This has been a quiet day. I've done my food shopping, DB and I walked down to the local pub for lunch, I've dozed and read a little. It is a good rest after last weekend's hectic pace.
My little tree is twinkling at me from the living room. It is a far cry from the trees of the past, but it is real and it smells good. DB just brought me some of my single-malt scotch and Cuba cheese on crackers. It must be Christmas tide!
A few presents are lingering in the living room; I'll have to get them put away before I can vacuum. They are just the stocking presents. Each year, when we open presents with Lyra's family, I have to remind the men that our family's stocking tradition is jokey gifts. After all these years, Jackson still doesn't seem to get it! He is always surprised when he opens a little package of lip balm, or a small pack of smelly soap (masculine smells, of course).
DB's traditional stocking gift to me...46 years worth of tradition...is a new pair of earrings. Sometimes they fit in with the "joke" kind of present, but more often they are beautiful and expensive. This year's pair are cultured pearls with a tiny chip that has a diamond look to it. DB doesn't believe they are really diamonds, but you can't prove it by me!
He actually broke the rules this year, because my stocking also included a Nokia cell phone. I'm so pleased to have that. The "bag phone" we have had is never where it helps me. Sometimes it is in the house, sometimes in the Dollhouse, and most of the time it is in the truck. None of these places would help me if I got stuck in the snow on the way from the North City. Now I have my very own IN MY PURSE!
Christmas was rich this year with family, friends, and our beloved church. But then, even in the poorest times, we have had all three of the above to fill our holidays. And whether we are in Maryland, SF, or home, we find somewhere to go to church. In SF we go alone to a lovely little church where the congregation is small, but welcoming and loving. And that priest grew up not far from where we live now!
One year, we were in such a poor financial situation that DB had to work a second job to have money for "Santa gifts" for the kids. I made everything else, either on my sewing machine or in my kitchen. We gave to many more people in those days, and I worked many long hours when the children were sleeping. but they were GOOD days, and no one ever lacked gifts.
In these busy days, I buy presents. But someday, I will be able to get back to making gifts again. I truly feel that those gifts were more meaningful. As hard as I try to buy "just the right thing", I'm still just putting out money. When the gifts came from my own hands, I felt they had more meaning.
The quilts or quilt hangings, the dresses, the snow suits, the chiffon scarves carefully edged by hand with fake pearls, the matching vests for all the men and their boys, the doilies hand-crocheted, the elegant pants suits for all the women, the velvet dress for a niece, the handmade dolls with myriad outfits, the stuffed animals, the felt puppets, the hundreds of Christmas decorations (little quilted stars, quilled paper stars, crocheted stars, felt mice in dresses, tiny stuffed Santa's, handmade and painted porcelain bells, and on and on). One very bad Christmas (financially, I mean), during the years when all women subjected themselves to ugly rollers that had to stay in the hair while you slept, I made little dust caps out of netting, trimmed with tiny, embroidered ribbons. I remember them lined up on the old sideboard in the dining room, a forest of tulle and ribbons.
Of course, I was always putting buttons or snaps on something after the midnight service, my fingers bloody from all the handsewing I had done. But when I went to bed, I KNEW that every present under the tree had been lovingly made and wrapped. Now, I don't know how the recipients felt; chances are the perfect earrings, or the Pendleton shirt, or the etched wine glasses are better to RECEIVE than those scarves or dust bonnets, but no more love went into the GIVING.
Life is good. Thank you, Lord. Amen
4:29 PM
It's snowing again. Of course. What else would it be doing? This is the tail end of the big one hitting the east coast. It's fine and steady. The truck is already frosted over.
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