Strolling through Old Town Albuquerque

I rarely visit other towns at Christmas time. So it was interesting to stroll through Old Town Albuquerque on my way to and from dinner at the Church Street Cafe. It is a Southwest tradition and possibly a uniquely New Mexican one, to line your rooftop, porch, street and it would seem any outdoor surface with luminarias. Many of the buildings in Albuquerque both in Old Town and in the greater business and residential communities have them lining their roof tops already. These, I was told are electric.


But in Old Town, thousands of small brown paper bags will be filled with sand and a candle lining the streets on Christmas Eve to welcome the Christchild. There is a Christmas Eve tour that is suppose to be spectacular.


I would love to see it one day.


There were regular stands of white lights decorating the shops and houses too. This decorated dancer took my fancy.

Pink Tractor

There were no girly pink tractors when I was small. I think we had a beat-up red one. Or maybe a cousin had a beat-up red one. Whosoever it was, it most definitely was not new or pink. I took this picture at Tractor Supply. It tickled me. And John Deere makes bikes now??? Now that is building brand loyalty! I love shopping in the flatland, things are so different there then they are here.

Christmas Aerobics

Clump, clump, clump down the stairs to the basement to gather the empty bags and boxes for the nativity scene.

Clump, clump, clump up the stairs to the living room to wrap the kings, shepard, donkey, ox and the entire flock of sheep and put them away for another year. The holy family gets its own little box. I had a pang when I stuffed in the Baby Jesus.

Clump, clump, clump back down the stairs carrying the bag full of nativity boxes in one hand and the hefty manger in the other. Whew. I gathered up the empty black trash bags for all of the garland.

Clump, clump, clump up the stairs to the foyer. I had previously staged most of the decorations in a gigantic pile on the sofa in the living room. I stuffed all the inside garland into one bag and the outside garland into another. Huh, what was the 3rd empty bag for? I tossed the bags of garland down the basement stairs only to discover that I had to go down anyway to gather yet more boxes and bags for the wreaths.

Clump, clump, clump down the stairs. My, I am starting to get a little winded.

After much to-ing and fro-ing or maybe up-ing and down-ing. The first floor was devoid of any hint of the holiday. I went from room to room to check. Ah, but remember the tree was on the second floor in the library.

Puff, puff, puff, back up the stairs. I had taken off most of the ornaments but I never taken take down the tree or put things away until after Epiphany (a hang over from my childhood, I guess.) I took off the lights and pulled apart the tree. Ah, the ease of the fake tree.

Clump, clump, clump down 2 flights of stairs now with the sections of the tree and tree stand. (whose idea was it to put the tree on the 2nd floor, anyway!) In the basement, I pulled out all of the Christmas tubs and riffled through them. Hmmm, there seemed to be one missing.

Clump, clump, clump up two flights of stairs, I discovered that I was smart enough to leave the winter ornament tub in the library closet. I wrapped the breakable ornaments, re-boxed the crocheted snowflakes and tottered down the 2 flights of stairs one un-seen step at a time with the heavy tub.

Finally a little duct tape on the plastic tree skirt bag, several more flights of stairs and DONE for another year!

I need a cool down and stretch after all that work. sigh. I guess I’ll vacuum.

Favorite Christmas Carols

I have been asking people what their favorite carol is. Here is the list so far:

O Holy Night
Adeste Fideles
Ave Maria
Jingle Bells (my 6 year old neighbor)
Silent Night
Away in the Manger (2 votes)
Bing’s White Christmas
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
El Burrito de Belen

Mine?

Good King Wenceslas. It is a feel good song about giving.

Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight
Gath'ring winter fuel

"Hither, page, and stand by me
If thou know'st it, telling
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?"
"Sire, he lives a good league hence
Underneath the mountain
Right against the forest fence
By Saint Agnes' fountain."

"Bring me flesh and bring me wine
Bring me pine logs hither
Thou and I will see him dine
When we bear him thither."
Page and monarch forth they went
Forth they went together
Through the rude wind's wild lament
And the bitter weather

"Sire, the night is darker now
And the wind blows stronger
Fails my heart, I know not how,
I can go no longer."
"Mark my footsteps, my good page
Tread thou in them boldly
Thou shalt find the winter's rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly."

In his master's steps he trod
Where the snow lay dinted
Heat was in the very sod
Which the Saint had printed
Therefore, Christian men, be sure
Wealth or rank possessing
Ye who now will bless the poor
Shall yourselves find blessing

Leave your favorite in the comment box.

Cruising the streets

One of my favorite things to do at this time of year is drive around the neighborhoods to look at the Christmas lights, although perhaps I should say displays. Lord knows they are bigger, bouncier and more animated than ever. After dinner with friends last week, we drove on snowy roads listening to Nat King Cole sing Yuletide carols. We crept along admiring and often laughing at what people had done to their homes.

Some houses had no decorations that we could see. Others were subdued with only a lighted tree in the window. Most of them though had some outside lights. There were the ubiquitous white lights everywhere from icicles to those shrub nets. One house had an enormous lighted palm tree. (We actually stopped and backed up to get a better view.) Many houses had articulated reindeer or angels. We paused to see if they would move or not---whooping in delight if the angel’s wings flapped or the reindeer munched the snow. The little girl in me still prefers the multi-colored lights. It is so much prettier in the black and white winter night.

I have to confess that I dislike the craze for inflatables. But my friend in Minnesota had a good point. They do look nice in the daytime when the holiday lights are not on. Most of the blow-up ornaments are holiday specific. The snow globes are even clever. I have seen one left over Halloween inflatable of Garfield and a random Scooby though. Odd. Why would you still inflate them?

My house? Well it has candles in the windows and the tree upstairs this year. The tree will come down after Epiphany but I will leave the candles in the windows until late January.

The Kindness of Strangers

Scraaaape.

Scraaaape.

My sister looked up. If you have ever shoveled snow, you know the
distinct sound and rhythm of a shovel scraping blacktop. The room
was dark except for the TV and the multicolored twinkling lights from
the tree in the corner.

Scraaaape.

Scraaaape.

Who is shoveling after dark? She looked at the clock. 8:30. She
pushed back the insulted drape and peering out in the darkness. She
saw a dark form shoveling the driveway at the old man's house next
door. Hmm. It must be his daughter. She looked over to her boyfriend.

"Wanna get cold?"

They both shrugged into their coats, grabbed 2 shovels and went
around the house.

"Want some help?"

The person shoveling stood up. It was not the daughter but a man
from up the street.

"Sure!"

My sister and her boyfriend started to shovel. The man up the street
continued to shovel. The snow was heavy and wet. The 6 inches had
turned into 4 with the rain. It was hard work.

"It is like shoveling cement." The comment hung there in the stillness.

A few minutes later a man from several houses down the street showed
up having heard the sound of shoveling in the darkness. He started
to shovel too. The four strangers worked for half an hour together
in the darkness. They finished the driveway and the walk leading
to the house. They also cleared the sidewalk in front of the house.

When the job was done, they all met at the end of the driveway and
introduced themselves. Strangers, neighbors, and now friends.

Kindness is still alive and well in the flatland.

Christmas cop-out ?

I used to think that giving a gift card was a cop-out.  For that matter, I used to think using the gift bag instead of the beautifully wrapped gift was a cop-out.  But NO MORE!

I have been migrating to the gift bag for a few years.  I had not noticed how far until I went for the Christmas wrap only to discover that I had NONE.  Absolutely none.  Not even a scrap.    There are bags of bows, piles of tissue paper in every hue and miscellaneous gift bags in random sizes but not the tiniest square of holiday wrapping paper anywhere.  I scrounged around in the library closet, where I keep all the wrap.  I riffled through the gift closet thinking I may have stashed it there.  I even went downstairs to the hall closet where I keep the paper shopping bags.   Nada.  

I wandered around the house perplexed.  Why was there no wrap?  As I passed through the kitchen, the phone rang.  It was my sister.  “Mom bought David a gift card to Walmart. It looks like everyone is getting a gift card this year, so we need to think about good stocking stuffers.”

Ah, the gift card.  Every store, restaurant, gas station, and supermarket has one.  There is even a display rack of cards at the local A&P.  It is convenient, less nerve-wracking and better than giving cash (the ultimate in cop-outs.)  I have finally embraced the gift card.  Let them buy what they want.  Let them spend their own money on gas.  Let me buy what I want.  For that matter buy me a gift card for gas.   And don’t bother wrapping it, just put it in a gift bag with a little tissue so I will be surprised.  

   

Christmas Tree Compulsive

I can’t remember why I started to do theme trees. I supposed I thought everybody did. My mother collected angels as far back as I can remember; over time our Christmas tree became completely filled with angel ornaments. In High School my best friend’s family also did theme trees, but their theme changed from year to year, that intrigued me.

I would go into people’s house and look at their trees and try to guess the theme only to discover that there was no theme. Their ornaments were either handed-down over the years or purchased on sale after the holiday. Apparently having theme trees is unusual. But I love them.

I have a theme every year. I have done glass candy, birds, Great North Woods, winter, fish, only red bows, fruit and vegetables, gardening, cookies, ice storm, flowers, colors, friendship, international, Victorian, WWII, handmade, etc. I collect ornaments over time as I see them or they are on sale. I hold on to them until I have enough to pull together a theme. As you can image I have tubs and tubs of ornaments.

This year I am re-using my Winter Wonderland theme. (white lights, crocheted snowflakes, little felt mittens, sweaters, hats, snowmen, sleighs, snowshoes, skates, a few polar bears, and the tree-topper is a toboggan hat I bought in Alaska.)

How do you decorate your tree?

Gift closet.

In my travels throughout the year, I pick up gifts as I see them for my family and friends. The trick is to remember that I bought them, where I put them, what gift was for which person and why did I think it might be right for them. To make it worse, the gift closet is in the studio and frankly I hardly go in there any more.

This year I am on top of it. Whew. There is the cutest little thing I bought in Tucson. A food item from Alaska I dragged all the way back in my luggage. (Oh, and speaking of Alaska, Gale, I am keeping the toboggan hat for myself!) But there are still gifts in the closet that I have no idea for whom they were intended. And to be perfectly honest…there are also gifts that I was given that might…ahem…find new owners.

I am not opposed to re-gifting. We have all done it. We all receive things, we smile and say thank you and then on the ride home shake our heads in disbelief. What could have possessed them to think that I might like this whatever it might be? This year, you will be happy to know, no re-gifting from me (not that I have ever done that, of course.). All of you reading this can breathe a sigh of relief. I even bought the gift for the Yankee Swap at work.

Wordless Wednesday

City sidewalks, Busy sidewalks

I stepped out of the hotel into the bustle of Michigan Avenue. In the air there was a feeling of Christmas. I could see it. I could feel it. There were crowds of people clutching shopping bags in both hands crossing the street. There were Salvation Army bell ringers wearing their Santa hats. The stores were decorated with Christmas trees and garland, their windows filled with manikins in finery, outerwear or the latest fashion. The shoppers were strolling bundled against the cold wind with their children peeking out of their wrappings. I joined the flow; let it draw me up the street.

The excitement on the street was palpable. The Lights Festival would start at 6pm. It is the only parade I know of that is at night. The kids on the street were laughing, people passing them by with smiles. Excitement was building. Santa would be there of course, but best of all, Mickey Mouse would wave his wand and the lights along the avenue would magically light up.

I had been struggling. The holiday season was approaching and I couldn’t get with it. I don’t know if it was the warm weather, my crazy schedule of late or the general humbug that was going around. I had heard many people say they were not in the spirit. Well, my friends, I found mine on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.