May Your Days Be Merry and Bright

Ahh well. We have climbed the glittering peak that is the week before Christmas and are now taking in the view from the other side. And what a view it is - with a 2 day visit from youngest sister - with whom I have spent very little time over the past 5 years. She is an out of state sister with a busy life. Whenever she's visited before she's stayed with Daddy and I have driven over to Richmond to share a brief few moments with her. But Dad was the focus so we had little time to catch up. This time, though she spent her days with Mama and doing City Stuff, she made the long trek to my house for dinner and music and talk. Turns out, she's a dawn prowler too so personal computer time those days was extremely limited. I'm on vacation this week so work was extremely demanding as I crammed every last thing I could think to do in 2011 into the short 3 and a half days I had left. The county gave us Friday off and I skipped out early on Thursday to go to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens' Festival of Lights.

This trip had been postponed from the previous Friday due to rain but the only day that promised dry weather when we rescheduled it was Thursday the 22. Promised, that is, by weather dot com guys - who got it wrong.  Fortunately, about 20 intrepid carolers stood in the rain, beneath sheltering umbrellas gleaned from half a dozen car trunks and serenaded each other ... there were no crowds, of course.




It was never a deluge - just rain - and there were indoor delights to enjoy as well and even some happy bright lights on the drive home.

Cousin C came home with me and stayed Friday and half of Saturday. Her dad and brother showed up Friday for Oyster Pie and deer hunting on Christmas Eve. Hunting was the operative word - finding never happened. Deer are smart - the not only know which parts of the forest are flooded, they know which pieces are posted.

Cousin C loves to make things with TheQueen. We share that fiddly craftiness and both of us are handy in the kitchen too. In fact, she blended the biscuit dough as well as any pro - cutting the fat into the flour till it was perfect. Everyone raved about her biscuit crust on the oyster pie and there was not a crumb left! She also helped with the candied grapefruit peel - a true seasonal delicacy - because I can't stop eating the stuff. I only make it once a year and only at Christmas time, even though grapefruit will be available for several months.

As darkness fell, BD and I cozied up together while I knitted on his Christmas gift ... which he did not realize was for him ... I'm 'always knitting' so whatever's in my lap at any given moment is 'just more of that knitting stuff'. Thus I never try to hide what I'm making from him. He's still surprised when it's finished and, fortunately, glad when he finds out it's for him. There was music. There were the chapters from Luke and Mathew. There was the climb up the stairs to bed....




And then it was Christmas Morning and he did! He did come - leaving presents under the tree - filling stockings. And either Santa understands or Mrs. Clause is a knitter because the longed for set of Knitters Pride Dreamz Interchangeable needles was underneath the tree along with some knitting books, a new blank journal, and blue pens! It was a very bookish Christmas - for TheQueen has access to secret stores of literary treasure and of course, she listens to what ThePrince Himself says throughout the year - and when he expresses a wish, she notes it down. She is a Very Good TheQueen.  Somebody will have hours and hours of armchair sailing this winter.

There was a Christmas morning phone call from LD who is spending the month abroad visiting a special friend. We miss him, but he generously sends us photos of his travels through quaint European villages and deep into their swept and tidy forests. There were more phone calls, from and to family who are also far away. There was BH to join us for our traditional stupor producing Christmas Feast of standing rib roast, Yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes, peas and broccoli.

Released from gift knitting I picked up Bricca with new enthusiasm and a new game plan too. I'm making this one longer than I'd planned - not tunic length, but certainly more traditionally long - 28 inches probably. With my new needles and a box of oatmeal colored tweed upstairs in the guest room - I am determined to finish Bricca by the New Year. It's almost all stockinette knitting - it should zip along nicely. There will be photos.

And so - we have climbed the mountain that is Christmas and ahead of me lies the beautiful plain of Vacation - I'm off till the 3rd. Today I'll visit Mama. Tomorrow I will go to the gym. One day this week there will be a trip to F'burg with knitter friends because I want to look inside the new yarn shop on Williams Street. Whatever time is left will be spent watching all the Christmas movies I was unable to see before the big day. I'm still humming Christmas music and still wishing that, for all of you, may your days be merry and bright. 

Resonating with the Christmas thrum

It's just a week away - and the festivities are piling up around TheCastle making the air fairly sing with the joy of the season. I simply love Christmas. When I hear people say "Christmas is for children" in that faintly dismissive tone, implying they have long since decided to not be impressed by anything so glittering and fragrant, I ignore them. Because in a way, they are right - Christmas is for the child in my spirit - the one who thinks that tomorrow, who knows, something so wonderful could happen that I might just fall down in a heap of ecstasy. Who knows? It could happen.

And when I hear that Christmas has been diminished in some way - too commercial, lost its real spirit, too stressful - well. I always think "For you maybe. Not for me." I don't say so, because I really do believe that people have the right to be miserable if they want to. I never am. Even this year, when I have lost some beloved ones, when I would give all I possess to pat my bed and invite Priss up for a cuddle - when I could take my Daddy a funny Christmas present and see him sit and laugh, silently, with those twinkly eyes - even this year is still rich and sweet and vibrating with possibilities. To quote Ferroll Sams "I still have more on this side of the Jordan" and isn't that a wonderful thought?

 Yesterday was the Day Of The Tree - and it was the best tree hunt we've ever had, resulting in the absolutely best tree we've ever put up!

Everyone helps to choose but it is BD, ThePrince himself, who does all the hard labor in the beginning - from bringing it home ...



To setting it up.....

 To stringing the lights - after which he and his helper take a well earned rest - and sip an eggnog.

Well - Jack did not get any eggnog.

We girls do the ornament hanging - and this year I had help - which made the job more fun and easier too!

Ornaments from BD's childhood, LD's own handicraft and of course - birds selected by TheQueen. There is still more decorating to do, for the icicles aren't on it yet and there may still be some gaps that need to be filled with ornaments who've been strung on long dangling threads.

There is also Christmas Knitting in an amazing yarn from Spirit Trail Fiberworks - in a blue to jolt you awake and a plied yarn in a blend of merino, cashmere and silk that really shows stitches off at their crisply perfect best. And it's worsted weight and it is Not Socks. It is for BD who won't read this blog anyway so I can show you a picture.

Looks  like a  skirt for a stuffed animal, doesn't it. I'll post a photo of the finished object sometime soon.

Today there will be More Christmas Decorating and More Christmas Knitting and maybe More Christmas Movie Watching. It's a grey day that looks just right for staying cozily indoors making preparations. I am thinking it's time to make candied grapefruit peel ....

Meeting in the Middle - and a wee bit of shopping

I met up with J in Fredericksburg yesterday, at Castiglia's who have a solid gluten free menu - including Pizza (crispy with delicious cheese and thin slices of prosciutto) and, I noticed in the desert case - a gluten free cheesecake with what looked like chocolate on top. That's their brick oven in the background. Our lives are just busy enough - and in different stages of life - that visits like this are precious and tend to be this time of year - when library work slows down and all the fiber shows are over for the year. 

We had a 2 hour lunch and caught up on all the details that emails just don't convey:  her musical son - my adventuring one - Little Miss Horsewoman - husbands, parents. Self and health and spiritual stuff. A sweet reunion. I asked her if she noticed a yarn shop on the east bound lane of Rt. 3, just as the Fredericksburg sprawl begins coming in from the west. There used to be one, now defunct, on William Street near the college. But last summer when I was coming home from Culpepper I thought I noticed one.  I couldn't be sure, though and it wasn't a convenient time to stop ... just at the beginning of the gridlock rush hour. She hadn't noticed it either and really, I don't need to shop for yarn, you know. I just like to.

Moseying down Caroline Street, we peeked into little shops, picking up a Christmas gift here or there. I noticed several book stores - some new, mostly used - and delightfully tempting. I will go back and browse soon, but I have already bought all the books I'm going to get this holiday. Time to find Other Things for Other People. And then it was time to part - she to be back west to meet the school bus, I to head south east to get started on the Christmas hat for BD that I'm knitting with the blueblueblueblueblue yarn she brought me. So you see, who needs a yarn shop when you're friends with MsSpirit Trail herself!?!

We parted with warm hugs and loving wishes for happy new years and I got into my car. As I settled around, putting a coat on the back seat, a CD into the player, I noticed a sign on the building I was parked in front of .... Yarnery. I really couldn't believe my eyes. I got out, walked up to the building, tried the door and peeked through the window to be sure it really was what I thought it was ... 

It was! Old Town Yarnery   has opened it's doors on 205 William Street. Yippeee. There is nothing so reassuring to a knitter than news of a yarn emergency relief station is less than 50 miles away. Closed Monday's, alas but I've got the whole week between Christmas and New Year's off. I can make a trip to Fredericksburg. I believe I will call R and ask her to join me there. 

So. An unexpected gift for TheQueen. 

Knitting Homesickness and Sunday Activities

Yes. I am homesick for my regular knitting. December is Christmas knitting and I have socks growing from my #2's but I am missing my Bricca. Sigh. This is how I left her - wait! No! I'd finished that second sleeve. But since then I have been industriously stitching away on guy stuff. I have a little time today - because I was such a good girl yesterday and got the grubby kitchen cleaned - Maybe I'll pull her out and caress her a bit. I want her finished by the first 2 weeks of January because there is an Aran Tweed Sweater, completely unassembled in the guest/stash/junk room. It longs to be worn this year, though I suspect we'll need an awfully cold May if I am really going to get to wear it before next fall. After all - it's cables! S L O W knitting at best. Moribund if I am not diligent.

Happily, Bricca is now at the all circular stockinette stitch stage - she'll finish up fast.

And there is a lacy cap sleeved cardigan to toss over my shoulders at garden parties and soirees this summer (who am I kidding - it's so freakin' hot here in the summer I wish I could take my skin off). Still - I want a little lace cardigan and I want it from this Orihime lace weight merino/cashmere blend from Spirit Trail Fiberworks. Pretty, no? And are we seeing a pattern in the color choices at TheCastle.

It's a gorgeously blue day and I will be going out into the woods to gather decorative greenery. Unlike the fabulous houses I visited last weekend, I have done nothing to decorate for Christmas. But I have everything except boxwood right here in my yard and the near by woods. I'll pick and tie and drape and at least the front door will look festive.


As for the rest of my family - I believe a sailboat will be hauled today - and perhaps some firewood chopped - I am hoping they'll be chore free in time to go with me to St. John's to hear the Lessons in Carols but I did not get avid enthusiasm from either when I mentioned this. I'm far more likely to come home and find this scene from last night repeated.

A Different Feeling

Christmas is just 2 weeks away and I can't really think what I should be doing. It's Saturday and of course the house needs cleaning - houses are like toddlers - they need your attention all the time. If you ignore them very long they become bratty - and dirty. But this close to Christmas I feel like I ought to be rushing towards ... something.

Oh - there are festive activities on the calendar ... tomorrow's Lesson's in Carols at St. John's . Monday's visit with J - and some Christmas Shopping. Friday's gathering of friends at Lewis Ginter for the light show. Then the final rush of that last week with tree hunting, (and decorating), present wrapping and Christmas dinner cooking. Oh. And yes. I do have a job and all .....

But somehow this just doesn't feel like other years have felt. It feels exceedingly laid back which, for even a close to the cusp Virgo, feels like I'm forgetting something. Perhaps this is because of the altered state of my family with Daddy gone and Mama not present enough to answer the phone or to pick it up and call me. I can go all week now without hearing from her - when last year she would be calling several times a day. And when we do connect the conversation is empty. Thank goodness when we're together we can still really converse - but phone chat, something I've never been very good at anyway, is difficult.


Maybe it's the eclipse - which is happening as I type this - with both Mercury and Uranus turning out of retrograde as well. Maybe it's the mild weather we've been having. Hardly a morning with frost all autumn and even today's so-called cold snap will last only through the weekend.

Whatever it is - it's a different sort of Christmas season for me - smaller, slower, maybe easier too.

I remember Christmases of such frenzy I was spanked and sent to bed. In fact, that seems like it happened every year though I believe it was only a couple of times. Probably when I was 10 and driving everybody nuts that year anyway. There were also those Christmases when we were broke ... like the first 10 years we were married. The budget for Christmas was always $100 and that had to include the tree, the dinner and the presents. Travel involved both a trip to Richmond and one to D.C. to visit both grandmas - who, after all, couldn't come have Christmas with us - in a yurt.

So our rule was always to stay home on TheDay and do our traveling afterwards. Now there is almost no traveling to do. Sisters are scattered too far away. Most of the Grandparents are gone and I am not a grandmother myself ...

Well. Durn. If I keep writing on this post I will become depressed - which I am not. Just different. and Weird. But a nice sort of weird. I think I better just go do something else.

Happy Eclipse Day to you - and may your Christmas spirit be bright, whether it is different or same. 

Death's Heartless Theft

It wasn't my intention to write a gloomy post during this festive time of year but death has blown hot breath through my community and in the space of a week I have lost 4 friends. Two had been dreadfully ill for a long time. Their departure was not unexpected, but neither was it desired. Still, both B and M were so very sick who would want them to linger in a suspended state of pain and suffering? One death was, true to the nature of time, at least a reasonable development. H was 92. Dementia had set in and the circle of his life had shrunk to virtual minutia. Until 3 years ago, he was driving, cooking, taking care of himself and enjoying his grandchildren. I am sorry and sad he is gone, but there is something whole about the fullness of his life - his experiences - his love. Like the cadence of a beautiful symphony - it feels right when it comes even if it does mean that silence follows.

And then the 4th blow struck with the news that Pete had died over the weekend.

Pete wasn't really his name - not even Peter. For some reason, in this community, 60-plus years ago it became a common nickname. I know several Petes, Peties, and Petsies. Burly men or august seniors now, who once were little darlings. When BD and I moved down here this particular Pete was the very first friend I made. We knew we were oddities - living in Pop's old WWII army pup tent and building a yurt and talking about our plans to live off the land and sustain ourselves with wild food. We had all the books and the youth and the sense of magic it takes to do something crazy like that and who cares if your dad looks at your house, turns away and mutters "tar paper shack".  But not Pete. He just drove right up to our campsite, hopped out of his rattly truck and hallooed. He had heard about us from Agnes Ware, who was sure we would become fast friends.

She was right. And not just because he was as much of an oddity as we were.

Pete really took us under his wing, sharing in that flat out, full blast, one hundred per cent way he did everything.  He helped us get building materials at cost. He invited us up to his place to swim off the shady banks in front of Marlbank. He showed up with beer. He showed up with hammer and saw. He showed up with friends. He just poured welcome all over us as we hewed a place for ourselves in the woods, in the country, in the community. Pete did everything that way. He was like a spewing volcano. I was the beneficiary of his warmth and generosity but there were others who swayed beneath his cantankerousness - an almost insane madness that gushed out of him with the same intensity. He was really famous for his wild outbursts - this, in a county rife with stories about passionate flamboyant men. But he was always kind and good to me - and to mine.

And he once saved my son's life.

I don't say that in an cliched sort of way. He is an unsung hero and I mean it with all the passion of a mother who nearly lost her only child. There was a day when we were building our house and I was showing Pete around. He and I, with 4-year oldLDclimbed up to the second floor to have a look-see. Sub-flooring was tacked down everywhere, but there was just the smallest gap between some of it and sure enough, LD dropped right through it. Had he fallen all the way it would have been about 12 feet to a concrete slab. No way that little body would have survived.  Both Pete and I were just beyond an arm's length away from him and in slow motion I watched my only child heading for that unyielding floor below. Faster than lightening Pete leapt the distance, snatched my little boy by the shoulders and flung him back onto the second story surface.

A flash. A millisecond. A tiny child. An adult with ADD. A miracle. Thank God. 

Everything that defines my first steps into country life is wrapped around Pete and losing him really hurts. He had been out of touch with everyone for a long time. He was actually incommunicado, though I had a private way to send him messages and just knowing he was alive and okay and somewhere doing what he wanted was one of those little savings accounts I kept in my heart to assure me that I had extra resources, that I was rich.But now that's all gone, melted away with this sad, sad news.The memories are still there - Pete and the Ghost Car. Pete and swimming up at Marlbank. Pete and the arrowhead root. Pete and his dog Squirelly. Pete's oyster roast. Pete's crazy laugh.

Memories.

Not quite as tangible as the real flesh and blood Pete - but riches nonetheless.

Oh Pete. Fare well.

What a Week

I certainly didn't intend to drop off the blogging radar last week - it just happened. Of course - this time of year has all sorts of seasonal challenges - not the least of which is trying to settle back into a work routine after wallowing in carbohydrate heaven for the 5 days of a long Thanksgiving weekend. It took all day Monday for me to get a handle on the ADD behavior - the people part of my job was just too tempting. "How was your Thanksgiving?" "Yes. We have those Martha Stewart Christmas books." "Look what just came in to the collection!" I was still being a librarian - but really I was doing what the front desk people do just as well - and they don't really know how to do the back room stuff I was avoiding.

Then there is knitting - gift knitting - something one doesn't natter on about because either the recipient might read about it or it is just ubiquitous sock knitting. Do you really want to see a photograph of a self striping stockinette stitch sock slowly spreading towards a toe? No. I didn't think so either. 

There was a retirement party - where all the community turned out to cheer a local official off into bucolic relaxation. He's delighted to settle into the life of country squire and his wife told me she's counting the days. 

There was also the unexpected challenge of the funeral of neighbor that drew half the county to the colonial churchyard up in Loretto. Though usually I consider myself too old and too important to stand at funerals, I knew this one would be so full of family and closer friends that I didn't bother to get there early. The church was packed but they kept the door open so you could listen to the sermon and eulogy, but there were actually more people standing outside than in. The internment was at the family cemetery, with people gathering at the big house afterwards - so many people the catering staff couldn't even bring trays around. We stayed only long enough to hug the widow and tell her a sweet story we remembered about her husband. Farewell, old friend - it looked like the heaven's had lit up to receive you that night. 

TheQueen's productivity picked up as the week progressed - a fortunate thing since there were half a dozen little extra meetings, planning sessions and bee yooo tee appointments, as she fit in hair cuts, manicures and a stop at the dry cleaners in preparation for the Big Event of Saturday -Christmas House Tour of the Big Houses up my end of the county. 

This was my station - on the second floor at the top of the stair case - telling the ghost story. Not that there's so much to tell - their ghost is merely a lady in a long silken dress carrying a candle and brushing past people on the staircase, darting into the first bedroom and slamming the door. BD's grandmother saw one of those harmless night wanderers at another local Big House when she was a  teenager.

Nothing half so exciting as the Mount Pleasant ghost - a man in chains who appeared in the mirror of a new bride who then went running down the staircase, tripped and fell to her death - and you could still see the bloodstains where she landed. (that's always the end of the story)  But a ghost in a Big House is a good thing and the story was just enough to get people to stop and listen in the hallway while the previous group of sightseers wandered away.

BH was in charge of it all and she organized everything splendidly. Not that she didn't have an army of helpers - I figured she had to have about 20 volunteers to help guide people through this mansion. It's called Blandfield, btw and you can, if you want to have the Lady Baltimore experience, actually get married here.

The told us not to take photos inside - but I don't believe these two shots - of TheGeneral and TheQueen - display anything revealing. The house is chock a block full of antiques and art as befits something this old and this big. And we had such fun I just have to share the smiles.

So. Here it is Sunday morning and on the agenda today is a little light housekeeping and an afternoon of watercolor painting with a little buddy - an utterly charming young man who has inherited his great-grandmother's talent. How fortunate that I have so many good toys - and that I share.

And now - I believe it is time for breakfast.