Christmas Day

Morning

A misty sky hangs over Chicago. On a crisp day, I'd see the downtown skyline from my twelfth floor hotel window. Today, very early, before the city lights have been switched off, I see only wisps of fog.






My younger girl has asked me to come over for breakfast, but in my special hotel promo package, I have a free meal here as well. I can't pass on that! And so my Christmas breakfast number one reminds me very much of Paris.






And my hosts are a lovely and lively crew -- serving attentively the only person (at 8:30 a.m.) in the hotel restaurant -- me.






I walk then to my girl's home. Along familiar blocks...






...stopping at times to read unfamiliar posts and placards. This one made me pause. What's Team Edward? Surely no reference to the Ed I know!





Of course not. It's about vampires and werewolves. Movie stuff. Not something I'd every pick off a library shelf. Here, for your info, taken from the internet:

In reference to Edward Cullen, of the Twilight Saga. People on Team Edward prefer him over Jacob Black (see Team Jacob). People on Team Edward ... prefer vampires over werewolves (Edward is a vampire, Jacob is a werewolf).Team Edward fans are very devoted, and are a force to be reckoned with. 


All stores are of course closed, but displays are well lit. Funky urban, pretty, and of course Christmasy. Except for one place that gives a nod to another holiday that coincidently this year, also began last night.







My daughter and her husband have been up and working hard. She is baking cake number two, he's keeping the place in order.






We pause over my second breakfast -- a delicious, gifted Italian panettone. So aromatic and yummy!






Her baking project is done (a cranberry upside down cake).






They pack up to travel to her dad's. I'll join them a bit later. For now, I set out to walk back to the hotel, except I don't immediately go there. I'm right by a church where a Polish Christmas Mass is taking place. I go inside...






I know this is Chicago, but the association of this town with Poland isn't as strong as it once was. Yet here I am on Christmas Day, listening to a beautiful rendition of a Polish carol...

I resume my walk. I'm up on the 606 trail that weaves its way through this neighborhood. As I stop to admire the street scenes, a woman comes up and tells me -- if you look that way, you'll see straight into the garden of Rick Bayless (the famous Chicago chef).  I take a peek. It's lovely, though of course utterly frozen now.

Chicago is an unusual place: it's a city of countless neighborhoods. As I tell my fellow walker that my daughter has just moved to this area, the woman smiles and says -- welcome to you all. Her words feel rather small townish and sweet.

There, I'm within sight of my hotel -- the tall building of this area.






...right by the El (where there is more of a sense of activity now that the morning is drawing to a close).







Afternoon

 I watch Chicago come into view. Sure, the tallest of the tall buildings stay hidden, as if they aren't ready for a public showing just yet, but the skyline is definitely taking shape.






It's time to pack a suitcase (and a bag, or two, or three) with gifts and meet up with my family at my daughters' dad's place. Snowdrop and her parents are just arriving and the little one embarks on her second round of gift opening (having had her first round at home, exhausting herself in the joy of it all, but luckily, giving herself a solid rest on the drive down to Chicago).

Everyone is at the top of the top today, and this surely includes the littlest one of the bunch.






Snowdrop distributes, unwraps, smiles, and generally behaves as if she were trying her darnedest. Which perhaps she is...











(A penguin raincoat? Cool!)












Of course, not all the presents are about her, or for her.






But kids do tend to take  center stage during the holidays. This is no surprise! We watch them play and we remind ourselves of out own playfulness, sometimes hidden, sometimes percolating to the surface. Yes, we are small in the scheme of things. Tell me otherwise!


Evening

Toward dusk, we switch venues. My younger girl will be hosting us (and her husband's family) for a Christmas feast and it is indeed a feast! Sure, I try to help, but she'd done all the prep work in advance and so my contribution is to stir things that are ready to be stirred.

Her husband's family cheers on.











And the thing is, my girls are so lucky, because their husbands' families are so good at cheering on! Life is precious -- let's be sure to hold it tight and close!






















(Come play now!)












The food is beyond magnificent. There are dips and home made crackers and meatballs and shrimp. There's a roast with baked mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts. There are the cakes, the pies...

It's hours past her bedtime, but Snowdrop pushes away tiredness and settles in between the big guys to watch Norwegians try to catch salmon on television.






The evening of great food (and I mean great food -- you could not begin to describe the labor of love that went into dish preparation here) draws to a close.






One reminds the girl to say "thank you" as she leaves, but how can we hope to express our gratitude in this small way at the end of the day?

Still, it's worth a shot -- thank you. Thank you thank you thank you to all who made this holiday so very beautiful!





Good night.

Christmas Eve

Morning. I shovel the path to the door and a stretch of the driveway (you don't need to do that -- this from Ed), shake off the extra snow from the snowman and retreat to the farmhouse.





It's just a few degrees above freezing. That wont melt the solid foot of snow, but it's clammy and wet and we deem it to be suboptimal for skiing. Instead, we stay inside and Ed sweetly rewatches with me the movie I slept through last night (the lovely rom-com called Maggie's Plan).

It's pretty at the farmette, in a gray sort of way. I am hoping that tomorrow's day of drizzle (before the next cold spell arrives next week) wont wash away our lovely winter landscape.






We eat breakfast slowly and deliberately and with smiles of understanding.





Christmas isn't something that Ed is at all used to and he is not drawn to the fuss that comes with it, but he is a good soul and he goes along, contributing in a million tiny ways to making it happy for me because he knows I am so completely engulfed in the family activities that come with this holiday.


My daughter asked if I would join her and Snowdrop in baking cookies at her home.

Of course!

When I get there, I see that Snowdrop is so very excited! She wheels penguin around and around the kitchen island, grinning the whole while.






Snowdrop is a natural in the kitchen and she wants to be part of every step of this project. It's her one fault: she is too ambitious. If I want to guide her -- she gently pushes my hand away so that she can proceed on her own.






On her own!






Her mommy shows her the decorating possibilities and here, too, she is confident and impressive -- down to putting on the tiny caps on the tubes when we're done.






The young family is setting out on a string of Christmas errands and visits. I linger for just a minute while Snowdrop shows me whose present is where...






And then I wish them all a Merry Christmas Eve...






... and return to the farmhouse, where I share some of Snowdrop's cookies with Ed.






In the late afternoon I make something that isn't quite lunch, nor is it dinner -- a pot of butternut squash soup -- which we eat with cheese and crackers.






I have a 4:15 bus to catch for Chicago. The extended family is gathering there tomorrow and since festivities will start early, I decide to head out tonight. Ed will be holding down the fort at home.

There is a bit of drama when I go to the barn to wish the cheepers a happy holiday (throwing down some extra bread for them). I see that a 'possum is hovering just feet away from them. He hides when I come into the barn but the hens are agitated and with good reason! Ed will have to set out the trap again to move him away from here.

(Scotch takes this moment to shake all the barn dust off her feathers.)






In Chicago, I'm staying at the newly opened Robey Hotel. This one:






I could have camped in my daughter's home, but she has a houseful already and I opted (quite happily) to make it easier on all of us by staying here. (It's just a fifteen minute walk from her place.) My daughters groaned at that, foreseeing that I would make a point of going down to the bar for a solitary drink on Christmas Eve just to feed a good story line here, on Ocean. I laughed. Would I do that?





Oh dear. Maybe I would...

But honestly, I like bits and pieces of alone time. There's much to think about in this world and I need time to process life, perhaps especially now, on the day before this very beautiful holiday.

Too, there's always more to a story than one photo allows. The fact is that I tried to preempt evening hunger by our late day soup at the farmhouse, but after three hours on the bus and a half hour on the El train, I felt... hungry! My hotel was willing to squeeze me in for the buffet meal they were serving tonight until 8 (I arrived at 7:55). For $55. I was not $55 worth of hungry. I circled the floor and came back with an offer:
What if I just had a plate of your cauliflower gratin. Would you really charge me $55?
They softened. It's Christmas Eve after all. Come and have your gratin.
Can I have a drink too?

This then is the fuller picture:





How much do I owe you? -- I ask at the end.
Food's on us. Just $10 for the drink.


I sit now in my top floor room (ask, and you shall receive) with a beautiful view of Chicago before me.





Chicago. This city has messed with me since I was a young adult. I came here as a student, hated it, left gladly, came back for another look as a visitor from up north, and finally rediscovered it with greater sensitivity when my daughter decided to call it home. Perhaps it's like life -- very imperfect, but harrowingly complicated and beguiling. Your heart breaks at the problems here, but quickly mends when you look deeply into people's faces. You grow to love a place for those who live there. I suppose these days I must admit to feeling quite a surge of affection for this city.

(Oh! I can see the El stop where I got off...)






For my readers -- may you feel connected to those you love, now and always. For those who celebrate Christmas -- may it be very merry indeed! 

Friday

All day long the messages kept coming: weather alert, winter advisory, expect some snow. It didn't seem threatening, but it was a constant pounding of the winter beat. I decide early on to stay indoors. Completely. No need to go out: the chickens are now on their own in the morning. And Snowdrop will be coming with her mom later. I needn't pick them up.

So we eat breakfast. We always eat breakfast. And each breakfast is reassuringly the same, or similar. And the flowers are there, as are the fruits and it feels warm.






Ah, here they come!






When it's just me, I reach for the camera often enough during the day. But today I'm quieter with it. Perhaps it's that we're all distracted by the holiday, by life, by the snow outside, by the colors, by each other.

(Snowdrop, playing with the colorful box I recently bought for her in Poland)







Dancing -- there's dancing.






Of course, we all must participate. Even the non-dancers among us.






And there's quiet time. Building structures, cities even, constructing landscapes that only an almost two year old could imagine.

And outside the snow falls. Not heavily, sometimes not at all, at other times prettily. With those fat flakes we love to admire from inside the warm kitchen space.






As evening rolls in, my daughter and I put in a DVD that she and her sister have seen every year of their childhood (and beyond) -- Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. Snowdrop has never really watched a show geared to her age level and so you could say this is a first for her.






(What's more fun -- the viewing of the movie, or the watching of Snowdrop taking in this holiday classic?)


























About halfway through, she has her fill.






She returns to the real world, though perhaps a bit transformed.

And outside, the snow falls and the lights twinkle...






...welcoming in a very beautiful holiday set of days.

to be happy

I so look forward to the holidays. With total devotion to the concept of a shared time with people you love. Over good food and lovely baubles and gifts that come straight from the heart... Mmm!

I am not blind to the fact that many, too many people have real worries. Somehow we are not spared those. And yet, at this time of the year, we do our damnedest to put them aside. Isn't that a beautiful thing?


Okay, back to the farmette. A sunny day. A lovely day, really.






But I have no time for letting time slip through my fingers. I drive out to do errands and I note that in the fields to the west of us, there's some activity now...






Perhaps I mentioned that efforts to stall development around us ultimately failed. This is the beginning of laying the groundwork for the roads that will criss cross the fields to the north and to the west of us. (The farmette, miraculously, is likely to be surrounded by a buffer nature zone, so that perhaps we wont quite be surrounded by a suburban landscape, but we definitely will see lots of construction here in the years ahead. Ed has threatened to move if it comes too close to us. I'm less inclined to think along those lines. We like living close to the heart of Madison.)


Snowdrop is on vacation from school and so I pick her up at her home today. I bring her to the farmette along with grocery bags of food. She leads the way, Ed carries the bags.






And then she puts stuff away. All in the same reachable cupboard, but I am thrilled with her efforts to be of help.

Okay, little one. You can go play now! (I must remember to retrieve the carrots from the dish closet...)






Groceries must be on her mind, because she goes straight to her toy foods and makes sure her Parisian penguin gets a proper share of orange.






She rests briefly (ahah joins)...






... but is revived with a sip of milk (a rare request on her part... really rare!).






... and a bowl of cherries. Again I show her how to wear them as earrings (am I the only one who did this throughout my childhood?).






She knows that it's a game. Off they come!






After her nap... her long nap! -- well, there's just enough time for her to express her frustration with the way of the world, only to swing toward her usual happy normal. Here she is, engaging ahah in a game of "throw me an orange slice."






I think about Snowdrop's wakeups after a long nap. She wants to be happy, but it takes her a while to get to the point where she can let go of her dozy state.  Perhaps the lesson there is that you don't just automatically fall into happiness. Perhaps sometimes we all need both time and effort. But it's worth it! Really -- for those who are wondering -- it's worth it!