Holidays - Choose to Believe

Santa Ready for Take-Off!

I have many Silver Linings in my life, all sizes, shapes, colors, count my favorite blogs (my Trifecta + One) as some of them.  This past week was a bit bumpy, to put it mildly, decided to make today, Saturday, a Pajama Day, thank you, Hollye Jacobs!  Woke up earlier than usual when the workmen remodeling the unit next door arrived. Much whirring, sawing, thumping and bumping ensued.  Made my (first) cafe con leche ... have I said how much I love, love, love, no, really, LOOOOOOVE my Keurig?  You just pop the Kcup of your choice in there, push the button and voila!  Hot javalicious perfection. It even makes hot chocolate! Popped a blueberry pie in the oven because it makes my nest smell sooooo good, chocolate cake will be baked later in the day, in honor of Mami's birthday which was this past Thursday.  But I digress, yeah, I know, what else is new?  Fired up the computer and checked my emails and there was a new post on Hollye's blog.  Mind you, I have not met her (yet, someday I'd love to meet her and Frances Schultz, two of my all-time favorite humans), ANYWAY, her post is called Finding Joy During the Holidays, it's lovely, her posts are (without fail) insightful, brilliant, they make you think, laugh, appreciate.  It's like a wonderful meal for the soul.

Christmas Treasures

Anyway, where was I?  Oh, yeah, sorry, bobbled and weaved, so I'm reading Hollye's latest post (and loving it) and see a link at the bottom to another post 15 Choices that Lead to Finding the Silver Lining in Life .  All I can say is ... Wow!  She posted it on May 14 of this year, HOW did I miss it the first time around?  My Mom's philosophy of life right there on my computer screen.  How serendipitous I should find this post today, the weekend we would have celebrated her birthday.  What a lovely, lovely Silver Lining.  Hollye writes, Because finding Silver Linings is indeed a choice*, here are 15 choices (that I try to make each day) that lead to finding Silver Linings:

1. Express gratitude for what you DO have in this moment.
2. Smile often.
3. Be playful. Put a bounce in your emotional step.
4. Take breaks from technology.
5. Express love, even to strangers.
6. Sleep.
7. Look at challenges as opportunities to learn and grow.
8. Eat healthily, but treat yourself.
9. Focus on the present.
10. Exercise.
11. Be open to change.
12. Do what makes you happy.
13. Simplify.
14. Don’t “Should” on yourself.
15. Decide that – no matter what – you will find a Silver Lining.

*That is my Mom's philosophy in a nutshell, you choose to see either the light or the dark in life.



Santa's Truck

Which brings me to the reason for this post.  Bet you thought I'd lost track of it, right?  Nope!  I'm focused, I may bobble, duck and weave, but eventually I do arrive at my point.  Which is, people are always complaining about how the holidays have gotten so commercialized and stressful and there's no time to enjoy them.  Which is silly.  You choose whether to buy into the commercialism which leads to going nuts-o at the mall meaning Stress, with a capital S.  And that's why you have no time to enjoy.  Period.  End of discussion.  It is a choice.  The stuff that's out there (albeit on sale now) is there the year-round, it's readily available, the electronics, the games, the toys, the ... STUFF.  It's like humanity loses sight of the real reason, and no, I'm not getting preachy and going all "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" although, yeah, He really is.  But we lose sight of what the holidays really SHOULD mean.  They once were a time for the family to gather, to bake, decorate the tree, spend time together doing stuff (NOT going lulu at the mall).

In our house the holidays were special, yes, we did the "lechon asado" (roast pork) and the traditional Cuban meal on the 24th, sometimes on the 25th we would do the traditional American meal (always with black beans and rice somewhere in there), we would put the tree up and decorate it on my Mom's birthday (December 12), until she was diagnosed and then we switched it to Thanksgiving weekend.  And we loved getting just the right present for everyone and Christmas Day we were like little kids, giddy with unwrapping to find surprising delights Santa had left under the tree.  But it was not really about stuff, it was about time.  Spent together.  Sharing.  Sitting in the candlelit living room, admiring the tree.  The tree was the main deal.  Time spent together was the focus, it is what makes memories.  These are some of my favorites:


Mom and Her Favorite Elves

Memory:  Holiday Season 1985.  My best friend's girls were still little and my Mom was taking care of them.  One morning they rushed into the house and then just stopped and went "Oooooh!"  They stood there mesmerized, with these huge eyes of wonder looking at the the Christmas tree we'd gotten the night before.  It wasn't decorated yet, it was just the tree standing there in all its glory, all fresh, green and smelling of the forest (or how one imagines a pine tree forest smells).  The look on their faces was, as the commercial goes, priceless.  Pure joy, belief and wonder.  Oh, I do hope those two little girls, now beautiful young women, know how much joy they brought into our home.  Silver Linings, absolutely.  They were mine to love and play with, have picnics in the middle of the living room, make cakes in the microwave oven, make cakes from "scratch" and egg salad sandwiches.  They were joy personified.

Memory:  Summer of 1986.  I came home with a vicious headache, the girls were there watching cartoons and I plopped down on the floor with them, being with them always made my headaches less painful.  After a while I fell asleep on the living room floor and woke up to both of them sitting on either side of me, patting my face and going "Ya, ya, ya, Barbie."  Same as we did to them when they were feeling bad.  And, yeah, you got it, my headache was gone, those two were (and still are) something special.

Tiny Hand Prints Bandit

Memory:  Holiday Season 1986.  While cleaning the living room wall unit (getting ready for "Nochebuena"), I find a set of perfect, tiny chocolate hand prints and my Mom says "Leave them, they are perfect."  They were my goddaughter's little hand prints from some filched chocolate.  The hand prints stayed there a long, long time.


Memory: Thanksgiving 1989.  Mom is in the hospital with an infected cat bite which became complicated due to her compromised immune system from the chemo.  She is doing well, but not well enough to be sent home.  I have a late Thanksgiving lunch with her at the hospital.  Later when night falls, I go over my best friend's parents home, which is really like my second home, I sit at the table for some coffee and Mom R. goes to the kitchen and comes back with a plate.  They saved Thanksgiving dinner for me.  In their home I find kindness, laughter and love.  They were then, are now and always will be, my own.

Honorary Grandma and Her Girls

Memory:  Christmas Eve 1987.  This was the year my Mom was diagnosed, in late August.  Her oncologist's comment to me was "If you get to Christmas, make it a good one."  And we did, we did.  Christmas Eve my parents and I trotted over to my best friend's house for a big party they were having.  Went to Midnight Mass with Mom and my best friend's parents, we leave the big Nochebuena shindigs for just a while to attend mass, it has always been my favorite mass of the year.  When it comes time to join hands for the Our Father, Pop C. grumbles about having to hold hands with someone he doesn't know and who knows if they've washed their hands and why does he have to  hold hands with them anyway?  I start laughing because he sounds like the Grinch personified, but he's really a big teddy bear with a kind heart.  The priest is NOT amused at my laughter.  Which makes Pop C. make yet another comment.  I laugh again.  After another fulminating look from the priest, I muffle my laughter, barely.

Joy, Pure and Simple

Memory:  Christmas Day 1987.  We were so happy to get Christmas with Mom, just over the moon, silly happy.  Christmas Day she was feeling good, we take pictures sitting by the tree, she says something completely silly and we both laugh like loons, my Dad snaps a candid shot of us laughing. Pure joy captured.

Memory:  New Year's Day 1994, Mom has a rough morning but is feeling good by early evening and sits on the sofa to watch a comedy movie, La Risa en Vacaciones.  She sits between me and my Dad, the only lights on are the vanilla-scented candles and the Christmas tree.  We are sitting there, just us three, laughing at the silly antics onscreen and I feel this peace wash over us.  It's a moment of joy, contentment, complete and perfect.  And I know I will never, ever feel this way again.  But I am oh, so, so grateful for it.  For them.  For us.

Santa's Office

Memory:  Christmas 2004.  My first Christmas in my cocoon.  A few days before I had gotten a big box from my Tallahassee friends, full of presents and all bearing a note "Do NOT open 'til Christmas!"  So, I make my big Christmas breakfast, put on Christmas music, open my presents and I feel loved.  Snug and safe in my cocoon with my feline progeny all around me, I am happy.

Long Ago and Far Away ...

Memory: Fall 2005.  My goddaughter comes over with her father.  I bake brownies.  I have not seen him since he divorced her mom and I'm ready to light into him, I was good and ticked off at him when I learned about the divorce and all that preceded it and all that took place after.  But the minute I see them walking up to my door, the minute I hug him, all anger goes poof.  All I see is a very dear, old, once trusted, friend and I am taken back to a time long ago and far away.  He refuses to eat any of the brownies, I don't know if it's because he really doesn't want any or he's afraid I've put something in them ... which, have to admit, did cross my mind.  We sit and talk, look through photo albums which captured just a smidge of a lovely, innocent time in our lives.  When my best friend and I would go off into the wide blue yonder and have adventures, sometimes with the kenders, sometimes on our own.  We'd return to their home and feast on goat fricasee (the only time I ever ate goat knowingly) and drink cheap beer, which once led to a belching contest. Yes, that's right, three adults, two of them parents, sitting around the dining table belching, it's a pretty picture isn't it?  And the girls were laughing and laughing not believing the "grown-ups" were engaging in such behavior.  Having been prepared to find an enemy, instead I found my old friend and it felt right, like finding an old sweater you like to wrap yourself in because it makes you feel cozy, warm and safe.  There is no bitterness or anger, just little ghosts of laughter and dancing, beach barbecues and singing Day-Oh while floating on the water in a big circle.  Of doing tequila shots having completely forgotten it was Good Friday and making a promise to the Father that if He gets me home, I will never, EVER do tequila shots again.  To this day I've kept that promise.  No tequila shots for this girl.  Although I do still have a fondness for Margaritas,  Mango Margaritas being my current favorite, ha!

Beautiful Boy

Memory:  Christmas 2010.  I pry myself away from my cocoon and go visit my beautiful girl (my goddaughter's sister) and her husband.  They welcomed their firstborn, a boy, that summer and I have not met him yet.  Arriving at her house, I am greeted with hugs, love and laughter.  She brings the baby over to me and puts him in my arms.  I feel my heart break and expand at the same time, holding this child of joy, born of the little girl I've loved as my own from day one.  She has grown into this amazing, beautiful, loving woman and I am grateful to have them all, still, in my life.

Memory:  Christmas 2012.  My neighbors invite me to Nochebuena dinner at their house.  I bake little cheesy corn muffins and brownies.  We sit around the table, eating, talking, and I feel at home, with family.  We take pictures and I am smiling from ear to ear in all of them, not my best look, but you can tell I am happy.

See, moments like that, you can't buy, they just happen, they are the epitome of Holiday Silver Linings.  So, enjoy these holidays, try to downplay the stress factor, spend time with your loved ones, trim the tree, bake cookies, share a meal, set up the Nativity Scene, go to Midnight Mass, as I've said, it is my favorite Mass of the year, write a letter to Santa, buy a toy or two or three for one of the many toy drives held this time of year, use those little coupons at the cash register where they add $2, $3, $5 dollars to your tab and it goes towards a food bank.



Mom's Birthday 12-12-1992

Make a conscious choice to find and keep the magic alive. Choose to Believe.  Believe in the joy, the magic, the sheer beauty of all those lights twinkling and lighting the darkness. Light the candles, make a gingerbread house, deck the halls. It's not about stuff, it's not about running up a huge credit card(s) bill, it's not about "having" to buy a present for someone.  Sure, presents are great, particularly if they come from the heart, not from some misguided sense of obligation.  We should not feel obligated to give presents.  Presents are about joy shared.  Time spent searching for that perfect present for someone, whether it's a wild extravagance, or something simple but you know they will love.  But, really, the season is not about any of that.  We need to take the "gimme, gimme, gimme!" factor out of this season.  It's about family, friends, time shared, heck, time MADE, carved out of our oh-so-busy schedules.  It's about joy and love, hugs and laughter.  It's about faith.  You know what they say about faith, it's the belief in something you can neither touch, hear, see, taste, smell, but even so you are still darn sure of it (although to me Christmas smells like the incense they use at Midnight Mass, which without fail makes me sneeze earning me a VERY stern look from my priest).  That is faith to me and those memories, the memories of times shared, of laughter and music and love and Christmas trees, those memories are the real Silver Linings of the holidays.

 

Okay, I am signing off, my neighbors were coming over tonight to help me trim the tree, I've baked a chocolate cake and it's been cooling on my kitchen counter while I write and write and write some more.  However, I've postponed the tree trimming/hot chocolate and chocolate cake festivities until tomorrow afternoon, the new meds are slowly taking effect, but have made me just a bit dizzy.  I have felt way less pain today (yay!) and may have pushed the envelope a little too much, with the baking and the cooking and the cleaning, I do love to putter and fluff!  So I am hitting the sheets right after I post this.  Remember, he's making a list and checking it twice!  Until next time, be blessed, keep the faith and BELIEVE!


Making a List, Checking It Twice!