What I’ve been doing, what I haven’t been doing, what I wished would happen.
Continue readingABOUT FLOODING
holiday planning
ON THE FENCE
An internet friend announced on her blog that she has decided not to send holiday cards this year. Her habit was to send nearly 100 cards. Receiving about 20 in return last year has forced her to confront what seems a lack of interest.
I am wondering about the same thing.
This is the season when in years past I would make a decision about sending cards.
Continue readingGOOD INTENTIONS
The sky was beautifully pink yesterday morning and after a mile of walking, I ran an unofficial 5k on sand without wetting my feet. I was out of breath but not breathless at the end of my run. I felt light-headed and bent over for a couple breaths. It is not the first time I have wondered if my blood pressure might have gone down closer to what it was when I began running in the 90s. Decades ago, when I told my mother my blood pressure was 90/60, she said, “That’s ridiculous. You would feel dizzy when you got out of bed. ” Well, yes I did. Often.
‘CHRISTMAS PARTY’
In the 1980s and 90s, we hosted an Open House on the Sunday before Christmas. For weeks I would make and freeze holiday cakes and appetizers. We cleaned house and invited neighbors, co-workers, and friends. No alcohol was served, which is probably why nothing awful ever happened. Well, there was the incident with the dog . . .
We stopped throwing these parties after the year both my brother and mother failed to attend. It seemed sad to work so hard if my local family couldn’t be bothered.
But I am retired now and I love any excuse to bake. We had talked about reigniting the tradition this year, but then, you know, this pandemic.
No gatherings here or in Portland for Thanksgiving. The up side of this is that I do not have to avoid the foods people do not or cannot eat. I can cook with gluten, eggs, dairy, nuts. I could make my spiced carrots. My pumpkin pie can include cream. There was an article in The New York Times this week about traveling and arriving exhausted and still having to cook, about adjusting to individuals’ preferences and dietary needs, and about having to eat multiple Thanksgiving feasts with each partner’s family. (Gary and I did that until we moved to Oregon.) Apparently other women have found the same silver lining. Less work, less stress when it’s just the two of you. Articles have acknowledged that holiday expectations are especially hard on women, and offered all sorts of suggestions about easing into a lockdown Thanksgiving: cook everything but in smaller amounts for two, cook the one thing you like best, cook nothing and order take-out, or reheat something frozen or just drink.
My solution was different. I am cooking a complete meal in easy stages. One dish a day. I made the wild rice and mushroom casserole a few days ago and we’ve eaten half of it. The rest is for tomorrow. I made twice-baked potatoes with cheese, and we’ve sampled that too. Yesterday I made my regular vegetarian herbed dressing using my own sourdough bread cubes (thank you again, Mary Jo and Dale), celery, onion, parsley, herbs from the garden, homemade stock, and cranberries. We had some of that for dinner last night. I might bake two loaves of cranberry bread this afternoon, but at least the pumpkin pie. (The Delicata squash I am using for the filling was roasted and puréed earlier too.) The trick will be keeping Gary out of the pie—pumpkin pie is the holiday dish he’s most fond of.
Stretching out the Thanksgiving feast preparation has been relaxing. I enjoy cooking, but it’s a lot of work for just one meal. We have enjoyed the Startbefores even more than the Leftovers in past years. It means that tomorrow I will make the apple salad with dates and walnuts first thing in the morning and we’ll have some for breakfast, and later roast Brussels sprouts for the big meal. I only have to reheat everything else.
The next holiday is Hanukah beginning 10 December, and we will burn candles. I was afraid I’d given away all the apricot jam, but after my initial panic, I found there is still one jar for the rugelach.
Then Christmas. The cards are more than half-addressed. I will miss not having Prissy’s wreath on the door, but we have lights and the just-for-show fake tree can go up soon after Thanksgiving. We are not buying a cut tree for the first year ever. (Even during the Big Mess when Gary and I, our two preschool children, and six dogs camped in 500 square feet for nine months including Christmas, we put up a tree.) My collection of clippy glass birds will stay in their boxes. The Swanson-Vance flying animals will hang on the pre-lit white paper “birch” tree from Costco. Just this once.
Another of Gary’s favorites is a Dundee cake, traditional for Boxing Day. My dried fruits—three kinds of raisins, pineapple, mango, and cherries—are soaking in rum as I type this. It only needs freshly grated lemon and orange peel. (I fear it will not be as good as last year when I used Scotch and home-candied orange rind.) There will be no one here to share that rich cake, so I plan to make us a six-inch round, which is still too much for two people.
In recent years our sons and their families have come for Twelfth Night in January. That’s not happening this season either, at least not as a physical get-together.
We are planning Jitsi or Zoom group meetings with family. Gary and I might watch Home for the Holidays, and certainly we will watch When Harry Met Sally. We will not stay up till midnight on New Years Eve—we almost never do. We will manage fine because we have remembered to tell people we love them. They might not be in the room, but there is room in our hearts,
PREPARATION
The rain is finally here, and the tide sweeps up over sand that has been dry for months. The last time we drove over the coast range, vine maples were turning scarlet and purple.
It is only October for one more day and I have been receiving weekday recommendations for holiday preparations from Apartment Therapy. I do not live in an apartment, and the therapy offered is useful to me mostly for the photographs. (I am one of those people who almost never reads magazines, not even the captions. I only admire the photographs. Now, between Pinterest and the library, I don’t buy magazines. It is a financial savings like quitting smoking, except I never smoked.)
The weekday emails have advised me to make a gift-giving list, purchase just one holiday gift, organize my holiday card strategy. Mostly I have found myself one step ahead in planning and preparation. Nevertheless, I enjoy the reminders. My favorite so far is “Do an act of kindness on Day 4. I sent a card to someone who was recently unkind to me. This was intended both as kindness and as a way of reconnecting with a person I care about.
DAY 8:
Book an appointment or service you need for the holidays.
Think about that thing you always put off or forget until late in the season, when all the good appointment times are taken or—gasp!—your favorite provider is all booked up through New Year’s Day. Today, call them up or fire up the app and make the appointment.
Nothing came immediately to mind.
If nothing immediately comes to mind, here are some services that might jog your memory. If you read something and your gut screams out, “oh RIGHT,” that might be the task for you today.
- haircuts or color
- eyebrow grooming
- manicures and pedicures
- spray tan
- facial and spa services
The list goes on quite a bit further, including pet care, house cleaning, travel, and professional photographs. But I got stuck on the first five that concern personal grooming.
I have not had my hair cut since the mid-60s. The last time I put color on my hair was a few years ago when I was playing with purple. Mostly I was fortunate in my eyebrows, which used to be quite dark and well-shaped. They are now going gray, and I cannot be bothered. I have never had a manicure or pedicure and every time I consider the process, I remember that I really do not enjoy strangers touching my body in an intimate way, and I think about nail fungus (which I dod not have and do not want). Spray tan reminds me of the person in the White House, so that’s out. Facial and spa? My skin might thank me, but it seems a waste of money.
The man whose admiration I care about, the only man I feel any need to impress, is easily impressed. Frankly, he is the only man I am interested in. Lucky, yes.
[Next month, though I have not even used mascara or lip gloss in a while, this may change. Hanging around with teenagers tends to make me feel dowdy. A little color?]
Thinking over all of this had me reviewing what my holiday preparation actually look like. I buy gifts all year long, I plan gift wrapping, which is the most onerous task of the holidays. We mail only a few gifts. I design cards (though so few people send them anymore that some of the fun is lost). I bake and decorate the house with lights and ornaments and nutcrackers.
Teaching is not part of my holiday preparation, but my part-time job teaching college writing begins next month. Three weeks sandwiched between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and right on top of Hanukkah. (It will be a busy time because I have 33 students on my role and I am scheduled to use a math teacher’s room. At least the desks are flat, though when I went in for a peak I could not find 33 chairs.)
Years ago, we hosted a holiday party on a mid-December Sunday. It was an Open House in the afternoon, usually 2 to 4 so that it was clearly not lunch. We furiously cleaned before the party. I came home after work each day and worked my way down the refreshments list, baking and freezing.
We did not serve alcohol, and that might be the secret to having a pleasant time. I made mushroom pastries and curried filo triangles, fancy cakes with nuts and fruit, a Java cake, cookies, and a dip made with homemade chili relleno and a pound or more of grated cheddar that always disappeared moments after I put it on the serving table. It was not lunch, but people could get a meal out of it.
We invited family, the neighbors and everyone we worked with. Sometimes we had over forty people in the house at once. People stood around and talked and we played the Muppets’ Christmas album or The Anonymous Four. Though I am uncomfortable in social situations, it was not a long party, and a lovely time. Post party clean-up took only a little over and hour. By dinner time the house looked neat and festive and we generally had enough leftovers that I did not have to cook for a couple of days.
[Our first Saluki, during her first Christmas party, peed in the middle of our bed in front of Ted Tallman, who asked, “Does she do that often?” No, never before or since. She disapproved of the crowd.]
One year, my brother and mother (who lived nearby) gave their excuses, did not attend, and we stopped after that. It seemed a lot of trouble with so much preparation and almost no one reciprocated.
It’s been a long time, but I think about those parties still. I miss the preparations! I miss the people!
Maybe it is time to reestablish that tradition. Either that or find a hotel and fly away.
Those parties demanded a lot of planning and cleaning and baking, but I love to bake, and the result was smiling with friends and a week before Christmas, our home was beautiful.
This morning we heard rain and tomorrow is the start of National Novel Writing Month. I will be writing each day, and for the month, if there are any post, they will likely be brief.
IMPERFECT PATIENCE 