10 Things to Love About December

 

These are my 10 Things to Love About December:

1. Remembering the reason for the season
2. Fires in our fireplace
3. Holiday decorating (sometimes with my personal assistant, AKA Coco)
4. Christmas songs on the radio or a CD player
5. Christmas books
6. Corny Christmas movies on TV
7. The crispness in the air and rain
8. Baking cookies for the holidays
9. Shopping for special gifts and choosing just the right one
10. Christmas lights in other ‘hoods

1.  Remembering the reason for the season

I love creches.  I love what they represent, I love how they look, I love that some can be purchased all at once and others collected over time.  I had several different creches of various sizes and colors (one set was all sky blue with gold trim) before the fire.  So, when we moved into our new home just before Christmas of 2008, I wanted to make sure we had a crèche to display.

Off to our local favorite holiday gift store and they had a perfect one – a large, one-color molded crèche sculpture that was very easy to set-up.  Out of the box and up on the cabinet and voila’ – instant crèche.  When I got it home and did just that (took it out of the box), I noticed it was actually two pieces – Mary, Joseph and Company and the cradle all together and the Christ Child separate.

I wondered out loud WHY they weren’t molded all together into one piece because the Baby Jesus could be easily lost or misplaced or broken and this was problematic to me.  Charlie (my husband, who’s Catholic) said, “Well, it has to be two pieces because everybody knows that you can’t put Baby Jesus into a crèche scene until Christmas morning!”  Well, I’m here to tell you that everybody DOESN’T KNOW this tidbit of crèche trivia (I’m not Catholic).  So, there you go – the reason that Baby Jesus isn’t molded together in my beautiful crèche scene.  So, now I always hide him in a safe place and lay him in the cradle on Christmas morning – another reminder of the reason for the season.

 

 

2.  Fires in our fireplace

Our old house didn’t have heat.  It didn’t have air-conditioning either.  We live in a temperate climate, so 90% of the time, neither is an issue.  Our old house had wood burning fireplaces and when it was cold, Charlie would make a fire.  My chair was right next to the fireplace in our living room in our old house, so I was always toasty warm.  This little ritual a few months a year became important to me in that it represented love and coziness to me – love for my husband for always wanting to make a fire for me, love of our old home and all of its many quirks and flaws and love for the coziness a blazing fire brought to our living room.  So, our new house has a fireplace and I love that it, too, provides a sense of coziness, love and warmth even though this new house has central heating and air-conditioning so the fireplace is really just for show.  On top of that, it’s propane with fake logs, so Charlie doesn’t have to build a fire anyway.  We just turn on a switch!

It’s been in the 80’s and 90’s lately (unbelievably warm temperatures for this time of year) and December 1st was the first day cold enough to have a fire in the fireplace.  So, Charlie goes to turn it on and nothing happens!  Dead battery in the controls!  And, to top off this breakdown of modern conveniences, it takes a SPECIAL size battery!  So now a trip to a specialty battery store is in order before we can use the fireplace – another errand in an already “toot sweet” life!  Makes me long for our good, old-fashioned wood-burning fireplace.

3.  Holiday decorating

Traditionally, I have put my tree up the day after Thanksgiving.  That was because I always had Thanksgiving at my house and my house was full of guests for the entire Thanksgiving holiday weekend.  This provided me with a “crew” and they always enjoyed helping and the end result was always beautiful and finished in record time!  Then my “crew” would help with the rest of the holiday decorations – a “win-win” for me.

With aging parents, and as our family adjusts to a new reality brought on by age-related illnesses, the family “traditions” are in flux.  This year I didn’t host Thanksgiving.  Instead, my husband and I went to my parents’ assisted living facility and had Thanksgiving dinner at noon with them in the facility’s dining room.  A very nice event, put on by the staff of the facility who worked very hard to make it special (plus they worked on Thanksgiving Day!).  So, now I don’t have a “crew” staying at my house over the Thanksgiving weekend!

December 1st was/is my niece, Samantha’s, birthday!  This year we got together at a local diner for lunch and with a little bribery and arm-twisting, I recruited my “crew” – my Mom (Jo), Samantha (the birthday girl and Jo’s granddaughter and Tiffany’s sister) and the Princess P (Tiffany’s daughter, Jo’s great-granddaughter, Samantha’s niece and my great-niece; are you getting the family tree now?).

My chief decorating “elf”, my Mom, likes to sit on her walker and unwrap all of my ornaments while we place them on the tree.  She likes unwrapping them and oohing and aahing over each beautiful ornament.  Princess P joined her in the oohing and aahing.  Here are some photo collages of our impromptu holiday decorating party.  I just learned how to create them on PicMonkey, so I’m going overboard!  It’s collages or a 1,000 pictures in this post {holding out both hands, palms up and weighing my choices} – collages WIN!

 

Samantha decorating the tree.  She’s very tall – at least 6″ taller than me, so she can reach all of those high places!  Isn’t she beautiful?  She just turned 20!

 

Princess P decorating the tree, helping Grammy Jo (Chief Elf) unwrap Christmas ornaments and acting as “Junior Elf” to Samantha’s “Senior Elf”.  See Charlie in the lower right corner picture?  Doing his favorite thing – reading a good book that he can’t put down!

 

Finished Christmas tree and Chief Elf (AKA my Mom) unwrapping ornaments.  She made the two ornaments featured on this collage about 10 years ago.  She gave them to me after my house burned in the fire plus she bought over 50% of the ornaments for this new tree for me!  Typical “Mom” – always spoiling her kids and wanting to make them feel better when something bad happens (like a fire).

 

Christmas ornaments on our tree.  Did I mention that blue is my favorite color?

4.  Christmas songs on the radio or on our CD player

Christmas songs really get me in the spirit.  I love so many different ones that to list them would take up too much room in this post!  Plus, I like all the different versions sung by multiple artists.  I don’t really have a favorite music “genre”.  My father was a classically trained musician (hobby, not trade; he was an Air Force pilot), so we always had classical music playing in our house.  His other love was jazz.  My mother loved the popular singers of her era (Andy Williams and Tom Jones), so that music was always playing, too.  With both my parents growing up in the Big Band era, we were exposed to that music as well.  Then, for about 16 years while I was growing, we lived in multiple states in the South (Texas, Georgia, Tennessee and Arkansas) and I was exposed to Country and Bluegrass music.  As a teenager in the ’70’s, I loved rock, hard rock, etc. plus I love the music that has defined each later generation – the ’80’s, the ’90’s, etc. – up to today’s sounds.  I just love music!  So, whatever Christmas song is on the radio in whatever music genre, I love it – after all, it’s about Christmas!

5.  Christmas books

I love stories that have a Christmas theme.  Maybe I’m a sap or maybe it’s because I was named after a Christmas story, although I was born in June and not December.  I can’t say that my favorite Christmas story is the one I was named after because it has a sad ending.   It’s a sweet story of a girl born on Christmas Day, who grows ill and dies young.  She’s an inspiration to her family, but it is still a very sad story.  What I DO love about that book is that my mother loved it, named me after it and she saved it all these years and now it’s mine.  But if I had to pick just one “favorite” Christmas-theme book or story, I guess it would be Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”

 

The book and heroine I was named after.  Isn’t she beautiful?

5.  Corny Christmas movies on TV

I love all the corny Christmas movies on TV.  The mushier, the better.  This time of year you can find one on TV every night and Charlie records them for me and we watch them, sometimes, marathon fashion.  I also love all the classic favorites – It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart, White Christmas with Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney, Miracle of 34th Street with Natalie Wood, A Christmas Carol (all versions); I’m sure I’m leaving some out!  Love the cartoon ones too – Frosty, Rudolph and of course, The Grinch!  If it’s about Christmas, then I’m there!

6.  The crispness in the air and rain

Still waiting for that one.  We’re still having very warm temperatures in the ’80’s and ’90’s.  I’ll wake up and it’ll be cold in the house, so I put on a long-sleeved shirt.  I walk outside and it’s blazing hot!  Back in to change into a short-sleeved shirt!  Occasionally, some mornings are cold (50-60) and crisp.  I’ll have to start walking in the early morning so that I feel like it’s December!

Rain.  Hope we have some.  I love the rain.  We don’t get much.  We average less than 11 inches a year.  It would be nice to have rain since it is VERY UNLIKELY that we will have snow!  I have lived in San Diego County for 35 years and once it actually DID snow.  REAL.WHITE.COLD.DEEP.SNOW.  On the freeway, no less, in the area of San Diego known as Mission Valley!  Which is only about 3 to 5 miles from the ocean!  I was coming home from work and all of a sudden a snow storm happened.  I called Charlie from my cell phone practically screaming “It’s snowing!  It’s snowing!” and he says “You’re crazy!  You’re making it up!”  “I swear; it’s snowing!”  He didn’t believe me until he turned to the local news and saw the reports.  Needless to say, traffic came to a dead stop (we SoCal natives don’t know how to drive in the rain, much less the snow!) and a few hours later I was home with memories of snow.  So, with no snow on the radar, I’ll be happy with a little rain.  Here’s hoping for rain sometime in December!

7.  Baking cookies for the holidays

I love to bake cookies for the holidays and share them with others!  I love the smells it brings to the house, the creativity of trying new recipes, the peacefulness that surrounds me as I tinker in the kitchen.  I think I go into a zen-like trance when cooking and baking.  My mind focuses on what I’m doing and all my cares and concerns are swept aside for those few minutes and I’m in my element creating something yummy; well, 90% of the time it’s yummy!  I DO have failures {sigh}.  I had the best of both worlds growing up – a father who loved to cook and took great pride in creating fabulous dishes and a mother who loved to bake and made us wonderful treats.  So, cooking and baking brings back those happy times for me and I’ve continued this legacy by teaching nieces and nephews how to make some of our family favorites.  So, baking cookies for the holidays surrounds me in a circle of love.

 

Potato Chip Cookies, a holiday favorite!  Click here and here for the recipe!

8.  Shopping for special gifts and choosing just the right one

It gets harder and harder to shop for gifts every year, especially Christmas gifts.  Charlie and I are blessed to have everything we need and we don’t “want” for much.  So, shopping for each other is complicated.

Also, shopping for family is complicated.  My elders no longer “need” anything and have practically everything they “want”.  In addition, they live in small places, so adding more “clutter” to their already over-flowing apartments (they live in assisted living and skilled nursing), sends me into a tizzy of indecision.  Gift cards aren’t the answer, either, because they can no longer go out to spend them!

I don’t think I’ve yet mentioned that my father is in Hospice care.  This is a new development – about a month old.  I’ll write a post about Hospice care at a later date, but care includes visits from a chaplain, who is part of the Hospice team.  This chaplain, a wonderful, caring woman, visits my father about twice a month (more, if needed).  She always follows up with a call to tell me about her visit and to engage me in aspects of his spiritual needs.

In our first conversation, I mentioned that my father was a prisoner-of-war during World War II, along with the rest of his family, at a prison camp in the Philippines known as Los Banos.  He was 12-years-old at the time and he and his family (Methodist Missionaries) lived there for 3 years until they were rescued by our military in what is considered one of the most successful military rescue operations of modern military times.  On her recent visit with my father, the chaplain told me that my father voluntarily talked about this period of his life.  This is a rare occurrence – he has never openly shared with any of us his experiences about their time in the prison camp.  She also mentioned that he would like a copy of the documentary he saw several years ago on the History Channel.  Called “Rescue at Dawn:  The Los Banos Raid”, this was absolutely something I could get – the perfect gift – because he wants it!

I was so excited about this opportunity to find the perfect gift that I ordered 5 of them – 5 DVDs!  I’m giving one to each sibling (so, sibs, if you are reading this, no surprise anymore!), because if this military mission had not happened and our father not rescued, NONE of us would be here today, nor my siblings’ children and grandchildren.  A sobering thought.

This started me on a quest to find more gifts that would have meaning to all of my different family members.  I won’t reveal them here (must keep some things a surprise or what fun is gift-giving at Christmas?), but it opened up a world of ideas to me about recycling, reusing, repurposing STUFF, so my Christmas gift-giving this year is taking on a “GREEN” bent – meaningful, but green!

I’m so excited because I think I will have the BEST Christmas – a whirl of my ideas tumbling around in my head!!!  Stay tuned…

Here is a collage of my FIRST shopping trip of the holiday season – an open house (Santa included) at Walter Andersen’s Nursery, a local area nursery.  A nice event with FREE hot dogs, hot apple cider, hot chocolate, popcorn, coloring for the kids, Santa AND a free Santa photo.  I didn’t buy ANY Christmas presents, but I did buy some beautiful plants, including poinsettias!

 

Beautiful poinsettias, Christmas tree and other fun holiday accessories at Walter Andersen’s Nursery.

 

 

Princess P talking to Santa at Walter Andersen’s Nursery.  Princess Sweetie Pie stayed home with Daddy (she’s a wee bit afraid of the big red guy and didn’t want to go!).  Wonder what Princess P is saying?

10.  Christmas lights in other people’s ‘hoods.

We don’t have a ‘hood.  We live in the country.  Our closest neighbor is about 2 city blocks away (maybe it’s more; when you live on acreage, it’s hard to gauge distances!).  Anyway, to get in the Christmas spirit, we’ll drive into town and explore neighborhoods, oohing and aahing at the beautiful lights while we listen to Christmas carols on the radio.  Always makes me happy!

 

More Christmas lights in other people’s ‘hoods.  These were taken in Tiffany’s ‘hood.  We (she and I and Princess P) went trolling for lights in the ‘hood near her home after our visit to Santa!  No Princess Sweetie Pie – she stayed home with Daddy because she didn’t want to go!  Very adamant with the “no, I don’t want to go” – expressing her individuality!

What do you love about December?

Tootles,