Home for the Holidays

 

    I think it is pretty well established that holidays and tradition go hand in hand. This is especially true for Christmas. I am not a religious person, at least not in terms of any mainstream religion. Does that mean I’m not spiritual? I guess that depends on how you define it. I can see the wonder in the world. When I walk through a secluded patch of forest with the wind weaving through the trees and I sit down on a log to enjoy the natural rhythms, I feel a kinship with this environment. Is that spirituality? I guess I don’t need to put a label on it. Anyway, back to traditions. 

    Some traditions are tied to food. If you were to ask anyone about a traditional Christmas meal, you probably would hear about ham or turkey, although I have heard some rumblings about Christmas oysters but I don’t know what that’s all about (and honestly, maybe it was just made up by someone trying to pawn these slimy creatures off as food!). So it’s no surprise that, as the family cook, I received a lot of flack for the time that I decided to prepare a meal of baked haddock on Christmas Eve. It’s not like it was a meal that our family didn’t like. Normally it got rave reviews. But you would have thought I had served up a batch of Rocky Mountain oysters (not a shellfish, by the way - look it up if you don’t know) by the reaction I got. And to this day, probably 10 or 15 years after the offense, a Christmas doesn’t go by where one of our kids doesn’t pipe up about, “That year Dad made the Christmas fish,” said with a heaping serving of disdain and an expression of pure disgust. I learned my lesson. I just barely skated by this year with a sort of Tex-Mex chicken and rice dish. I think everyone was just hungry, feeling seasonally generous and willing to give me a pass.

    Another big family tradition for us is Christmas music. Over the years, we amassed quite a pile of CDs that ranged from Vince Guaraldi (Charlie Brown Christmas in case you’ve been living under a rock) to the Boston Pops to Brenda Lee, Bruce Cockburn and a very cheesy rock n’ roll Christmas compilation that usually elicited a few groans when I managed to sneak it into the rotation. All complaining and arguing aside, this diverse set of music has become the backdrop to our holiday season for years. Somehow, over time, we also created some rules around Christmas music (what’s a good family tradition without a few rules!) We determined that no Christmas music can be played until after Thanksgiving. Without this guidance in place, who knows what kind of chaos might ensue? 

    We recently did some downsizing of audio equipment and no longer have a CD player. I have fully embraced the digital music and bluetooth speaker revolution and was tired of the furniture size speakers taking up space in our house and mostly gathering dust and cobwebs. This resulted in some family discord as we no longer had the means to play those cherished Christmas CDs. Luckily, our daughter took on the task of compiling a Kaplan family Christmas playlist on Spotify. Many of the albums could be found in their entirety, but it was no small accomplishment to search out some of the more obscure songs that had been featured in one collection or another. One bonus (at least from the perspective of some family members) is that she could simply omit those songs that no one really cared for. 

There is one particular Kinks Christmas song - “Father Christmas” - that always drew frowns when I cued it up from the rock n’ roll collection. I don’t know what The Kinks' intent was with the lyrics. I always took them as being somewhat tongue in cheek or maybe a condemnation of Christmas greed. “Father Christmas, give us some money. Don’t mess around with those silly toys. We’ll beat you up if you don’t hand it over. We want your bread, so don’t make us annoyed.” Ok, now that I read those lines, it is a pretty cynical view. But it was always in the mix when those CDs were shuffling in the changer and playing whatever came next.

Probably our most cherished holiday tradition is decorating the tree. This is another topic on which there are strong opinions. One year we got a slightly small tree, although certainly not of the Charlie Brown variety. The jeers and distressed looks taught me to never go small on the tree again. Better to have it scraping the ceiling and have to do something creative to fit the star on top than to get one that is too small! We typically decorate the tree as a family, although with all three of the kids living away from home, that has become ever more challenging. I usually do the lights and garland on my own just to get us started and then we do the ornament hanging together. We have a running joke each year once we finish, standing back to gaze at the tree and to proclaim (for the nth year in a row) that this is the “best tree ever”. There is some truth in that statement, because every holiday where we are all together as a family is “the best ever” and a time for which I am truly grateful. 

I like to say that we own the most eclectic mix of Christmas ornaments. I love getting the box out each year. I hand wrote “Christmas Ornaments” on the top in black sharpie. This is supplemented by Olivia’s handwritten “crismas ordmins” applied so many years ago. We have some classic ornaments like little Santas, who for some reason this year all have their backs to us, gazing at the inner part of the tree. There are the regular different colored balls, although I think we need some more red, green and blue to balance out the many silver ones that have taken over. And that’s where things go a little bit off the rails. The box of miscellaneous ornaments includes some made by the kids in kindergarten or even in preschool. There are Star Wars ships, snowflakes, puffins (my childhood nickname and a common gift from my parents), musical instruments, an LL Bean boot (where did that come from?), a star of David (ironic), bicycles, a plastic-wrapped candy cane of unknown vintage (I’ll have to remember that for when I’m starving to death in the post-apocalypse), two (one would have been plenty!) leprechauns, and a host of others. Every year, as we pick items from this box, there is at least one that I swear I never saw before. I have an unproven theory that each year, perhaps through the magic of Christmas, a few new ornaments are spawned in this box while it sits in the closet for 11 and half months. No one has been able to prove me wrong about this!

I think you get the drift. Somehow it all works.Once everything is on the tree and the lights and silver garland form the backdrop, it all comes together. This year’s decorating occurred with a minimum of arguments. No snatching of any prized ornaments. We do have one that is a bit of an homage to theft, having been pocketed by a young Isaac when visiting a neighbor’s house many years ago. What’s Christmas without a little lawlessness? In a nod to my Dad, there are a couple of clear glass ornaments that I held onto after he passed away. One is a 6 inch long twisting icicle that comes to a vicious looking point (note to self: if you are ever desperate for a weapon, this has potential - not sure why the holiday is bringing up all these desperate scenarios!) The other is a sphere that has little tunnels of glass radiating in towards the center. For me, it symbolizes accomplishment of the impossible. I can’t fathom how the glass maker was able to create it. 

We should relish impossible things in our lives. Things that cause us to pause and wonder about the magic in which we go about our humble lives. The magic of a planet spinning perfectly on its axis at just the right distance from a star out here in a little corner of the universe. The miracle of a bird or any of the myriad other living creatures. The sublime art that comes from a brush held delicately between fingers. The notes of music that bring tears to our eyes. All this beauty created by the human brain, body and spirit. That is the real source of wonder and it doesn’t limit itself to the holidays.