December 24th

Good morning, day of Eve! My, what heavy fog you're delivering for us! Never mind, I can see my way to the barn. Good morning, hens, cats, and the birds that eat up scattered chicken feed.

Bread. A staple for this week. Favorite bread bakery is closed, but second favorite, Batch is open. I have a reserved pie for Eve and I want to get there early so that I can grab their last warm baguette for Eve dinner, and their last warm sourdough loaf for tomorrow. And a treat for breakfast.

The fog is so dense now that I cannot see our skyline driving in. A white cloud over a warm and unfrozen lake.

At Batch, even at 8 a.m., a line has formed, but it moves quickly. Too quickly! I could take in the fragrance of that place for a good half hour! At least! 

Home again. Breakfast with Ed amidst beautiful winter colors.

Eve day. Music is going non stop now. Ed does not complain. He's working on putting life into his suddenly dead computer. I sit back and think about this day. This week. This year. Next year.

We go for a walk in our local park. Wet, damp, near record highs expected today, tomorrow. And no snow, No rain either. We're having a winter drought. And here's a surprise: on the drive to the park we encounter cranes. Not just one, not just a pair. Why haven't they left? Will this group overwinter here?

At the county park we take pleasure in the damp earthy smells, the forest quiet. 

Friends stop by with a homemade nut stollen. It is exceptionally delicious -- not too sweet, very yeasty. Perfect for Christmas Day breakfast.

 

Milestones that are not Christmas related: one friend is celebrating a birthday, another is attending to a father who is very very old and not well at all. This is what we do, every month, every year: we attend, we pause, we celebrate, we listen. 

 

Toward evening I go to my daughter's house. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's our tradition for me to cook dinner there tonight. Ed stays home for this one, as there is nothing in the main meal that appeals to him. Beef fondue. So un-Polish! (Poles do not really eat beef and certainly not on the Eve). But so us! I've been making sauces for Eve beef fondue (cooked in a spiced beef broth) for many decades. 

And pie for dessert. From Batch. Cherries from Door County.

And everyone in their pj's, and cookies for Santa and definitely an extra helping for poor Rudolph who has his work cut out for him this year in Wisconsin.

Time to say goodnight...

 

And drive home. Ours is on the farming edge of a small suburb of Madison. This time I drive through the heart of the community, where I come across this very large house with a very ambitious holiday light design.

I like it (though I'm also glad he is not my neighbor). And I also like the smaller displays... 

 

 

... or homes with nothing at all outside, and yet I know there to be lights inside.

And maybe some, where the light is entirely in the heart.

It's all beautiful.

 

with so much love...

December 23rd

Don't you just love the day before the day before? If you're anticipating the pleasure of, say, a family gathering to celebrate Christmas, foods, music, presents and all, then Christmas Eve is your big deal moment. Anticipation, about to be realized. (Of course, if you observe the religious aspects of Christmas or more strictly the traditions that lead up to it, then Eve is important in its own right. In Poland, Eve is more important than Day.) No matter how you slice it, with a heavy or light dose of religion, or perhaps no religion at all, Eve and Day are big! So, the day before Eve and Day is grand -- you have finally reached those heavily awaited days and they are just before you. 

In other words, by this logic, December 23rd is the best! 

Here, at the farmette, we wake to a misty morning. It'll be on the warm side today, tomorrow, and on Christmas Day. Second warmest in Madison's record keeping history. Rudolph's nose will be much in demand.

Breakfast. I seem to have forsaken oatmeal in favor of cinnamon. What can I say... my love of coffee with a yeasty or buttery pastry knows no bounds.

We have a quiet morning. Ed's head is in his machine design project and he spends many hours working through the details in the sheep shed. This frees me to play music without restraint in the farmhouse. I do promise him that in three days, I'll shut off my playlist for a whole eleven months!

 

 

In the afternoon, we take out our bikes. I cant say that it's a beautiful day for it (in the low 40sF, so maybe 6 or 7C), but we need the movement. I need the movement!

Misty, a bit wet. Dramatic. I swerve to avoid a car I hadn't initially spotted and throw out my wheel. Three fire engines and an ambulance come zipping our way. And birds. In the thick of a fog, we see the birds. Geese, crows maybe. And these two. See them? Cranes.

The lake is lost in the fog. We pause to stare into white space.

And then we go home, where my hero takes on the bike repair and I retreat inside for a warm cup of tea.

 

In the evening I have a date with my daughter and her two older kids. Sparrow had been asking to see the Nutcracker. We hesitated. He's a chatterbox and keeping him quiet in the auditorium is not easy. Snowdrop has seen the Nutcracker several times and though she likes it and was enthusiastic about an outing, she's a girl who favors words over music so I wondered if she'd get impatient with it. Still, we decided to go for it!

The four of us meet up at Cento for a pre-theater supper downtown.

(here they come!)

And now it's time for the show! I got side tickets that afforded some privacy in case things got a little too wiggly.

For me, personally, the Nutcracker is a big deal. I'd first seen it in New York, as a little girl and I was enchanted by it then. I came back to the ballet when my younger daughter ascended the Madison Nutcracker ladder, first performing as a 9 year old -- as one of the polichinelle children that come out of Mother Ginger's hoop skirts, eventually moving up to a party girl and then, at age 12 to Clara. That was her first en pointe performance and of course, it was thrilling for all of us to see her grace and artistry on stage. The last Nutcracker I attended was some two dozen years ago when she danced the snowflake dance. Somehow once she left the production and indeed, left ballet altogether (at her level of dance, it's very much an all or nothing activity), I shut the Nutcracker door for myself. This is the first time I return to it, looking at it afresh, with the eyes of the two older grandkids sitting by my side. Same theater, same stage, different generation.

Tears were shed.

Did they like it? Yes, very much so, we all did, in our own way (during the Sugar Plum Pas de Deux, I leaned over to whisper something to Snowdrop and she tells me  -- gaga, please, no words during this dance), each looking at it from her own perspective -- of dance, of story telling, of music, of time.

 

I drive home with the music in my head. The misty skies hide the stars, the moon. The warm air is too warm. The lakes were solidly frozen last year in December. There's not a hint of ice on them this year. The eve before the Eve. All is calm. For that and for everything else, I am so profoundly grateful.

with so much love...

December 22nd

Shopping for food. I should have used that as a header. Because on the day or two before Christmas Eve, I shop for food. Not staples -- flour, sugar, eggs -- those were stockpiled earlier. But the stuff that has to be fresh: berries and chickens. A cut of beef (yes, beef -- my once a year beef purchase comes now!). Flowers and croissants.

Such luxury! Impossible to justify in any way. Except maybe that it is a holiday where we gather at the table, for sure, all of us, together and there will be food. Gloriously shared. Loved.

 

It's another gray day, but a tad warmer. I am up early of course. I drive first to Madison Sourdough -- my bakery of choice. (I know the route so well that I can take the photo of the skyline at the right moment without even glancing in that direction. Today the lake is utterly still...)

 

 

It will be the last visit this year because they close for ten days beginning this Sunday. So I stock up here as well. (So does everyone else: their sourdough shelf is empty by the time I get there half an hour after opening. Luckily, I reserved.)

Breakfast with Ed and a very needy Dance.

And now I go back to my new grocery store. This place too, threatens to have empty shelves -- not of everything, but of my essentials. I take the last piece of beef, the last containers of whipping cream. Shopping for Christmas meals is tricky: you have to do it just before, but not just before, because just before is when the cream disappears and you really need that cream for the buche de Noel.

I meet my daughter at the store. Deliberately. We have our own carts, but this is a good time to catch up and plan for the days ahead. And compare notes. And then we return to our own homes.

 

It's time to pick up the kids. The last day of school this year! 

As a parent, I've always loved the reprieve winter break brings us. All of us. Sure, crazy busy because of the holiday (so many special meals to prepare! so many gifts to purchase, wrap and exchange!), but still a reprieve. When I worked, it would signal a break from teaching. And from getting up early to see the kids off. When they were little -- a break from packing lunches. A break from homework! A break, a reprieve, a gift of time! Intense, but still, so wonderfully special. We focused on home. Magic unfolded.

Now, as a grandparent, I still feel that sense of relief, even though it is no longer my job to hustle kids through school, or to get work projects tidied up for the semester. Still, we all made it, and now the family is coming together, and friends send messages, and it is so incredibly beautiful!

This afternoon, of course we do the usual: read, eat, play, read some more. The Christmas tree is already a fixture. We've grown used to its presence. And yet...

(He's proud of his pj's)

(She's proud of her recognition)

They leave, I make an aperitif of a Torino vermouth and white wine and I settle in on the couch with Ed, feeling so incredibly lucky and yes, joyous. 

with so much love...

Solstice

Tonight, at 9:27 p.m. CST (or 10:27 EST, or 7:27 PST) our northern hemisphere will be at its furthest tilt away from the sun. Short day, long night. Solstice.

We all take it in stride, celebrating perhaps the lengthening of the day that follows, just because we like long days. We haven't the fear of those who lived long ago. Yes, we will get more sun hours, no we aren't doomed to suffer eternal night.

Do you ever wonder what foolish beliefs guide our conduct now, to be debunked, say in 500 years? 

Even within the short span of 50, 60, 70 years, I cannot believe how much our work, play, family life have changed. In every way. I surely understand the caricature of the old grandmother, with her wrinkled (but wise!) face and her old voice reminding everyone  -- when I was a little girl, we didn't have.... (fill in a thousand blanks here). 

When the kids watched The Muppets Christmas Carol the other week, I remembered my own absolute love for a different holiday show -- Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. In those childhood years, we were slaves to a TV schedule and I remember so well picking up the TV Guide in the grocery store at the beginning of December and flipping furiously through it to see if this would be the week they would run this version of the Dickens classic. (Then I would go on to check if my favorite shows were preempted by special programing -- a good thing if it meant fun stuff like Charlie Brown's Christmas, a bad thing if it was some sports event.) A weekly TV Guide! Once essential to my happiness, now obsolete.

We live in the dark ages of the future century and in the enlightened years of what once was. Funny how that works...

Madison sunrise today: 7:26 a.m.

Breakfast, with Ed, in peace and quiet.

Kids here in the afternoon. 

The car ride is a like a merry-go-round of childhood issues: one gets on, another gets off, one is resolved, another one pops up. The girl is excited: tomorrow, she'll be receiving the responsible student award during an all school assembly. I suspect I know why -- there's been a semester long struggle to get the girls to play with a girl who has had a rough go of it in life (think: refugee camp before coming to Madison. Snowdrop has taken some leadership in always making herself available to her on recess and walking away from those who refused to bring her into the fold. Proud? Well yes, but then Sparrow, who was sad that no such honor will befall him (is there ever only one responsible student?), consoles himself with the news that tomorrow he and all others get to wear pjs to school. A spirit thing. Except that Snowdrop's teacher tells her class that no pjs are to be worn because of serious misconduct of some kids. Suddenly all that Snowdrop cares about is pjs. Maybe I can just wear bottoms? They look like leggings! I suggest that maybe on the day she is to stand up in front of the school to receive her responsible student award, she should perhaps reconsider pushing boundaries. All this is resolved in the time it takes us to drive to Chick-Filet-A where we celebrate the shortest day, the award, the pj's with French fries for the kids. It takes so little to make them smile.

At the farmhouse -- playful, attentive to the stories in books we read. [Currently, we're on "The War that Saved my Life." An incredible story of a young girl, suffering from a disability, parental abuse and neglect and... World War II in England. Snowdrop coached me on this one: when I read the voice of the woman who took in the two malnourished and neglected kids, she said -- could you make her voice a little bit nicer? She really is a good person...

Madison sunset today: 4:26 p.m. Nine hours of daylight. Not too bad. And it's only going to get better!

Do you know the English author, Susan Cooper? She is 88 now. Maybe you know the poem she wrote many decades ago? The Shortest Day. Or the illustrated book that puts imagery to her words (illustrated by Carson Ellis)? I cant bring you the magic of that book, but let me at least recite Cooper's words.

So the shortest day came,

and the year died,

And everywhere down the centuries

of the snow-white world

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away:

They lighted candles in the winter trees;

They hung their homes with evergreens;

They burned beseeching fires all night long

To keep the year alive.

And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake

They shouted, revealing.

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them

Echoing, behind us -- listen!

All the long echoes sing the same delight

This shortest day

As promise wakens in the sleeping land.

They carol, feast, give thanks,

And dearly love their friends,

and hole for peace.

And so do we, here, now,

This year, and every year.

Welcome Yule!

with love...

December 20th

This afternoon I danced. Not ballet stuff, but the exuberant dance you do that spells relief and yes, joy.

This morning? You could say I slept a lot. Oh, I was up early enough. So early that the chickens ignored my calls for breakfast. The routines were off.

Too early to eat breakfast. 

And then came the sleep. First, because I had to have one of those old people procedures that required zonking you out, and later, because after the procedure you are supposed to sleep. 

In truth, I do not remember much of anything that happened before noon. This is so me! Whenever they zonk me out for anything, even a tooth pulling, my memory goes by the way of the garbage pail. I take Ed along because you have to take someone and he then tells me what I missed. The one thing that I know for sure is that the day was majorly disrupted and I knew it would be and it's a lousy time of the year to schedule such disruptive stuff, but my doc and I are friends and she wanted to do this now and so I obliged. But dont ask me anything more, because I remember nothing.

Except for the fact that after all that, and after a long nap on the couch at home, I danced. Because I did think that at age 70 you have to expect tough outcomes and deal with them, but mine wasn't a tough outcome and I have to deal with nothing and this puts me in the category of people who are tremendously fortunate on all fronts and so I danced.

(Apparently I also ate breakfast because I see that I took a photo of it)

(And I seemed to have baked before picking up the kids because there are muffins on the table)

You're really not supposed to do much of anything on the day of this thing, but I take such instructions in stride. I remember once having had a colonoscopy in the morning and then teaching a class in Property that same day in the afternoon. Today's was no colonoscopy so I saw no reason not to pick up the kids at school. Sure, I'm a bit slow moving, but I am moving. Remember? I danced.

I have a pot of soup for the evening meal. No work required. Such a beautiful day!

with love...

December 19th

Yesterday, on the evening car ride, Snowdrop and I talked about God. It's a topic that comes up often enough at this time of the year. If you have read Like a Swallow, then you'll know my religious leanings. They haven't changed much since at 16 I attended a week-long Catholic camp in Poland (at the instigation of my then boyfriend). Nonetheless, I am not one to impose my own convictions on anyone near and dear to me. Even when the little girl and I talk about Santa (she has figured things out for herself by now), I leave the door open for her to imagine and take the story in whatever direction she wants. So, when God came up, I let her do the talking. She tells me -- you know, Sparrow thinks God is a girl. 

He does? 

Yes. Have you seen him draw God? God has a girl's hairstyle. (I've seen it -- God looks like Patty Duke out of the 50's.) I'm thinking -- maybe church-going people would be appalled. But maybe not? The boundaries between fantasy and fact can fluid in the retelling of things. I mean, Sparrow is playing a sheep in the reenactment of the Christmas story at his church. Snowdrop is more traditionally cast as an angel.

Kids and imagination! In make believe, the sky's the limit. When you grow up, you let go of so much that is pure fantasy. Is that a good thing? Well yes. Knowing what's fact and what's fiction is at the foundation of progress. And even so, we create our own realities. We pick and choose theories that suit our leanings. We do that, even though we know that it leads to division and it promotes distrust and, so often, hate. 

Ed and I frequently have this discussion: when should you be forthright with someone? He is probably the bluntest person I know and yes, there are people who cannot abide him for it, and he does not mind. He'll tell me it's better to say nothing than to heap on fake praise. Me, I don't push fantasy. I don't lie my way through life. Still, I tend to be very careful in what I do say to someone and I gauge their sensitivities, and sometimes I dont call it well, but I do prefer to steer in the direction of finding some good comment to put forth rather than pounding at someone with the truth as I see it. Ed often says that's not very helpful and industry would come to a grinding halt without the honest feedback it needs to move forward. And I admit it: I myself make decisions based on the negative commentary on the internet. I rely on them all the time! (Reviews of products, of books, of hotels -- all of it.) And still, I cannot add to this pool of negativity. I'll hold back with silence rather than tear apart something that I don't like. I admit it, I have never written a negative review. I'm just not cut out for it. I'm happy to stay with gentility. And I smile when one of the kids thinks God is a girl and another believes that fairies do come out secretly, sometimes, and make things happen when you are sleeping. 

Morning. Cold.

Breakfast: we talk about the virtues of being blunt.

And then I go grocery shopping. (This follows an earlier trip to the bakery: note the croissant.) I spend too much time on it once again. I cut it down to a 2.5 hour project, but still, it's too long! I suppose I'm still in awe of all that choice. It's as if I lived with only computer images of foods. Seeing rows upon rows of fruits on a cold December day felt, well, transformative!

In the afternoon I pick up the two kids. 

We spend a lot of time talking about taking turns. With some resolution to the perplexing problem of what to do when two people want to speak up at the same time. A resolution that I predict will fall apart tomorrow as we confront the details: like, does a pause count as someone ending their story-telling from the day? Or -- if someone goes on too long, is it fair to interrupt them?

(it's too cold without your jacket, Snowdrop! Go inside!)

(earlier drop off today -- just at sunset -- because the girl has Girl Scouts)

Later: I make soup. I have to. I need a meal that will last for many days and that will feel warming. Soup on a cold December night. Bliss...