I have been trying/drafting and deleting/ to explain just how this week is.  It is time out of time, ordinary moments out of ordinary order, days of big meals and late church services and traveling and visiting. And too much traffic through tunnels and delays at airports.

No flying this year, but I noticed something I have not really taken account of before.  I have been aware but not articulated to myself the presence of so many ghosts in and around every event, every visit, every meal, every ornament hanging on the tree, every candled trimmed to fit into Julia’s great grandmother’s menorah.

Not one of those events, practices or things stand by themselves. Nothing is new. Rather they are the latest version, the pencil sketch with many erased sketches beneath, the latest in the series of what I remember as winter holiday times. I am aware of both what my eyes perceive and also what I hold in my heart.

The winter holidays always bring on some blues, as they did a few weeks ago, but the sitting with the revelation of sketches in time has brought some awareness, some clarity, some way to find the joy, the blessings in the times that have past.  I am aware of the richness and the subtlety, the near inmoveable traditions dressed with the changes that time brings.

Like the too many colored lights hung in our front window this year. You can see our display when as you turn our corner. They are somewhat prompted by Julia and Ed, but also the quite natual evolution of the much younger me emerging from my family home with heavily tinseled christmas trees to begin a life with a partner who grew up without lit, be-tenseled trees. We would have trees with paper garlands and grandma’s ornaments bought on sale (I am sure) at the 5&dime before I was born. 

And then there was little Cheshire who insisted that her friends had lights on their trees and our giving in to white lights and a $25 angel that was too expensive for two law students on a tight budget (that same angel still sits on every tree save two). The many years of building a collection of ornaments, some made by little hands, some from arts or craft stores, or at holiday fairs or from far flung stalls in China or Bolivia. 

The year that our dog, Latkah, popped out of a basket as Cheshire came down the stairs to see what Santa left, and this year noticing that there was no Muta cat sitting under the tree in quiet repose as if he was grateful that we brought a bit of outside into the house during the cold.

The lights bought new the first few years after David died, the time when I could not look at my collection from 35 years of trees. Those first few trees were lit in red with home made white sparkly dinosaurs hanging on the branches (a few of which hang on this year’s tree). The lights that were dug out of Christmas boxes during the first Covid spring that I remember as dreary and dark. Those lights mostly white hung around windows and draped on mantles and sills—that intense need and desire to infuse the space with some of the spirit and heart we were without.

And then last year when Ed convinced Julia to want light in colors on our tree, and then this year’s window display. I smile at the dynamic silliness of it all. There is still no tinsel anywhere in my house, but to see where I started and where I have ended up right now, I will not say never.  Who really knows where the road goes next?

Just to share a bit of what we’ve been up to.

Some of the many who donned ugly or flashy or sparkly or fun sweater and sweat shirts for our solstice service.

Julia and I were with Ed’s family on Christmas eve until we needed to get to church to sing for the late service. Singing at 10 PM is a strange experience these days. I almost forget that back in my singing days, I’d be singing at midnight and then go somewhere else where there was a piano and someone to play some more.

After the service Julia and I traveled up to Cheshire’s and popped into bed so we could wake up with them to open presents with the boys.

And we remembered to take a picture of all of us after opening and eating and generally having a good time.

And just one one of Alfie Ray who continues to be much too cute for any one human being.