Little Altars Everywhere....Pt. 2

I was the first grandchild on my mother's side.  For three years I ruled the kingdom and during this time I proclaimed my grandmother "Big Grandma".  This was not because my grandmother was big.  In fact, the first time I called her that I can remember how she laughed for a very long time and finally asked me why I called her that.  She didn't seem especially touched by it.  I had two grandma's that lived in her town, as I thought of it, her mother lived there also, my great-grandmother.  The only explanation that I had then, and the only one that I still have to this day, is that my grandmother  was taller than my great-grandmother, ergo, "Big" Grandma and "Little" Grandma.  Little Grandma didn't seem especially pleased by her name either, but it seemed completely obvious to me.  I, being naturally shorter than either of them by quite a distance, did not know that they were both actually very small women.  Be that as it may, they were both referred to by those names from that day forward.  Nobody argues with the first grandchild, I tell you.  Nobody.

Big Grandma always had a bird nest on her Christmas tree.  She said it was good luck for the next year.  I can remember her getting excited about finding small abandoned nests.  She sprayed the holy living crap out of them with Lysol and put them in trash bags, to "kill all the bugs", for weeks and then shellacked them.  Probably to seal in the bugs, just in case any survived.  Or laid eggs that could hatch.  She did not suffer dirt, she put on a whole uniform including a scarf over her hair and attacked it mercilessly. 

It's not a real one.  It was a gift from my mother, in memory of the one Big Grandma had, for my own house.   It's the oldest tradition I have.

Big Grandma was very crafty, even artistic.  She was always whipping up something or other and there wasn't much space between us, which is probably why one year I made my own ornaments as gifts.  The Santa below is another of the cute wooden ones that move around, but to the left of it and below with the pink and blue swirl is one.  You simply buy an empty ornament and whole bunch of paint, pour it in, swirl it around, and waa-laa!  Beautiful ornaments that will last as long as you don't break them, but hey, that will just be the year you broke the pink and blue ornament that you made when the twins were small, and waa-laa!  There's a memory.  That's the way it is with Christmas ornaments that you know.  They never leave you.  This cannot happen with new ornaments.  Unless it's the only new ornament, in which case it will probably be special, in which case you could make a memory if you broke it.  But only if you cared about it. 

You can swirl any colors you want, in case you have a different "theme" going, or want to match your furniture or something.   However, if you make these please give them as gifts.  They will be treasured forever.  Unless they are sold at a garage sale.  

Another good use for the empty ornament is to put cute stuff inside.  Pictures, confetti, in this case golf tee's.... these are unique and one of a kind gifts, inexpensive to make, depending of course on what you put in them.

One of the Beautiful Redhead's, from her golf coach in high school and safe from garage sales forever and ever, amen.

If you knit, and I am ashamed that I don't, this is an excellent choice.  In fact, so ignorant am I that I do not even know for sure whether this is knitted or crocheted.  Probably crocheted.  Isn't that the one with all the holes?   Whatever it is, we should all learn to do it and I am pretty sure my Nana is rolling over in her grave right now because I would never learn this most basic skill when she tried to teach me.  I regret it.  It can't be that hard and I need to get that started.  It's been on my list for decades.  This one was given to me by a friend I worked with named Janet Turner in 1993.  I have put it on my tree every year since and I always stop and think of her.  I always thought I would do that for the kids every year, if I could......do that stuff, but I've not gotten around to it.  My babies are 14.  I need to get started soon.

They say no two are alike.  That is just one added plus if you are nervous about making mistakes in knitting. Or crocheting.  Maybe by next year I can inform you further on these mysteries.

Little Altars Everywhere...Pt.1

Tonight I drug out the Christmas tree and got it up.  There are even presents wrapped under it.  After having been so efficient and on my feet so long I grabbed the camera and thought BLOG THIS!!

The Christmas tree in my life has never mattered.  I have had real trees and hated them, the trying to get them even, the watering, the needles dropping out, the getting rid of it.  I have had fake trees and hated them, putting them up and bending all those branches, the backache, the falling over the whole entire tree because it is never solid at the base.  In fact, in recent years I have been thinking of buying a fake fireplace just so I can throw up a garland, decorate it and call it good!

None of this matters a whit because the tree is merely the backdrop for the ornaments.  Christmas trees are altars, of a kind.  I have altars everywhere in my house.  You probably do, too.  The ornaments are one of the major things that makes it feel like Christmas for me.  I often received them as gifts growing up, and especially after I left home and had my own home.  I often give my children ornaments as gifts, and when they have their own homes they will already have a starter set of ornaments that have been with them their whole, entire lives.

This is the whole thing.  Notice the way the tree leans to the right.  

Christmas ornaments are tangible memories. Myriad memories of when you got them, times you have put them up, other ornaments this one reminds you of that got broken, and when, and by whom, and if mom cried when it happened.  There is the little ceremony of unveiling them.  Many of them you have seen just once a year, for a few weeks, since you were very small, and just a kernel of what you have become.  That kernel is still there, and you have put that snowflake on the tree as a child, the first Christmas after your Grandma died, the year you were home from college, and the first year you ever put it on your own tree. 

I got this ornament from my mother the first year I had my own tree.  Many of my ornaments are from her and my aunt Linda.  They favored wooden ornaments, often with moving parts.  Just as often Hallmark as Dime Store, back when we still had Dime Stores.  Should that be capitalized?  I'm tired.  These high energy days are about to kill me.

How you felt as sad as you did happy that year and how strange it was that you would be sad.  Telling yourself that it was just sentimentality when really in your heart you knew you were just mourning your old life because whatever happened from here on, and no matter how wonderful it would be, it would never be the same as it always had been before.  Some changes are irrevocable.  That's just life, but you should always take note and honor these changes.  They are the tapestry of your life.  (Why yes, Ms. King joined me this evening in taking measure of this year, as I performed the rituals that sustain us all from cradle to grave.  wink wink)

My first child's First Christmas ornament.  He got about 12, as he was born Dec. 1, and the other kids have always been jealous.  They say he gets everything.  I say it is not my fault.  But this is the first one I actually opened.  Is it not amazing that I remember that when I can't figure out whether to capitalize Dime Store or not?  You simply cannot get this kind of stuff with new ornaments every year.  

I met people at college whose families bought different ornaments every year.  They had, like, "themes".  Different ones every year unless they really liked them.  These people lived in a city, and I felt very sorry for them.  I asked what they did with the old ornaments and they said they sold them at garage sales.  I made a mental note to check out their garage sales, but I am still astounded to this day by this concept.  It doesn't sound like Christmas to me. Themes are not for Christmas.  Rather, Christmas IS the theme.  Nothing new here, same old story, same old ornaments.  At least, at my house this is how it is.  How it has always been.

Isn't he cute?  He made me cry,but in a good way, as did this post until I added the captions.  I figure this is a new "theme" for blogs.  Read the italics and laugh, read the straight print and cry, and by then you've had a full day.  If you are going through menopause you can probably go out into the world without embarrassing yourself, as now your emotional roller coaster for the day is complete.  Onward Ho!  Stride forward with confidence that you at least will not start bawling in public.  Probably.

For instance, the ornament above was given to me by my friend Louise, when I lived next to her.  I turned it over and thought of her and she was close to me as if she was standing right next to me.  I thought of those days when we were just one house away and all our children were still home.  Everything has changed so much!  Almost all our kids are grown and she already has grandchildren and mine are yet to come, but I know they are coming and I think of them already, especially when I hold these ornaments.  

She made these by hand and they still smell like gingerbread.  I'm pretty sure at least one of the twins tried to eat them that year. They are not toxic. ;) We ended up putting the Christmas tree inside a playpen, and I moved all the ornaments up for a couple of years even after that.  It made for some strange looking trees, but all the ornaments were close to eye level.

....When You Least Expect It......

Expect it.  Isn't that the old fashioned advice?  Pure gold, as usual.

The many days of Thanksgiving were over, everyone had gone back home, the house was still relatively clean, and I was sound asleep in bed thinking I was "ready" to get back to work and get the boys back on a normal schedule with school.

Suddenly, I hear the shower start, which is normal, as my Oldest Baby takes his shower at night.  I registered the sound somewhere in my mind.....and it seemed somewhat louder than usual.  I was in that heavy sleep that you go into about an hour after you go to bed, and I pushed the wondering away, for about 9 seconds.

Next I heard cries for help coming from the bathroom.  This is not usual, and the shower still sounded really loud.

I hear my Youngest Baby rumbling up the steps and going into the bathroom, presumably to "help" his brother.  The next thing I heard was bickering between the two of them as to how the other one is doing things wrong, and still the water is running like crazy!  By now I am no longer in any kind of sleep.  Instead I am tearing myself from my warm, soft, quiet, heavenly bed and trying to make it to the door without killing myself.  It sounds like a freight train is in the bathroom, possibly running over at least one of my children, maybe both!  

I stumble into the bathroom and the scene that greeted me was, well it was crazy, but nothing you want to get up out of your deepest sleep for.

Water was shooting out of a hole where the hot water knob used to be and both boys are trying to stop it, one fully clothed, and the other one bent over double in the shower.  I ask what happened and they both start yelling at the same time, not because they were mad, but because they had to yell over the sound of the water shooting out of the hole like a fire hose (!) and hitting the back wall of the shower when it's not hitting my naked Oldest Baby and then splashing all over the bathroom.  He pivots toward me to yell his version of the story and I notice that he is still bent over double, and at this point it dawns on me that yes, he is naked, but he also 14 and in the "MY MOTHER MUST NOT SEE ME NAKED OR THE WORLD WILL END" stage, and so I dive for the hole and tell the boys to go turn off the water to the house.  They both leave.  To do what, I do not know because now it occurs to me that they don't know where the turn off to the water is.  I yell for help.  Water continues to shoot mostly down my arms and between the walls to the downstairs bathroom.  I must say, my bathroom floors have probably never been quite THIS clean before.....

And then I throw caution to the wind, throw the shower curtain as shut as I can get it as fast as I can, ( I am not at my best at 11:30 pm after an hour and a half of sleep, I freely admit) and run as fast as I can downstairs to turn off the water.

The silence was as welcome as it was deafening.

I drag myself back upstairs to find the twins looking for tools.  Yes, I laughed too.  In fact, I laughed for about 20 minutes solid, once my legs stopped shaking and I could be trusted to stomp on towels all over both bathroom floors.

Then I start wondering who to call about this.  Thank God for one of my Angels, who was even up at midnight.  AND returned my call.  If you do not have this worked out already, you need to make a list in your head of people you can call at midnight who will not only answer the phone but will answer the call!  This list should be added to periodically, I would say at least every 5 years, because as the years go by the list gets shorter;  people die, and the ones who don't get old too.  Don't let that happen.  You will pay for it in the end, or maybe sooner, and I can guarantee it will not happen at a convenient time.  We must be vigilant.

The next morning I scooped water out of the back of one of the stools, boiled it, and set up a little station by the kitchen sink.  We washed our hair (sort of), our faces, and brushed our teeth.  We felt like pioneers.  Or prison inmates.  Prison inmates and at privately run prison, not those fancy places that have the computers and spa days.  You get the picture.

So, this was Monday after a week's vacation.

It was quite a week.

Going back to work was a piece of cake, if you know what I mean.