Saturday, December 31, 2011

Christmas Wrap-Up Randomized

Our Christmas holiday at home has been wonderful. What we lost by not being with our relatives, we gained in extra time and freedom in our own home. This has been a true vacation for us all. There is nothing quite like having the time to do whatever you want at home with no schedule and no stressful demands on your time.

However, there were demands like staying up late and eating homemade treats at any hour of the day or night. It was demanded that we watch extra movies and play board games. We were required to have parties with friends. And some of us insisted on napping at least once a day. We all agree that we have made the most of our quiet Christmas at home.

But there is a downside to all this unstructured free time. Some of us have become a little lazy. Which is why I am doing my Christmas wrap-up on New Year's Eve and why the following is so randomized. Just some snippets that I want to preserve. Like this shot taken with my new wide angle lens.


And this one, because I like how the reindeer are silhouetted.


And this one taken Christmas morning before the kids awoke and the mayhem began.


And this one of my favorite Christmas ornament given to me by an old Atlanta friend who was a real peach herself.


And this one because they look so cute digging into their stockings.


And this one because who doesn't love algebraic humor???


I love that the boys asked for these shirts instead of ones with Angry Birds on them.

And the last snippet, where we wish you a Happy New Year!
May 2012 hold joy, health and prosperity of spirit for us all!

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Ghosts of Christmas Past, Promises of Christmas Future

Today is Christmas Eve. It's an "off year" for our family gathering meaning that my family, the one I was born into, gets together to celebrate Christmas only every other year. The opposite years are generally committed to my husband's family. We travel during Christmas, no matter which family's year it is. However, this year is off for both families. We are not travelling and we'll be waking up on Christmas in our own home. Santa will be coming down our Chimney this year. I honestly can't remember the last time we were home for the holidays. It was odd to wake up today, on Christmas Eve, in our own home and not start the day by stuffing suitcases into the car for a nine hour drive.

While both sides of my family will be missed this year, I am enjoying being home so far and know it will be a Christmas to remember. They all are in their own way. This one is particularly memorable due to my niece. She started her Christmas two days ago by receiving a gift of life in the form of a stranger's stem cells. This gift will unfold for her and all who love her over the next several weeks as her body accepts this gift and makes it her own. A truer gift we can not imagine and none of us need to unwrap anything else this year. Thank you selfless stranger and Merry Christmas to you and yours.

All of our Christmases are memorable, maybe not remembered by exact year but memorable by event. While our Christmases are steeped in tradition, something unique usually happens each year to keep it fresh.

Traditionally, leading up to Christmas, we count down the days by the daily ceremonial cutting off of a button from the homemade Advent calendar. The calendar is a strip of festive red felt dotted with fancy buttons for each day of December. Each evening in December, an anxious child lops off another button to signify the occasion of surviving one more day of anticipation. For a child, the thrill of being the button-cutter is the highlight of many a cold December day.


I don't know the true history of this tradition in my family. My grandmother Oma may have started it as she had an impressive fancy button collection and was skilled in the domestic art of button sewing. My own mother continued this tradition for my siblings and me. I started the tradition for my own children as you can see from this vintage photo.


Sadly I have killed the tradition with my ineptitude for sewing buttons and my complete refusal to even to try. Bah Humbutton, I say. But the tradition lives on in our memories and is an homage to the days when women did crap like sewing buttons. Embracing women's freedom everywhere, we have this guy instead. He only requires that we move a tethered button from numbered slot to numbered slot each evening. And no sewing.



Another holiday family favorite is the traditional holiday nudity.


Don we now our gay apparel has a whole different meaning in our house.


Decorating this way is fun but it adds another reason for my husband to dislike hanging the outdoor lights.

Every year the children write a note for Santa which they leave by the chimney on Christmas Eve.


This is followed promptly by the traditional reading of select chapters from the Harbrace Handbook and Elements of Style.


This really gets the children's attention and readies them for the long winter's nap that is Christmas Eve night.

But before bedding down on the Eve, each child opens one Christmas present. Traditionally, it is their Christmas pajamas. If Santa's going to see you sleeping, you have to be wearing new pjs, right? This is one of those traditions that works about twice and then after that everyone feigns their excitement. Grandma tried to liven it up one year with the addition of a wool thong she had crocheted.


As you can imagine, this holiday tradition did not stick.

When we all are together on Christmas, fun and spontaneity are the rules. Wacky holiday activities abound like karaoke without the lyric prompts...


...the Biennial Ugliest Foot Competition which is strangely won by the same person every time...


...and last year's extemporaneous tribute to lederhosen.


Yes, my family knows how to have holiday fun!

So on this Christmas Eve morning, even as I miss my large family holiday gathering, I appreciate the ghosts of Christmas Past. I will cherish this Christmas Present with my little family

 and anticipate many Christmas Futures with my larger family once again.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

All Shall Be Well

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

I was asked recently why my blogging has reduced to dribs and drabs over the past few months. I gave an evasive answer because I hadn't formed the real one even for myself yet. The evasive answer danced around busy-ness and focus on other things. Admittedly, there is some truth to that. But after thinking about it more, I came up with the rest of the answer.

While I have been focused on other things and I have been busy, I also have felt the need to be quiet. From the start, my blog has been a place for me to be funny, sarcastic, even poignant at times. It's a forum where I talk about my family, show off some photographs and paint the everyday things in life with a bright brush.

It hasn't felt appropriate to be funny or sarcastic these last few months. And being poignant is a vulnerable position to be in these days. Poignance quickly becomes tearful if I'm not careful. So to keep it all in check, I've gone quiet.

In place of my blogging banter, I've been listening, thinking, praying, hoping and believing...all quiet, productive activities.

Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of his willingness. - Julian of Norwich

I will continue to do these quiet activities in honor of someone dear. One day from now, my niece will have a bone marrow transplant. All of us, she, her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, friends of friends, friends of family, her doctors, her nurses, her donor will all be listening, thinking, praying, hoping and believing.

And soon joyful noises will be made by all of us when all manner of things are well.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

'Twas the Week Before Christmas...

...when all through the house not a creature was believing, not even my spouse.
The stockings are hung by the chimney with care, but nobody's buying St. Nicholas' wares.

The children are nestled all smug in their beds
While visions of irreverence danced in there heads.

What is going on here? There will be no visit to see Santa this year. I asked the boys, like I do every year, if they want to go see Santa and they said, "No." Neither boy wants to make our annual trip to see Santa. I guess now our annual trip is no longer annual but now nostagically past tense as in 'Twas.


2003
The obvious question is 'Twhy don't they want to see Santa? You would think the only proper answer from my middler-schooler, 'twould be the answer that I have been expecting from him the past few years. You know the answer that starts with, "I don't belie...."  But I didn't get that answer. The answer I got 'twas unexpected.


"Santa's a creeper," they said.

2006
 "Twhat did you say?" I said.

2006
In our house, "creeper" is a general term for a suspicious character, a weirdo. My niece coined the phase and even the facial expression we use to notify other family members of a creeper in the vicinity. So, when they said, "Santa's a creeper," they gave the creeper face to match.

2007 - Note no picture of little brother this year. Assumed beginnings of creeper theory.
The boys went on to explain why dear Santa is now a creeper. Their arguments are compelling. Top on the list was he knows when you are sleeping. Yes, I guess that is a bit odd.

2008
Next was the idea of young children sitting on a strange old man's lap. It's good to know the concepts in the Cub Scouts Parent's Guide on Child Abuse that we have religiously covered with the boys every year have really made an impact.

2008
And lastly, there were some ramblings about Santa coming into houses under the cloak of darkness, another inarguable concern.

2009
I however believe that all of this creeper talk is merely a parent-friendly way for the boys to communicate the real answer that starts with "I don't belie..."  The boys know these are words are hard for parents to hear. These words hold so much more than an end to a fun, decade-long caper. 

2009
 I don't belie...means Mom and Dad, I'm growing up.

2010

It means the teenage years and driving and moving off to college and having a family of their own are right around the corner. It means that you have to drop the magic for a little while before you can start it again and share with the next batch of believers.

2010
But it doesn't mean that joy of Christmas is over. It just means we can all start to appreciate a deeper reason for the season.

Laurel Valley, Townsend, TN November 2011

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Making Music Right

I am a huge fan of a particular musician. This particular musician isn't widely known. His songs aren't played on the radio. He writes great songs and plays any instrument. He has several CDs which are available on CDBaby.com, iTunes and Rhapsody.  This musician has been playing guitar since he was fourteen...too many years to number...and has been songwriting, playing and performing since 1991...twenty years and counting. He has a day job but continues to gig around our local area.  And lucky for me, he performs nightly in my living room.

Bo Weevil (a.k.a. my husband) has a new CD just released this week.



Make It Right is full of Bo's signature-style tunes, all written and performed by him along with some fantastic accompanying musicians.  Consistent with his previous releases, many of Bo's songs are tributes, both in name and in style, to musicians of the past who have influenced him. Avalon John is a direct nod to Mississippi John Hurt while My Cup of Tea and Going, Going, Gone pay homage to the jazz greats of the '30s. Bo works in a little contemporary country heartbreak as well with his lamenting Whiskey Won't and Feeling Blue.

The title track Make It Right holds special importance for both Bo and me. This song is the most heartfelt one he has written to date. It is a love letter to me and our relationship. As with all long standing loves, ours has ebbed and flowed, been tried and tested, grown while we've changed. With each challenge, we have returned to the truth and clarity of what we hold dear for our lives now and in the future. Bo says it all in Make It Right. Baby, I love you too.



Speaking of love letters, there a few more on the album. They are all written for one special person, but I'll let you pretend they are for you and yours if you like. To begin, I'm sure you can all identify with the relaxed swing of We've Just Begun. Makes you want to drink up all the good in life and love.

I must confess that I may have taken Bo for granted a time or two. Haven't you gotten caught up in the busy-ness of it all and forgotten to let your honey know how you feel about them? Bo reminds us to keep our feelings front and center in Baby, Can't You See 'cuz love is what makes it all worthwhile.

There is some darkness to be worked through and Bo does so in A Million Miles Away. We've all lost someone dear and this song tells the tale of a man's crushing loss of his wife.  The song is a stepped-back way for Bo to express some of his feelings of losing his mother earlier this year.



The album has several upbeat numbers to balance the ballads. Bone to Pick and Untry-Kay Ooz-Blay display Bo's musical sense of humor.

My personal favorite has to be My Cup of Tea. It's a stripped down ensemble of guitar, brushed drums and clarinet playing a sultry jazz shuffle. The lyrics are poetic, unexpected and vintage. A combination of lyrical and musical perfection.



I may be biased, but this is my favorite Bo Weevil album of all time. And I really do think it's his best. Another thing that makes this album special to us is that we collaborated a bit. In addition to listening to all the early versions of the songs, I also did all the photography for the CD layout. It's the first time we have "worked together".

Songwriting and recording your own music are a bit like blogging...you put your life, your thoughts, your feelings out there for all to hear, read and of course, critique. But I don't think you can find a bad thing to say about this post or this album.

Make It Right and all other Bo Weevil releases are available on CDBaby, iTunes and Rhapsody. Check them out!