And Other Reindeer Too

This year, I’ve misplaced my Christmas gusto.

I have a box of Christmas decorations missing somewhere in this Bob Cratchit-sized house and the few decorations that have been taken out are missing some of their crucial parts.

On the back of my kitchen sink stands an action figure of Darren McGavin with his hands outstretched and eyebrows furrowed.  I can’t help him.  Our cats have taken off with the leg portion of his lamp.

Though sadly lagging in our pursuit of holiday light displays, we have (for the first time in over a decade) caught up with the big guy himself.  Without plan or promise we found ourselves third in line for a Claus consult.  Five of the six Thompsons were able to visit with the Ed Asner of Lorain County’s finest. 

“Are you guys good to each other?” he had asked from behind his elastic banded beard.

“No,” they all but Max responded.

“That’s what I thought,” he flatly replied before sending them off with a coloring book and candy cane.  Had he pushed him off with the sole of his black boot, I would have merrily skipped with him all the way back to the North Pole.

Since his sighting, three-year-old Max has developed a consuming fixation with a fold out version of Twas the Night Before Christmas.  Almost daily I find him rolling between the pages as he earnestly tries to implant himself within the magic.  The gingerbread house counting book has the same effect. Either the kid really loves Christmas or he just needs a break from us.

And Kenny, for as hard as he tries, he just can’t seem to get all of his Christmas facts right.  With his trademark lisp, he sings and hums most Christmas songs from the back of the van.

He’s also convinced Santa’s seventh reindeer is Donger.

The tree has been cut, the presents have been purchased, and the stockings have been hung.  Most important, my sanity remains marginal.  For now, I’m reminding myself to “stay here” and not think about just how long January is going to feel.  Like the Ingalls, I fear we will experience our own version of The Long Winter.  I hope Santa brings me ample cookbooks on both egg and hen preparation, regardless of what comes first.  Our funds may be low, but in poultry we are flush.

Outside the snow is falling and the presents are wrapped. And though the halls may not be fully decked, experience tells me Christmas will come regardless.  The optimist in me can acknowledge this past year was much like our July vacation—a few rough patches peppered with a little of “this doesn’t suck too much.”  For 2013, I cautiously hope for much of the same. 

May all your Christmases surpass all expectation. 

God Bless the Coward

I am an ostrich with one ear in the sand and the other eye closed. 

I watch the news, but with the sound off. 

I scan headlines, but I don’t read.

This is my view of the world. 

I am a coward in a world of unknown heroes, angels, and monsters. 

My children, the ones that will let me, I hold close.

And the smaller ones, whose hands I hold, tell me I hold too tight.

But each morning, I let them go, and I watch them separate from my world into another. 

I am aware that the unimaginable has been imagined. 

I am aware that life will continue…or it won’t.

I am relieved that my miracles are intact.  And with the next breath, I feel guilty that I’ve been spared.  But torture exists between my breaths as I think about if and when the time will come.  To live in fear is to not live fully.

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

But in the midnight of their darkness, I can only imagine how faint their light must be.  In the darkest of winter, and in the stillness of this season, I pray for that spark to light the way. 

God bless the roughhewn souls who feel damaged beyond hope.  In their brokenness, may they eventually find some peace.

And may God bless me, a coward.  Just grateful for one more day to hold tight to the hands of my children.

Channeling Pearl

I often wonder if the memories that I am helping create with my kids are as worthwhile as those of my own childhood.  I’m not referring to memories that might better be left suppressed—with siblings, there are always things better left forgotten.  More so, I am referring to the memories that materialized from holidays that began in the Oberlin home of my grandparents.  

Memories of cousins, uncles, aunts, and food!  Memories of my grandmother Pearl, with a tight smile and even tighter stockings, who could produce a Thanksgiving feast complete with sides that surpassed all expectation.  Long after my grandfather died, she continued to play hostess to nine grandchildren, their parents, and an extra guest or few as well.

Eventually, as my grandmother grew older and it became more difficult for her, the Thanksgiving spoon passed from my Grandmother to my mom. After my Grandmother died, holidays on Glenhurst became more and more distant.

While I have changed in my own role, no longer a child, but parent, I’ve noticed that Thanksgiving for me has begun to change as well.  Instead of wishing for Thanksgiving to snowball into Christmas, I instead now tarry.  I find I enjoy the anticipation that the holiday season brings, more so than I love its finale.

Once eager to grow up, I am now eager to coast. 

Once eager to break away from the past, I am now searching for ways to include it.

In my forties, I find that I channel my grandmother in ways I never thought I would.  In no way anxious to take on her role of meal preparation for the masses, I do find I channel Pearl in ways I never thought I did or would.

I channel her when I prepare her dishes.  I channel her in her tight smiles.

My hope is that my children will remember this Thanksgiving fondly.  I hope they remember the joy of family, food, and thankfulness. I want them to know that life is a feast and is meant to be enjoyed in the moment.  Whether or not the gravy turns out is irrelevant. 

If Pearl were still here, I think she’d agree. 

In the fifteen plus years that she’s been gone, I’ve dreamed of her often.  And in my dreams, she smiles—wide and easily.

Michael Myers, and Zombies, and Witches, Oh My!

There is no better time than mid-October.  The obscene heat of the summer has passed into memory and the countdown to Christmas is at least a good three weeks away.

Of all holidays, I think Halloween is my favorite.  Maybe it speaks to the abnormal paranormal in me.  With no “other” worldly experiences of my own, I anxiously scour the plethora of TV listings for ghost stories and tales of the occult, like a child awaiting Christmas specials.

As a kid, I would happily hum “Five Little Pumpkins” as I cut out purple bats from ratty construction paper.  “Have You Seen the Ghost of John?” was carefully harnessed to doctoring simple treble clefs into witches on broomstick.

It shouldn’t surprise that one of my first preteen parties was not a birthday party, but a Halloween bash.  I presented my clairvoyant self with my cardboard Ouija Board to a room full of sixth graders. 

It was then I first learned that not everyone is an enthusiast of the occult.  One friend left the séance before I had a chance to uncork my tarot cards. 

She needn’t have worried.  The sixth sense eludes me.

This year, my grown up quandary revolves around three-year-old Max who, it also turns out, shirks the dark side. 

Store displays of rattling skeletons and cackling witches bring him to a near catatonic state before breaking free in convulsions of sobs and tremors.  I almost expect him to extend and bend his index finger while chanting, “Max isn’t here, Mrs. Torrance.”

His pirate costume, hanging along side of Kenny’s fireman suit, will most likely remain unworn.  Mostly because no boy really wants a to wear a Seinfeld puffy shirt and the act of trick or treating down a street with kids in costumes is likely to put him into an inmate-state-of-mind. 

The lure of candy is not enough.

This past weekend, as I folded laundry and watched Scariest Halloween Attractions on the Travel Channel, Max’s one eye was transfixed on the screen while the rest of him was tightly wound around my legs.

Michael Myers, and zombies, and witches, oh my!

Ironically, I can relate.  As intrigued with the Halloween genre as I am, I wouldn’t last any longer than the opening credits in any slasher movie. Better I lie down and wait for the inevitable, than to trip and fall in exaggerated procrastination to my death.  Our recent excursion to Sandusky’s Haunted Manor only confirms that.  While my family laughed in hysterics, I became easy prey for the actors. 

It turns out, it doesn’t matter how brave a spectator you are.  What counts is how brave you are in the trenches.

This Halloween, Max and I will probably trick or treat down the candy aisle at WalMart, while the braver participants in our family brave the city streets in search of loot.  Max can wear his puffy shirt while we watch The Great Pumpkin.  And I will smugly enjoy the end of a season that inevitably will turn nightmarish as the Christmas countdown draws near.