Category Archives: Family

Christmas Spirit, or Holiday Excess?

December 21, 2014 Wildtrumpetvine 2 Comments

Can we bring home the tree without first decorating the dog?

In years past, ideas for Christmas-themed posts flowed from me in abundance. I love the season, and I found so much to write about. This year, the fountain dried up. Seemed I’d exhausted all possibilities. I’d written about the annual ornament-making marathons Mama and I undertook during my childhood, about how my daughter and I continued the tradition . Wrote about my long-lived gingerbread village, the little lights, the decorative oddities (that Devil Doll). Wrote about why we chose such ugly Christmas trees when I was very young. Wrote about decorating the dog, the tree stump. What else was there to say?

I thought inspiration would hit me as we decorated the house, a process that begins during the week of Thanksgiving. The idea is that we get everything looking beautiful and will then have a chance to enjoy it: the house aglow in the winter night, the festive greenery, red berries, all the reassuringly familiar trappings that make the season special. It shouldn’t be a bad thing to get an early start on Christmas. We do it in church, after all. Our “Hanging of the Greens” takes place on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. It begins the Advent season of the church year, when we are to prepare for the coming of Christ. While it’s a time to remember and honor Jesus’s historical birth, Christians are also to prepare for the ever-present possibility that He will come again in final glory.

But at our house, decorating early also means decorating longer, and it encourages excess. The five small artificial trees are up by early December. At mid-month, we buy our tall live tree. The table-top living room tree is moved into the family room. Work then begins on the new tree. Decorating it takes several days. We have many ornaments, and my daughter and I are sentimentally and/or compulsively attached to every single one, even those falling to pieces or unattractive. Those will go toward the back. We tend to make only minimal changes in our overall decorating scheme from year to year, because the atmosphere wouldn’t be as cozily homey if we did. That means there’s very little that’s worthy of comment.

This year, more than most, it seemed to me that in our preoccupation with readying our home ready for Christmas, we were getting off-track, missing the point completely. Are we preparing the house but neglecting our souls? That true light of Christ on earth, the light that shines in the darkness–is it at risk of suffocation with all the bright shiny synthetic stuff we heap around it? If Jesus were to appear today, would he cast an appreciative glance at our trio of alpine trees, or comment approvingly on our decision to use colored lights, instead of white, in the playroom? Would he be touched by our thoughtful arrangement of handmade mice around a sleigh full of miniature wrapped packages? Would he say, Well done, good and faithful servants! These beautifully stitched and whimsically arranged Christmas mice are a worthy commemoration of my birth! You have prepared well, and now I am here to take you home. I doubt it.

I also doubt He’d condemn us solely for going overboard on our decorating. The Jesus I’ve come to know has no interest in turning us into puritanical, humorless scolds. (Recall how hard he was on those self-righteous Pharisees.) He knows we’re fairly dim creatures who tend to lose their way. He remembers how his closest friends needed repeated explanations and still never quite understood. He’s patient with our foolishness. But we can’t fool him. He’s knows when we’re blocking out his holy light. Last Sunday our minister preached about how easy it is to crowd Christ right out of our Christmas. There was no room for the holy family in the inn so long ago. In much the same way, in all our holiday bustle and busyness we may leave no room for God’s love in our hearts. Even the best of us occasionally allow the secular to tarnish and threaten to overwhelm the sacred.

So what do we do? How do we make sure we’re not complicit in the darkness that threatens to overcome the light (but cannot, despite our ill will and sloth)? It’s hard to find better advice than this famous verse from Micah:

Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. (6:8b)

For me, this means not getting too comfortable in our world of materialism and easy excess. Have I been going overboard on gifts for those who already have way too much stuff? Am I neglecting those who have very little? Is there something I can do for a friend, a neighbor, or a stranger that might make a big difference? I need to give where it matters, volunteer where I’m needed. Every day there are chances to show love and compassion. Am I ignoring those opportunities? If I follow through, I’ll do my part to keep the pure light of Christ alive and shining in the world. I’ll try. I’ll drift off the path sometimes, but with God’s help, I won’t wander too far away.

Family, Holiday, Nature

Thanksgiving 2014

November 27, 2014 Wildtrumpetvine

Thanksgiving 009

Unlike those stranded at airports and braving icy roads across the country, my daughter is thankful for the nor’easter that brought snow for Thanksgiving. It’s the earliest snowfall I can remember here in the Northern Virginia area. I can’t say I like the precedent it seems to be setting.

Kiko evidently forgot that he used to enjoy snow. He seemed to associate it with the possibility of thunder. Once the flakes began falling, he shadowed my every step. He kept his ears back at an unflattering angle, listening for menacing booms, his only fear in the world.

Kiko and I are thankful that the snow system has moved well past us on this Thanksgiving day. The sun is shining on the snow that remains, and the threat of thunder has disappeared.

To you and your family, I wish a safe, happy Thanksgiving, enjoyed with family and friends. May we all count our blessings!

Family, Food

Stuffed Acorn Squash

November 20, 2014 Wildtrumpetvine

Wild Trumpet Vine is no food blog, and I’m no foodie. But I do cook regularly, and my family generally appreciates my efforts. My squash-hating husband had a business dinner the other night, so it seemed like a good opportunity to cook the acorn squash the squirrels had provided. It turned out well, and I think it merits a post.

Like my husband, I used to have a squash aversion. Growing up, winter squash was rarely served at our family table. Sautéed zucchini and yellow summer squash with onions and tomatoes was a summer stand-by, but we tended to view the winter varieties as purely decorative. Unseasoned, unsalted squash was a a staple, though, at a friend’s house. Every time I stayed for dinner, it seemed, it was on the menu. Knowing it wasn’t my favorite, my friend enjoyed squirting the mushy stuff between the gap in her teeth, pre-braces.

It’s not surprising, then, that with the exception of butternut squash for soup, I’ve avoided most of the cold-weather varieties. Until earlier this fall, I had never cooked acorn squash, nor even considered cooking it. Now I know what I’ve been missing. It’s a far remove from the bland, gooey stuff I recall from childhood. One acorn squash, sliced in half and baked, yields two perfect, scallop-edged, edible bowls that beg for some sort of filling.

Here’s how I cooked that squash:

I trimmed the ends to create a level surface, then sliced the squash in half. I drizzled the halves with olive oil, and seasoned them with salt and pepper. I put them in a glass baking dish and added about an inch of water to the bottom. I cooked the squash in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for about 50 minutes.

While the squash was cooking, I made a simple stuffing, using what we had on hand. In a cast-iron skillet, I sautéed an onion in olive oil until not quite caramelized. I added baby bella mushrooms and bell pepper, chopped. A further exploration of the crisper drawer yielded one last zucchini and some flat-leaf parsley. I chopped and added these. For a bit of filler, I rustled up some bread crumbs from a toasted hot dog bun. (We were otherwise out of bread.) I added a little chicken broth, some sage and ground pepper and let it all simmer until the squash was done. Just before serving, I filled the squash with the stuffing mixture.

My daughter, a more adventurous eater than her father, appreciated the look and taste of the squash and its stuffing. We both enjoyed the attractive practicality of the edible bowl. It’s a remedy for erasing decades of bad squash memories. I’d like to say it might even work for my husband. But that might be going a bit too far.

Thanks again, squirrels!

Community, Family, Holiday

Veterans’ Day 2014

November 11, 2014 Wildtrumpetvine

Thank you to those who are fighting, or have fought, our country’s battles for freedom and righteousness. Words are inadequate, your sacrifices immeasurable. On this Veterans’ Day and every day, you have our deep gratitude.

My father outside the Casserne in Regensburg, ca. 1947. Daddy served in the U.S. occupational forces following World War II.

My Uncle Bill, on the right, ca. 1945. My mother’s brother served as a frogman in the Philippines during World War II.

Family, Holiday, Parenthood

Halloween Update

November 6, 2014 Wildtrumpetvine 2 Comments

This October, after some deliberation, my daughter decided that her trick-or-treating days were behind her. She’d had a good long run: fourteen Halloweens of neighborhood candy collecting. Last year a mother answering the door at one home had uttered that dreaded criticism: Aren’t you girls a little old for this? My daughter seethed inwardly at these words.

It bugged me, too, I have to admit. I’m quite happy, one night a year, to hand out treats to polite, costumed children and teenagers of all ages, shapes and sizes. Who outgrows a love of candy, anyway? It certainly doesn’t happen in my family. My eighty-something father begins buying Halloween goodies as soon as they appear in stores, usually around July 5th. He and Mama see it as their duty to make sure the Butterfingers, Snickers and Milky Ways are up to par for the kiddies. By the time Halloween rolls around, they are quality-control experts.

Nevertheless, there comes a time when the annual house-to-house trek becomes more of a slog than an adventure. As with most pleasures that we outgrow, one day we wake up and know in our bones: the payoff is no longer worth the trouble. Facing the truth can be painful, but not facing it tends to be more so.

Trick-or-treating, then, was out. But my daughter has not outgrown her love of Halloween. And this year, for the first time in recent history, the holiday would fall on a Friday. Better yet, that Friday was an early-dismissal day that marked the end of the quarter and the start of a four-day weekend. She refused to settle for staying home and answering the door. She determined to celebrate Halloween, and properly. Without trick-or-treating, but with friends, costumes, and, of course, candy.

For additional thoughts on Halloween and trick-or-treating age limits, see On Improving Halloween, from November 2011.

Art and Architecture, Family, Parenthood, Travel

London, Revisited, Part IV: Saint Paul’s

October 23, 2014 Wildtrumpetvine

I was looking forward to showing my daughter Saint Paul’s Cathedral, which I’d studied repeatedly in various art history courses. D was familiar with it from her preschool years when Mary Poppins was a revered staple in our video library. In those days, I tended to remind her, too often, that the “Feed the Birds Church” was a real, famous, enormous church in London. Sometimes I’d show her pictures of it in my architecture books. And if my husband were in on the viewing, he’d explain how young Michael’s tuppence, used for bread crumbs for the birds, instead of deposited into Mr. Banks’ bank could, in theory, have caused a run on the bank. No doubt D would have preferred fewer teachable moments while she watched her movie, but that’s a burden some only children must bear.

St. Paul’s stands atop Ludgate Hill, the highest point in London. A church dedicated to St. Paul the Apostle and prolific New Testament author had existed on the spot since the sixth century. The current church replaced a large medieval basilica built in the Romanesque and Gothic styles. Like much of the City of London, it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. At the time of the fire, a young Christopher Wren had been involved in updating Old St. Paul’s. A network of wooden scaffolding was in place as the stone walls were being repaired. Had the scaffolding not caught fire and ignited the wooden roof beams, portions of the medieval church might have been salvageable. After the destruction, Wren was hired to design a grand new cathedral. Wren rebuilt over fifty London churches, but St. Paul’s is his crowning glory, a masterpiece of the English Baroque style.

The highly sculptural west front of St. Paul’s, with its double temple front and twin towers.

Feed the birds, tuppence a bag.

Wren’s monumental dome drew on Italian Renaissance forerunners by Michelangelo, Brunelleschi and Bramante.

From its earliest days, St. Paul’s has been a distinctly urban church. Considering its location in the densely crowded City, the heart of London’s commercial district since ancient times, it could hardly be otherwise. Seventeenth-century images of Old St Paul’s show the hilltop basilica closely surrounded by haphazardly constructed smaller buildings. The warren of wooden homes and shops that encroached upon one another made suppressing the four-day Great Fire particularly difficult.

That St. Paul’s continues to be hemmed in on all sides by ordinary office buildings is therefore not surprising. But, I wonder, do they have to be so emphatically ugly and insinuatingly pushy? A wave of fresh disappointment hits me every time I approach the great church from a street like the one pictured above.

The British flair for the sweeping, spectacular vista is nowhere in evidence around St. Paul’s. Above, a view from the Millennium bridge.

The Millennium Bridge and St. Paul’s from across the Thames.

St. Paul’s looks down on the life of the city, as it has since its completion in 1708. Above, in Bankside near the Tate Modern, a Shrek in a silver track suit amuses pedestrians by hovering in mid-air. Despite the labyrinth of buildings that crowd the base of the Cathedral, the dome still towers well above newer, less distinguished neighbors. Let futuristic skyscrapers such as “The Shard” and “The Gherkin” continue to pop up, as long as they don’t blot out the vision of that iconic dome.

Art and Architecture, Family, Travel

London, Revisited, Part III

October 8, 2014 Wildtrumpetvine

As we proceeded with our walk through the heart of London, I maintained my role as a somewhat muddled and conflicted tour guide. It was with relief that I found the lacy, Gothic-style towers of Parliament and all the buildings of Westminster Palace in their expected spots, keeping watch over the Thames. Their honey-colored stone gleamed warmly in the sunlight; I had never seen them looking so pristine. The last traces of Industrial Revolution coal-dust grime were blasted away in 1994.

Although reduced in number and usage, classic examples of the red telephone box still punctuate the streets of London. That they tend to be surrounded by international tourists snapping photos with their phones strikes me as an interesting irony, further proof that our twenty-first century world is nothing if not meta.

The ever-present London Eye grew larger as we made our way down the Victoria Embankment alongside the river. Perhaps because I was distracted by the giant Ferris wheel, I completely missed one of my favorite London statues, that of the formidable Boadicea driving her chariot into battle against the Romans. Back home, when I looked for her on Google maps, I found her exactly where she should have been, on the Embankment near Westminster Pier. It was dismaying to realize I had walked blindly past the Warrior Queen.

When we paused to rest on one of the Embankment’s sphinx-armed benches, our daughter noticed that our sunglasses reflected double rings of the London Eye.

When in London, one is gifted (or afflicted), with London eyes.

From the Embankment, we approached Trafalgar Square. Since its completion in 1724, the neoclassical Church of Saint Martin-in-the Fields has anchored a corner of the square. James Gibbs’ design, with a tall, graceful steeple resembling a multi-layer wedding cake, continues to influence the building of Protestant churches throughout the U.S. I regret that we didn’t squeeze in a visit to the café in the church’s roomy, atmospheric crypt. It’s a great place to refuel and revive after wandering the halls of the National Gallery across the square.

This photo from 1982 shows the church from the steps of the National Gallery.

On the day of our visit, Trafalgar Square and the steps leading to the Gallery were awash in a teeming tide of humanity. I had hoped to show my daughter some of my favorite paintings, but the crowds made me lose heart. Spring break in London, as in Paris, has its drawbacks. It seemed futile even to try to elbow our way over to one of the grand lions that guard Lord Nelson’s column. Somewhat appropriately, in the waning afternoon light, the National Gallery takes on a grim, fortress-like aspect in the photo above.

On a less hectic day in the summer of 1982, Lord Nelson’s lions, and the Gallery itself, were more accessible.

We decided to flee the area. But a quick departure was impossible due to the press of the crowd. Had I never been in London during the week before Easter? Maybe not. During my year in the U.K., I returned home once, and that was for Easter. Maybe the city’s always as congested at this time of the season. Better to assume that’s the case than to think it’s been spoiled recently.

I know I’m not alone in occasionally wishing myself nearly alone (with a hand-picked group of family and friends) to experience the marvels of the world’s great cities. As we made our way back, slowly, toward Grosvenor Square and our hotel, I considered the advantages of conducting future British travel from the serenity of the sofa via PBS and Netflix. Under the expert guidance of, say, earnest young Endeavor Morse, or Benedict Cumberbatch’s otherworldly Sherlock, or the bright-eyed, sensibly shoed Miss Marple, one may witness matters of life and death set amidst notable U. K. monuments, without ever battling a crowd. The older I get, the more tempting that sounds.

Art and Architecture, Family, Travel

London, Revisited, Part II

September 23, 2014 Wildtrumpetvine

No doubt about it: I was a tourist in the city that had once been home. The experience was as unsettling as I had anticipated. Familiar buildings turned up in unexpected places. My identifications were often completely wrong. That building there–I think it’s the Horse Guards. . . What does that even mean? I used to know. Oh, it doesn’t matter–it’s not the Horse Guards at all. Too many landmarks looked different, not because of any real changes, but because of the frayed edges of memory. This is what I had feared.

Reassuringly, some sights, such as Buckingham Palace, were much as I remembered them. Its gardens of red and yellow tulips were spectacular on this bright spring day.

A major change, though, is the fact that the London Eye is visible from nearly every point in the city. I hadn’t expected it to be such a background constant.

The Victoria Memorial and the Palace Gates were as grand as ever.

St. James’s Park was dressed up in the Easter-basket colors of early spring.

Westminster Abbey hadn’t picked up and walked away. It was whiter and cleaner than I’d ever seen it before. During my first visit, in 1975, it was still blackened with nineteenth-century soot.

The lawn of the Cloister was perfectly manicured in that oh-so-British style.

During a visit in July 1982, my friends and I posed with a group of jolly actors in period costume outside the Abbey. I tried to recreate the photo with H on this trip, but the results only highlighted time’s passage, and not in a good way.

Some prominent landmarks kindled no spark of recognition. One example is this monumental building facing Westminster Abbey. It’s Methodist Central Hall, dating from 1911. As a lifelong Methodist, I’m disappointed in myself that I have no recollection of it. The headquarters of the United Methodist Church in the U.K., it serves as a conference center, concert venue and home to a large congregation with a vital and active mission. The expansive auditorium topped by its enormous dome was meant to evoke open-air camp meeting pavilions, such as that in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. Next visit, I’ll remember. Also, I’m going inside.

Community, Family, Friendship

Year Three for WTV

September 15, 2014 Wildtrumpetvine 2 Comments

It’s been three years since I began my little blog. Like the tenacious wild trumpet vine for which it’s named, it keeps on creeping on.

Wild Trumpet Vine is, for me, a convenient, inexpensive form of therapy. It’s my way of taking stock of life. It helps me keep my perspective, helps me see beyond the tedious, insistent busy-ness of daily living. It reminds me of what’s real, important, worth contemplating, worth sharing with family and friends, worth remembering, worth passing on to my daughter. Sometimes, as I sit and think and write, I discover something I should have known all along.

Occasionally, I write something that strikes a chord with another person, and I hear about it. I love it when that happens. Sometimes it’s from someone unexpected–perhaps a childhood friend I haven’t seen in thirty years or so. This is a real gift. It’s proof of the resiliency and elasticity of the ties that bind us in a web of community.

Many thanks to all my WTV readers! And many thanks for reaching out!

For more about why I write, see here.

Community, Family, Parenthood, Travel

London, Revisited

September 11, 2014 Wildtrumpetvine

Arriving in London’s St. Pancras station after a twenty-five year absence, the first of many changes that had overtaken the city since then began to wash over me like a wave. In 1989, work on the Channel Tunnel, following decades of planning, discussion, and ongoing set-backs, was in its very early stages. Back then it was still called the “Chunnel,” and its progress, or lack thereof, was daily tabloid fodder. The media eagerly fanned the flames of unease about the possibility of a land link to the Continent opening up a deadly rabies pipeline. Enormous, rambling St. Pancras had sat largely derelict. With its brooding red-brick towers and aura of neglect, it could have been mistaken for a Victorian mental asylum. It was gratifying to see how beautifully the station had been restored and updated to accommodate the Eurostar line. Had it been in a U.S. city, it more likely would have met the wrecking ball than renovation.

Emerging onto the streets of London, a less welcome transformation confronted me. The classic, classy black cabs–those timeless Hackney carriages–where were they? I knew they still existed, in a somewhat updated form, and in colors other than black. But the streets outside the station swarmed with garish purple and orange minivans. We could have been in Cleveland. We settled for one such vehicle to take us to our hotel on Grosvenor Square. Oh well.

One thing that had not changed, however, was the near-anarchic state of London’s traffic, which tends to be particularly alarming upon first arriving. Cars, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians are constantly darting aggressively from unexpected directions, especially at round-abouts. About half the vehicles appear to be confused by the concept of left-side driving. Our driver was frequently outraged at the ignorance and rudeness of others on the road. Some things, then, never change. In comparison, Paris’s streets were those of a sleepy backwater.

As we made our way through the chaotic congestion, in sudden fits and stops, I caught a glimpse of the new British Library next door to St. Pancras. When I left the U.K, it had been no more than a hazy, perhaps-some-day project. Most of my daily dissertation research had taken place in the manuscript room of the old library, then part of the British Museum on Great Russell Street. Less often, I worked under the vast grand dome of the historic main reading room. The new facility, perhaps a model of sleek twenty-first century efficiency, struck me as lacking in charm.

But it didn’t matter. It’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever turn the brightly painted and gilded pages of a fourteenth-century Apocalypse again, in the new library or elsewhere. I had abandoned my academic ties, let all those bridges quietly smolder away to ashes. I’d come to the conclusion, as I was finishing my dissertation, that a career in college teaching wasn’t for me. That was fortunate, since jobs in my field were extremely rare. I have no regrets about the course my life has taken. Do I? No, I don’t.

But I do miss the chance to page through those amazing medieval books, written and illustrated by hand. Their quirky images, typically more humorous than frightening, despite the accompanying text of Revelations: the dragons that resemble perky, pointy-eared dogs sitting for treats (in my mind, now, I see Kiko in every one), and the New Jerusalem descending from heaven, looking like a Gothic princess’s dream doll house. I can point out some of the books to my daughter, although they’ll have to remain safely inside their hermetically sealed glass display cases. See this one? I studied it. I had it in front of me for an entire week. It was removed from display so I could examine it! I think she’d be impressed. Someday, I’ll show her. But probably not on this trip.

A blog about motherhood, marriage and life: the joys and frustrations, beauty and absurdity, blessings and pain. It's about looking back, looking ahead, and walking the dog.