The Holiday Whoop-de-doo

It's that time of year again, when the Costco lot overflows and I park so far away that my watch asks me if we are taking an outdoor walk before I get to the sliding front doors. That time when the New York Times offers op ed pieces entitled "How to Navigate Awkward Holiday Parties" and my compulsion to decorate the house takes precedence over work-related to do's.

At Thanksgiving we had the best possible large-family holiday meal. Fifty of us were comfortable seated in Rob's cousin's beautiful remodeled barn, and the long wall was lined with crockpots on table after table, all conveniently plugged into a row of power strips. (It may have been a Guiness-record number of crock pots!) The food was delicious, and my mother-in-law, Connie, went above and beyond to ensure that we celiac troublemakers had enough menu options. We even had our own mini-crock filled with GF stuffing, and a well-labeled (non-celiacs stay back!) GF, DF apple pie.

Having enjoyed the hustle and bustle of connecting and catching up with a myriad of uncles, cousins, aunts and youngsters, our small party of five now looks forward to a simple Christmas in front of the fire, with Aden's favorite GF/DF sweet potatoes (with marshmallows), our traditional candy apples, and cats on laps during a blissful day of doing nothing.

We've reached the age where only a few presents collect under the tree. (If one present is a phone, the other two will be socks and a Starbucks gift card!) The chatter of multiple conversations will be replaced by hymns and carols on Spotify, and instead of leftovers we will eat our usual Christmas dinner of potstickers and egg rolls.  

Traditions morph and children grow into adults and yet the joy of the season can continue unvarnished - especially if one ignores all news and sets up healthy boundaries on early departure times from aforementioned holiday parties. Cards may be sent into the New Year, friends may visit an unclean house, and the 100-day cough may still linger, but by golly this could be the best holiday ever!

Re-post of Thanks and Gratitude

 “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” G.K. Chesterton 

I just read through Thanksgiving posts from the past ten years, warming my innards with recollections and favorite quotes, like this one from Chesterton. For our 2021 Thanksgiving we have two returning college students to cover the couches with tired bodies, long legs hanging over the edges as mom and two cats survey in bemused pride, looking for a place to snuggle in. Food items fly off the shelves in the pantry and fridge and the welcome voices of old friends echo from the basement and through the house. Being together and healthy meets my gold standard for happiness, and there's much to be grateful for this year, though the pandemic persists and mask mandates returned to our county today.

The post below comes from 2011 when our college junior was in fourth grade and our college freshman only in second. Daniel wasn't yet in elementary school and now he's studying for his driver's permit test. The passage of years sweeps me off my feet, but the guardrails of thanks and gratitude put me right-side-up again. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

***

Thanksgiving's here again, carrying its yearly reminder to be grateful for health, family, friends, and well-being. Each year I attempt to instill gratitude in my children, frantically wedging a doorstop of thankfulness in the revolving door of "but he got more!" and "when do I get one?" and "he looked at my cereal box!"  We have no crops other than cereal but there are other bounties to count and cherish, and I have recently found that opening myself to a sense of awe, wonder and mystery helps me to see our blessings in a whole new light. 

I've accumulated a short list of people and events that generated a sense of wonder in the past weeks: first, I am in awe at the patience of my husband with the children. On Saturday he played eight games of Candyland with the youngest in conjunction with a simultaneous game of Settlers with the oldest, followed by a series of football routes in the backyard with our older son. His focus on the kids and his ability to stay cool amidst temper tantrums, petty injuries and constant requests for his time amaze me. Yesterday he kept me from missing my one day of work per week as a teacher at the Science Museum as he worked from home in the afternoon to watch our sick child. 

My jaw hung open in wonder as my oldest child performed her solo in the fourth grade musical last week. Alone on stage with the plain curtain for backdrop, she sang the first eight measures with the microphone off, her voice all but muted in the large gym. The music teacher gestured for the music to stop, the microphone experts to correct the problem, and for my daughter to pause - all in front of a silent audience of more than two hundred parents, friends and relatives. Problem fixed, music re-started, she began again, her lone voice a bit tremulous but on key and supported by perfectly rehearsed gestures and inflections. I was amazed by her self-possession. 

I marvel at deep friendships and the commitment shown by those who constantly make me a priority in their lives despite pressures and problems of their own. I wonder at the perseverance of friends and loved ones who are ill, whose grace and humor and love for their own families keeps them going past the point of endurance. I wonder at the full moon, clean water, snow on the mountains and the sound of the choir in our new church building. Any of these can move me to tears with the sweet pleasure / pain of recognition that a golden moment must be fleeting. All the more to be grateful for sharing, touching, hearing and seeing those amazing parts of our lives that would be invisible except for wonder. Wishing everyone a happy and wonder-full Thanksgiving.

Holiday Humor

It's a good thing we put our Thanksgiving turkey in an oven bag, because the temperature in the oven refused to go over 275 degrees F. Aden and I kept peering at the display and I wrung my hands frequently as persistent clicks by the oven refused to signify those desperately-needed five-degree jumps. "Don't worry," she said. "The turkey must just be blocking the heat from the thermometer." I prayed she was right; the stuffing and mashed potatoes were done, the boys were starving, and all we needed was the turkey and the gravy.

At the two-and-a-half hour mark, we finally opened the oven door to a decidedly temperate oven. No blast of heat fogged my glasses, and when I looked at the meat thermometer it was barely 150. My cries of despair (and the smell of the turkey) got Rob off the coach and he came to inspect the situation. He switched the oven from convection to conventional, went to the fuse box to play with switches, and then peered intently within. "The bottom element is broken," he finally said. "Did you know about that?"

"No!" I shouted as I tore hair from my head. "We baked three desserts yesterday without a problem, I don't know what happened."  At a loss for alternatives, we placed the bird back in the oven and I watched over it for another two hours as it slowly cooked at 275 degrees.  Thanks to the oven bag, we finally got the inner temp up to 170 on the meat thermometer and proceeded to tear the bird apart in a graceless display of unskilled carving. The restless natives devoured Thanksgiving dinner approximately three hours later than I had planned. 

The following day we bought our big Christmas tree. I already have two artificial trees up and lit, desiring more light for the dark days of Covid winter. The Douglas fir is a lovely eight feet high, and I purchased new white lights to illuminate it. "Trying something new," I told Rob when he raised his eyebrows at the price of the LED strings. "I need more light this year."

Aden helped me string the lights on our tree; we had two 58-foot strands so we managed to place a high density of bulbs on every bough. When we plugged turned the lights on for the big reveal, the resulting pale blue glow nearly blinded us.  Dismayed but undeterred, we decorated the rest of the branches with baubles and memorabilia, none of which you can actually see when the lights are on. I took Rob out across the street and we discovered the tree shone brightly through our shuttered front window, illuminating the entire living room and the front yard.

A Griswold start, then, to our holidays, but it's certainly a time for light and laughter. Zoom calls with families, replete with family jokes, contributed to the humor and to the surreal feeling of the end of 2020. 

Thanksgiving Prayers

Aden's Covid test came back negative yesterday so she will come home this afternoon to celebrate Thanksgiving. In a few minutes I will attempt to thaw my small turkey in solidarity with home chefs across the country. We won't be seeing anyone outside of our immediate family unit, so Zoom calls and cooking rituals will have to take the place of in-person connection.

Our family will change our usual dinnertime grace at the Thanksgiving meal to include the following two prayers. My mother sent uplifting verses from Emerson, which I've included first. The second prayer was recommended by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times. The "Cadet Prayer" is bracing, fortifying. It raises our awareness and appreciation of the people around the country who are choosing the "harder right instead of the easier wrong." Both leave me feeling grateful for first responders, all healthcare workers, election officials who did their job and stood up to power, and for each of you.

Thanksgiving Prayer

For each new morning with its light,

For rest and shelter of the night,

For health and food, for love and friends,

For everything Thy goodness sends.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

West Point Cadet Prayer

O God, our Father, Thou Searcher of Human hearts, help us to draw near to Thee in sincerity and truth. May our religion be filled with gladness and may our worship of Thee be natural.

Strengthen and increase our admiration for honest dealing and clean thinking, and suffer not our hatred of hypocrisy and pretence ever to diminish. Encourage us in our endeavor to live above the common level of life. Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be content with a half truth when the whole can be won.

Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when truth and right are in jeopardy.

Guard us against flippancy and irreverance in the sacred things of life. Grant us new ties of friendship and new opportunities of service. Kindle our hearts in fellowship with those of a cheerful countenance, and soften our hearts with sympathy for those who sorrow and suffer.

Help us to maintain the honor of the Corps untarnished and unsullied and to show forth in our lives the ideals of West Point in doing our duty to Thee and to our Country.

All of which we ask in the name of the Great Friend and Master of all.

Amen.

West Point Cadet Prayer

Gratitude Vs. Despair

 "As we approach the holidays dominated by losses, uncertainty, and human depravity, we can still be open, in a gentle way, to noticing what is good in our lives, who or what is holding us, a child's smile, a poem, someone's love, perhaps spirit." - Thandiwe Dee Watts-Jones for CNN

"And when the weight of the suffering in the world feels like too heavy a burden -- this world that's so impossibly beautiful and unbelievably sad -- I remember the advice of Edmond Burke. 'Never despair,' he said. 'But if you do, work on in despair.'" - Sy Safransky in a November letter to subscribers of The Sun

Every night, before reading soothing fiction on my Kindle, I write at least five items in my gratitude journal.  The number five has some significance, a high enough number to force my brain to recognize good fortune, perhaps.  And it works, generally, inducing a surprising sense of well-being before I lose myself in fiction and then dreams. Themes emerge and reappear over the years, gratitude for friends and family, health, children's accomplishments and resulting growth and self-confidence, my husband's equanimity and hard work.  I know that I am extremely fortunate, but at times (like the present) my personal stability does not outweigh the cares of my community and country.

The weight of suffering in our poor, mishandled world threatens to sink all those who are paying attention. Health care workers barely have time to breathe or eat, let alone plan a Thanksgiving meal and Zoom with family. Corrupt politicians have lied and misled millions of people into believing an alternate reality, one where the virus doesn't even exist. Perhaps because of these lies, this inability to live in truth, the coronavirus map gets darker by the day as public health officials invent new shades of red or purple to convey the seriousness of the pandemic.

As Sy Safransky noted in his letter to subscribers of The Sun, this world is both "impossibly beautiful and unbelievably sad." This Thanksgiving week as we muster brave smiles for our families, count our individual blessings, and pray for those who need divine assistance, we inhabit both sides - the beautiful and sad - simultaneously. My emotions swoop and dive, my determination to make the holiday special for the children buoys me for a morning of frantic to-do's before I crash and nap to escape the despair that comes on suddenly, like a food coma. 

It's not really gratitude vs. despair, not "either/or" but rather "both/and." The emotions run on different tracks at the same time, and I have a foot on each train (a difficult feat for someone lacking in flexibility and coordination).  On the gratitude side, I give thanks for every one of you and know you are all so vital in this complicated web, this world that is struggling. We must keep going, working on through despair, taking time for gratitude when we can and believing we can somehow maintain our balance through 2020 and get to the other side.

Wonder and Gratitude

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” G.K. Chesterton

Thanksgiving comes again this week, carrying its yearly reminder to be grateful for health, family, friends, and well-being. Each year I attempt to instill gratitude in my children, frantically wedging a doorstop of thankfulness in the revolving door of "but he got more!" and "when do I get one?" and "he looked at my cereal box!" The annual prayer of thanksgiving for a completed harvest resonates today even though many of us are far from crops or food animals. We have other bounties to count and cherish, and I have recently found that opening myself to a sense of awe, wonder and mystery helps me to see my blessings in a whole new light. I've accumulated a short list of people and events that generated a sense of wonder in the past weeks:

I am in awe at the patience of my husband with the children. On Saturday he played eight games of Candyland with the youngest in conjunction with a simultaneous game of Settlers with the oldest, followed by a series of football routes in the backyard with our older son. His focus on the kids and his ability to stay cool amidst temper tantrums, petty injuries and constant requests for his time just amaze me. Yesterday he kept me from missing my one day of work per week as a teacher at the Science Museum as he worked from home in the afternoon to watch our sick child. Wonder at his gifts multiplies my sense of thankfulness for his presence in our lives.

My jaw hung open in wonder as my oldest child performed her solo in the fourth grade musical last week. Alone on stage with the plain curtain for backdrop, she sang the first eight measures with the microphone off, her voice all but muted in the large gym. The music teacher gestured for the music to stop, the microphone experts to correct the problem, and for my daughter to pause - all in front of a silent audience of more than two hundred parents, friends and relatives. Problem fixed, music re-started, she began again, her lone voice a bit tremulous but on key and supported by perfectly rehearsed gestures and inflections. I can only wonder at her self-possession and inner steel.

I wonder at deep friendships and the commitment shown by those who constantly make me a priority in their lives despite pressures and problems of their own. I wonder at the perseverance of friends and loved ones who are ill, whose grace and humor and love for their own families keeps them going past the point of endurance. I wonder at the full moon, clean water,snow on the mountains and the sound of the choir in our new church building. Any of these can move me to tears with the sweet pleasure / pain of recognition that the moment is so fleeting. All the more to be grateful for sharing, touching, hearing and seeing those amazing parts of our lives that would be invisible except for wonder.

Wishing everyone a Happy and wonder-full Thanksgiving.