Daily Archives: December 31, 2009

Happy New Year – 10 Years Ago Today

by

Ten years ago today people were worried about what might happen as the clocks rolled over into 2000. I had bigger fears than Y2K back then, but even so I tried to focus on the moments and the experiences of my daily life placing more value on creating a portfolio of memories than banking it all for a mega big retirement plan. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done the traditional things as well, investing in property and my 401K, but by far the best rewards in my later years will be the experiences I’ve shared with the people I love.

This was Paris in 2000, with us standing under a damp winter sky in front of the Eiffel Tower where I took my daughter Miranda in hopes of adding to her portfolio of special moments and memories.

Here’s to creating new memories in 2010 and building a retirement fund of a lasting kind … our connections to each other and the fearless pursuit of life worth living.

When It’s Not Just A Turkey Sandwich

by

John made a soup the other day using some of the leftover bits from our Christmas dinner. He hates to waste anything and decided to dump a good many things into the big soup pot. He made soup instead of a curry because I don’t really care for curries in the same way he does. He thought he was being nice and thinking about me and in a very sincere way, he was but … isn’t funny how there’s a but here … so when he announced that he’d made a nice soup with the turkey leftovers I assumed for a half second that he had used the bones and the bits of turkey left on them. What I quickly discovered was that all the turkey in the house was now in little pieces floating in a mixture that I was not going to eat.  At least not in a turkey sandwich which I was looking forward to having for lunch that day.

To say that I handled it well would be a stretch. As I went sulking off to my unfinished studio space grumbling to myself about how important that sandwich was to me and how could he use all of the turkey up and never ask me and how I was really looking forward it and why did he think I bought the white bread which I never eat except with turkey sandwiches and why couldn’t he have asked me and on and on and on …

Poor John was left there thinking … it’s only a turkey sandwich!

Right! Only a turkey sandwich is what I tried to tell myself too. We normally get along so well and I imagine no woman ever felt more loved and respected than I do so why was this turning into Turkey-Gate 2009?  As I went off to think, I thought about what was it that made the loss of a simple thing like the sandwich so important. Frankly, I’m not even that fond of turkey and tend to think of it more as an accessory item for Christmas dinner than a necessary piece.

It turns out it wasn’t about the turkey sandwich, but rather the ritual of eating it with my family back home. Traditionally, it is almost like putting a period at the end of the sentence and closes out the family Christmas festivities each year. Missing my daughter and the rest of my family and friends back in America made it more painful in a way not to finish things up as we do there. After I had thought for a little while, I came out to talk with John who bless his heart listened quietly, hugged me while I had a little tear, and acknowledged my feelings without being the slightest bit dismissive.

I thought it was all behind us after that until yesterday when we went into town to pick up a few things at the grocery store. As is our way, we split up in the store with each going off in different directions to pick up the items on our lists with a plan to meet at the checkout line. Imagine my surprise to see him standing in a place he never goes, at the deli counter buying something he never buys, sliced deli meat. I knew immediately what he was doing … he was buying a few slices of turkey so I could put some closure on my Christmas in the way I would in America. I was so touched that I almost had a little cry right in front of everybody.

So you can see now why sometimes it’s not just a turkey sandwich, but instead a little gift of the heart.

As well as the best turkey sandwich I ever had.

Our Cornish Christmas – An Open House – Part II

by

I’m so glad you could stop by for part II of my post about our Cornish Christmas. If you missed part I which was yesterday, you can go here to read it first.

Our Christmas stockings were made by my paternal grandmother years ago. Mine is the largest. I made one of the same size and a similar look in white for my daughter’s first Christmas 23 years ago and while I have it here, I couldn’t bring myself to hang it since seeing it made me miss her even more. I brought it to England with me to make some repairs to it. My version has not weathered the years as well as the one my grandmother made. I’ll take it back to her later when it’s fixed.

This is our Christmas tree. It’s a live one that John used several years ago and has been growing in the garden since that time. I was surprised to see it transfer so nicely to a larger pot and work so well inside the house.  It will stay decorated and in its spot until Twelfth Night when it goes back to a place in the garden. The Christmas angel on the tree top is a special one I made for Miranda’s first Christmas and has been on my Christmas tree for 23 years.

I used to like to think of my angel’s out stretched arms as open and embracing, waiting in a way to envelop one in a big bear hug, but after buying our first Christmas ornament as a couple this year from a local artist, I think of her arms as opening wide to hold the joy that is in my life and in my heart. Instead of hanging the heart embroidered with joy on the tree, I thought it fit perfectly in the arms of the angel.

On Christmas Eve, John’s cousin Mary and I ventured down early in the evening for the children’s Christingle service. I didn’t take any photographs of the service, but the pictures  below give you an idea of what our church looks like from the inside … except it was full of singing children and special christmas decorations and lighting that night.

This is John just inside the door of our village church in a photograph taken almost two years ago. While I have great interior shots of churches all over the UK, I seem to have neglected the one in my own village.

There’s no heat at all in this church so you have a sense of what it must have been like throughout the ages. Of course we have better fabrics for insulating our bodies from the cold, but it was still chilly on Christmas Eve.

After our Christingle service we went to a Christmas open house at my friend Tina’s house, but again I don’t have any pictures to post. John took a few, but she and her husband Henry had a full house and it was difficult to get any that looked very nice.

Because we had icy road conditions on Christmas Eve the vicar canceled the midnight service. I had been looking forward to it so I stayed up late writing my Christmas blog post and watching a midnight mass in the lovely cathedral that you see above. ( I snapped this shot from the television)

This is Mary on Christmas morning. She said later at the end of her five day visit with us that it was the best Christmas she could remember in a long time. I was so pleased since I knew with the recent death of her brother Michael with whom she always spent Christmas, that this was going to be a difficult one for her to get through.

This is John looking cute with a lawn mower razor that was in his stocking. He was quite surprised to see that I still believed adults should hang a stocking for Santa to fill. His was overflowing so he must have been a very good boy this year.

Ah … one of me … holding some spackle, I mean wrinkle filler that my sister Margaret sent me from Alaska. After dabbing on a little, we headed for the pub for a traditional Christmas Day drink.

Mary didn’t let her almost 87 years (she’s a new year baby) keep her from a Christmas morning trip to the pub. In our village, Gary, who owns the pub along with his wife Margaret, opens the pub between 11 and 2:30 on Christmas Day so locals can come in for a drink.

That’s Gary in the Santa hat and Roger in the navy shirt beside him. You can’t tell from this picture, but Gary is wearing shorts. It  was cold outside, but he was still wearing shorts. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Gary in long pants or trousers as they would say here since pants means underwear.

A distance shot of some of our neighbors.

More from behind the bar.

This lovely image was painted by a local artist using Gary, Roger (barman) and Becky (barmaid) along with some pub regulars in her version of the Nativity scene.

After my usual pub drink of diet lemonade, (like a diet sprite) it was back to the house for our first Christmas dinner together. There are a few things on the plate I’ve never had at Christmas before, like the roasted potatoes, parsnips and the bacon wrapped sausages they call pigs in a blanket here.

Here’s a shot of me with Mary wearing a traditional Christmas party hat that fell out of my Christmas cracker.

Burp!  ” Oh, pardon me ”  It turned out to be a lovely mix of my traditional American Christmas favorites along with John’s English dishes.  I almost forgot…

Hello Dolly … anyone?