition.  The empty spot between Mary and Joseph is filled.  A homemade manger holds a swaddled doll. The other figures have a focal point toward which to direct their reverent gazes.  

When I first brought the fiberglass nativity forms up to the church, after finishing the work of repainting, I was struck by the bare starkness of the shelter that encloses them.  Did it need some swags of greenery, perhaps?  Certainly no red bows or shiny ornaments, but branches of fir, pine, or spruce?  Sprigs of holly and berries? 

But no.  Even such natural decorations are part of the trappings of our commercial, cozy, secular “Merry Christmas.”  The humbleness of the scene is the point.  The nativity grouping speaks to a timeless, sacred truth.  While that great truth inspires, to some degree, at least, the jolly festiveness of the season, it needs no dressing up.  It’s fitting that hay is the only adornment.   As the Grinch discovers, Christmas “came without ribbons, it came without tags, it came without packages, boxes or bags.”

The gift of God’s grace came on Christmas in the form of a baby, unfathomably both human and divine.  That baby grew up and served as a role model for us, his fellow brothers and sisters.  During his earthly life, Jesus personified kindness, compassion, mercy and forgiveness.  In his words and in his actions, he taught that our life’s goal should be to follow his example. 

The awesomeness of the gift of salvation offered to us through Christ’s sacrificial death can never be overstated. But Christmas reminds us to look to our brother Jesus to guide us in living every day, here in our present world.  This world needs all the love we can give. 

Community, Family, Holiday, Nature

Halloween ’24 and its Prequels

Slim revels in the various lead-up events to the big day. His enthusiastic presence heightens the fun at our church’s annual Trunk or Treat. It’s a pleasure having him by my side, revving up the crowd from his usual perch at the back of my car.

It was Slim’s idea that the refurbished nativity animals accompany us to the event.  By this time, he and the pups had gotten chummy with the foursome of ox, donkey, lamb and ram.  He decided that their debut at Trunk or Treat should function as a preview in preparation for Advent.  But they needed some Halloween flair, he insisted.  He dug through boxes of fall decorations to find suitable ribbon for bows, which he carefully tied around each faux-furry neck. 

We were all happy to see our daughter and her fiancé, who dropped by last weekend between Halloween parties. Slim heartily approved of their regal vampire costumes.

Slim loves a festive centerpiece, and he has an eye for detail. In our dining room, he toyed with the painted gourds, arranging them just so in the punch bowl.

The week before Halloween was warm and sunny here in Northern Virginia. Between decorating projects, Slim could often be found soaking up the October rays and basking in the balmy breezes. While sad to see that the impatiens had succumbed to a recent frost, he appreciated the persistence of our petunias.

He was surprised to discover some out-of-season blooms on our lilacs.

A birder from way back, Slim had for years been encouraging me to join the Feeder Watch program of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Now that I have, I understand. I’ve always appreciated the peace that comes from being immersed in nature, especially at times when the human world is a muddle of confounding conflict. And I’ve found that when I’m counting birds for Feeder Watch, I pay closer attention to each little creature that appears. I’m looking with greater concentration and intentionality, and the experience is more satisfying. Slim spent hours sitting motionless in a chair close to the feeders, gazing at the variety of birds that swooped around him, not troubled at all by his presence. I found some precious moments to settle myself in a chair just beyond, and savor the pleasant ambiance.

Before long, it was time for the annual pre-Halloween joyride. The dogs piled in, and Slim took the wheel. On an afternoon that epitomized convertible weather, they merrily cruised the neighborhood, looking for old friends and admiring the numerous ambitious Halloween displays.

Slim has claimed that he and his wide circle of influencers are largely responsible for the exponential growth of Halloween, from a quick one- day celebration, to a weekend, to its own extensive season. He’s been known to get a bit cocky, so I take his words with a grain of salt.  Is it really a good thing, I wondered, for gargantuan blow-up spiders, demons and Disney villains to join us as early as August?   I asked him why he and his colleagues, if they wielded such power, couldn’t turn their attention toward easing some of society’s ills. They were trying to do just that, he replied. The thinking was this: If we can unite for weeks over a love of candy, playing dress-up and poking fun at our fears, maybe we can realize that our points of commonality outnumber our differences. 

Maybe there’s something to this.  Even one day of Halloween is an amazing occasion.  People across our country open their doors to hand out generous amounts of candy to children.  Most of these are kids we hardly know, or have never met.  We greet and give to strangers, simply because they show up, wear a costume, and say “Trick or Treat.”  It seems that over the years on October 31, we’ve moved toward a greater emphasis on the treating than the tricking.  That’s something to keep in mind and strive for, every day, whether it’s Halloween season, or not.   

Slim and my husband worked together to light up our house in a Halloweeny palette of orange and green.