Christmas Day in pictures

Finally, the great Midwestern sky...






Casting blue streaks over the farmette...






I'm on my way to my daughter's place for the family Christmas gathering. Both girls are here with their husbands. Their father is here as well. Predictably, everyone wants to see the nursery...

Right now, this one is the family littlest one, but not for long...






Presents! Let's get to them! Islay scarves anyone?






Ocean author with the littlest one...






Food prep time. Check the recipe!






Quick! We need garlic!






Seven of us at the table...






Could not ask for more perfect daughters...





...ever.

And to all a good night.

Christmas Day

This morning, if I were to pick a song that would be most fitting to the occasion, I would, perhaps pick this one -- A Christmas Wish, sung by Kermit the Frog:

Remarkable that I should be here, scribbling away (yes, scribbling! typing quickly is a form of scribbling!) even as the breakfast dishes are still dripping water after their quick wash. And here's a small bonus (or burden, depending on how you look at it) -- this isn't my main post. I should be good for the usual evening one that summarizes what happened in this rather quiet corner of the planet. But I did think that it would be rather unfriendly of me to write then "Merry Christmas" (for those who observe the holiday) when most people are actually long done with the celebration and are in fact looking to move on. I know some people -- me, for example -- who stop listening to holiday music the minute the last wisp of desert is licked off the Christmas dinner plate. So what good is it to turn to blogs and learn that someone at that point sends you their best wishes for a Merry Christmas?

I only have a minute though. The northerners are nearly here and, too, I made a deal with Ed -- he'll let me trim his beard if I first do yoga and so I must do some modicum of poses to satisfy my part of the bargain.

The morning has been a wonderful blur of beauty. Perhaps you don't see it. Nothing stands out. There was a morning visit with the cheepers...






(the girls all left gifts for us today and yes, Scotch consistently lays the largest egg...)






And there was breakfast. Oh! But let me pause a little here, because breakfast was in fact different. Not elaborately so, but I did take out my creamy white place mats and I pretended we had good table manners and put out napkins as well (the sleeve wont do for Christmas!). And our store had this week a wonderful, wonderful brioche which is so very perfect for French toast that I made some and we both had it for breakfast -- accompanied by the yummy honey rhubarb that I cooked up this past spring when our rhubarb was exploding.





















So we're off to a good start.

But the real beauty to the morning came a few minutes later when there was a real break in the clouds and I jumped up with my camera to catch it before it slipped away and I would have no proof of its appearance. Here it is:






Yes, a wisp of sunshine!

That's enough! I need no other present from this day.

Well fine, I'll take that family gathering at my daughter's house. Oh, but let me not jump ahead. I really did just want to wish you a delightfully merry Christmas! I hope it rocks to the rhythm of your soul!

Christmas Eve

Up early. Years ago, this was my busiest day of the year. That's no longer the case, but still, I get up early.






Our chickens are unpredictable. Sometimes they dilly when I open their coop. Today, they're hovering near the door, anxious to be out.





Maybe they sense that this truly is a rare event? It's above freezing for the third or fourth day in a row. They can scratch the farmette soil to their hearts content. And they do.

At the farmhouse, I do a thorough house cleaning. Windows wide open, dust cloth flying, vacuum hitting the darkest corners. The place shines, ready for a round of visitors (arriving tomorrow).

From the predawn hours, Isie boy has had visions of his own sugar plums: he is incessant, meowing loud and clear that he wants that same special can of cat food I'd opened yesterday, that very same one, his very favorite, perhaps his all time favorite! Kind of odd that it should be this, on Christmas Eve. (The can is of venison. I mean, really, Isie? Today?)

Ed and I have a much more prosaic breakfast. The usual, in fact.






We then play Santa. Well, Ed helps me, but I can't say that he'd like to associate himself with anything so spendy as gift giving. Still, he does help. We lug gifts to my daughter's house where they will be opened tomorrow. For now, they sit and wait. While their cats romp and explore as if they, too are touched in their soul by this holiday.






(Ed plays with Virgil, my daughter remains preoccupied with her own wrapping.)











More errands and quick trips to the store. And then Ed gives blood. They hooked him on the phone to come down, but it doesn't take much hooking because he is always giving blood. Me, I stopped when I turned anemic. I do not think I remain anemic but I haven't turned the corner from thinking that I am. So he's on his own.

At the farmhouse, we keep the sun room closed off because without sun, it only throws cold air back into the house. (You do know that we have not had sun light for a while?) Every time I open the door, the bells that I hung there, seasonally, just for the heck of it, ring very very loudly. I think it drives Ed nuts, but he doesn't complain. Even though I think he's looking forward to the quiet that will come on December 26th.





When the girls were little, I used to ring a big bell I had downstairs and do a little routine, pretending that I had heard Santa's sleigh. I don't think they ever believed it. Still, when I jingle any bell right about now, I feel very much as if I am right in the thick of my daughters' Christmas, circa 1990, when one would have been 9 and the other -- just approaching 6. At those ages, kids just bubble with the joyousness of the holiday. Their favorite two phrases on Christmas morning? I don't need any more presents because this one is the best gift ever! And before that: mom, hurry up with the photo, we want to come in! (I insisted on an annual photo of them approaching the tree in their p.j.s on Christmas morning.)

Since the lights on my Norfolk pine are of the low energy kind, I can keep them up round the clock. So different from the days when I insisted on restraint: too many hours of tree lights meant the tree would dry very very quickly. These days, there need be no restraint.






And now, the Eve itself. As in previous years, it is a calm evening for us. And food? Ed, who rarely has preferences in matters of custom and tradition, suggests that we do what his people are said to do on this day (and by "his people," I mean the New York Jewish community from which he emerged): go out for a Chinese dinner. We eat the combo special at Imperial Gardens East (where surely unlike in New York on this day, there are a number of people wearing Christmas sweaters). And the food is just okay.





But the evening is grand nonetheless.

My girls and I always used to say that the day before Christmas is the best ever because of all that still will follow. I'll sign onto that.

When I was very young, maybe around 8 years old, I looked for "Christmas spirit" in whatever place I could find it then. Comic books were a good source. In one, a young Dennis the Menace is looking for a tree to bring home. He comes across some scrawny looking ones sold by a pair of cowboys. I do not know why I will always remember this last image from that comic, but I do and it is as evocative to me as a choir singing the most beautiful carol. Dennis bargains for a tree and the cowboy lets him have it. In this untidy lot, the air is full of the impending holiday and the cowboy turns to his pals and reminds them -- it's Christmas Eve on the range boys, it's Christmas Eve on the range... 

Tuesday

The delightful part of such a gray but not too cold December is that we're not suffering when we step outside. That includes the cheepers who have been happy to wander the farmette in their usual fashion.








Though it's true that they don't like it when it rains! Who can blame them? Imagine putting your down jacket through the washer and then putting it on without drying it first! This morning, in the light drizzle, our hens looked mightily bedraggled!






It is the last pre-holiday morning. Ed and I have a lovely breakfast in the front room...






...and then I return to my Great Writing Project -- stalled for a while, what with the travel, the essay writing, and yes, Christmas. But as I sit with my laptop at the kitchen table, I look outside and see the hens moving nimbly between the bare raspberry canes and I think -- yeah, it's good to have these winter days that aren't that terribly cold. Even if the gray spell does continue, uninterrupted. (Remember: there are always chocolate covered raspberry gingerbread squares to carry you through!)






Tomorrow, the festivities begin. Or not. Are you in the thick of celebrations? Let me know if you have a minute. I always love hearing from you.

Monday

At least it snow-rained. In fact, there was a wet mixture of white stuff to start us off and then it quickly changed its mind and became all rain, leading the weather announcer on the radio to comment -- we're having a Dan Fogelberg moment. Of course, as always, I felt my pop culture ignorance swell: I had no idea what he was talking about.

It's quite unusual for Wisconsin to have such a prolonged period of overcast skies (I have not seen the sun since... Paris), but honestly, today it just didn't matter. After breakfast (ours and theirs)...









(leftover spaghetti)


...I took off the slip covers and protective cases from the couch and gave them a thorough washing. (A similar maneuver with the bedding upstairs did the trick for Ed and he no longer has a reaction to the furniture there. Thank goodness, or it would have been goodbye bed, hello floor for all our sleeping needs.) Alright! Once we wash our two carpets, we should be done with furniture cleaning.

And then came the grocery shopping. If you celebrate Christmas with copious amounts of food, perhaps you have a strategy as to when to shop for it. Mine used to be the day before. Not anymore. As the decades pile on, so my interest in last minute anything diminishes. And so there I was, loading the cart today, which is about as far in advance as I'll ever grocery shop (any farther and the stuff wouldn't be fresh).

There is a pleasant buzz in the air now and it makes this year's drab days of December quite inconsequential. Anticipation overshadows even the wettest, soggiest weather moments.

I stopped off at my daughter's to drop off a few things...



(hi, Virgil the cat!)


... then came home to watch Ed gather the brood and lead them to shelter. The rain was just too much for the cheepers.










The day closes with more of the same: damp and dark outside, bright and warm inside. Winter, especially this winter, is our time of the greatest contrasts.

the shortest day

The brilliant truth about the shortest day is that it can only stretch and become longer henceforth!

The shortest day of the year was characterized by:

...an early, too early, cheaper awakening. That's because I couldn't really tell if the sun had risen or was only about to rise. Cloudy skies mess with your senses in that way.






...breakfast.





...writing. I had an inspired moment at 4 a.m. A story spilled out of me quickly, fluently. I worked all day to edit and improve it.

I thought I saved it.

I hadn't saved it.

I flushed it down with my little trash icon and even Ed's heroic efforts failed to fully restore what I had single handedly thrown away.


Come evening, I had wanted to bring to your attention the moment the sun disappeared below the horizon, but 1. it was so early that I forgot to pay attention (4:26 p.m.) and 2. it was too cloudy to catch anyway.

But, here's the thing -- in the evening, the pregnant couple came over for supper and even though this truly is the shortest post on this shortest day, I can't help but recall that moment of radiance when they walked in.





Short post, short day, full heart.

a year of not doing yoga

Last night I attacked gift wrapping. With the DVD Love, Actually running its course in the background, I managed to do the whole job in that one evening. Yes, I'm talking about these:





But at the end, as I raised myself off the floor, to my horror, I noticed that I had completely stiffened. I felt like I had aged maybe forty years, right there to the tune of God only knows what I'd do without you...

Well now, that wont do.

The problem with people like me is that because we feel ourselves to be active -- walking, hiking often hours each day (for me, this is routine during travel) -- we become complacent about other forms of exercise. And if you don't use a muscle group, or if you give your joints too long a vacation, well, they rebel: how come the leg muscles got a work out while we languish at the side?!

Suddenly, yoga becomes something more than a mere mood cleanser. It's been a year since I attended classes and I'm paying the price for it.


...so that after breakfast...






(ours and theirs...)






...and after a few odd chores, I put on my favorite youtube yoga video and get to work. Yes, I should return to formal yoga class, but right now I'm too ashamed about how much I've strayed away from the routines. It's like attending alcoholics anonymous right after you've had a year of binge drinking. There surely is guilt to recon with. So, I moan and groan in my very private yoga session and at the end of the hour, feel like thirty out of the forty added years had been tossed out once more.


 (While the hens gossip...)






(and the cat watches...)






In the late afternoon, Ed and I venture out to Target to upgrade some of our ratty bed coverings. I had washed out lumpy pillows (who knew that you could/should wash your pillows!) and I had finally convinced him that ripped cases needed to be tossed.

And since Target and our favorite bowling place are not that far apart, we stop by to put in a game (actually five games) at the alley. It's wonderful to start off with the world's worst score and to watch it improve with each game. It's so rare that you can sit back and reflect how good work pays off!

It's late when we get home. True, the sun yet again stayed behind thick clouds all day long, but in the evening, you hardly notice it. The warm glow of the house beckons. The lights twinkle on and off.

Friday

A very long time ago, I fell in love with the choral Christmas music from Kings College, Clare College and, too St. John's -- all from Cambridge. There is one song from Kings that I do think should guide us through the post today.

(Title: In the Bleak Midwinter)

Honestly, I wanted to gather the cheepers in my arms this morning and reassure them -- this too, this cloud-filled period in your lives, it shall pass, my dear ones! But they're not huggable. Unlike so many chickens that modern folk get for their back yards, these guys are spooked and they're forever chasing us adoringly (or, in search of food, the cynic would say), only to retreat if they get too close.

I kept the lights on in the farmhouse all day long.





From breakfast...





...forward.


It took a mighty large set of hours to complete my visa application (remember? I mentioned it yesterday) -- all ten documents! -- but I pushed myself and by early afternoon I was ready to set out (to mail the blasted set of papers).

(Do you have the music playing?!)






Much later, I drop in on my daughter to help her with one thing or another. It is hard to leave. Watching the cats play with ribbon is absolutely delightful!






And of course, watching her, especially as she moves to show me something on the tree is riveting! (As of today, three weeks short of delivery, her baby becomes "full term.")






At the farmette, I get the coop ready for the night. I fill the cheeper dishes so they'll have food when they wake in the morning. The very last cheeper act is one that I save for Ed. Most nights, our girls prefer to fly up on the fence and fall asleep there. Ed comes with a flashlight, scoops them up and nudges them up into their bed and breakfast.





When they're groggy with sleep, the hens do not protest the human touch. Their dreams (of worms? of digging up my garden come spring?) have carried them elsewhere, to a place without fear.

It is a good way to end the day -- for them, for us.