10...


I just finished putting a huge pot of beef stew together, it's simmering on the stove. Should be done around six or so. Going to serve it with some toasted Asiago cheese bagels and a nice red table wine from Argentina, with a Caesar salad on the side.
I spent yesterday and today halfheartedly taking down all the Christmas decorations. I really hate doing that. It takes three or four days to put everything up; garland around all the interior doors, the living room and dining room ceilings and both mantels, the banister at the top of the stairs that lines the upper hallway, that intertwined by vintage bubble lights; the tree takes the better part of a day. We have so many vintage ornaments from the early twentieth century, up through the fifties and each gets placed according to it's size and style; we work from the top, hanging the smallest and work down to the bottom, where the largest are hung. Hand blown glass clusters of grapes, hops, raspberries, pears, pickles and pine cones from Germany, that came from my Mother's side of the family. Delicate glass birds, with feather wings and tails, mercury mirrored globes and frosted bells and balls from England, from my Father's side of the family. Glow in the dark plastic icicles from the forties, and a wonderful set of dark cobalt blue balls with frosted comets, stars, moons and rocket ships from the fifties. Plus all the little things the girls made during their childhood, and special little things from friends and family. Gold and cranberry colored glass bead garlands from somewhere, had them for years, don't know where they came from. Walnut shells, painted silver, red and green, that were made by my Mother's Father in the early twenties. Frosted pine cones I gathered years ago and made by coating the edges of them with glue and adding ground mica. And, to top it off, an angel, made by our youngest daughter, from the pressed cardboard cone shaped spool from a bale of baker's twine, some lace wings, pipe cleaner arms and halo, crowning a head made from a styrofoam ball, with smiling eyes and lips painted on. I have a collection of vintage lights, complete with star shaped reflectors, that can't be left to burn too long, they get too hot, but fill the room with a special light and beauty that brings me back to the wonder that was my Christmas as a child. My parents put their hearts into Christmas, as it were. It was something to behold; every room, including the little bathroom of our cottage style home, was filled with sparkly garland hanging from the ceilings, every inch draped with the old style lead icicles, that hung like a veil and gave the appearance of real ice coating everything. except over the in-floor gas heater, where it wafted and danced and sometimes fell down through the grating, causing much excitement when it started to smolder. I'm sure i suffer from the effect of the fumes of the lead, maybe that's why I'm like i am... Celluloid reindeer stood guard on the end tables, keeping watch over the hand made nut bowls, ceramic holiday candy dishes and the ever present fifties chip and dip set that was placed on the coffee table, next to the Christmas cigarette box, table lighter and holiday ashtrays. Every table had snowflake shaped, hand crocheted doilies. Every armchair and the sofa had holiday themed crocheted covers on the arms and antimacassars on the backs, all lovingly labored over by my Grandmother, who wielded her crochet hooks like a conductor pulling a concerto out of shiny white yarn, delicate as a human hair. Huge, tin Lionel trains from the thirties circled around their little world under the tree; a village of cardboard buildings, painted in colors that would stand out in Art Deco Miami, their roofs and yards frosted with ground mica, that hung from their eaves and dusted the bottle-brush pine trees in their yards; angel hair snow covered that land, piled up between the little houses and to the edges of the railroad tracks, and made the shores of the blue glass mirror pond, upon which skated cast metal couples, the girls in their tufted coats, white skates and hands buried in furry muffs, the men with striped ski caps, flowing out behind them, ending in a white painted metal puff, brown jackets with white fur collars, their hands thrust deep into their pants pockets to fight off the chill, except for those of one couple, who skated as one, her head buried in the shoulder of her man, his arm around waist, skating in step, the stars reflecting in their strange blue ice not white, like those of our mortal world, but blue and green and red and yellow... Their painted faces, framed by bright red cheeks, and those ever present smiles, perhaps wrought by knowing that they, more than anyone else, would forever live in that fantastic winter wonderland, interrupted only by that dark, dusty, cardboard scented sleep, wrapped lovingly in the local newspaper, or left over tissue paper from this years presents, white and soft and flecked in glitter, like that special crystalline snow of the imagination, of treasured lore and of Christmases of old...

Now, everything is packed into boxes and bags and cartons in the dining room, ready to be moved back up into the attic for another year. The tree has been carted out to the brush pile, I'll retrieve the trunk this summer to burn in our fire pit, completing it's cycle, returning to the air and the earth. Like we all will. Would that we could bring such wonder and beauty in our short days...
Well, time to go stir the stew and pour another glass of wine. Be well, my fellow wanderers. Fare thee well.
Gregor


go ahead, make your day...