Grown Up Christmas Train

It’s that time of year. . . when we do the things we did last Christmas and the year before and the year before, that is if we are blessed enough, which it turns out, we mostly are. I have often called it the Christmas train. We get onboard, sometimes as early as Halloween, and we don’t get off until after my birthday in January. There’s a lot of stops along the way. Here’s a link to the 2011 Christmas Train Blog, just in case you aren't taking me seriously enough.

It’s mostly a journalistic entry here, I can’t guarantee your interest, but back in 2010 when I started blog writing, it was only for myself and it was therapy. I’ve become a lot more private since then, but there might be something of value left in my pen. You will have to sort the grain from the chaff yourself. If nothing else, I can, God willing, read back on this in ten years and laugh.

I’m hopelessly nostalgic. I listen to the same Christmas albums on the same days between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. There is an order to the playlist, it starts with the first part of Handel’s Messiah and ends with Sarah Vaughan. It’s not exactly chronological. Wait, good grief Charlie Brown, it might actually be. Come to think of it, the Carpenters and Fred Waring definitely come before Frank Sinatra. But I’m not rigid about it. Just don’t listen to Elvis before December 16th, please. Note: the National Lutheran Choir can sing whenever they want.

Thanksgiving was the kick-off, friends and family made our way to Nisswa. The cabin was toasty enough and we added our culinary artistry to that off the good folks from Kowalski’s and pulled off a fairly glamorous dinner. I do keep notes year over year, and this year it was noted that we cut the meat off of the precooked turkey (when I said we, I meant Bill) and put it on a platter before we heated it. All the other sides, some of our own and some from the gourmet grocer, went into 9 x 13 glass Pyrex dishes, and they all heated consistently for a well-timed feast, using every oven on the property. We did everything the northern town had to offer, including Friday night snowy fireworks with Santa on a firetruck. Minnesota is its own state, that’s for sure. Sunday morning Calvin flew back to Boston and Janel and Mary carpooled back to Iowa City. Bill and I sat and stared at each other again with no lights or ornaments yet on the Christmas tree.

Thanksgiving Sunday afternoon after everyone goes home used to be my nemesis. The honking of the car horn pulling out the driveway would send me into a three day funk, illogical—knowing that it was a short time until we would all be back together—but Mama birds don’t always follow logic, sometimes the heart just wants something it can’t have.

But I’m getting better each year. I only listened to the sad goodbye gloomy songs a few times and then I got busy. The short weeks between Thanksgiving and the Christmas recitals are calendar blocked by the hour. We started the great Christmas light wrangle. Oliver resigned himself to Mary’s empty bed.

The next three weeks were busy with baking five kinds of cookies, caramels, and spaghetti sauce, and decorating the house vignette by vignette. This too has an order. There is a short period of time when all the trees are up and lit, but hold no wool felt angels or Norwegian folk. The snowy village on the landing is dark, awaiting replacement 3.5 watt bulbs from the Amazon man. I like this time too, with the simple greenery and white incandescent lights everywhere. It’s calm and pure. But life doesn’t stay chaos-free and neither do Christmas decorations. Soon enough there were Christmas pillows on every surface and Hearts and Pines Norwegian dishes on the shelf mix with the tea set that my sister bought me when we were in Austin and didn’t have a dime. The Isabel Bloom, Kathy Kruse, and Playmobil nativities all found their stables. I strung lights in every possible corner.

Meanwhile, the piano kids were putting last minute touches on their classical and holiday pieces. There’s always highlights. This year two small brothers simultaneously played Up on the Housetop. At their last lesson I would have called it a duet, they were perfectly together ten times in a row. But in something resembling Sally’s “Hockey Stick” moment from Charlie Brown’s show, they completely lost track of each other at the recital. Judging from their smiles after their bow, I don’t think they noticed. It was 30 seconds of cuteness. Preston rocked his Gigue. The O Holy Night quartet was lovely. My studio kids are amazing. I continue to be blessed with committed families and the Christmas recitals are always my favorite performances. Warm fuzzies all round.

In a while-you’re-at-it-moment, Bill and I had a Christmas open house the next day, for folks we don’t get to see that often. It was a good old-fashioned Farmer Grey kind of event just without the chestnuts pop thing. Mary, her friends, and about 25 dish towels came through with the cleanup duty. Thank you girls. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day.

Then, the next week, as per bullet journal calendar tradition, I wrap. I wrap. I wrap. I also had a lot of help. Ribbons, tags, boxes. Pretty paper. I love Christmas presents. Years ago I researched cutting back and going minimalist but that didn’t work out for me. Gifts are my love language and lets face it, I just have a lot of love to give.

Then my mom arrived and we baked and baked and baked. Baking is her love language. Batches and batches of tea rings. Frosting. Toffee. More toffee squares, which are different than toffee. And caramel popcorn, because, while sugar might be the work of the devil, it’s very important to have enough treats for the birth of Christ.

Then finally, Calvin flew home on the 22nd and refreshments were finally served on the Polar Express. The train stopped at Kyndred Hearth for a holiday dinner out, a Brianno’s lasagna with friends and a carol sing, homemade waffles for brunch with champagne, gift opening with a lot of help from the cats, a Christmas Eve candlelit church service and Christmas Day with Bill’s family and his mom’s spaghetti sauce. There’s still a few more stops, but now we are in Iowa with my mom, my sister and Ray and Sam. We have more of the same old traditions, time for presents and hamballs, and puzzles and movies. The cookie tray is refreshed almost hourly as well as the candy dish with caramels and fudge, peanut brittle and toffee. Today. . . it finally snowed. Magical. Just like last year. And many years before that.

The Christmas Train, not the Lionel electric one from Bill’s childhood, the metaphorical one I’m talking about, has been around for over fifty years. Every since I was a little girl, if we did something one Christmas it became a tradition. It all grew and grew into a season which spilled over its Advent boundaries into November and January. My love of tradition and fear of change has, I fear, been bequeathed to the next generation. We are blessed, but not spoiled. The years come and go with a side helping of resilience. There were Texas years, years with broken hearts. The year my mom was in the hospital and Bill had to bathe her muddy dog all by himself. And alas, the table is set a little differently now. We have lost our fair share, my grandparents, my dad, Bill’s mom. Aunts and uncles along the way and even cousins we lost too soon. The kids have grown up. There are new faces at the table, and God willing someday there will be even more. We are on this train for the long haul no matter where it takes us. As I sit here at my mother’s kitchen table with a fire softly burning in her brick fireplace, it all comes back. My dad’s cowboy boot footsteps waking sleeping babies. Dogs chasing toddlers in the snow. Even years where we all had the flu. It’s all part of the journey.

So. I hope you have your own traditions. If you made it this far, thanks for reading about mine. May you be blessed this season and always. Enjoy the ride and all the stops. Merry Christmas.

All my love,

Sara