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More fotos from Big Jim's trip to Switzerland a couple weeks ago.....
Pretty, eh? And very Christmasy looking to boot!
hasta pronto,
mylifeinspain
4 years ago: Culture shock
3 years ago: No entry.
2 years ago: No entry.
1 year ago: No entry.
It has not been an easy road to Christmas Eve this year. I arrived back from my unexpected trip to the US with two weeks to try to fit in all the card-writing, gift-wrapping, cookie-baking, good cheer-spreading, hall-decking that I normally would take three times as long preparing. Not to mention the reality and grief of my grandmother's death had not had the chance to properly sink in.
So for the past ten days I have tried to go through the motions, managed to mail the cards out by a semi-respectable date, made sure gifts were ordered for my niece and nephew, and went shopping for special foodstuffs for Big Jim and I as we spend the holiday at home with the fur bundles and a huge stack of Christmas DVDs.
But the baking---Big Jim took over that department this year. We have Christmas cake, a chocolate sponge (just for me!), and tins full of sand tarts. And the rest of the gifts for my family, well, I had to force myself to sit in front of the computer Sunday night and at least make sure people had gift cards to open Christmas Day. Thankfully, Big Jim also decorated the house while I was away, so that was one less thing on my very long "to do" list.
My only task today was to put on a pretty skirt and help deliver gifts to our neighbors. And in a few minutes, the spinach dip (no comment, you know who! ;-) goes in the oven, and I must decide which of the holiday DVDs we should watch tonight. That is about all the work and decision-making I can handle this year.
I have read the literature on grieving and the holidays, and much of it is helpful. But in the end, I am most grateful for the time and space and support my husband and friends have given me to work through and process all that has happened in the past six weeks. And for not noticing if the cards arrived a few days later this year.
Now es la hora for a little Rudolph-watching and to sneak a taste of that chocolate cake!!
hasta pronto,
mylifeinspain
What winter looks like in this neck of the woods. Don't your hands chill and get clammy just looking at the foto?!
I'll take a good old-fashioned snowstorm any day. :-)
hasta mañana,
mylifeinspain
4 years ago: First impressions
3 years ago: On a jet plane
2 years ago: No entry.
1 year ago: Foto Friday and more
Saturday morning I rose early so that I could fuel up at the espresso shop across the street from my parents' house before heading to the local church's annual Christmas bazaar. I first went to what became a family holiday tradition at least twenty-eight years ago (which I only remember because another first occurred to me that early December morning, the thing 12-year-old girls either welcome gleefully or with horror [I was definitely of the latter camp]) with my mother and grandmother and hoards of women from all over our little corner of PA Dutchland.
Crowds of warmly bundled doughy figures would begin to form at the church doors way before the opening time of 9 am. They chatted with the holiday excitement of young children. The voices were friendly, but everyone knew why the others were standing in the winter cold---it was all about the mice.
I have no idea when or why the women of the church decided to sew the Christmas mice, but for almost all of my childhood there were at least a few on my family's tree. My mother's collection eventually grew to the point where she had too many to display all of them every year. There were the basic granny-looking mice, with calico-print caps and a miniature bowl of yarn or loaf of bread in their laps, but there also were sports mice, skiing mice, mice adorned in the colors of local universities, baby mice, Three Kings mice. The women at the front of the line were most determined to avail themselves of the new designs about to make their debuts. I could never decide whether they were simply crazy or to be admired for their pluck.
My mother, grandmother, and I usually were toward the back of the swarm. I liked the mice well enough, but what I was most looking forward to were the Christmas cookies and the takeout chicken salad sandwiches and noodle soup that we would be having for lunch in a few hours. Even now a vegetarian, I still remember fondly that chicken salad as the BEST EVER.
Heavy with nostalgia, I could not NOT go looking for mice this past weekend, longing for more time with grandmother in any way I could get it. I knew I had left the house a little late, but when I arrived at 9:03 I was stunned to hear that the mice had already sold out. I peaked into the room at the bare trees and felt my heart sink.
The line for Christmas cookies snaked into the main hallway, so I joined the queue, hoping I could at least buy a few sand tarts, Grandmom's favorite. The two women behind me said they just didn't have the energy to bake their own cookies this year and then compared notes on the difficulties of being their mothers' caregivers; the man in front chatted with an old friend about how lucky he was to still have a job.
After about a fifteen-minute wait, I walked away from the table content, with a pound of sand tarts and a two-pound sack of assorted cutouts and chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies (mysteriously, there were no snickerdoodles). The rest of the bazaar, though, was almost depressing as the conversations around me had been. There were far fewer handmade crafts than what I remembered, and the white elephant table(s) had tripled in size. I did manage to find three good used books---a steal at $1.25 for the lot.
I passed by the kitchen and gazed longingly at the sandwiches cut on the diagonal and tightly sealed in Saran Wrap and breathed in the steam coming from the two vats of chicken noodle soup. Just before the exit, I poked my head into the mice room. On the one tree in the back, I was astonished to see about twenty mice hanging from the pine limbs. Seeing as they were all either angels or Balthasar, I suspect a box was overlooked when decking the trees and then found after the initial frenzy (When looking over the knitted iPod cozies, I saw one of the infamous "crazies" showing another woman the forty or fifty mice she had managed to score in the scramble.). I chose a few of the angels---one for my mother and sister, too---and walked out into the bitter cold with a warm heart.
hasta pronto,
mylifeinspain
4 years ago: No entry.
3 years ago: Paper
2 years ago: No entry.
1 year ago: Foto Tuesday
