The joy of experiencing our first granddaughter's Christmas has enhanced our anticipation of this year's Christmas, to be sure. Certainly a time for New Traditions. Still, Giraffe, we found ourselves overwhelmed by all the hustle and bustle of Life In General as well as of The Holidays, and suddenly we found ourselves embarking on our journey to our daughter's and son-in-law's and 7-month-old first grandchild's house (instead of "To Grandmother's house we go!", Grandma & Grandpa went to grandbaby's house!) without having engaged in a single long-time tradition of our own. We didn't send out a single Christmas card, we didn't decorate house or yard, we didn't bake and deliver baked goods . . . nothing. Our Christmas Spirit was not diminished in the least, but we did miss the old traditions.
Of course, Christmas is more than the outer trappings. We have basked in our daughter's and son-in-law's celebration of their little family's first Christmas with their first child. Somehow the mix of circumstances comingling to produce this year's Christmas season made it all the more fitting that one long-time tradition we engaged in today was watching the 1966 animated "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". Wherein the Grinch, while he may not have learned the religious origin of Christmas, learned the True Meaning of Christmas when:
[Christmas] *came*! Somehow or other, it came just the same. ... He puzzled and puzzed 'til his puzzler was sore. And then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. What happened then? Well in Whoville they say that the Grinch's small heart grew THREE sizes that day. The true meaning of Christmas came through, and the Grinch found the strength of *ten* Grinches, plus two! . . . Welcome Christmas, bring your cheer. Cheer to all Whos both far and near. Christmas Day is in our grasp as long as we have hands to clasp. Christmas Day will always be, just as long as we have we. Welcome Christmas while we stand heart to heart and hand to hand.
Meanwhile, as we watched this special program, we sat near the French doors with windows looking out to their back yard, with dense forest stretching beyond view. This made me think wistfully of a wouldn't-it-be-nice tradtion:
Last year I discovered Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilt books. I came in on the series well into it when I checked out from the library the audiobook of one titled The Christmas Quilt. The story was in large part flashbacks to the chief character Sylvia's youth and early adult-hood. One Christmas in this past, Sylvia, her sister, and her sister-in-law were alone in the huge Elm Creek manor house with their widowed father because all the men had enlisted to go fight in World War II. They tried to carry out as many of The Family's long-tme traditions as they could, including finding the perfect Christmas tree in the huge forest on their property. The ladies did indeed find the perfect tree, but it was most likely too big for them to cut down and transport back to the house, plus a nest visible high up made them fear some wildlife might still use the tree. The tree was visible from the house, so the ladies decided to decorate the tree in situ:
They went back to the house for the apples, popcorn garlands, and strings of cranberries and nuts, which they wrapped around the Frazier fir by tossing one end of the strings into the highest branches they could reach and unwinding as they walked around the tree. With bits of twine, they tied apples by their stems to the ends of branches, ... Sylvia sent Agnes back to the house for cookie cutters, which they used to carve stars and circles from packed snow, frosted shapes they arranged on the boughs like ornaments. . . .
Then on Christmas Day, after church and presents and reading aloud letters from the men away at war, Sylvia's father called her to the window to "look at this":
As she watched, she detected movement, and suddenly a doe and fawn emerged from the woods and carefully picked their way through the crust that had fored on top of the snow. They approached the Christmas tree, and the doe stretched out her head to nibble a popcorn garland. Her fawn cautiously bit into an apple. Sylvia's smile broadened as a flurry of motion heralded the arrival of a flock of chickadees. Soon other birds joined in the feast, and squirrels as well, busily harvesting the popcorn, fruits, and nuts from the Christmas tree.
Thus, a new tradition was born for that family that would continue across many generations.
(I am composing this on my new Toshiba Thrive tablet with wireless keyboard. Not exactly a new tradition, per se, but definitely something I'm trying to get used to. I bring this up mostly because of difficulty navigating through text w/o amouse to correct typos spotted lines ago and to highlight text to set off as quotes {couldn't get that to work!}, and so on, especially with directional keys occasionally just freezing up on me and I have yet to figure out what finally gets them working again when they do so! So as I'm composing, I am fervently hoping this post will look okay and be readable! Hoping you, my dear Giraffe, and the rest of our readers, will bear with me in this Transition to New Technology!)
I recall that last year, when I read that, I longed to live somewhere that we could institute just such a tradition. But no forests in our back yard! Today, however, I suddenly recalled when I came here to help out the new parents when their first child, our first grandchild, was born: the first morning I was here, having let the parents and newborn sleep in, I moved a chair by the French doors so I could read in the sunlight & not turn on lights in the living room, set the book on the chair and went to the kitchen to get my tea. When I returned to the chair---I froze in place, transfixed by the sight of two deer nibbling on vegetation at the edge of the woods, nearly into the grass of their backyard! I stood still for fear of movement spooking them and watched until they ambled away into the woods. Now that I remember the tradition in The Christmas Quilt, I wonder if our granddaughter might come to have a similar Christmas Tradition as she grows up.
Whatever anyone else's Christmas Traditions are, old and new, ---and to me the sentiment includes whatever holidays & accompanying traditions anyone observes this time of year, whether Christmas or Hannukah or Solstice or Kwanzaa, or any other Observance that I'm not aware of--- I hope that All experience Peace and Joy today.
Meanwhile, as we watched this special program, we sat near the French doors with windows looking out to their back yard, with dense forest stretching beyond view. This made me think wistfully of a wouldn't-it-be-nice tradtion:
Last year I discovered Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilt books. I came in on the series well into it when I checked out from the library the audiobook of one titled The Christmas Quilt. The story was in large part flashbacks to the chief character Sylvia's youth and early adult-hood. One Christmas in this past, Sylvia, her sister, and her sister-in-law were alone in the huge Elm Creek manor house with their widowed father because all the men had enlisted to go fight in World War II. They tried to carry out as many of The Family's long-tme traditions as they could, including finding the perfect Christmas tree in the huge forest on their property. The ladies did indeed find the perfect tree, but it was most likely too big for them to cut down and transport back to the house, plus a nest visible high up made them fear some wildlife might still use the tree. The tree was visible from the house, so the ladies decided to decorate the tree in situ:
They went back to the house for the apples, popcorn garlands, and strings of cranberries and nuts, which they wrapped around the Frazier fir by tossing one end of the strings into the highest branches they could reach and unwinding as they walked around the tree. With bits of twine, they tied apples by their stems to the ends of branches, ... Sylvia sent Agnes back to the house for cookie cutters, which they used to carve stars and circles from packed snow, frosted shapes they arranged on the boughs like ornaments. . . .
Then on Christmas Day, after church and presents and reading aloud letters from the men away at war, Sylvia's father called her to the window to "look at this":
As she watched, she detected movement, and suddenly a doe and fawn emerged from the woods and carefully picked their way through the crust that had fored on top of the snow. They approached the Christmas tree, and the doe stretched out her head to nibble a popcorn garland. Her fawn cautiously bit into an apple. Sylvia's smile broadened as a flurry of motion heralded the arrival of a flock of chickadees. Soon other birds joined in the feast, and squirrels as well, busily harvesting the popcorn, fruits, and nuts from the Christmas tree.
Thus, a new tradition was born for that family that would continue across many generations.
(I am composing this on my new Toshiba Thrive tablet with wireless keyboard. Not exactly a new tradition, per se, but definitely something I'm trying to get used to. I bring this up mostly because of difficulty navigating through text w/o amouse to correct typos spotted lines ago and to highlight text to set off as quotes {couldn't get that to work!}, and so on, especially with directional keys occasionally just freezing up on me and I have yet to figure out what finally gets them working again when they do so! So as I'm composing, I am fervently hoping this post will look okay and be readable! Hoping you, my dear Giraffe, and the rest of our readers, will bear with me in this Transition to New Technology!)
I recall that last year, when I read that, I longed to live somewhere that we could institute just such a tradition. But no forests in our back yard! Today, however, I suddenly recalled when I came here to help out the new parents when their first child, our first grandchild, was born: the first morning I was here, having let the parents and newborn sleep in, I moved a chair by the French doors so I could read in the sunlight & not turn on lights in the living room, set the book on the chair and went to the kitchen to get my tea. When I returned to the chair---I froze in place, transfixed by the sight of two deer nibbling on vegetation at the edge of the woods, nearly into the grass of their backyard! I stood still for fear of movement spooking them and watched until they ambled away into the woods. Now that I remember the tradition in The Christmas Quilt, I wonder if our granddaughter might come to have a similar Christmas Tradition as she grows up.
Whatever anyone else's Christmas Traditions are, old and new, ---and to me the sentiment includes whatever holidays & accompanying traditions anyone observes this time of year, whether Christmas or Hannukah or Solstice or Kwanzaa, or any other Observance that I'm not aware of--- I hope that All experience Peace and Joy today.
