This Year's Christmas Reverie

Today I am alone for a little while, my newly retired husband off to run errands and meet with old co-workers for a lunch.  I have time to reflect on the holiday, what is the same this year and what is different.

Things change, evolve—the shape of Christmas transforms.  It used to be child-based and now my grandchildren are in three different states and half of them are over 20. There is a new element this year—my second-oldest grandson is in Afghanistan.  I have made sugar cookies with sprinkles on them and there is a box set aside of cookies that Patrick will get in his Christmas package.  Today I will make Brandy Balls, something a 22-year-old will like and an item that will pack well.  He probably won’t get his package before Christmas, but what does it matter to a soldier in the dessert?  Any package on any day will be welcome.  I’ll wrap up a Calvin and Hobbes collection for him to go along with the sweets.  I was going to make some chocolate candy for him, too, but was reminded that they would probably melt in the heat of the desert, so that’s out.

The tree is decorated; most of the gifts are wrapped. My Santa collection is still boxed—there hasn’t been time to get all those different Santas unwrapped and placed around the house yet. Hopefully, I can get them out before my daughter and her husband arrive from Virginia on the 22nd. This will be the second time they have come for Christmas and it is the best gift I could ask for. Their presence will make four of us in the house rather than the sort of lonely two we have become. It makes such a difference to have other people to share the warmth of the season with.

I’ve always made cookies at Christmas, even before I had my own house to make them in.  I started baking at an early age and have never stopped.  Some of my favorite cookies were the shortbread cookies I used to make with my daughters.  They were easy, just butter, sugar and flour, and they could be shaped or rolled and sprinkled or frosted—the possibilities were endless.  Long ago, when I had small children I made rolled sugar cookies with complicated shapes and frostings.  My daughter-in-law makes gingerbread men every year, with frosting and various chips and candies on them. We work hard to make pretty cookies for our children.  Now it seems too much work for just my husband and me.  When I had lots of kids around I made a favorite we called “bubble bread”, a pull-apart bread made in a tube pan with lots of butter and cinnamon.  I don’t make that anymore, either—too many calories for us oldies.

No matter how old we get we’ll still enjoy Christmas music.  It’s not fattening!  The first CD we bring out is the Carpenter’s Christmas Portrait.  It’s 26 years old, but remains the warmest and best set of Christmas music ever put together—in our opinions, at least.  When one of the 20 Christmas CDs isn’t playing, radio station 106.9 is playing a huge variety of seasonal music.  Right now I’m listening to jazzy Diana Krall interpret some old favorites.

I love the smell of evergreens but we have an artificial tree now. When I was a kid my Dad would choose a tree from a lot, but it always had to be modified to fit into the living room.  He often had to take a limb off of one side and add it to the other.  Trees weren't as perfectly groomed as they are now.  When I was a Mom we'd go to the tree farm, choose a tree, cut it down, tie it to the car, fit it to the tree stand.  Some years we even popped corn and strung it for a garland.  I think I may institute that tradition again with my daughter.  I can’t imagine anything more cozy than stringing popcorn while drinking a hot buttered rum, toddy, cocoa, or a coffee nudge and listening to Karen Carpenter singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”. 

I think it’s obvious that I love Christmas in all its variations.  I know people who don’t and I feel sad for them and wonder what happened to take the magic out of it for them.  I was in a lower income bracket most of my life, but always had a happy Christmas.  There was never opulence, except for maybe that two-year period my Dad owned a store and I got a hair dryer and a radio for Christmas.  My Dad and Mom loved Christmas too, so maybe my memories are better because of that. 

Some years I haven’t felt the “spirit”, the soft, giving, loving feeling that I wait for.  There have been sad years, years we’ve lost a family member, Christmases following a divorce, but they have been brief periods of time.  The magical spirit usually reaches me before Christmas comes and this year it’s been around for nearly a month. 

I’ll be excited on Christmas Eve because the next morning I’ll get to see my husband, my daughter and her husband open the gifts I’ve found for them, I’ll get to watch my husband trying to control the paper clutter afterwards, we’ll get phone calls from across the U.S. from my kids, I’ll make calls to thank others, we’ll make a special dinner and play games or watch a movie.  It will be another in the long string of happy Christmases, special in it’s own way.

Cranky Old Lady

Have you noticed, as you’ve gotten older, that you seem to be a little more impatient, less apt to stand calmly in line, more apt to be irritated by a slow down.  Have you raised your voice in protest, just a little, when a sales clerk insists you can fit into a size 8 when you know darn well that you’ve never worn a size 8 and never will?  Have you felt like walking out with your hair half cut when a hair dresser says: you  “need a wax” on your eyebrows and how about a pedicure and wouldn’t you like a manicure, too?   Have you snapped at the person at the end of the phone line at dinnertime who wants you to buy tickets for “the underprivileged to attend the rodeo” or to vote for the wonderful, better-than-the-last one candidate of the moment?

Has there been a barista who is young enough to hear you, and surely has better ears than you do, who gives you a soy latte when what you’ve said is, “Oh,boy, I need a latte this morning!”  Have you lost patience in a line because the person three in front of you has decided this is the day she needs to catch up with the check-out person, who is an old friend, and they can’t possibly talk on the phone, because who does that anymore?  And have you actually yelled at the driver in front of you because the light has turned green and the driver’s attention is on the text he’s reading?

I think I used to be lots more forgiving and patient.  I used to do buttocks tucks when I stood in line, not caring how long it took to get my groceries.  I used to accept the soy latte and not complain.  I used to say “okay” to the eyebrow wax.  But nowadays I’m not as nice.  I want good service.  I want courtesy and competence.  I want the hairdresser to cut my hair, charge me for it and let me go without the menu of what else she would like me to buy from her.  I want all drivers to pay attention.  I want friends to chat on their own time, not on mine. 

Ick!  I’ve become a cranky old lady!  When did that happen?  It’s funny—I wasn’t like this when I was working.  I must not have cared.  If I was standing in line, at least I wasn’t behind a desk, answering phones or emails or talking to grouchy customers who were just like I have become.   Was my time not as valuable to me?  Now I want to get out of that line, away from that hair salon and get on my way, because I have good things to do and I don’t want to waste a minute.  Time.  It’s more important now.  It’s finite, it won’t last, there is an end to these days and years.  I have too much I want to do and now that I have the time to do it, I don’t want others using it up.

Time hasn’t changed, but my attitude toward it, my perception of it, certainly has.  No day is long enough to check off everything on the list of things I have set out to accomplish.  Most of what’s on that list is pretty fun—the ratio of fun to not fun (chore) is about 3 to 1—three creative projects to one clean the floor.  Let’s see, how do I decide?  Shall I make a greeting card using one of the photographs I’ve taken, or shall I dust?  Duh!  Not going to pick dusting unless someone is coming to see me.  Then I’ll relent.  Hmmmmm….shall I write a piece about being a cranky old lady or should I wash the dishes?  Eventually I’ll wash the dishes but for now I’ll just put a few paragraphs down—the dishes can wait.  Shall I plan a lunch with my aging mother, my even more aging aunt and my long lost cousin or shall I spend that day in the garden?  Lunch wins every time.  Having to stand in line when young, seemingly untrained, clerks try to solve the problems of their customers, who either want to make trouble or chat, is not on my agenda of fun things to do.  It comes under the heading of CHORE.  For me being retired is not about chores.  It is about making the very most of the time I have left on this earth, in the way I find most satisfying.  There may be some who find it wonderful to have more time to do what I consider to be chores: waxing furniture, making their toilet bowls sparkle, shining their floors, passing a white glove test.  I know some women like that, but I’m not one of them.  I have to admit to thinking it’s nice to have more time to spend on housework because I don’t like a dirty house.  Since retiring I do give more time to cleaning, but I draw the line when it gets in the way of creativity, because cleaning has never given me the satisfaction of creating something, a garden, a photo, a piece of writing, a lunch for friends or family, a gift.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not an angry driver, I’m not someone who is impatient with old people (older than me) who are having trouble getting the coins out of their pockets to pay for their bread and milk.  I’m not a person who wants to deprive a small businesswoman of her fees.  I don’t get cranky out loud or push my way to the front—but I do find myself wanting to get on with things, get my business done and on to the fun parts of life.  It’s a new, raring-to-go me—excited to get to the next enjoyable part of the day.