Hee Come Sanny Claus, Hee Come Sanny Claus

I am missing my Elvis Christmas tonight! (Or should I say, "I am missin' me some Elvis Christmas"?) There have been many Christmases in my life, of all different sorts, in all sorts of locations, but the Elvis "Blue Christmas" album has been a constant. My sister and I could sing along with it in both 33 and 45 rpm. I'm thinking about that tonight as Mike and I ice these impromptu sugar cookies.




What about this guy? Rabbit? Sheep? Deer? Moose?


I had a plan early in the week to start a rich beef stew this morning so that by Christmas Eve we'd be curled up on the sofas with our tummies full of cozy comfort food. I bought all the ingredients in advance, and planned not to go to the store again this week. But somehow the day got away from me (including two trips to the store) and we ended up having cheese, wine and bread for dinner, after an aperitif of rum-laced eggnog. Then we got into decorating the cookies and it was too late for anything else. Such is the Christmas eve of the kidless. Still have to finish shtitching (typo or wine?) the letters on Pixie's stocking, since this is her very first Christmas and she almost didn't get one.

I have been thinking a lot about the things that I remember from Christmases past. Skiing, and hot chocolate back at Grandma's house. Mom's gingerbread. Singing the Elvis Christmas songs with my sister. Flannel nightgowns borrowed from Grandma. Heavy woolen quilts on the living room floor. In later years, Mom's clam chowder. Morning bacon, mimosas or bloody marys at Dad's (whatever else you think of them, Southerners do know how to liquor up a holiday). There is much, much more, but my husband is watching television by himself on Christmas Eve, and I just can't continue to let that happen. Maybe more tomorrow.

After the Fact

Here's the golden heart ornament I agonized over a few years ago. And I hope that no one got the impression because I said "damn presents" or something like that, that I resent buying presents. I LOVE buying presents. My only regret is that I can't buy all of the presents, at any price I want, for everyone. I love to give presents at least as much if not more than I like to receive them.

The Junk Drawer of Christmas Past

I did not send any Christmas cards this year. And, unless I said something that simultaneously offended about 15 people (which is totally possible), neither did many of my friends.

But not to worry, because I still have all of your Christmas cards from last year... and probably the year before. And quite possibly many years before that, if I poke around a bit. Until recently, the ones from last year lived in the top right hand drawer of my desk, where all of the "go to" stuff is supposed to be. The high-use, need-it-now stuff, like, oh, I don't know...STAPLES! or a STAPLER! or a pair of sharp SCISSORS! or a MARKING PEN! I'm shouting these things at you because they seem like ACTION THINGS! Things that are ready to spring into service immediately, poised as they are in the ergonomically located top right hand drawer. But my top right hand drawer is not organized thus.

In my top right hand drawer (which I am opening now) you will find the following: patch kit for inflatable bed (if I spring a leak, it will be ready for duty pronto), a "label blaster" punch-style label maker, an out of date rubber address stamp, a two line phone adapter (one of several I own), shoelaces, ribbon, hand lotion, sunscreen (you can never have too much of that), cough drops (who knows how old those are), a printout from West Maui Tiki Tours, a soft cloth for cleaning my computer screen, last year's calendar, Photoshop's "100 Hot Tips for CS3," a picture of Rusty and Jennifer's kids, with Santa, from last year, a stack of all of your Christmas cards, a postcard my mom sent me from York in 2006, before she came back and found out she had to have a quadruple bypass, birth announcement for Juliana Socoloff, my 1984 AYH membership card with serious looking photo (never know when that's going to come in handy), a postcard of a tongue, my poetry journal from 1982 or so, which I dug up to submit to Cringe, but which didn't make the cut, a very big antique marble, many, many binder clips, a baby's first thank you card from Abbie Duff, a bottle of prescription pills that I took one of and never took another of, a hilarious card from Karen Farley from her ex, Richard Gere, and the Tibetan monks, the picture-hanging kit I was looking for this morning to hang the stockings, two old journals, a bag full of beer caps made into magnets, foam helmet liners, a heavy silver cuff watch I used to love but haven't worn since I stopped working in an office (Damn, this is a big drawer!), a cute container of clips and tacks from The Design Group, three glue sticks, a red stamp pad, a bag of miscellaneous IKEA parts and screws, a giraffe keychain (that is very important), and maybe five other things which I have just run out of the energy to catalog.

But this is not about junk drawers, or why we have them, or why my most-accessible drawer is full of the least usable stuff. This is about your Christmas cards. This year, many of them became gift tags for presents. Very handsome ones, at that. I just cut the fronts into squares, punched a hole, then added a slit for the ribbon to slip into. Voila. And I'm contemplating sending out Thank You postcards, cut from the fronts of these old cards, too. But if I tell you, that will spoil your surprise at receiving a cheap, recycled, late Christmas card from me for New Year's. So shhhhhhh.

Last Minute

Just in case you still need a last-minute gift, here are a few ideas: Donate to the Heifer Foundation and help a family in need build self-sufficiency and better health. (A flock of ducks is still just twenty bucks! Not only that, but you can print a card for the honoree right on the site.)

Drop off some unneeded coats today at a One Warm Coat location.

Food banks across the country are running out of food; find one at Feeding America, or make a donation to the bin at the grocery store. Every dollar donated to Feeding America helps buy 20 pounds of food for hungry families. (Whole Foods and Sunshine Market have bins set up here in the valley.)

Drop off toys for Toys for Tots.

Contribute to your local public television or radio station.

Check out charities at Sixdegrees.org, where you can get a "Good Card". You choose the amount, the gift recipient chooses the charity.

Here it Comes Again

Even though intellectually I've committed to paring down this year, as so many of our friends have, it feels just as hectic. Yes, I'll be buying fewer, and less expensive, presents, but I still have to locate the things and wrap them. Smaller presents take just as much time, if not more, to wrap. And price, high or low, does nothing to assuage the guilt of trying to locate presents with meaning, presents that are Special.

Once, when Mike and I were going through a particularly rough patch in our marriage a few years ago, I was zombie-walking through Cost Plus, late at night, just about this time of year, looking for that final, special, meaningful present. I came across a rack of heart-shaped Christmas tree ornaments, painted gold. I picked through them meticulously, until I found one with the right sheen, the right proportions, to carry the weight of the symbolic gesture I was attempting to make.

I stood in a long, long line, the heavy shopping basket making deep reddish indentations in the crook of my arm. As I reached the front of the line and the bleary-eyed cashier began to ring my order, I spotted a flaw in the heart's finish. Just a little nick, in the back. In those few seconds, I agonized over whether to mention it, or to forget about it and just get on with it.

But I couldn't give a flawed heart. It just had to be perfect. So much depended on it. In the time I'd waited, this heart had become laden with all of the meaning and hope that had gathered like a storm cloud over me in the preceding months. So everyone in line waited while I ran back to grab another one, quickly scanning through the hearts I'd previously rejected. I was back before she'd finished ringing the... whatever the hell else I bought that year and gave away, never to be seen or remembered again, so in the scheme of things, I suppose it wasn't a big deal to anyone else.

But it was a huge deal. For me, at that moment, everything depended on the perfection of that golden heart. So many times, this is what it comes down to for me: a present begins to symbolize the entire relationship, and I find myself standing in some store at half-past nine on a weeknight,, my eyes dried to eggshell from all the mall air, holding some aubergine cashmere shawl, or minuscule jeweled penguin, or whatever, in my hand, wondering if this thing will be a thing that the receiver recognizes as truly special. As meaningful as I, at that moment, am feeling that it is. If I walk away from that one perfect, destined to be misunderstood thing, the guilt hits me immediately. I cannot leave these things behind. Which is why I must Christmas shop very quickly, and with a list. If possible, I need to finish early, before the guilt of not finding the perfect, most meaningful present drives me to go out and seek it all over again.

I don't even want to talk about the emotional weight of handmade gifts, whether they are imagined and made imperfectly or imagined and never completed. I'd need to pay you by the hour.

(There would be a picture here of that heart, which I still hold in my hands for a few extra seconds before I put it on the tree each year, but for some reason, every time I click the "add picture" icon, the "save now" button is activated, and I don't get an opportunity to add my picture-- ever.)

This is just another in a long, long string of frustrations starting with satellite internet (hughes sucks), and ending, for the moment, with the discovery of the AT&T data card, which doesn't suck yet unless it is the cause of my not being able to add pictures. The good news is, I am back on line.

*****
If you're not sure what to make for dinner, try lentil soup: dice some mirepoix vegetables (carrot, celery, onion) and saute with thyme. Meanwhile, put a cup or so of lentils, rinsed, in a saucepan and boil in water or stock until tender (about 30 minutes). If you have some on hand and like it, dice up some ham, chicken or turkey and add to the vegetables. Likewise with chard or other greens. I used some beet greens, and added a pinch of oregano, pepper flake and nutmeg. When the lentils are tender, throw in the contents of the saute pan, and then season to taste with sea salt or Better than Bouillon. Cook together for as little as 0 minutes or as much as a day, serve with sourdough or levain bread brushed with garlic butter.

More soon, my friends.

(Anyone else see "Pumpkin Dump Cake" in the google ads at the right? What the hell is that?)