When the wind threw snowstorms into billows, pirouetting and spinning off the fields, my family waited for the plowmen to clear our road. We respected the power of the wind to plug it up. We stayed put, sometimes as long as a week, until the town plowed us out. At times, my mother called for them to come, afraid my father with his bum knee would have to walk the mile long road through drifts after dark. I watched for his lights, as they turned onto our road, blurred by blowing snow. I watched as they rounded the last curve.
The township truck plowed the snow like the prow of a ship pushes water aside, the snow exploding into the fields. They dropped the wing to push back a snowbank standing at twenty feet. I thought of how a venetian blind can block a window until someone pulls the cord and draws it up, how the road was cleared letting in light.
My parents invited the crew in for coffee and cookies, with gratitude and to catch up on local news. My heart lifts up the same way when the red dump truck roars down our country road before dawn, the roar of the blade on the pavement, salt splattering behind. These men work all hours to clear and salt the roads so we can go to town, their wives’ sleep disturbed, and family meals eaten alone. Even holiday feasts can be missed if the snow decides to fall.
I’m Katie Andraski and that’s my perspective.
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These days it seems like my dad is drawing near. It’s been over forty years since he’s been gone. He delighted in giving gifts. Both my parents did. It was their best way of showing they loved my brother and I. I remember my mother driving somewhere between Schenectady and Albany to get my brother’s guitar repaired. She found a glass blower who blew a panther for my brother and a unicorn for me. I still have both. Those gifts still sit on my shelves reminding me of their thought and love. Stuff can hold a memory in physical form.
Here’s a poem I wrote as a young girl that celebrates my father’s delight in shopping at the mall, an institution that is rapidly fading from American life.
Saturdays greet shopping malls with Happy Holidays.
Merry Christmas drives on the Thruway, Northway,
up the narrow, slick ramp into slush.
Headlights fool us like a mirage with those great salt puddles.
Rain comes drizzling down.
Sleet, sweet shimmy--
Skid first to the left, then to the right.
The car swings to Jingle Bell Rock.
Headlight. Taillight. Parking lots flash.
Blinker light. Christmas light.
Monstrous evergreen sprawl.
New cars sit in snow like Christmas balls,
Blue, red, green, silver.
Each one parked with care
as Christmas reigns dear.
Dad stalks to the stores of his choice.
Hark the Hearld Angels hum
tell-tale on his breath.
He carries a checkbook revolver for safety
and a credit card rifle to purchase gifts.
He slips behind panty hose
racked in the Ladies boutique.
Watch those dangling bras.
He peeks out, aims at the night gowns.
A Bankamericard flashes.
A register prints out a slice of paper.
Dad stuffs the nightgown,
flannel no less, under his arm.
He sneaks on to the next store,
Hoping no one knows him,
So his secret is safe.
He looks at diamonds, picks a solitaire
To replace the ring my mother lost.
He strides past the Sears Santa
munching wishes like candy.
Toys R Us grabs him by his lapel.
A train set, dart gun and Monopoly later,
he finds Crate and Barrel where he adds
a baking dish and pitcher to Mom’s Pfalzgraph.
He sets them in the trunk.
My new hat plopped on his head,
perfect camouflage for the baker,
he ducks in, ducks out
with fruitcake for Christmas Eve
coffee cake for Christmas morning
cookies for stockings.
All thrown in with the Monopoly.
Revolving through doors,
credit shot to pennies,
Dad shuffles to his car.
Rain has feathered to snow.
He brushes it off to get his gifts home
and into the house with no one looking.
A good night’s sleep will make him strong
for more happy shopping
tomorrow and everyday
from now until December 25.
Looking back, I see how Dad revealed some of the generosity of God, how He too gives gifts, and grants the desires of our hearts, especially if we delight in Him. He showed me that I can ask for what I want. And receive it. I learned what Jesus tells us to do: Ask and you will receive. I came to love presents—giving and receiving. The scolds would say my brother and I were spoiled, but I don’t think so. (Spoiled for a rural person is a very deep, nasty insult. I hear the scolds also saying store up your treasure in heaven, care for the poor, the consumerist American culture is worse than not good. Well, maybe so, but for now I’m going to give thanks.)
The feast—my mother’s recipes are gone to memory. I’m not going to make oysters Newburgh or onions au gratin for just Bruce and I. Though I have adopted her dressing recipe by adding almonds or walnuts instead of chestnuts, along with breadcrumbs. I remember my mother cutting crosses in them and roasting them. We’d spend hours in front of a Christmas movie peeling them. And I certainly won’t make her lima beans and mushroom because I don’t like lima beans. Besides that’s a recipe I’ve not been able to find.
And the presents. The boxes wrapped with pretty paper under the tree. The night before wondering what would be there—a Breyer horse, a new outfit, books. My parents went overboard giving my brother and I presents. So much so my aunts made sure I knew how hurtful Christmas mornings were for their children because my brother and I had been showered with gifts. But not their children.
And the desserts. I’d swear I’d diet the next day, and gorge myself on apple kuchen, strawberry shortcake, and cookies. By the way I did find the apple kuchen recipe in the Tasajera Bread book online. The recipe calls for peaches but apples work well. I fed it to Bruce on our first date, and think it was part of what convinced him to ask me to marry him.
And our big family gathering has now dispersed, some to death, some to other regions. My cousin’s grandchildren have multiplied.
These are things worth mourning.
But I married into a family that believed in being spare and practical with presents. Bruce’s first gifts were sock and a hat. But I celebrate his daily gifts like dusting the blinds, and walking the dogs, and cleaning Mrs. Horse’s stall. I celebrate him first thing in the morning, last thing at night.
After my brother died, Christmases have been grinding hard because my family traditions are gone forever. There won’t be the dining room table set out with my mother’s silver and flow blue china. (I took the silver to the jeweler because I needed room in my drawers. The china sits in our dry sink. Our celebrations are so informal, we use my set of Pfalzgraph dishes. At our house Christmas is not much different than any other day we cook a roast, which could also mean those ordinary days when we sit down to a fancy dinner, are as much a feast as Christmas or Thanksgiving.
Christmas has been fraught with many difficult memories—getting sick to my stomach as we drove to catch our plane back from Arkansas the first Christmas after my brother died.
Arguing with my brother about family heirlooms. I took the tin horn, used to warn farmers the sheriff was coming in the anti-rent wars, but after a night in a cheap hotel, I gave it back. Not long ago I gave it to my cousin.
The Christmas we spent with my aunts and cousins after my brother died, only no one invited us back to their house for Christmas Eve. We barely found a Chinese restaurant to grab dinner.
Celebrations with Bruce’s family were difficult and we eventually withdrew.
The Christmas we woke up not knowing our dog survived his bowel resection. He did.
Without children, without family, it’s a fraught holiday at the darkest time of year. I could go on, but share this to say I know how Christmas can be mixed up with good memories, and wrenching ones too. It can punch us with loneliness. Sometimes the best we might do is sleep through the day or eat sweets or watch Christmas movies.
When we first moved to the farm, neighbors invited us to join their Christmas dinners. Those few times of sitting down to a feast, blunted the loneliness, no healed it, so the Christmases following were easier. I have been able to accept our quiet Christmases, grateful that Bruce and I are both still here and healthy, with the poignant dread that one day, one of us will be gone.
This Christmas we look forward to roast beef, reading a book or finding a Christmas movie and opening the presents we found one joyous shopping day at Sierra. That day brought back my dad, how I remembered his joy in giving gifts, after more than forty years away.
Of course there is church, Christmas Eve and Christmas day. The lights and hard singing, our voices as a church lifting up in the old carols: Joy to the World, The Lord has Come. Our world has been invaded by this baby, laid in a manger, celebrated by mystic shepherds, who got to hear the angels singing. There are the pagan magicians who followed a star and brought gifts the family would need when they fled empire, an empire that drew them to Bethlehem, the City of David, to fulfill the prophecies, an empire that tried to kill them. Joseph was the faithful quiet man who followed God’s warnings, loved his wife and raised his stepson. He kept them safe. Mary asked how can this be? Let it be so.
No matter how dark it is, or how our memories burn or our present pinches us with tears, or our hearts lift up with unexpected, quiet joy we we can look for the light. Jesus is the light of the world and He can show up in odd places. I found it in the barn—one knot hole defying the dark room. I found it in the faint pink and blue in the sky as the sun went down. Sometimes you have to look hard for the subtle colors.
Merry Christmas. Thank you for reading and/or listening to my words. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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