For all the stress and lack of festive ornamentation this December, I managed to have a nice Christmas.
Because my brother had a company dinner to attend on the 26th, my family exchanged presents on the 23rd. We also watched football and ate too many of my mother’s famous cinnamon rolls. Personally, I prefer having large holiday gatherings on any day except Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The family gets a chance to spend an afternoon and evening together under one roof. No one has another household they’re on a tight schedule to get to.
I live out of state away from my family and am not able to visit much. What news I get is mostly from my mother’s e-mails, and that’s how I heard about many of the last few months’ ordeals, so it was a gift in itself to see people getting better. My brother-in-law who suffered a compound fracture and was almost killed in a head-on collision in late summer has regained more mobility sooner than I expected. His leg wasn’t in a cast, and he can bend it now, although he needs a walker to get around. One niece’s cancer treatments have been successful, while her mother, my sister-in-law, seems ever so slowly to be regaining her strength after a series of corrective back surgeries. It was also good to see my other niece happier. She’s an intelligent girl, but her weight has made her the target of many insensitive remarks. But the week before she attended her first formal dance, and looking at the pictures and hearing stories about that night, it was nice seeing her smile again.
Mom has recently purchased the little house next door so as to expand her custom sewing and embroidery business. Good for her as well as good for the neighborhood. That property had been abandoned and neglected for too long. I had planned to come up later in January to help paint, but Sunday night I mentioned getting an early start.
“On Christmas?” she said.
“Might as well,” I said. “I won’t be doing anything else.”
So on Christmas Eve we shopped for paint and brushes at Lowes. We were supposed to only make a brief stop into Meijers for groceries and because Mom wanted the new Josh Grobin and Manheim Steamroller CDs. However, we ended up spending several minutes looking at all the discounted gift boxes and Christmas cards. They had a very nice selection of the latter this year, and Mom was delighted with this series of Thomas Kinkade-type greeting cards, specifically the lids of the decorative boxes they came in. They were decorated with the same images as the cards, but the lids came with a red button that would activate a series of tiny LED lights. Press a button and the lights behind the candles and the fireplace on one flickered for several seconds. On another one the tiny windows of a snow-capped cottage would glow. There were others with Christmas tree lights or front door wreaths or the “O” in the word JOY blinking. Mom saw so many possibilities not just for the boxes as gift boxes, shadow boxes or a decorative accessory, but for the miniature LED lights as well. Those bright low energy sources of illumination have made an impression on my mother these last two months. It all started when she found a white Christmas tree that came decorated with blue LED lights. She was upset that even the display tree had been sold.
One thing that I love about my mother is what a gadget-head she can be. Not exactly the Little Old Lady from Panasonic. You’d never find her camping out in front of an Apple store, but I never hear her complain about how back in the old days her generation didn’t need computers or satellite radio. In fact, later that night she wanted me to examine her television cabinet and see if I could think of a way to remove enough of the sides so she might install a HD plasma or LCD widescreen. As much as she says she’s only pondering the idea, I believe it’s only her love of that cabinet that has kept her from buying a 50-inch flatscreen. And unfortunately it only fits in that one corner of the living room. We measured.
But really it’s the gadgets that make cooking more efficient and expand her craft creativity that my mother loves most. And if it can be accomplished with one push of a button then all the better. She’s also the only person I know that shares my interest in green technology innovations. The boxes were still a little pricey for her, even at 15% off; but she did manage to leave with one, along with promises to buy more the day after Christmas.
After getting what we needed and heading toward the checkout lanes, I remembered I had forgotten to pack my pair of sweatpants and I asked, since Mom was in the business of custom clothes printing now, if she might have an extra pair of sweats I could buy from her at cost. If not, I would try and find a cheap pair while at the store. She didn’t have any but insisted on finding me a pair. We couldn’t find any except for sizes 3XL. And I would think those would be the first size to sell out. Who else would need pants with an elastic waistband more than someone who wears size 3XL? Anyway, that became an hour delay getting home while she stopped into Wal-Mart and then Sears where she finally found a couple large sizes on sale. I mention it because I was touched she took the trouble. And, yes, I could have worn my jeans; but after all those famous cinnamon rolls and with chicken and noodles and mashed potatoes still leftover from the day before, wearing sweatpants felt a little more comfortable.
Ah yes, comfort. With a side order of relaxation. I hadn’t realized how much stress that had been collecting in my body until Christmas Eve night and noticed how at ease I felt. Even the marrow in my bones felt relaxed. Maybe it was not having to be anywhere. Maybe it was all the starchy food. But I felt good.
It sounds odd to say I was content spending Christmas Day in an empty house entirely alone, and yet that’s what I did. I sang Christmas tunes to myself as I put up blue painting tape and applied two coats of Amber Waves in one of the rooms in the house next door. Mom came over once complaining that my Aunt M was changing channels too much and worried the walls looked too yellow; but I assured her it was because the paint was still wet. By the time I finished cleaning up it was after midnight; but I ate chocolate so I could be awake when Meijers opened up (or so I told myself) and get those card boxes for Mom at 50% off because I knew she wasn’t going to wake up. I even bought some gift boxes for myself, even though I shouldn’t have. I have lots still at home from post Christmas sales past. I expected to have to fight off crowds. I even drove to the store with the windshield not completely clear and the defroster not warmed up, expecting to fend off and outrun early bargain hunters headed for the same card boxes as me. But, no, the store was practically void of shoppers. An indication of upcoming economic conditions? Perhaps.
I crashed until afternoon. While I had been painting, Mom had been taking ornaments off the tree. Everything, tree and all, was ready to be taken to the garage and stacked away. Before I headed back to Ohio we walked next door to see how the paint had dried and, yes, the walls were now the butterscotch tone she had selected. Then there was one more dinner—turkey meatloaf, peas and the last of the leftover mashed potatoes—and I was gone.
