Month: December 2019

Yes, we all know the holidays are stressful.  For those of us that may not be too severely affected, or so we tell ourselves, there is still anxiety.  Where did we put all the sales slips in case something needs to be returned?  They were right in the drawer over . . . . . . I know I saved them. How much wrapping paper is left, or should we buy two dozen more rolls while everything is half price?  What color bows should I buy – I don’t know what colors will be stylish in 2020.  Oh, God. Where am I going to put everything Santa brought? I don’t need more clothes – my closet looks like Target just restocked. Should I get rid of something?  No, I like what I have. How long before the Toyotathon expires? Continue reading “Post Christmas – Letdown or Relief?”

Many families have layers of tradition surrounding Christmas trees, and the delightful stories abound.  Here are some of our favorites.  (I said that I wouldn’t be posting again before the holidays, but I lied.  Just one more.)

My mother used to tell about her younger days growing up in Winnipeg.  Just after the Great War, her family had working as a maid a Displaced Person from Eastern Europe – the exact country eludes my recollection, but tend to think Poland seems right, to central Canada.  The maid had asked if she could have her own Christmas tree in her room, to which my grandparents acceded.   On Christmas morning, she was so excited that she asked if the children could come up and see her tree.  My mother, along with her sisters and brother trouped up the stairs to see it, and came back wide-eyed.  “Ula has real candles on her tree!!”  My grandfather’s reaction was instantaneous, and his feet barely touched the stairs as he flew up to extinguish the candles and let Ula know that he’d get her electric lights in future.  (Ula, in a side bar, was shocked that the family ate turnips as a vegetable.  “Back home, we give them to the pigs.”  No wonder they were starving back home.)

My family growing up lived on a large piece of country acreage in southwestern New Hampshire, so we always cut our own trees.  Off we’d go, my father and my older brother, to cut the tree.  My father would cut one of the first trees he came to that had needles.  Shape, thickness, and stature really didn’t play into the equation so much as proximity to the trail or the house.  Back we’d come with the tree and stand it up in the driveway for my mother’s inspection.  It invariably did not pass muster, eliciting a terse, “Aw, Stan.  I’m not putting that in my living room.  Now go back and get something that looks like a Christmas tree.”  So back we’d go, searching high and low for something that would be acceptable.  That’s how the “Tale of Two Christmas Trees” came to be the stuff of legend in the Walters household.

One Christmas, later on when we were in college, my father was on his own choosing the tree.  He’d brought in a fir balsam that he was sure would delight.  Actually, the shape was pretty good but it was a bit sparse.  The scent was nice, though.  Long about 6 AM Christmas Eve morning, I awakened with my mother standing beside my bed.  “Ah, good, you’re awake.”  She went on to inform me that she’d had nightmares about the tree – all she could see in her dreams was the shiny bark of the trunk.  She’d gone down as early as she dared, taken everything off the tree. (which was no mean feat because she saved the strands of tinsel from year to year), and begged me to go out and get a replacement.  Apparently in a semi-flattering way, mine was the judgement, at least with trees, that she trusted.  So, off I went, saw in hand to cut down a replacement.  I don’t recall now what it was I found, but I do remember her standing looking at it and saying, “That’s much better.”  Thus the “two tree” tradition was preserved.  My brother would every year sneak in a string of blinking lights, which would without fail set the Old Girl off. “Now take those off, you rotten kids.  I’ll be twitching uncontrollably by New Years.”

Our first tree as a couple was also cut on the land.  It too was a fir balsam – quite a nice one, really.  This apartment was in the back of an old house, and was really very nice.  However, the thermostat was in one of the front apartments, most likely where someone was always cold. The result was that this apartment was like a sauna for most of the winter.  We installed the tree in a beautiful large window overlooking the street, and it looked beautiful – for about a week.  Then the needles started dropping no matter how much we watered it. By Christmas, I was so sure of a bonfire that we didn’t turn on the lights for longer stretches than fifteen minutes.  Our early married years, we’d go to a tree farm right around Thanksgiving and mark our tree.  We’d come back in mid-December to cut it down, strap it onto the car, and off we’d go.  Our last house had a cathedral ceiling, so Herself required a larger tree.  Those were not unlike the one that Clark Griswold and his family go out into the wilderness and cut down.  Fortunately, we didn’t have to go and cut it.  I had an “in” with a colleague whose husband had tree stand and he’d always save us one the size of Rockefeller Center’s.

The Daughter’s first Christmas tree was equally memorable.  She and her friend, Jackie, had moved into an apartment in DC after graduating from college.  One should mention that it was a tiny apartment in one of the stately old houses in Logan Circle that had been converted.  Its best feature was a tall ceiling in the living/dining room combo.  The girls went looking for a tree, which as one might expect is both scarce and expensive in the city.  They found a lot up behind the Capitol, somewhere near Union Station.  It was then that Jackie revealed her ideal would be a larger tree, and there was a bit of negotiation that preceded the purchase.  The eight-foot beauty they ultimately selected was a compromise, so the story goes.  However, there was next the daunting task of getting it home on the Metro.  The transit folks don’t typically allow greenery on the trains. But, in a bid to lighten the mood, looked the other way that day as the two of them loaded the tree onto the subway, took it up and down on the escalators, and finally got it up the two flights of stairs to their abode.  This was truly worthy of front-page coverage in the Washington Post.

The tradition in Her Ladyship’s family was a vast, plump tree with needles like those on a porcupine.  This stood on a box to increase its stature and leave lots of room for the presents that my dear late mother-in-law had been collecting for months.  Their living room had corner windows, and the tree stood proudly there, presiding over the neighborhood.  They also had an enclosed porch that my father-in-law liked to decorate.  He put out arrangements of electric candles and sadly chose red bulbs for them.  We referred to his porch for years as “the Red-Light District of Wilford Street”.

Finally, there was the year of the “missing foot”.  During the period that we were going to Florida every other year to visit my in-laws at Christmas, we decided to break with tradition and get an artificial tree.  It didn’t seem wise to leave up a real one for a week or so when we weren’t there.   Over the years, we went through a series of them, and just a few years ago, as I was bringing up the tree from the basement, one of the stand feet fell off.  I looked high and low (okay, it was the basement, so mostly low) for the foot and couldn’t find it.  The solution was to run a line connected to a hook screwed into nearest window frame so it would stand up.  The Daughter asked about it – I believe, “What the heck is that?” were her exact words.  I explained, and she was deeply amused.  After the holidays, we threw out the tree, thinking we’d replace it the next year.  However, creeping senility being what it is, we promptly forgot.  So, the next year, I was searching again high and low for the tree.  Relaying that to The Daughter in a phone conversation, she – with unreserved amusement and derision – reminded me of the great tree stringing up of the previous year.

Each family has its own Christmas tree stories – the year the dog pulled over the tree or the cat climbed up and knocked off the family heirloom ornaments.  The lights that wouldn’t go on, and who remembers the ones with the tubes of water in them that were the lava lamps of tree lights?  Yes, indeed.  I was watching an episode of Rick Steves’ show at Christmas.  Don’t know how long ago it was filmed, but the Norwegians were still putting lit candles on the Christmas tree. Tradition over safety.  My grandfather would be shaking in his grave.  However, the tree stories are a special tradition from house to house, and we cherish them all.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all . . . . . . . .

My annual Ode to Christmas shopping demands a follow-up.  Well, it may not technically “demand” a coda, but I’m in the mood to write it, so this could be  my last posting before the holidays, unless Clement Moore inspires me to write a Victorian Christmas Classic, which I seriously doubt.  After a sensible time of reflection and renewal, I’ll wax eloquent on the New Year and all of its glorious potential.  But for now, let’s talk about the universal tradition – baking Christmas cookies.  We seldom if ever bake cookies during the year.  Oh, sure, we have decorative cupcakes and candies for Valentine’s Day, breads for Easter, Apple Pie on the 4^th of July, and pumpkin breads in the fall. Most of the time, though, store-bought works just fine.   Susan likes chocolate-chip, which I like too, and I sometimes swerve into ginger cookie or hermit land.  At the holiday season, though, there’s a whole renaissance of cookie baking that somehow is just a part of our humanity.  Someday, scientists will identify a Winter Solstice Cooking Baking gene embedded in our DNA. Continue reading “Ten Cookies A’Bakin’”

Ok, I’ve survived Black Friday, Pearl-Gray Friday and Cyber Monday (or Tuesday or Wednesday – whichever day it was).  I stayed away from ordering anything online in the interests of being cybersafe.  I think I am, although any hacker looking at my bank account this week would just laugh and move on to a more lucrative victim. Continue reading “More Success with Technology”

Once again, the house is filling up with new arrivals, and in a yearly tradition, is taking on the appearance of a Walmart storage room.  (You know, the ones behind closed doors, where,  from time to time, some exhausted employee wheels out a loaded flatbed to restock.)  I don’t really like to reuse material, but sometimes events just overcome the need for originality.  Just so you’ll know, I’m adding bits and pieces along the way to make everything appear fresh and glowing. Continue reading “Black Friday – What Are We Thinking?”