Ho ho hold on a minute

Cue the music: "It's the most wonderful time of the year." And it's one of the craziest. Regardless of how much planning I do, how much ahead of time finding and wrapping and making, I am invariably behind. It's like a rule of nature.

Of all my lists (and there are many), my list of Christmas projects is usually the longest, and the most involved. And every year, I fail to complete about 50% of it.


I should put it on the calendar:
December 19th: Have a small breakdown because today you will realize the "great Christmas list" will not be finished. Feel sad, feel overwhelmed. Worry about how Christmas will not happen because of incompleted (fill in blank here).


I know I'm not alone in feeling the pressure to "make" a good Christmas for our family. The holidays do indeed conjure ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.

For me, the ghosts of Christmas past seem to urge me to control every element of the whole season with deadly earnestness. As one might guess from my accounts of my own childhood holiday seasons, parts of my childhood were chaotic. Christmas was, for most years, a fun though limited blip on the screen of our family, something to be experienced in its entirety in the space of 36 hours, including the decorating, cooking, and gift-preparation. I am the cliche of the rebellious adult child, and I have shaped my own family life in the mirror image of the compressed holiday. Ours is a lingering, slow experience, with presents or small advent events each day of December. It sounds lovely, and it is. But I've also fooled myself into thinking that the perfect Christmas is a handmade Christmas, from the gifts to the decorations, And it's this misconception that gets me into trouble every single year.

Though I'm not sure you'd know it if you saw me, there is some part of me that shudders with fear at the thought of not making good on all my Christmas plans. Seriously, I quake at the thought of not finishing the stockings for each of us by Christmas eve. Where will Santa put his gifts? Never mind that we do have store-bought stockings that work quite well and look cute. I've dropped the ball--and I'm "ruining" Christmas.

Don't forget the handmade mouse (with babies), the flannel pjs and matching pillowcases, the embroidered felt ornaments for each of the girls, the collaged bookmarks for each of us, the gumdrop chain for the tree, the Santa outfit for Mr. Mouse, the Christmas pjs for Ada's babies, the matching Santa sacks for us to use each year, and the holiday skirt for Ada and the corduroy jumper for Esme. There is much more to add to this list, but I will stop boring you and overwhelming myself with it now.

This is where I stand today, and where I stand on so many Christmases, surveying all of the unfinished things, each in some form of progress, stacked around my studio and serving as reminders of my inadequacy. I just can't do enough.

But wait, I said I had conjured the ghosts of Christmas present and future, and this is what they tell me:
This whole month of December has been full, so full, of beautiful moments for our family. And there are gifts aplenty, even homemade ones, to give to our family. My husband would tell you, as sagely as Dickens' ghosts, that the best present I can give him and myself is to be present. For his ideal image of Christmas, I am calm and with them on Christmas eve, not fussing about the perfect wrapping, shiny bows and the best frosted cookies, etc.

The ghosts of Christmas future will forgive me if I don't finish all the great homemade projects. So will my kids. What they won't forget (or perhaps forgive) is the frantic and manic mommy that emerges on December 19th each year, fitfully aiming for a phantom ideal that eludes her each time.

I have made my lists, and the list is as long this year. But this year is different. This year, I give myself and my family a present of being. Just being, and being enough, too.

I'm signing off now to laze on the couch and watch Grinch with Ada, and then make messy, frosted cookies for Santa.

A long Christmas post for a long Christmas season. Part 2

I will start by saying that there is no tragedy here. I didn’t fall out of the attic hatch, I didn’t get freeze or starve up there. The “adventure” was over before it started. Still—the memory stays with me for a reason.

I was always a good climber. Family legend says that when I was 11 months old, I was found on top of a Danish credenza/bookshelf at the dizzying height of 6 ft. According to the story, my mom plucked me off the highest shelf just as the whole thing was beginning to sway.
As a toddler, I was into countless things tucked safely into the tallest kitchen cabinets, and as a kid I routinely climbed trees all over our neighborhood. Even now, as we were building our current house, I climbed the chimney several times to sit in the top rafters of the attic and look down at the site. This is all a long way of saying I’m not afraid of heights.

But that December day, as I peered over the attic frame, I did feel a bit dizzy. I was giddy with defiance, then unexpectedly struck with a sudden lack of confidence. I had no idea what I was doing, and the clock was ticking—my parents would be home soon. The plans I had thought of so carefully before went from building a tower to the end result of dazzling decorations perfectly placed all over the house. As for the middle—nothing. I was in the middle of the plan, now, and as I realized its failure, I felt the kind of eight-year-old shame that makes you hang your head with tears. That’s what I did, up there in the attic.

Through my tears, I came up with the unsatisfying idea of tossing the boxes down. This plan I modified when I saw I could use the twine on a few of the boxes to sort of dangle it down through the hatch. It didn’t reach the floor below exactly, but it was better than an 8-foot drop. This I did, with the two boxes that had twine. With the other three, I took my chances and just let them drop. One of them made a crunchy rattle on impact, and my confidence dropped further.

Finally, I took a deep breath and thought about getting down myself. In dangling the boxes, I had hit the tower of books and stools, and it tilted even more precariously. The stool had slid completely off the stack, and to even reach the phonebooks, I was going to have to hang by my fingers.

Climbing down the tower was less a climb than it was a decelerated slide down books and leather. Once I had the momentum started of launching myself down and backwards through the hatch, my toes hit the books, which slid, and I was pulled down with the remains of the tower. I ended up on the floor between a twine-tied box and the Danish stool, my legs splayed out on the phonebooks.

I wanted to rest and let my hands stop shaking, but I had wasted too much time already. I did my best to weed through the tissues and twine and shattered glass ornaments (yes, there were many). I found my most beloved ornaments—thickly-scented candles molded into Santas, snowmen, and angels. These I set ceremonially around the room. Using the broom handle as a lifting pole, I nudged the macramé Santa onto its hook in the living room, the macramé snowman onto the front door. The red felt stockings I hung on the mantel, making sure our gold rick-racked names were all facing the right direction.

To my dismay, I realized I hadn’t gotten the aluminum tree down. The now-dissolved tower of books just made me mad, now, and I was too tired to try to go back up. I made do by pulling out my favorite tree ornaments, plastic bears and reindeer, Santas and snowmen, each flocked in fake snow, or fur, or both. I propped these beauties up among the candles on the stereo, making sure the Santas, snowmen, and reindeer were properly mingled with each other in the right combinations.

As I recall, I was in the middle of this very particular arranging when my parents came home. Of course, it had been my intention to have it finished by the time they came home, but I thought it was close enough to done that I shouted, “Surprise!”

Surprise doesn’t begin to describe what they must have felt. Here are my parents, the very definition of harried. Here is me, a bouncy eight-year old in the thick of “decorating” and “helping.”
At that moment in time, our worlds and values were galaxies apart.

I will preface this by saying that my parents are good people, kind people, and they loved me. Poor and just starting a business, they were also were struggling to keep our family in clothes and food. That year in particular they were so burdened with work that they must have dreamed of simply skipping Christmas altogether, with all the work involved with cleaning and taking out and putting away, preparing and planning. I’m sure they saw the Christmas season as one more thing to do on a long, joyless list of chores.
I, on the other hand, was a dreamy little girl, single-minded, and lonely. I wished I could always have the magic of the Christmas season, with all its shininess and possibility. How could Christmas be a burden?

You know what happens in this part of the story, the part where my parents enter the room. As in some fairy tale, the “beauty” of the scene was visible only to my eight-year-old eyes. Far from noticing the magical ornaments and the Christmas possibility they brought, my parents saw instead the flaws in my plan—the broken ornaments, the candles on the dusty mantel and tables, the pile of books and stools, boxes, twine and tissue. They were furious at me for climbing on furniture and irritated that the open attic hatch was leaking all the cold air out. They were angry about the extra mess I had caused and the work it would take to put it back. Mostly, they were baffled about why I would do such a senseless thing. “What was the big idea?” they asked.

I don’t remember what I told them. In fact, my memory of that afternoon is vivid, but only up until the time my mom and dad returned. I have little memory of what happened after that. I imagined I was punished. I imagine there was yelling. I imagine I probably helped put away some of the mess. But how I explained my big idea? I have no idea.

So let me tell you now what I might not have been able to say then.

The big idea was this: I loved Christmas with my family. That day was the most special day in the world to me. I loved spending the day with my mom and dad at home, playing with the toys I received, eating the food they cooked together. It was the single day of the year they did not work, and it was one of the only meals we ate together at home. The hush that fell over the house when there was only fun to do was magic.
Eight-year-old Kirie believed that that magic came from the trappings of Christmas. The ornaments, candles, shiny trees and carols—the power was there, and I longed to bring it out from the attic boxes and into my house. I wanted the calm, and the togetherness, and the possibility, and in my child’s mind, I associated those things with the flocked snowmen and macramé Santas.
To get this feeling then, to feel in control of my world and able to harness such special power—of course I would risk a climb to the attic. Looking back, I would have risked much worse, I believe.



Now I am a grownup, and with my own family, we celebrate Christmas all December. I notice each year that I am filled with an excitement similar to what I used to feel as a child. I notice also that am still trying to untangle some of the childlike associations I’ve made over the years. I still grapple with how I might best control my environment and bring calm and peace to my family. I am working on letting go of that need to control things outside of myself. Even as I realize this, I know that my letting go brings a peace in itself.

These are some of the things I think about as Christmas comes. Of course, there is the magic that the symbols bring—and I see it played out again on the faces of Ada and Esme when they play with the elves and toys in their Santa house. Their smiles light the room when they dance with the same flocked tree ornaments I used to play with. “Christmas is like magic,” Ada says.

I’m letting them feel the magic, and I’m also going to keep pointing out that it’s coming not from outside, but from us ourselves. The decorations are fun, the glittery things are pretty, but the real beauty is in the calm we feel together. Now when we put out the decorations, that is what I focus on.

Thanks for indulging one of my Christmas memories....Kirie

A long Christmas post for a long Christmas season. Part 1

Christmas is starting early in our house this year, which goes against all my childhood traditions.   We not only decorated mini trees today, but we chose and chopped down our big tree.   And I am loving this extended season.

We are calling our tree "Mr. Crazy Man," as he is waving his extra-long arms wildly about, and he is a bit odd-looking.   Perfect.  He's also a strange and pretty lime green, which I was drawn to at the tree farm.   Now that we're home, I'm trying to convince myself that he is not dehydrated or sick.    My wise and sweet husband, who is an expert gardener, pronounced the tree to be perfectly healthy, and he's urged me to just enjoy the lovely tree we chose.   So I am.

Mr. Crazy Man tree is patiently awaiting lights and decorations, and by the end of the day today, our home will be decorated for Christmas.   I am almost as excited as the girls, who are bouncing more than normal, and constantly breaking into mangled Christmas songs.   

Still, it's taking a mental adjustment for me to get a tree in November, because when I was a little girl, we sometimes didn't get a tree until a few days before Christmas.   Just like any other kid, I was enamored with the whole magic of the season, and I longed for a house decked with evergreen swags and shiny baubles all December. But my mom and dad had other priorities.  Focused on running their small company, they were doing all they could to keep enough clients to stay in business.  What time could they have had for worrying about decorating?  

Never one to sit around just wishing for something, one year I decided to take Christmas decorating into my own hands.   It took some planning.  I was a latchkey kid, so finding a few minutes alone wasn't the problem.  But getting the stuff down and out was a challenge, since I was only eight years old.  

We stored all the decorations in the attic, a squat and freezing place accessible only by the ladder that we kept in the garage.  Of course, I couldn't manage getting the ladder by myself, so I improvised.   First, I made a ladder:  As a base, I used the storage chest my parents had for vinyl records.  Think benchseat meets Danish minimalism, c. 1962: cherry sides, padded leather top, and round aluminum casters.   I would love it now for its design.  That day I loved it for its height.

Somehow I ignored the obvious problem of building a tower on a rolling cart, and I managed to stack up a few of my thickest storybooks and some phonebooks, each thick enough to give height and be slippery at the same time.   These I topped with a wooden footstool so notorious for its instability that it had become a doll's table.  All said, this stack rose to a height of about four feet, which gave me just enough of a boost.  I stacked a makeshift "stair" of books next to the tower. I pushed the cart a few times to see how wobbly it actually was.  I leaned a broom against the cart.  And then I climbed.

 

I've got unnatural balance, I think.  Standing on top of the teetering stack, with the broom in one hand, and my other hand on the frame of the attic opening, I must have been something like the Cat in the Hat, and I remember feeling just as clever, and just as defiant.  Finding leverage from some burst of adrenaline, I jammed open the hatch with the broom handle and shoved it into the attic, where it fell with a disturbing crash.  Then, God knows how I did it, but I reached my hands into the frame of the opening and swung myself up and into the attic itself.   

I was a good little girl, and I did not even know how to swear then.  But if I did the equivalent sort of feat today, it would be peppered with some colorful, self-congratulatory language, marveling at my physical prowess, etc.   I would not be modest.  But then, there was no celebration.  I simply headed for the goods.

The attic was just as chaotic as the rest of my childhood home, and unlabeled towers of boxes crowded around me in the darkness.   Christmas magic had imprinted the shape, color, and feel of the ornament boxes in my memory, though, and it wasn't long before I had shoved my way through a few stacks to find the crucial few I needed.  

Tied in twine, top flaps warped from being tuck-folded, the Magical Christmas Boxes were the closest thing to treasure I knew.  It took a huge reserve of self-control to not rifle through the tissue right there in the attic.   Okay, perhaps it was less self-control, and the more the fact that it was freezing and dark up there, and that my parents would be home soon.   Regardless, my goal shifted from getting the boxes to getting out.   

I need to stop here to ask: have you seen how small an eight-year-old girl is?  Ada is only seven.  My heart beats faster just thinking about how tiny her little face would look peering over the edge of an attic hatch;  I think of her swinging her legs over the edge, and I am literally cowering in my chair with vicarious anxiety for her.  

Of course, Ada is much more sensible than I was.  She is the kind of girl who cautions.  She can readily spot "a bad idea."   She is also the kind of girl who prepares, and if she were to climb into an attic like this, it would not be on a teetering stack of slippery things, it would not be without a flashlight or a coat, it would not be without a plan to return to the ground.    

Like I said, Ada is more sensible than I was.

Tomorrow.  Part 2