dcnovice
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Hugs to all who need/want them! The holidays can indeed be rough if one's not feeling the societally expected "spirit."
In recent years, some churches have begun holding Blue Christmas services during Advent as a way to offer people who don't feel "jolly" an understanding and "safe" space to be themselves among compassionate folks. I think my Episcopal parish does this too, but I haven't been to it myself. And I realize that church doesn't appeal to everyone (to put it mildly)!
I'm lucky to have some magical Christmas memories. My family had its own brokenness (alcoholic grandparents, bickering parents, stress over tight budgets), but somehow Christmas transcended all that and pulled us together. A few stories:
-- My dad and I didn't always get along real well, but somehow we made a great decorating team. Dad came from a family that was maniacal about Christmas, decorating each surface and coming up with new themes and scenes each year. Plotting what should go where and how to display stuff in a creative new way brought a bond that eluded us much of the year.
-- As kids, our stocking were old-fashioned woolen ski socks. They must have had threads of steel, because Santa could stuff a ton into them. At some point (I think when I was in high school), a friend of Mom's crocheted lovely new stockings for us. Well, Santa stuffed them as usual, and all the seams burst. Mom's friend was not amused but kindly repaired them for us. The next year, we came down on Christmas morning to find the stockings hanging all beautiful and whole--and empty! Below them lay plastic bags from the drugstore with our initials on them in Magic Marker. Fortunately, we were all old enough to be amused rather than dismayed, and I dined out on the story for years. It wasn't till about twenty years later, when I spent Christmas at a cousin's, that i again got my stocking stuffers in an actual stocking.
-- Dad's family also had a tradition of making plum pudding, using my great-grandmother's recipe. Over the years, the tradition faded in the New York branch of the family (where I grew up), though an aunt down here in DC (where I now live) kept it going. A decade or so ago, I decided I wanted to give it a try. My aunt kindly walked me through the process and shared with me from her stash of the key ingredient--suet (you don't want to know)--which is next to impossible to find here. Making the pudding is no small feat. You mix it all together around Thanksgiving, then spend the next month stirring and adding "flavoring" (aka booze) as needed. Just before Christmas, on a day when you can count on being home for a stretch, you ladle the goo into a greased mold and steam it for six to nine hours. I did all this with gusto and joy, apparently discussing the subject no end with friends and colleagues. (Everyone's first question after Christmas was "How was the pudding?) So it was no with small chagrin that I realized, somewhere around Baltimore on the train trip to NY, that I had forgotten to pack the damn thing! I wound up mailing it to my folks in time for Epiphany. My pudding-making continued for a few years, till it dawned on me that it was a lot of work for a "treat" that no one actually likes all that much.
-- My version of the family mania is wrapping gifts. I love gorgeously decorated and beribboned presents, and I've been known to seek out schoolkids who were selling Sally Foster wrapping paper. I'm always worried I won't have enough, so I buy far too much. One year, the doorbell at my parents' house rang at about ten on Christmas Eve. 'Twas a next-door neighbor who'd run out of, yes, wrapping paper. I ran down to the basement (where I lodged) and emerged triumphant with a spare roll. On Boxing Day, the neighbor returned with a flower arrangement meant to thank us. Mom and Dad bickered over where to put it. Dad: "I think I'll put my flowers on the coffee table." Mom: "No, my flowers will look much better on the sideboard." Me: "Whoa there, folks. It was MY wrapping paper!"
-- One time in my editing career, I was reviewing a list of "green tips" for the holidays. One was to forsake wrapping paper for recycled newsprint or even brown paper. I scribbled in the margin, "No one I know better try this crap!"
-- When my oldest niece, also my goddaughter, was born, I decided to needlepoint her a stocking. Now needlepoint is one slow craft, so I was nowhere near done by Christmas. I wanted her, though, to be able to say she'd had it every Christmas of my life, so I stitched a cardboard backing onto the canvas, and we hung that. Looked odd, but my sister rolled with it. (The baby, being six months old, didn't care.) The following year, I'd finished the needlepoint, but my seamstress friend hadn't had time to add a backing, so we hung just the front. Again, the niece was too young to notice. Finally, by Christmas three, the stocking was finished and functional.
-- Ten or fifteen years ago, my parents, youngest brother, and I were heading off to see my middle brother's new house in Connecticut. The trip was a last minute brainstorm, so youngest bro and I had no housewarming gift. Couldn't have that! So we carved a nativity scene out of baby carrots. As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up. It is one of the greatest regrets of my life that I do not have a photo of this one-of-a-kind (one hopes, anyway) creche.
-- Speaking of creches, my first Christmas after college, Mom started giving me pieces of a lovely German porcelain nativity. The figures were expensive, so I'd get one a year. That first year, there was much mirth among my friend about poor Mary's being a single mom. The next year, Mom got mixed up and bought a shepherd. So now Mary was shacking up with a another guy! Joseph and middle-class morality finally arrived the next year.
I don't know if any of this wackiness will cheer you, but remembering it brought great smiles to me, for which I thank you.
Warmest wishes to you all for new and joyous memories this year!
_____________________________
No matter how cynical you become,
it's never enough to keep up.
JANE WAGNER, THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF
INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE
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RE: Holiday Blues. - 
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