Newsletter

Now I’m quite ahead of myself, for we won’t get the tree until next weekend. I don’t want to wish the days away any faster than they’ll go on their own!!

This weekend I will work on our Christmas cards. Rubber stamped and then tinted with watercolors the whimsical picture is from the imagination of Tasha Tudor. Erik is going to put together a family photo collage to include again this year too. Ah, more traditions.

It’s chilly tonight, and it’s supposed to get even colder. There were a few flakes in the air as Erik and I ventured out this morning. I suppose that it is inevitable no matter how hard we try to wish the warmer days to stay for just “a wee bit longer”.

Tomorrow (before I set myself to the task of the cards) we’re taking the girls to breakfast and then Christmas shopping. Last year Daddy followed the girls and me in the store. Now, before he is chided for spying on his daughters while buying gifts for him, he was in reality “planting” pens hoping that we’d find and then buy him one!! Following shopping, Erik is going to be an “on ice” chaperone for a school outing. The girls are going to go skating at a local rink. This is something that they’ve been looking forward to for a few weeks now. I plan to sit in the bleachers and take photos. This sounds like the safest route, don’t you think??

With the falling temperatures outside, it feels only natural to sit indoors and wrap gifts. I remember as a young girl thinking that wrapped gifts with the mysteries they hold were among the sweetest things. One year, I managed to find gifts with my name on them all wrapped in my Mom and Papa’s closet. Such a find was in a word breathtaking. I told no one. I spent days conniving a way to find out the contents of those packages. Working up courage with each passing day I finally sleuthed my way into said closet and there I sat on the floor with a carefully wrapped present before me. With skillful and all too willing fingers I pulled back the first piece of tape all the while barely breathing. Seeing my handiwork, I felt such pleasure and continued working on what seemed to be endless amounts of tape. Finally I was IN!! I wasn’t satisfied with just one. There I sat, opening gift after gift. Now, if you asked to tell you any of the contents today, I couldn’t. I do know that I wrapped them all with the same diligence and care. Christmas morning brought such disappointment when I knew the contents of those boxes that I never again peeked. If my Mom ever knew, she never said. I couldn’t bear to tell her what I’d done.

With this in mind, we’ll find hiding places out of sight from curious little eyes.

One of the many comforts of the season is hot spicy tea and favorite Christmas music. The two go hand in hand. I remember when John Denver’s first Christmas album (Rocky Mountain Christmas) was released, and I must’ve played it hundreds of times on my turntable. It’s still one of my favorites. I remember hearing for the first time the song “Aspenglow” and its haunting melody. It’s the kind of song that can make you look inside yourself. While it’s not specifically Christmas, it lets me reach back and touch my youth stirring sweet and lovely memories. Papa used to love Aspenglow too. Perhaps that’s reason enough that I love it so.

When I turn the calendar that one last time each year I’m always left wondering where the year went. I can’t help but sigh. It’s not something to linger on though because the days are going so fast as it is and before we know it Christmas will be here!!

Ah, Christmas. The mere word conjures thoughts of pine boughs and bright red ribbons, and icy white lights weaving in and out of fragrant branches. Special cookies (Mmm, shortbread!!) and sweet chocolate (Hershey’s Kisses if Rebecca has her way!!) and Pistachio Nuts (for Nik!!) and the cheese ball (See Sophie?? I didn’t forget!!); the delights of the season. A spicy candle on the table and a jaunty snowman on the door greet those who happen by. Oh Erik, do you see how we are creating our memories together?? You always tell me that it’s our history. I hope that one day the girls will sit with their own little ones and tell them how Daddy once took them to get a tree

after a blizzard and how Shelley introduced them to naming the turkey!!

Try as I might to stretch the days out and savor them, they want to slip by like ships in a brisk wind!! December is not a time for the faint of heart. There is much to do and I’ve found that time, tide and Christmas Eve wait for no man. I don’t have the same luxury of time that Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge had on Christmas Eve. He did in the end get all the important things figured out so I shouldn’t begrudge him.

One definition of the word tradition is this: “the act of delivering into the hands of another”. The Holidays are a time of tradition. Over the years, I’ve found myself adding and honing my yearly rituals. I take comfort in making shortbread each year. The rich butter aroma transports me to the kitchen of my own Mom. She loved to make shortbread each year just as her Mama before her. If one day Cassandra makes shortbread for Christmas, I will have delivered this into her hands and continued a tradition. I smile at this thought.

A few years ago, I started listening to Dylan Thomas recite his own “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”. It’s a delight. This year Mimi and I will listen together while we sip tea and enjoy one another’s company.

The music of Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby soothe the soul and if a Christmas went by that I didn’t hear Gene Autry sing Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer I would surely cry a river. When I was little, my Papa bought me that album and I treasure it to this day. I still see it wrapped under the tree and Papa beaming as I opened it.

Erik and I have started the tradition of exchanging ornaments for the tree on Thanksgiving Day. It’s our own way of starting the Holiday Season. Knowing his love of camping, I found him a little tent and fire (complete with coffee pot swinging on a pole!!). He smiled and we both thought of our trip to Maine. His gift to me was a blown glass ornament the color of rich garnet. This year they will hang next to the snowman from Erik’s Mommy and Daddy, the Santa gourds from my Aunt, Ginger and the crocheted snowflakes from my Mama’s own hand so many years ago. Bittersweet memories mingle with countless joys and traditions continue.

I love my memories and my traditions. They link me to my past, comfort my today, and they’ll take me to my tomorrows.

My earnest hope as you begin celebrating this holiday season is that you’ll make memories and renew old traditions of your own or perhaps you’ll create some new ones this year.

With love and blessings from Butternut Grove,

Shelley

Whipped Shortbread

(a recipe from my Auntie, Ginger)

1 Cup Butter, Softened

½ Cup Icing Sugar

1 ½ Cups Flour

½ Cup Corn Starch

Mix all ingredients and whip with an electric mixer until fluffy. Form into balls and put on cookie sheet. Bake at 300 degrees until just set, not browned. Delicious!!

The Simple Pleasures

The smell of Pine Boughs

Red Ribbons

Icy white lights

The mystery of a wrapped gift

“Aspenglow”

John Denver

Spicy Tea

Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”

Christmas cards

Tasha Tudor

Gene Autry singing Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Exchanging Christmas ornaments

Shortbread

Family photos

Traditions

Surprisingly, nothing from my childhood immediately arose, although there were plenty of long-shelved neuro "photo-ops" to dust off and enjoy--a sleigh ride on an actual antique lady's sleigh fitted with greens and jingle bells, vapor streaming out of the horse's nostrils, head bobbing, the runners silently spelling "I" through the pristine snow as I hung my head and watched the evergreens go by...And caroling in our neighborhood to the smiles and scowls of those around us who opened their doors in the evening in various states of undress, sometimes offering us cocoa, peppermint sticks, oranges and grimaces.

But these weren't the first memories that came to mind. That happy, wacky scene would necessarily have to include my lanky, sweet husband, whose singular take on life has made every difficulty bearable.

My parents had sold their home to live in senior apartments. They lived farther away from us than ever, and because my mom's health was deteriorating, their little apartment was stuffed with the accoutrements of lengthy illness. A large oxygen tank was parked between the bedroom and the living room, and my father testily fussed over the smaller portable unit, second-guessing the controls and tripping over yards of tubing in a way that made me want to leap out of my own body and run into tomorrow, while my mother patiently gasped like a wide-eyed bug. After a sharp exchange, my father declared he was going to do something somewhere, and Steven and I quietly set out to cook the dinner.

After our feast, everyone was in better spirits; I announced that Steve and I wanted to take a little walk to have some air. The town my parents had moved to was a sad, gray, spent old mill town, but their neighborhood was set on a little circle tucked amidst some tall pine trees swaying in a fresh Christmas breeze. It had snowed a few days before, and in the early winter twilight, the fences and rooftops were glistening with a mantle of fluffy snowfall. A musky pine smell mingled with the heady odor of wood smoke. Steve and I held hands and strolled slowly along the lane. Knowing our true destination, he had pocketed a red sugar rose off the Christmas cake and was now standing at the wire fence with it on the palm of his hand.

In front of us was a lovely taffy-colored pony whose mane was so white and shaggy it nearly obscured her huge coffee bean-tinted eyes. She had a piebald mark on her face and I couldn't resist doing my Elizabeth Taylor impersonation, in a weird little voice, I said "Oh...the Pie knows..." (from "National Velvet") The pony looked longingly at the red frosting rose and then at Steven. He leaned his 6'2" frame down to her and said gently, "How ya doin'?" The pony nuzzled his sleeve in response.

I mused that a red sugar frosting rose might actually make a pony sick. But a split second later, her pert little black hooves were doing quick happy taps in the snow, and she was sporting a smear of brilliant crimson across her muzzle as if someone had perfectly applied lipstick at the Lancome counter at Filenes. Her mane stood up. "She looks like Tina Turner!” my husband exclaimed triumphantly, and I bent forward laughing, for the moment totally happy. My husband had on the hat I gave him, an olive green "explorer" hat with a thin leather trim and my goodness, his eyes were such a soft and kind shade of blue and still are.

We watched the Tina Turner pony gambol off into the Christmas evening with her fancy gait and ruby lips and spiky mane of hair. We sang every Tina Turner song we could think of in every way we could think to sing it, arms around each other, laughing and weaving around, happy on the snowy lane.

That's my little memory. Shelley. Not very traditional, but that is what came to mind. Hugs to you, my friend!

Love, Jan