Line tamer.
Christmas Eve. I’m headed to Christmas City, USA today with Michael to celebrate the holiday with my family. There will be carol singing tonight, and egg nog drinking. My father will watch the Pope’s Christmas sermon like he does every year after we get back from the Christmas Eve church service. Growing up, the Christmas Read More …
Some of you may be familiar with my Christmas poem, “The Pickle and The Pear” (you can read the poem here.) These are the two ornaments that inspired it (I told you more pears were to come!). In fact, some of the other ornaments mentioned in the poem have appeared in these posts. Perhaps I should Read More …
The weekend before Christmas, my parents and siblings would pack into the family van and drive to the country to find the perfect tree. Sometimes our neighbor, Liz and her two children (and our playmates), Michael and Catherine, would join us to get their tree too. We would hike up and down hills covered with Read More …
Happy Northern Hemisphere Winter Solstice. As I sit hear listening to Tori Amos’s Midwinter Graces, watching the sun already set low in the west, I’ve got to thinking about some of my favorite Christmas movies, and how dark they are. Like Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. I’m fond of singing “Make-ing Christ-mas, Make-ing, Christ-mas, la la Read More …
I think it is safe to say Christmas is the most important holiday in my family, especially for my mother. Every year on Thanksgiving night, after the meal has been cleared and we’re awake from our post-turkey naps and thinking about second helpings of pumpkin pie, the first viewing of White Christmas happens. When we Read More …
Since I mentioned my niece, a post devoted to ornaments from her: a stain-glassed pear she painted, and a cut-out snowflake. A Christmas tree should have a good mix of handmade ornaments and polished, store-bought ones. Both make me think of the giver, but the rough edges of the handmade ones always make me smile Read More …
Today, a fox from Sonoma, CA, bought in a shop off the central plaza. I lived in Livermore, California briefly, back in the latter half of 2005, with my bother, sister-in-law and niece. Many things in my life had come to a head that spring: end of the first post grad school year, cobbling life Read More …
Unruly bears. When Michael and I first started seeing each other, he gifted me a bear on one of our first rendezvous — a meet-up in Philly for a conference he had to attend, where I heard Joyce Carol Oates speak for the first time. The Hudson Bay Company issues a new holiday bear each Read More …
More creatures. The animals outnumber all other ornaments, save for the Christmas balls. But that is to be expected, especially since I met Michael over four years ago and discovered his heart for animals, he having grown up on a horse farm. Before I get to all the unruly bears we share space with, this Read More …
Last night my friend Emily had a holiday housewarming party at her new place in Park Slope. She asked her guests to bring nothing but an ornament for her first tree. And so we did. As the evening progressed and the naked tree filled with color and sparkle, a bird theme emerged. My gift: a Read More …