Where I’ve been.
Assuming anybody is still there, remembering me and wondering.
Snow on the ground. Fire in the sky.
I haven’t been on-line at all for weeks (read: months) except for occasional bouts of Facebook—the conversational equivalent of Twinkies—when our service wasn’t down, which it was on the Eve of Christmas Eve. Which explains nothing about the last two months. Or maybe everything. I apologize. I hope somebody remembers me.
So I’m going to explain myself. Or try. I’m not in writing mode—everything is coming out in bricks and splurts and mashes. And it’s been like that for weeks. I can read. I just can’t lay words to paper. What follows is a mess. A TOTAL mess of confusion and bad writing and bewilderment.
I blame my condition on Etsy. If I’d never discovered the place and I’d never seen a knitted horse, then who knows what great and substantial things I might have accomplished in these last two years?
Less, actually. Much less. Of everything including friendship.
So what has been the central problem these last two months? Focus. Not that I’ve been wild-eyed and scatter-brained. It’s just, when you get down to the holidays, things have to go in order. You set your first focus point—Halloween; you aim for that; you fire. But if the focus point moves or splinters, all the dominoes fall before they’re supposed to, and you waste a lot of time having to set them up again. This makes the holidays sound like a task-oriented time. Which it is. And the difficult heart of the problem is that most of the deep focus points around the holidays are people. Who don’t hold still or behave in an orderly manner. At all.
Also, over-preparation. If you get all smug about how early you started and how much you’ve done to be ready – you can end up doing too much. If you’ve prepared only one thing, you only have to set up the execution of one set of logistics. If you have eighty things prepared, eighty sets of logistics. I am swearing off preparation. Spontaneity is far more manageable. And it cuts down the impact of expectations, which can lead to stress of the most desperate kind. And disappointment (mostly in self). And stuff.
I love how warm the house looks, lit up on a winter evening. The three wise deer are sharing the porch with the corn stalks and pumpkins of harvest.
All-in-all, I think that Halloween is the perfect kick-off in the face of coming winter. It has you putting up lights, lighting up lanterns (gourd ones, mostly), putting on silly clothes, and—best of all—it involves no presents; buy one Costco-sized bag of assorted candy bars, and everybody’s happy. Happy, loosened up, too busy doing crazy things to think about the fact that as many leafless, gray-brown, freezing months lie ahead as actually do.
Then you’ve got Thanksgiving, which is really a people time more than anything else. No presents. Only food and getting together. If your family is no fun to sit at table with, then God Bless You—because all that sitting and eating and getting together and laughing and thinking about gratitude really can and should be the best time ever. So, considering that families are organisms with wills all of their own, if yours refuses to be happy, well—I’d do myself a favor and find/choose/build/grow a brand new good family of my own and have a glorious time with it.
None of this explains my months of silence. Which I shall endeavor to do now, for those who are crazy enough to have read this much arready, but mostly for myself, as a journal entry. I wouldn’t want to start thinking I actually live a nice, quiet, uneventful life.
The people we love to have come to our house. No matter the chaos that brings them here.
November: the plan: the 4th Thursday of the month—Thanksgiving. Simple. Gin’s family doesn’t come to us for it; Thanksgiving is a huge time for dentists of children. No time for travel.
Focus point movement #1: a Very Important Dear Friend of Ginna’s has planned a wedding in our city the weekend before Thanksgiving. So Gin must come up here, at least for a few days. So, of course, we want her for Thanksgiving dinner. Kathy (Gin’s m-i-l) also wants her for Thanksgiving dinner. We switch our Thanksgiving dinner to the Saturday before Thanksgiving to let Kathy have Real Thanksgiving, which will include all her scattered kids and also other relatives of different kinds. So far, simple. And with Thanksgiving out of the way days early, I will have nearly two weeks between it and December first, plenty of time to set the stage for Christmas.
Focus point movement #2-3: Murph announces that he and L will be in San DEIGO the weekend of our Fake Thanksgiving dinner – oh, sorry!! Didn’t we tell you about that conference? And Kris cannot stay till Real Thanksgiving because he’s got to get home and work. The whole thing blows up in all our faces.
The first time we’ve had an official “kids’ table.” Max presided over it.
So we switch our Fake Thanksgiving dinner to the Wednesday before the Thursday the week before Thanksgiving, which allows Kathy to switch her entire family to the Saturday before Thanksgiving (including changing airline tickets). Kris will have to fly home the day after dinner. Gin will drive home – alone with the children and the dog. One of us wants to go with her, but there are no flights that can get us back home from Santa Fe before Real Thanksgiving Eve, and all flights will cost thousands of dollars. Why is Real Thanksgiving a consideration at this point? Because I have decided that Fake Thanksgiving dinner will be a traditional roast-and-potatoes family dinner (with tons of pie) so that Gin’s family won’t have to eat two full Thanksgiving feasts within four days of each other with a huge wedding dinner between. So the other children—the ones who live NEAR their parents, like all good children do—insist on having a REAL Thanksgiving dinner on REAL Thanksgiving.
Minor fluctuation of focus points: what exact time on what exact day Gin’s family will roll in for Fake Thanksgiving dinner. What exact time on what exact days the wedding/other Fake Thanksgiving dinner will happen. Confused yet?
The family table for dinner #1
And in the lulls between events, I must find/buy/make/finish/wrap/pack/tag all the gifts for Gin’s family so that they can be shoved into every “open” cranny/seat/space in a car that will also be crammed with stuff from Kathy and Ken.
Aunt, nephew, niece – a nice mix of families.
The table full of beloved people. I SO LOVE the way this room and these people glow.
See? Three separate unexpected climaxes to that part of the story, leading to mis-leading dénouements that put me WAY off my seasonal game (but worth it).
It’s strange – so natural to have them here with us, that when they disappear again so soon, we are left blinking, constantly haunted by the feeling that there should be more of us -
We opened the present Gin had brought up to us, so she could enjoy. This hat and scarf and mittens ensemble, doubling as a wolf disguise, was for Scooter. But he just didn’t catch the vision – until Andy fell in love with it and began to demonstrate its charms.
Cute little wolf.
Soon, Scooter will come to take possession – being a wolf was just too charming to miss.
November: original end-game plan: after having a nice fake Thanksgiving dinner (this would be the proposed Saturday one with turkey and everything—the one that didn’t happen), I’d have the boys bring in the Christmas tree, which would subsequently be put up and decorated by what would have been Real Thanksgiving, so that when Major Focus Point Movement #4 happened, the Holiday Plans would still flow on quite nicely – house decorated before December 1st, presents made and wrapped, plans charted out neatly.
Since none of that happened and we were all a little tired already—but still wanting at least a token Real Thanksgiving Family Dinner on Thanksgiving, we decided to have a Real Thanksgiving Leftovers dinner on the hallowed day – which would, in theory, be simpler and more casual: turkey sandwiches with dressing and mashed potatoes and gravy that weren’t actually leftovers (with tons of pie), but which would be scaled down in portion (except the pie). The preparation for this did not turn out to be simple, though I will tell you that cooking the turkey and making the gravy the day before the feast really takes the pressure off. It was a yummy dinner, all the same – fun, with much laughter and good will. And pie. Did I mention the pie?
Here is the Real Thanksgiving dinner. Do you notice that I tend to take lots of pictures of the laden table? This is because I am fascinated with a half-tame setting of ceremonial intent. And I want to remember the Good Old Days while they are happening.
Sons together. That used to be Just The Way Things Were. Now, I take pictures of it, a lovely and relatively rare event.
Our adopted son, John, Lorri’s brother, a great favorite around here. One compensation for the children going out to find their own lives; they bring home great surprises.
Lorri brought this. It’s a turkey made out of veg. Very clever, my girl!
Second Children’s Table
And that’s the end of this part. But I think you can see why I haven’t spent a whole lot of time reading or writing or cleaning the house or knowing what day it was. There are two other parts to follow: What I Made and the Family Christmas Portrait—which was supposed to be for the Christmas Card post, which never got put up. And after that – the ornament party and Christmas. I missed telling so many stories this year. And these are only the highlights of these months – these astonishingly crammed months. I don’t want to forget anything, but I suppose that’s life hoarding? And I always think I’m going to go back and look at where we’ve been. The only thing is, we’re so busy moving forward, there isn’t a whole lot of time to look back. And that’s a good thing, right?
The beautiful Chaz
Go read Donna’s latest post because my holiday season this year was what yours was and I don’t like it! I can’t even remember from Halloween to now. I’m sitting here in the after math panting wondering how the race went! Did I even finish? The race was a blur. Christmas used to be my favorite holiday and now……… I’m exhausted! That is wrong. Just plain dumb wrong.
Your Thanksgiving many feasts look just loverly. I sat and looked at that first photo for the longest time. I looked at it from the view point before the first addition….. and then I remembered it with the first addition…….. and now with the second…….. so symbolic of your family branching out and changing and yet so much warmth and glowing and goodness abounding. It made me wonder, if I walked across the street and snapped a photo of my house what I would see.
I read it. And commented. A much longer comment than I had known I had in me. I don’t know what happened this year, Rachel. It’s like something exploded. There was a lot, and so there was nothing????? I think I will never make handmade presents again. So much to think about. So much to wonder at. I LOVE your last sentence and the idea in it. I love that. And you looked closer at my photo than I did. But then, that’s your job, huh sis?
It is my job. A job which I take whole heartily with much gladness.
So, that is why I am thinking I want to have the holiday season not be A season at all, but a continuos celebration of all the things that the holiday season is supposed to be. I serious dilution of the stress factor and an amplification of the joy. A finding a reason to celebrate it all…spontaneously, without so much pressure to make it just so…
That’s what I’m thinking….
And Kristen, your reply was longer than my post! It is so chock full that I will have to read it again tomorrow and see if I can make sensible reply….
Love you two…
I’m thinking about it. It seems to me that maybe there’s some virtue to a season – like a reset. Like the sabbath. Every day should be a celebration of the atonement, and an exercise of delighted and generous virtue. But every seventh day is saved as a short season of reset and renewal, when we stop to focus on the essentials. That’s what the Christmas season should be – a short season when we stop to focus on family, great love, the interface between the finite and the infinite. So I don’t mind the season. I just mind that people turn it into something else. And when you think about it, the rituals of trees and gifts and puddings are fun – but if they, as temporal rituals, take the place of the sacred and true rituals, that’s where we lose the value and are left with only the stress.
I think.
Maybe, it is still good for me to have Christmas as one of many reasons to celebrate. I get that it is special, at least in it’s original intent, but the way it has evolved for me is just too much.
I’m not quitting Christmas, just the stress and angst of it….maybe. I don’t know. I just know it makes me sadder than happier and I need to find a way to fix that for myself…and my little husband who loves me so.
This is the nature of the free agency that our Father gave us at the beginning of all this: we may pick and choose that which we accept. Pulling the beautiful bits out and shrugging off the ugly and short-sighted? We’re allowed, as long as we behave, ourselves, in the way of love, truth, gratitude and service.The Lord expects us to use our heads. Otherwise, what is the point of this test? We’d be no different at the end of it than we were at the beginning. And since I believe that our selves started LONG before conception, and that they will continue forever, that makes the choosing here such a defining thing.
I knew you were busy, busy, busy, but I’m so happy you’re back! I’ve missed reading your words and seeing your pictures. That first one, of the snow and the colored sky, is amazing, and the family ones are beautiful too. I remember when Derek and I used to eat two Thanksgiving dinners (or try) on one day, at each of our family’s houses. That was crazy. That was kind of you to move Thanksgiving to another day for the sake of your daughter and her family.
I’ve come to a couple of essential decisions in the last many years – one of them is that a day of the week is only a day of the week, but a sacred and beautiful celebration isn’t really tied to a day, but to a state of heart and a deliberate intention. So I don’t mind at all, shifting from one day to another, so that everybody gets a share of the joy. Not much of a sacrifice, really. I don’t lose a thing by it. YAY!! And thank you so much for missing me. That’s a great gift.
Your bricks and splurts and mashes are so far beyond any belabored attempt at writing of most mere mortals, including me. Crash and bang around with words any time you like. I’ll find inspiration in the way you put them together.
My kids from Oxford just disappeared on me and I know the experience of the loss which you stated with Kristen eloquence. This time, I gushed.
Your Focus Point Movements are hilarious. I know how many ‘movements’ are components of each of your F.P. M. Like, 50 – 150 for each one. Some of us skip 45 – 145 of the steps you take. Am I making sense?
Here’s what I think. You need a minimum of nine lifetimes to accomplish all the creative ideas brewing in that brain of yours. AT LEAST. That’s even considering the fact that you can do things faster and better than 99% of us. Your overly-creative brain is tormenting you! Is there a drug for that?
BTW, having read this post, I’m reflecting and I’m appalled at myself for keeping you in awake and in ‘host mode’ until almost two in the morning on ornament night. THAT certainly didn’t help you out! On the other hand, it was just so nice to simply chat. I appreciated being included in the conversation with the dear K’s.
Listen, babe – that two in the morning thing is tradition and I LOVE it. You and the Kews and us – it’s the season for me. What would I do without you? Torment is a good word for the way my brain works. But I can’t figure out why. Isn’t enough enough sometimes? My mother could never sit down. And my father always had to be bossing something or rebuilding it or planning something new. So I guess restless work is in my stars. But you see way more in me than I do. And I think you don’t see as much in YOU as I do. So we make a good pair, I think. Old friends who have been through a lot of decades of a lot of life.
I love the fact that we’ve seen each other through many years of living, evolving, even getting a few wrinkles! It’s all good.
I think we were both way under 20 when we first got to know each other. Hilarious, don’t you think?
Not in writing mode. Ha! Your “not in writing mode” is most eloquent, and utterly unconvincing. But I do know what you mean. When I reflect on 2012 – and I don’t much care to – it seems that there was something off kilter about it, or at least that’s my sense of it. Then I feel guilty about saying such a thing because I am surrounded by blessings. Gratitude, you are so spot on with that word. Maybe the topsy turvy is meant to refocus me on the gratitude.
Your tables and home are warm and inviting. And as always, your family is beautiful. Your observation about the rarity of capturing brothers together in a photo makes me weep. Life hoarding. I understand that too. Yes, I do. I do.
And now the children have come in from the rink and there are demands for me to admire Littlest’s baby. “Isn’t she cute?” I try to answer while the dragon stuffed animal is shoved in my face. Clearly, my attention is needed RIGHT NOW. Oh my, how I love these swirling children!
And that, my dear, is why I adore you so.
I always look forward to and love reading your posts. However, this post kind of scared me because it was a reflection of my life. When I read the words and looked at the pictures, it made me wonder about my own life. I actually had to think about it before I replied. This year I will turn 50, as well as, complete the most important educational goal of my life. Still, life continues to change quickly and that scares me.
Honey, from where we are, life is going to change in huge ways, and often. The body changes; the people we love expand out into the “real” world while we become sidelined. The people we’ve looked to as our buffer between knowing what to do and having somebody to talk to about it disappear – it’s astonishing. But you have nothing to fear. Look at the things you have decided to do, then done. You know what to do on so many levels – more levels than most people. So don’t fear; just set your face in “get ‘er done mode” and take the waves of change head on. Wade right out there and be the flexible grown-up and trust yourself. You have character, courage, determination, intelligence, competence and a great heart. This is the time for you to walk ahead – those who follow will be wise.
I love the get ‘er done mode because that is all I can see right now. However, I am hoping the light at the end of the tunnel is not a train lol! You always know what to say to make me feel better:-)! Much love from MO!
Yes. I am waiting to get flattened by a locomotive one day. Sigh! Much love back atcha!
Oh my goodness that post made me tired–almost as tired as I look in that first picture! RED EYES!!!
We had lots of fun hanging out. That was one of those seriously whirlwind trips, but it was so fun. The fake thanksgiving was great. Kris and I really enjoyed ourselves and seeing Max HUGE at that baby table was worth it all. Thanks for making so much fuss for us!!
I do it for myself because I LOVE you.