Tag Archives: holidays

Awkward holiday moment No. 256

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kens

Photo by MZ

What does one say when the family unit is gathered around the Christmas tree, after having finished a meal, and the matriarch unexpectedly hauls out a circa-1975 Barbie doll trunk and opens it?

Perhaps one keeps quiet for a moment as memories flood the brain. Not recollections of childhood innocence, but those of a more devious time in the teen years, when cynicism, dark humor and expansion of one’s knowledge base beyond the home’s borders prompted some tomfoolery.

Maybe the matriarch recently discovered the trunk, roused it from its dark repose in the closet, and placed it near the wrapped gifts, envisioning squeals of delight upon its discovery.

So when the Pandora’s Box is unhinged and the  ”La Cage Aux Folles” tableaux contained within bursts forth in all its pink, flaming glory, how should one react? Play dumb? Blame it on the resident teenager who last played with the dolls? What to say about Ken slathered in lipstick and eyeshadow? Forced into flowered bras and tank tops stuffed to create the feminine form? Should you, like the dolls, adopt a don’t-ask, don’t tell policy?

How does one maintain a poker face when the dolls are plucked from their “Brokeback Mountain” moment to be turned, poked and sniffed like produce for inspection? How does one refrain from bursting out in laughter when the general commentary of “Well, you really had some fun with these, didn’t you?” hangs in the air like clouds of expelled cigarette smoke?

Perhaps there is a moment when the truth is evident, that they are not what they appear to be, that perhaps saving tricked-out dolls for the grandchildren was not such a wise plan.

But the announcement of coffee and pie trumps this moment and it passes into oblivion.The cross-dressing, pre-op transsexual Kens are sent  back to their Castro District. The pink trunk is thrust toward its rightful owner with the order that it find a new home.

What’s in your closet?

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'I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together'

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happy

Photo by MZ

I’m not sure what Christmas means to me anymore.
To my children it’s a wonderful time of year filled with wishes and cookies and Santa Claus and sparkly things.
To me, it’s a Dickensian mix of shadows cloaked in chains, bacchanalia, sprigs of holly and Tiny Tim’s enduring hope. Christmas music, particularly Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker Suite” and Vince Guaraldi’s  “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” wet my eyes and stir memories of childhood innocence.

In my mind’s eye, Christmas is a room aglow with flickering candles, a crackling log burning in the fireplace and a sparkling tree. It’s waking up to sunlight bouncing off a fresh layer of snow.
In reality, it’s a time when triggers of past hurts and traumas lay ahead of me like a minefield. Tonight, as my family baked cookies and wrapped gifts, I recalled my own family’s Christmas Eve tradition: Midnight Mass. After a heavy meal, gift opening and merry-making brought about largely by excessive alcohol intake, we’d while away the hours until it was time to slip on coats, step into boots and stumble in the station wagon for a quick, dicey ride to St. Something or Other. You had to stay awake for Midnight Mass but there was no rule about staying sober. Just ask the fence.
And thats where the happy memories fade and shape-shift into darker times. That’s where the shadows live.

I don’t want to give up Christmas. My inner world has shifted away from these early constructs. But I need to live in the outer world, too. I just need to make peace with those ghosts of the past.
In spite of my efforts to simplify the present, to make the holiday something meaningful on my terms, much of it really is beyond my control. Whether or not I embrace the religious aspect of the day, it’s a cultural institution and a seasonal rite.

With that in mind, to all of my wonderful blog friends, thank you for this community.

Thank you for making me laugh and making me cry.
Thank you for sharing a slice of your life with me. Thank you for taking an interest in my world.

Some of you are local and maybe I’ve met you a time or two or we’ve become friends.
Some of you are far away and I hope to someday meet you in real life.
Some of you have had a tough year. I wish you well in 2010 and will continue to follow along on your journey.
Some of you lead lives I’ll never know but am fascinated to observe from afar.
Some of you I’ve followed from the beginning. Some of you I’ve just discovered.
No matter what we celebrate or how we choose to do it, we have something in common.
I am he as you are he and you are me and we are all together ….(Lennon and McCartney)

Jolly ChristmaKwanzaHanukkah!

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Weather inside is frightful

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postholiday

By Bearn via Creative Commons

It is almost impossible to fathom how I earned that little black and white NaBloPoMo badge down on the right sidebar of this blog. That widget means I posted every day for a month in November 2008. Thirty posts in 30 days. I posted seven times this November.

Does it matter? My philosophy is post as often as you have something quality to share. That is now at odds with the conventional wisdom that in order for a blog to matter it must have traffic and be findable by search engines. My blog is now in competition with other things in my life. Where it once filled a void, it’s now moved near the bottom of my to-do list.

I’ve taken on quite a bit in the last few months. I’ve committed to things that are for the greater good. Except sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like I’m being crushed under the weight of responsibility and promises and commitments. I am determined to find a way to make it all work. There are other unfathomables right now:

I heard on the radio today callers bragging how they maybe worked three hours on Cyber Monday, devoting the rest of the paid work day to Christmas shopping online or gabbing on social media sites. I had a hard time swallowing this information given the number of people out of work right now, the number of people just in the last few weeks who’ve either lost medical coverage, had one of their utilities shut off or were forced to leave family and friends for a less-than-stellar job out of the state.

In some ways, the very idea of a day set aside for the pursuit of spending money is almost beyond my grasp. This will be our second Christmas under very tight budgetary constraints. Last year we were caught off guard and I was devastated. This year, I know how it will be and almost welcome it as an opportunity to put the holidays in proper perspective. I long for a simple, meaningful holiday that reflects the true nature of the season.

On the subject of jobs and tight budgets, we had a strange spectacle in our town that barely registered on most people’s radar screens but for those in the know, it was a seismic jolt. It’s unfathomable to me how two people can blow into our town  and convince another group of people, many of whom were the best and brightest in their field, to join what sounded like a fool’s errand.

Over the last few months I listened as former colleagues and friends wrestled with their decision to jump on board or walk away from this crazy scheme. Part of me — my heart, my pride — was sad and angry that I was not among those hand-picked to be a part of this wild idea. Another part — my gut — told me that to listen to these promises, to throw caution out the window was something I’d walked away from three years ago. I would not, could not go back to what I suspected would be more of the same.

In the end, those of us who stood back with our doubts and concerns watched the worst-case scenario play out. We felt for those who ultimately were duped or blinded by a crazy hope and desire to get back that which is lost. It’s one thing to hear the king is dead. It’s another to touch his rotting corpse.

While I survived the first round of the holiday season, I’m not sure I came out in one piece. The amount of anxiety that preceded this week was self-imposed for the most part in preparation for what I imagined to be a very stressful few days. I know I overindulged in food and drink in an effort to keep my mouth occupied and out of trouble and my vision blurred enough to avoid reality.

But damn you, Facebook, and your photo tagging that blasts though the fog of denial and thrusts the truth in my face.

Camping and corn dogs and Ferris wheels. Oh, my!

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urbancamp

Urban camp out No. 1

It’s Labor Day weekend. What are you doing on the Internet? Get outside and take a walk, ride your bike, surf, skate, swim, or go read a book. Do all of them at the same time if you have that kind of talent. If your community is like mine, there are more festivals than time to attend them all. Pick one.

Get up and walk away from the computer. Unless, of course, you are at work. That might create a problem. Although when I was working, I did see people do that. Just get up and walk out as if they were protected by a union or something. Later they returned smelling funny.  Good times.

Knowing that next week — with its big yellow school buses belching exhaust,  its alarms bleating before dawn, and the let’s-get-back-to-being-responsible thing will be in full force — we decided that this weekend would be for old-fashioned fun. Let’s call it a throwback holiday weekend.

Our itinerary:

* The second urban camp out of the summer, featuring our trusty tent, our backyard patio and our little fire pit. Thankfully most of the neighbors are on vacation and the road crews are on break, so the nights are quiet. Only the crickets, lonely dogs and amorous cats will break the silence. And a bonus: full moon!

campout

* A trip to the Michigan State Fair. It’s not my favorite place. I don’t like seeing cows with Kroger $3,000 stamped on their sides. I mean, could you put a finer point on it? I don’t like the pushing and shoving of the sweaty masses devouring fistfuls of elephant ears and corn dogs. But this year might be the last for the venerable festival honoring all things agricultural. We are going for Girl from the East, who is fascinated with fairs and cows and pigs and Ferris wheels. And (gag) she’ll probably want to eat a corn dog. Everyone has to do that at least once in life.

:en:Singapore Flyer taken from :en:East Coast ...

* I’m participating in my second half-day retreat of silent meditation. I look at it as both a personal challenge and a way to refresh my psyche for the challenges ahead. Yeah, I think a day of silence and a trip around the Ferris wheel ought to do it for me.

breakfastouts

Breakfast outside is the best, don't you think?

So, join me in celebrating the closing of summer. Embrace the simpler things for a day or two. See you on the other side.Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

新年快樂 Xin nian kuai le

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That’s Happy New Year in Mandarin.
Monday is the beginning of a new lunar year on the Chinese calendar.
Chinese New Year is to the Chinese what Christmas is to Westerners. It is a big holiday that stretches over two weeks. It involves preparation, decorating, visiting with friends and family, giving gifts, and making and eating large quantities of food.
As a dual-culture household we are learning, in baby steps, how to incorporate some aspects of Chinese culture into our lives.
This past weekend we attended two Chinese New Year celebrations. The first was more of a play date with the families in our Mandarin school. Our teacher, who is from Shanghai, China, directed us in serving some traditional dishes: dumplings and noodles with fresh oranges for dessert. She then gave all her young students a small gift.
She also gave us some basic guidelines in superstitions surrounding the holidays:
She said it’s important to thoroughly clean your home for the New Year. It’s bad luck to get your hair cut during this holiday. But eating to your heart’s content is encouraged. So, a little work, some sacrifices and a big food reward in the end. Not too bad.

girls

Image blurred to protect identities

The second celebration was a huge banquet held by our local Families with Children from China chapter. While the event wouldn’t be viewed as traditional in the eyes of Chinese-born celebrants, it is tradition for our large group of families to gather annually and present a number of things that teach, remind and represent Chinese culture to our children.
Aside from a meal of Chinese food, our banquet featured a performance by Xiao Dong Wei; a puppet show that depicted the origins of the Chinese zodiac and the lunar new year celebration; and a dragon parade composed of many of the children in attendance.
Each year our Girl from the East finds more reasons to enjoy herself at this event. This year she summoned enough courage to join the marching children in the parade.

We still have so much to learn about our daughter’s culture, but we enjoy taking it in one step at a time, just as she is.

Happy Year of the Ox.

Girl from the East in toddler parade

Girl from the East in toddler parade

dragon

Third time's the charm

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122508

Christmas 2008

This is Girl from the East’s third Christmas. She’s been alive for four observances, but in 2005 she was only a few weeks old and living in a land where Christmas is not celebrated.

Sometimes I try to image what she looked like as a newborn. Sometimes I try to imagine what her first December must have been like, without a family cuddling and adoring her. I hope it wasn’t too cold where she lived. I hope she wasn’t too lonely. 

Thankfully we arrived that following autumn and carried her home in loving arms all the way to her first birthday cake. Soon after we scooped heaping spoonfuls of food into her mouth on her first Thanksgiving, and then set her in Santa’s lap for her first real Christmas.  I think most of what she experienced on her first wave of holidays with us was overwhelming and incomprehensible.

 

Christmas 2006

Christmas 2006

But it also awakened something inside. Slowly afterward she began to unfold like a spring bud responding to the sun’s warmth. By Valentine’s Day she was walking and babbling and becoming the roly-poly baby she was meant to be. Is there any better gift for her or for us?

 I have only one early picture of her, taken at two days old. The thumbnail-sized image is safely locked away and not for public consumption. It’s a grainy shot, taken quickly and from overhead, so that I barely recognize the girl she is today in that first image. 

Much has changed over the course of three Christmases. This year she understood the simplest concepts of Christmas: the celebration of a birth; the giving and receiving of gifts; the decorating of a tree; and the pleasure of sharing the experience of a nuclear and extended family.

This year was the real charm for her. While it was a simple holiday by past standards, her joy at the smallest touches: frosting on a cookie, silly ornaments on the tree, hugging her new Care Bear, made all the worries of the everyday world wash away.

Classic holiday moments

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dreidel

When Girl from the West was much younger, she questioned the many holiday cards, decorations and symbols around our home.

She asked about the Creche and I explained the Birth of Christ story. She asked about Santa Claus and I told her what I could recall of the history of St. Nicholas and the many variations of the story of gift giving and helping the less fortunate.

She asked about the candles and the decorated tree and we talked a little about Yule and the Winter Solstice. 

Then she picked up the Dreidel placed between a wooden reindeer and a merry snowman character. The item was given to her in a Sunday school class at our church. Ours is a non-denominational house of worship and often  includes special celebrations of other religious holidays. I thought the Dreidel was an interesting piece and added it to our holiday collection.

“Mom,” she asked, spinning the four sided wooden item in her hands. “If Christians celebrate Christmas, who celebrates Hanukkah?

“Is it the Hanukkanians?”

Such an innocent question. We still laugh about it today.

Apologies to all my Jewish readers and friends; Happy Hanukkah.

A study in procrastination

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I think it’s safe to assume that Martha Stewart won’t be visiting our household on her tour of amazing holiday homes. We here at Zombie central are a case study in procrastination.

Here is our tree, stalled in the decorating process due to a light string malfunction. The second light string fiasco in a 48-hour period. I can only imagine all the cluster-f’s back in the day when folks put lighted candles on their trees.

oops

While a lovely once-live specimen, our tree was a hard-fought purchase. All the local lots were down to their last Charlie Brown specials when the husband and Girl from the East went hunting yesterday. Apparently they had to drive some distance to find this beauty, which also cost a bit above the budget. (Sorry brother, it just might be the Clapper for you this year.)

Ah, well. It smells divinely piney and fresh and the boughs are so supple they can be bent and will not release a single needle. On the other hand … fresh branches mean pine sap. I’m starting to wonder from what lot this tree really came? Was it a residential lot? Is there a gap in someone’s landscaping?

Now that I am a day behind, it will take me — Ms. Obsessive-Compulsive — an additional evening to fix the messed-up lights as well as artfully arrange the ornamentations so that they are balanced, symmetrical, logical and have the proper feng-shui. Even Rain Man would approve. What? You think this is a joke?

Other last-minute panic inducers:

Getting the holiday cards mailed.

Shipping the out-of-town gifts. (Sorry MIL and FIL; I guess at this point it’s just tradition that we are late.)

Completing the other 50 percent — yes, you read that right — of  our shopping.

What we are doing right: We are on our second box of Trader Joe’s Candy Cane Joe-Joes cookies, our second package of candy canes, and have blown through a glass candy jar of Reese’s holiday miniatures.

The CD player has been rockin’ holiday tunes for weeks.

Priorities. That’s what it’s all about.