Holiday Traditions

Well, Christmas 2013 has come and gone, and thankfully all the commercials on my TV have subsided for at least the next 6 months.  We had a nice, quiet Christmas Day here on HeartSong Farm with a phone call from my oldest son, Matt, who moved to California this year, brunch at our local IHOP, and a matinee of “The Hobbit” in a neighboring town.  I spent Christmas Eve watching “Dr. Zhivago” on my DVD.  I wanted to see snow and romance and costumes!  Usually I watch “Steel Magnolias” at Christmas time, but this year I wanted something different, and I had picked well.  I bundled up in two fluffy afghans I had gotten as gifts on previous Christmases, with two of my kitty cats and some hot chocolate by the side, and enjoyed seeing the snow, hearing the sleigh bells and beautiful music, and admiring the period costumes and fine acting.

Before going to bed, I ventured out into the cold night for what has become an annual Tradition for me since I moved to this farm.  I took with me a tray full of treats for any wildlife that might pass by, and placed it under a live oak tree near one of the brier patches in my front yard.  I had loaded it down with carrots, raisins, marshmallows, soy nuts, whole grain bread chunks with peanut butter, suet, and hay.  I also added a handful of llama fiber in case a warmer nest was needed for the winter.  The night sky was clear and crisp overhead.  I breathed in the cold air and stood there gazing at the spectacular cosmos above me for a few minutes before heading back into the warmth of my log home and bed.  

2013 Nativity Tray

I began this Christmas Tradition after having read Sarah Ban Breathnach’s wonderful book, Simple Abundance, A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, throughout my first full year back to Texas in 1999.  Newly divorced, I was very much needing to do away with past Traditions and birth some new ones.  This quickly became a favorite with me, as did going to the movies on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.  This year, Ben and I decided to add going to IHOP (the only place open in our town) for brunch as part of our holiday celebration.  Letting someone else do the planning, cooking and cleaning up seemed like a wonderful thing to me and part of me wondered why I hadn't thought of this before!  Ben enjoyed biscuits and gravy with pork sausage links and scrambled eggs, while I opted for a loaded fajita omelet and 3 buttermilk pancakes with lots of butter and some warm maple syrup, along with glasses of ice-cold orange juice and delicious strong hot coffee just like I like it.  Needless to say, we will be doing this again from now on!

I no longer put up a tree for the holidays.  That is another of my new Traditions.  Oh, I still have most of the ornaments in boxes in the storage closet, along with beautiful stockings, a manger set, wreaths and bows, but decorating a tree and hanging stockings seemed pointless and a bit sad with just me here at first.  After all, my wedding anniversary was December 23rd and he had moved out the day after Christmas in 1997.  When Ben moved back in with me in 2001, being a fairly typical male of the species, he said it made no difference to him one way or the other.  For sure, there are plenty of decorated trees, houses and offices for us to enjoy around town without all the hassle associated with hauling ours out and then packing it all back up later, especially when those chores would have fallen most certainly to me to accomplish.  I can tell you that there is a certain amount of peace associated with this new Tradition.  So please don’t think me a “bah humbug!”  I am not a Scrooge by any means.  I just really need simplicity in my life along with serenity, joy and creativity.

With fondness I remember the Traditions my family had at Christmas time when I was growing up.  Things were so much simpler back then in the 50's and 60's, and that is certainly not a bad thing!  Some years we traveled 13 hours by car to my mother's parents house in Mississippi, some years we stayed at home.  

If at Mom and Pop's house, there was never a tree in the house until Christmas morning when we would awake to find one complete with decorations and lights and presents in the living room!  Magical!  I learned when I was grown that my grandfather would wait to buy a tree after he closed his downtown drugstore on Christmas Eve. He would pick from the leftover, marked down trees at the tree lot on the highway and prop it up on the far side of the house, unseen, when he got home.  Then once the house was all quiet, he and my grandmother would decorate it, place the gifts underneath, and fill the stockings we children had hung up on the mantle before going to bed.  In our stockings there would always be three of his favorites:  Wrigley's chewing gum, a roll of Lifesavers, and spicy ribbon candy.

If we were to spend Christmas at home in Houston, Daddy and I would visit the tree lot outside the A & P and pick out a tiny tree that would fit on top of the lamp table in the living room.  I remember that one year our tree cost a whole 75 cents!  Once home it would be decorated with a string of lights that was almost too heavy for it, cranberry and popcorn garlands, mostly homemade ornaments, and aluminum icicles that tended to end up in clumps if my little brother got hold of them before I did!  On Christmas morning we always had to wait until Daddy had gotten the furnace turned on and the house declared "warm enough", the coffee made, and my mother ensconced on the sofa wrapped in a blanket. Then the rush was on.....always to the stockings first, where we would find an orange, some nuts, some candy, and some times a small toy or book.  One year, I found a can of cat food in my stocking and was truly baffled until a tiny black kitten peaked out from under the quilt on my oldest brother's bed on the other side of the living room.  One of the best Christmases ever!!!

For some reason, one of my fondest memories of Christmas Traditions past was ironing the used wrapping paper to save for the next year.  I absolutely loved doing this, and each year it was just as much fun for me to open the box of those old wrapping papers and bows and try to remember what gift had previously been wrapped in which. When I had a family of my own, though, it was hard to keep up this treasured Tradition as my two little boys seemed to delight in ripping and tearing the paper off their gifts and tossing the bows on those Christmas mornings! Well, after all, it had been a simpler time in my childhood. 

Traditions are a wonderful thing, if you ask me.  Don't you agree?

So what are your favorite Holiday Traditions?

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  It makes me think of a warm kitchen full of wonderful fragrances wafting from the stove top and oven, and family and friends gathering around with smiles and hugs, sharing memories, making new ones.

Christmas is just too hectic for me and it tends to cause me to hyperventilate and have panic attacks just thinking about the possibility of going to a mall where everyone seems to be in a hurry, pulling out cash and credit cards,with many spending more than they can truly afford, and businesses flashing ads in front of us at every possible angle (beginning before Halloween nowadays!).  It seems more about materialism and competition, and less of joy and good cheer.  Stress is evident in so many faces and depression rears its ugly head.  In general, the Christmas Season seems to have lost a lot of its original meaning and therefore its appeal for me.

Thanksgiving, on the other hand, is about sharing and giving thanks for the many blessings in our lives.  We share this holiday with those who are special to us while eating too much, and, for many of us, traveling to visit with family members or friends we have not seen in awhile.  And for some, there is a wonderful tradition of helping bring food and fellowship to those less fortunate in our communities.

I must inject here that I subscribe to the spirit of the holiday as portrayed in the First Thanksgiving, with the welcoming Native Americans generously bringing food to share with the starving Pilgrims, but not at all to the pain the Native Americans ultimately suffered at the hands of the White Man.

Tradition for the Thanksgiving meal is part universal and part individual.  To most the turkey is the centerpiece, but there is controversy on whether or not to stuff the bird with "stuffing" or have it as "dressing,"  to serve canned cranberry sauce or make it from fresh berries, to put marshmallows on the sweet potato casserole or to have baked potatoes instead.  The green bean casserole....well, some like it, some won't touch it.  And let's not forget the jello salad!  Growing up, in my family there was dressing, fresh cranberries, baked sweet potatoes, fruit salad,and cold canned asparagus....and two kinds of pie:  pecan and sweet potato.

Pea Salad

About thirteen years ago I added a new dish to     my Thanksgiving table....pea salad.  This cold         crunchy, cheesy vegetable dish is a delicious           alternative to that green bean casserole! (When I figure out how to do it, I will put the recipe on the Recipe tab.)  It contrasts nicely with all the hot dishes.  Yummm!



This year I am especially thankful for a number of things in my life.

In January, my little red truck with 165,000 miles on it "died" and needed too much work on it for me to keep it going. With the help of my boss, my financial advisor, my girlfriend, and one of the managers of my local Expert Tire, I was able to find a new home for that faithful vehicle and to wrangle an affordable deal for the Kia Soul I had been wanting for 3 years!  I am so thankful! I named her Steel Magnolia (Maggie for short) and still cannot believe she is mine!!!

Maggie barely escaped damage....Whew!

During a powerful September thunderstorm Maggie barely missed being harmed by a falling maple tree at the corner of the house near where she was parked.  I am very thankful that she suffered nary a scratch although several branches came within an inch of her driver's side exterior.




In May my oldest son, Matt, graduated from Arizona State University with honors, and I traveled by Amtrak to be there.  It was a wonderfully  relaxing trip and I am thankful that I was able to make it!  It took 36 hours by train each way and I reserved a spot in the sleeping car for privacy and comfort.  That way all my meals were included in the price of my ticket, and on the way back I had all my meals served in my roomette.  It was like eating in bed and watching the world go by outside the big window to my left.  I really enjoyed it!

My Amtrak train  2013

I highly recommend taking an Amtrak trip with a roomette if you ever get a chance.  You do not have to deal with the crowds of people and security and waiting that comes with airplane travel, although it does take longer to get where you are going.  It is also not necessarily cheaper, but I wanted to relax and enjoy my trip, and to try something new.  It certainly filled that bill, and I am thankful that I was able to do it that way.

Matt on Graduation Day

I am thankful that Matt graduated after all the hard work and dedication it took him to complete his course of study (Accountancy).  He stuck with it and made excellent grades all the while working as a waiter/supervisor at an Applebee's in the Phoenix area to support himself.  Within two weeks of graduation, he was hired by the State of California as an auditor and he and his girlfriend, Melissa, made the big move to Sacramento.  They seem happy and I am so happy for them!

Matt & Melissa in Olde Town Scottsdale, AZ

Mine are the blue ones!

I am thankful that I got to spend more time getting to

know Melissa (or Miss M, as I call her!).  The two of them have been a pair now for four years. Matt brought her to Texas about 2 years ago for our first meeting and this graduation trip was only the second time we had really had a chance to visit.  Since I never had sisters or daughters, I really wanted to do something "girlie" with her....and so we had mani-pedis!  It was my very first pedicure and it was such fun and I am very happy that it was with Miss M!

Benjamin, my youngest son, is still employed part time for almost a year and a half now, and for anyone who knows me, this is something to be very thankful for, indeed!  He likes the people and the work, and we only hope and pray that soon he will be able to get full-time hours once he gets his health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.  He will have to get more hours in order to pay for it, but that will also mean he has more funds for other necessities, too.

Ben and Pilgrim in the front pasture

I am very thankful that Ben lives here on the farm with me.

There have been many times when he has been a huge help with the fences, the barn, and the llamas.  He is also good company and a pretty good cook.  One day I will try to get his secret recipe for Awesome Spaghetti to put on my recipe page (when I get it figured out how to add that page to the blog!)

I am thankful that I was, once again, able to attend the Wildflower Fiber Retreat this past March and Knit Camp in August.  Being part of a community of fiber sisters and fellow knitters twice a year has become a must for helping to keep my sanity in a world dominated by electronics and mass manufacturing.

I am especially thankful for my job and for all my friends here and across the country.  I couldn't survive right now without the job, and my friends would be impossible to live without at any time.  I am thankful that my home and farm will soon be paid in full (31 more months!).  I am truly thankful for all I have and have experienced.