I vowed to never sit at home on a weekend night. The Barn and The Peg were so boring, and I was not about to let that happen to me. It was pathetic: by the time they were in their forties, they would wave good-bye as we headed for basketball games at the gym or dances at the Coliseum. The Peg would read or sew, and The Barn would work in his office on one of his many ongoing projects – something for the church, usually. But, they sat at home, for crying out loud.
It never occurred to me that my friends’ parents were sitting at home, too. Offspring tend to be more hyper-sensitive to the weird habits their own begetters, while those of their friends get off fairly easy under the microscope. The father of one high school friend bowled on Friday nights, which is notable only because he wasn’t at home.
I was able to sustain my stand against boring lifestyles through college and into our early years of marriage. When The Dot made her appearance, I slowed down a little, still trying to keep my social calendar full. There was one fly in that ointment; I absolutely hated calling around for babysitters. By the time T-man was born, I was down to important community events and the pre-paid parties at the golf course where we were members. Other than that, forget it.
My bosom buddy Ann and I cooked up an excellent New Year’s Eve celebration that we adopted for a few years. We would gather together as families at alternating homes. The kids would play together, and we would entertain ourselves as they looked out for each other. No sitters to call in this plan, and the parents were just a scream away. Sometimes you just gotta be smarter than the status quo.
We spent several years at home alone with our own two, once they hit the double-digits. We would declare New Year’s Eve “Junk Food Night”, and lay in a disgusting supply of wasted calories. It sounded like a good idea, but we always over-bought and lost interest in the junk within a half-hour. Those are fond New Year’s Eve memories with just the four of us, watching videos and eating crap.
Somewhere in my forties, my idea of celebrating holidays by having fun on the town went kind of Barn-Peg wacko. Boring was redefined as “having a relaxing evening”. Scurrying was only done in daylight, and relaxing was for after sundown.
New Year’s Eve was my last holdout. I may have sat at home having a relaxing time on most nights of the year, but I usually got my groove back for New Year’s Eve. Eventually, I discovered I was forcing myself to have fun, when I could have been at home relaxing. I made the official switch from the New Year’s Eve reveler crowd to the New Year’s Day brunch crowd. We would invite a few friends in for a holiday hot dish, and we’d relax and gab for several hours.
This year I wanted New Year’s Eve to be special again, so Hubba and I bit the bullet and decided we’d compromise and entertain at home. We celebrated New Year’s Eve with a small group of family and friends by roasting a lovely pork loin stuffed with prunes, apricots, Swedish rye bread and red onion. One person brought a beautiful spinach salad, and another brought my favorite bread, which she bakes herself. I took the opportunity to test drive a new cake recipe and we kept at it until well past twelve o’clock. I don’t think everyone got out of here until nearly five o’clock!
We were able to do that because we celebrated at mid-day. The dishes were all done and the leaves were out of the table by six o’clock. P.M., that is. As I write this, I plan to be horizontal and unconscious at midnight, when the ball will fall and 2006 makes her debut. I am totally prepared to wake up in the morning and take down the old calendars, putting up the new ones that were special gifts to me from the Fund for Widows and Children of fill-in-the-blank. I am so okay with that. I am beyond being ready to pass the baton.
Happy 2006 to everyone! I hope you get to celebrate in your own special way, whether you ring in the New Year with a clang, or just tinkle it in with a gulp and a snore.
I need to go to bed now. If I don’t, I may accidentally be awake at midnight...
Copyright © Kari E.O. Burns December 2005
The Peace of Christmas in 2005
The miracle of a white Christmas has appeared in the upper Midwest. As a matter of fact, it seems the blessings of snow run down to the Bible belt portion of our region, meaning school-age children are ecstatically building snow forts while their parents search the ‘Net for driving tips.
Christmas Eve is a good time to hang up the hang-ups along with the stockings, and to declare peace on earth, good will towards all creatures. If you didn’t get the last of your shopping done, try to think beyond the power of the dollar and consider the power of the spirit. Write a few of your thoughts down for a loved one, and gift them with your sentiment, your love, and your wish for their fulfillment. It’s Christmas – give from the heart.
I woke up early today to get the annual 18-hour roast into the oven. I put some bread-making ingredients in the bread machine, set the table, and polished the flatware for this evening’s extended-family meal. Tomorrow we have a second meal for the blood relatives, another feast of one another’s company.
Christmas heralds in the season of people-to-people, and after the busy months of bidding farewell to milder temperatures and preparing for the holiday push, this time to be together, face-to-face and unavoidably aware of each other, is winter’s gift. The hoopla of the holidays only lasts for a few more days, then we hunker down, reach out and pull in cherished people, and we do our winter duties of rejuvenating our souls and our friendships.
I consider myself one of the lucky ones. The Barn and The Peg read the Christmas story to us each year from Luke, before we opened a single gift from under the tree. It’s not that we appreciated delaying the things that we believed held more promise, because we didn’t. We only wanted to know which of the five of us The Barn would assign to play Santa Claus, and if we could get all the unwrapping done before bedtime, so as not to delay the real Santa from making his stop. I always hoped just one year they would forget to drag out the Bible and read the dang story, but it never, ever happened.
Once the story got going, it was quite wonderful to hear the picture it painted. Poor little baby Jesus, in the cold of an uncomfortable stable. As the story unfolded, we learned of his doting and trusting parents, and the answer he brought to a world in search of peace. The Barn and The Peg knew that the gift of that story would see us through the cold and uncomfortable stops in our lives, and that there would be meaning for us in our lessons as we searched to regain our peace.
I hope everyone enjoys the smells, the sounds, the hugs, the tastes, the togetherness, and The Gift – our baby Christ child, here to make a way to peace for us.
Merry Christmas!
Copyright © Kari E.O. Burns December 2005
Christmas Eve is a good time to hang up the hang-ups along with the stockings, and to declare peace on earth, good will towards all creatures. If you didn’t get the last of your shopping done, try to think beyond the power of the dollar and consider the power of the spirit. Write a few of your thoughts down for a loved one, and gift them with your sentiment, your love, and your wish for their fulfillment. It’s Christmas – give from the heart.
I woke up early today to get the annual 18-hour roast into the oven. I put some bread-making ingredients in the bread machine, set the table, and polished the flatware for this evening’s extended-family meal. Tomorrow we have a second meal for the blood relatives, another feast of one another’s company.
Christmas heralds in the season of people-to-people, and after the busy months of bidding farewell to milder temperatures and preparing for the holiday push, this time to be together, face-to-face and unavoidably aware of each other, is winter’s gift. The hoopla of the holidays only lasts for a few more days, then we hunker down, reach out and pull in cherished people, and we do our winter duties of rejuvenating our souls and our friendships.
I consider myself one of the lucky ones. The Barn and The Peg read the Christmas story to us each year from Luke, before we opened a single gift from under the tree. It’s not that we appreciated delaying the things that we believed held more promise, because we didn’t. We only wanted to know which of the five of us The Barn would assign to play Santa Claus, and if we could get all the unwrapping done before bedtime, so as not to delay the real Santa from making his stop. I always hoped just one year they would forget to drag out the Bible and read the dang story, but it never, ever happened.
Once the story got going, it was quite wonderful to hear the picture it painted. Poor little baby Jesus, in the cold of an uncomfortable stable. As the story unfolded, we learned of his doting and trusting parents, and the answer he brought to a world in search of peace. The Barn and The Peg knew that the gift of that story would see us through the cold and uncomfortable stops in our lives, and that there would be meaning for us in our lessons as we searched to regain our peace.
I hope everyone enjoys the smells, the sounds, the hugs, the tastes, the togetherness, and The Gift – our baby Christ child, here to make a way to peace for us.
Merry Christmas!
Copyright © Kari E.O. Burns December 2005
The Bells of Christmas
If it involves sleigh bells, silver bells, or cardboard bells, it’s probably a Midwestern Christmas. For those of us who are lucky enough to call the Midwest our home, living here is mostly like having Christmas all year ‘round. Therefore, the Christmas season itself crystallizes memories from one year to the next, and nostalgia about traditions takes hold almost immediately. It’s unique. Some “traditions” last only a year or two, but their legacies are long-remembered as an established pattern of celebrating together, for whatever the duration. We happily become our traditions.
Midwestern families don’t turn inward during the holidays. It’s completely normal to purchase and wrap gifts for people we don’t even know, and about whom we have the sketchiest of information. We will pick a tag off any number of trees found at many locations, and use the information provided as a starting point.
“Mom. Family # 23. Underwear, Size 9.” What we get her is Underwear, Size 9, a sweater, and a bottle of good-smelling body lotion.
“Boy, age 8. Family #14. Pajamas.” That package will probably hold the pajamas, a set of racing cars, and some Silly Putty.
We shop, we wrap, and we wish we could do more, so we pray and we give thanks.
Sharing the Spirit of Christmas is as expected as the bottomless cup of coffee at an Iowa restaurant. Churches are busy with Sunday School programs, and the public schools in our hometowns unabashedly spread Christmas cheer in halls decked with holly. People have always greeted one another in any number of ways, so we don’t get all bent out of shape about feeling happy and expressing it in what ever form it comes from our mouths.
“Merry Christmas!”
“Season’s Greetings!”
“Happy Holidays!”
In my hometown in Southeast Iowa, the season started when the city crews put up the decorations right after Thanksgiving. There were silver-tinseled garlands with plastic red, green, and yellow Season’s Greetings signs that spanned the center sections of the major downtown thoroughfares. The light posts were fitted with more garland-and-plastic forms – candy canes, wreaths, candles, all done in the weatherproof technology of the era – more plastic. I suppose the city budget allowed these public displays to be updated every twenty-five years or so. I don’t know when ours were new, but I can provide an eyewitness account for some of the fifties, all of the sixties, and most of the seventies. The plastic cases housed light bulbs, and they lit up to accelerate the unbearable anticipation of whatever requests had been made of the department store Santa.
My sister Lora and I were both allergic to evergreen trees. We were blissfully ignorant that an artificial tree was outside the norm until our early Christmases at Wildwood Elementary. The Peg told me years later that when I was in the first grade, I came home with my eyes nearly swollen shut in response to the classroom Christmas tree. Lora had a similar experience down the hall in Mrs. Carlson's kindergarten class. Every classroom had its own tree, and the one in Mrs. Opal Smith’s room had to be removed because of moi. The PTA sprang into action and bought two artificial silver Christmas trees, one for my classroom and one for my sister’s. You remember them. The ones with the revolving color wheel. How utterly embarrassing! They could have at least gotten the green ones, like we had at home, but silver stuff was space-age in the 1960’s, and the decorating committee of the Wildwood Elementary Parent Teacher Association had made their decision. The things followed us as we ascended the grades, and were finally put into moth balls after our 6th grade years. Junior high ended our December disgrace.
I was chatting with a Calmarite (a resident of Calmar, Iowa) recently, asking about some of the holiday traditions that dot the memories of past Calmar Christmases. There are too many to recount, because things would change from year to year and everyone expressed themselves differently. One group would do this, another would do that. Memories of activities tend to blend together, and the misty edges of Christmases remembered seem to include everyone.
At one time in the late ‘50’s or early ‘60’s, a few Calmar friends gathered to go Julebukken. Julebukken (pronounced "YEW-la-bokken" around here) is a Scandinavian Christmas tradition where children will dress up like the elves of St. Nicholas, and go about singing carols. Similar to Halloween here, in exchange for singing, the children are given candy for their effort. This is usually done between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
Julebukken has been Americanized somewhat, and it is mostly adults who carol each other through the night, accumulating more carolers at each stop as the evening progresses. Some residents may remember a time when several couples would julebukk, warming themselves with coffee or cocoa at each home, and ending the night with breakfast together at nearly 4:00 a.m. One event had nearly sixty people at an early morning call, and the last family made bacon and eggs for the entire crew.
Another Calmar memory came during a time of national mourning. The mood was glum during the Christmas season right after the Kennedy assassination, and it was hard to get into the spirit. A few friends were assessing the situation and decided everyone needed a little holiday cheering-up. They called Jim Huber, who had a hay wagon fitted with sleigh runners. Jim agreed to hook up his team to his hay wagon/sleigh, and he took around forty people on an impromptu hay/sleigh ride on the outskirts of Calmar. It was a family affair, and afterwards everyone gathered for chili and cocoa. It did the trick, and that holiday had one bright spot in an otherwise emotionally barren season.
Outdoor Christmas decorations were made, not bought, in Calmar Christmases past. There was one word for it: cardboard. The competition for large chunks of cardboard was keen, as imaginations went wild with what could be made from the booty behind the hardware store. Once the forms were cut from the cardboard, out came the tin foil, glue, and glitter. Apparently the craze for things silver at Christmas was regional during this time in history. Encasing just about any shape in tin foil created The Look, and sprinkling glitter over glue gave the final piece the detail it needed. One home had a beautiful display of a musical page, and the words and notes of “Silent Night” were done in blue glitter on a backdrop of Reynolds Wrap. A light shone on the simple message for all to contemplate, because the focus of the season then was obvious. For children, Calmar Christmases always revolved around the Christmas story; the angels outnumbered the Santas in those days.
Precious memories will be made again this year. People come home to Calmar during Christmas, whether in person or in spirit, and the tenacity of local retailers allows residents to shop locally for hometown treasures and foodstuffs to share. Calmar-made cookies will no doubt be eaten by our service men and women. Digital videos of St. Al’s students will most likely be cyber-shared from one coast to the other, because being Midwestern doesn’t mean being backwards. It means quality. It means memories worth retelling. It’s the Silent Night, Holy Night of our Midwestern hearts.
So, let the sleigh bells jing-a-ling, the silver bells ting-a-ling, and remember those cardboard-and-glitter bells when you stick that white-lighted deer in your front yard. White lights, after all, are this millennium’s answer to the silver tinseled everything of another era, and the basis for your children’s memories-in-the-making. Believe me, it’ll be a fair trade.
Copyright © Kari E.O. Burns December 2005
Midwestern families don’t turn inward during the holidays. It’s completely normal to purchase and wrap gifts for people we don’t even know, and about whom we have the sketchiest of information. We will pick a tag off any number of trees found at many locations, and use the information provided as a starting point.
“Mom. Family # 23. Underwear, Size 9.” What we get her is Underwear, Size 9, a sweater, and a bottle of good-smelling body lotion.
“Boy, age 8. Family #14. Pajamas.” That package will probably hold the pajamas, a set of racing cars, and some Silly Putty.
We shop, we wrap, and we wish we could do more, so we pray and we give thanks.
Sharing the Spirit of Christmas is as expected as the bottomless cup of coffee at an Iowa restaurant. Churches are busy with Sunday School programs, and the public schools in our hometowns unabashedly spread Christmas cheer in halls decked with holly. People have always greeted one another in any number of ways, so we don’t get all bent out of shape about feeling happy and expressing it in what ever form it comes from our mouths.
“Merry Christmas!”
“Season’s Greetings!”
“Happy Holidays!”
In my hometown in Southeast Iowa, the season started when the city crews put up the decorations right after Thanksgiving. There were silver-tinseled garlands with plastic red, green, and yellow Season’s Greetings signs that spanned the center sections of the major downtown thoroughfares. The light posts were fitted with more garland-and-plastic forms – candy canes, wreaths, candles, all done in the weatherproof technology of the era – more plastic. I suppose the city budget allowed these public displays to be updated every twenty-five years or so. I don’t know when ours were new, but I can provide an eyewitness account for some of the fifties, all of the sixties, and most of the seventies. The plastic cases housed light bulbs, and they lit up to accelerate the unbearable anticipation of whatever requests had been made of the department store Santa.
My sister Lora and I were both allergic to evergreen trees. We were blissfully ignorant that an artificial tree was outside the norm until our early Christmases at Wildwood Elementary. The Peg told me years later that when I was in the first grade, I came home with my eyes nearly swollen shut in response to the classroom Christmas tree. Lora had a similar experience down the hall in Mrs. Carlson's kindergarten class. Every classroom had its own tree, and the one in Mrs. Opal Smith’s room had to be removed because of moi. The PTA sprang into action and bought two artificial silver Christmas trees, one for my classroom and one for my sister’s. You remember them. The ones with the revolving color wheel. How utterly embarrassing! They could have at least gotten the green ones, like we had at home, but silver stuff was space-age in the 1960’s, and the decorating committee of the Wildwood Elementary Parent Teacher Association had made their decision. The things followed us as we ascended the grades, and were finally put into moth balls after our 6th grade years. Junior high ended our December disgrace.
I was chatting with a Calmarite (a resident of Calmar, Iowa) recently, asking about some of the holiday traditions that dot the memories of past Calmar Christmases. There are too many to recount, because things would change from year to year and everyone expressed themselves differently. One group would do this, another would do that. Memories of activities tend to blend together, and the misty edges of Christmases remembered seem to include everyone.
At one time in the late ‘50’s or early ‘60’s, a few Calmar friends gathered to go Julebukken. Julebukken (pronounced "YEW-la-bokken" around here) is a Scandinavian Christmas tradition where children will dress up like the elves of St. Nicholas, and go about singing carols. Similar to Halloween here, in exchange for singing, the children are given candy for their effort. This is usually done between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
Julebukken has been Americanized somewhat, and it is mostly adults who carol each other through the night, accumulating more carolers at each stop as the evening progresses. Some residents may remember a time when several couples would julebukk, warming themselves with coffee or cocoa at each home, and ending the night with breakfast together at nearly 4:00 a.m. One event had nearly sixty people at an early morning call, and the last family made bacon and eggs for the entire crew.
Another Calmar memory came during a time of national mourning. The mood was glum during the Christmas season right after the Kennedy assassination, and it was hard to get into the spirit. A few friends were assessing the situation and decided everyone needed a little holiday cheering-up. They called Jim Huber, who had a hay wagon fitted with sleigh runners. Jim agreed to hook up his team to his hay wagon/sleigh, and he took around forty people on an impromptu hay/sleigh ride on the outskirts of Calmar. It was a family affair, and afterwards everyone gathered for chili and cocoa. It did the trick, and that holiday had one bright spot in an otherwise emotionally barren season.
Outdoor Christmas decorations were made, not bought, in Calmar Christmases past. There was one word for it: cardboard. The competition for large chunks of cardboard was keen, as imaginations went wild with what could be made from the booty behind the hardware store. Once the forms were cut from the cardboard, out came the tin foil, glue, and glitter. Apparently the craze for things silver at Christmas was regional during this time in history. Encasing just about any shape in tin foil created The Look, and sprinkling glitter over glue gave the final piece the detail it needed. One home had a beautiful display of a musical page, and the words and notes of “Silent Night” were done in blue glitter on a backdrop of Reynolds Wrap. A light shone on the simple message for all to contemplate, because the focus of the season then was obvious. For children, Calmar Christmases always revolved around the Christmas story; the angels outnumbered the Santas in those days.
Precious memories will be made again this year. People come home to Calmar during Christmas, whether in person or in spirit, and the tenacity of local retailers allows residents to shop locally for hometown treasures and foodstuffs to share. Calmar-made cookies will no doubt be eaten by our service men and women. Digital videos of St. Al’s students will most likely be cyber-shared from one coast to the other, because being Midwestern doesn’t mean being backwards. It means quality. It means memories worth retelling. It’s the Silent Night, Holy Night of our Midwestern hearts.
So, let the sleigh bells jing-a-ling, the silver bells ting-a-ling, and remember those cardboard-and-glitter bells when you stick that white-lighted deer in your front yard. White lights, after all, are this millennium’s answer to the silver tinseled everything of another era, and the basis for your children’s memories-in-the-making. Believe me, it’ll be a fair trade.
Copyright © Kari E.O. Burns December 2005
Winery Weekend
I am being kept away from the keyboard this weekend by another of my lives. There is a beautiful fledgling winery in northern Winneshiek County, and they are having an open house on Saturday, December 10, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. They have invited me, in my Cake Mistress incarnation, to be there serving samples of two of my cakes and selling slices to the interested. The Winneshiek Wildberry Winery is owned by Ken and Yvonne Barnes, and along with the talents of daughters Darla Jones and Beth Barnes-Guzman, they will soon be known as one of the Midwest's premiere wineries. It will be exciting to see them grow and expand their operation, and always interesting to be on the periphery of the development of the continual progress promised by such an endeavor.
Besides the winery hullabaloo, Hubba and I got a new computer, so I'm in the process of moving all our stuff over from the old one -- and I do mean old. It was about one degree up from writing on cave walls, but it got us to where we are now, and we're giving it a peaceful retirement. By next week I hope to have everything moved over, she said with all the hope of the Christmas season. If anyone wants to put me on a prayer chain, it would probably help.
Enjoy! Keep warm if you're in the Midwest or the Northeastern U.S. For the rest of you, no sneering. We like winter -- refer to last week's post.
Besides the winery hullabaloo, Hubba and I got a new computer, so I'm in the process of moving all our stuff over from the old one -- and I do mean old. It was about one degree up from writing on cave walls, but it got us to where we are now, and we're giving it a peaceful retirement. By next week I hope to have everything moved over, she said with all the hope of the Christmas season. If anyone wants to put me on a prayer chain, it would probably help.
Enjoy! Keep warm if you're in the Midwest or the Northeastern U.S. For the rest of you, no sneering. We like winter -- refer to last week's post.
A Patchwork of Winter People
Between the months of November and April, Upper Midwesterners fall into one of two camps -- we either like winter or we hate it. These early season, snow-packed days are filled with conversation that distinguishes which line we'll stand in when we register for camp membership.
Camp Rosy Cheeks is inhabited by those who love to be outdoors doing things, especially things that involve snow and/or ice. There are skiers (both cross-country and downhill), snow shoe enthusiasts, ice skaters, hockey players, horseback riders, snow fort builders, ice sculpture artists, sledders, ice fishing zealots, and the list goes on. Even the motorized set has organized to maximize their enjoyment of the winter's snow -- snow mobile traffic signs dot the ditches along many state highways and county roads.
Camp Rosy Cheekers look askance at any notion that life would slow down for the mere lack of a warm day. They wait all year to get out into nature, into the hushed cover and muffled sounds of a snowy day. Animal lovers delight in seeing our fellow creatures sustain themselves happily, and without summer's green to camouflage their movements, our furry and feathered friends can be observed searching for food and playing together against nature's white mat.
Camp Cuddle Up is where the indoor winter people gather. Inhabitants of Camp Cuddle Up prefer to stay out of the cold as much as possible, but aren't ready to go so far as to move to a warmer climate. They figure cold and snow is a fair trade for spring and autumn. They love to look out their windows at the snowy beauty draping their views – crystal icicles and sequined snow clinging to branches and bushes, geometric tracks of bunnies and deer, the “smoke” of warm air escaping from chimneys, and the crunch of snow beneath tires on a cold, sunny January day.
Activities at Camp Cuddle Up include reading, snuggling with a pet/offspring/spouse, quilting, nesting, reading, baking, quilting, knitting, making paper, reading, quilting, and reading. And looking out the window. As opposed to snow suits, Cuddle Uppers wear indoor fleece, oftentimes fleece that has been altered with fabric to look less like fleece and more like clothes. Some just stay in their jammies when they're inside.
Believe it or not, this system is totally free from political fallout. There is no implication of evildoing, regardless which of these two factions one aligns oneself with, and I have yet to hear anyone be criticized from the other camp for their preferences. It's so refreshing! No one is blaming America for having winter and not doing anything about it, or calling someone a racist because they like to play in the snow. Rosy Cheekers are as apt to enjoy a blazing fire on a cold winter's night as a Cuddle Upper will enjoy a day of snowman building with the kids or grandkids. These aren't warring camps.
I should probably interview a member of Camp Rosy Cheeks, just to be fair. I am the head counselor at Camp Cuddle Up. Winter. Ick. But I mean that in a good way. I don't really like to be cold, but once I get bundled up, it isn't too bad. Some days I get cold and can't warm up on my own, so I run a hot bath in our old cast iron clawfoot tub. The cast iron keeps the water warm for a long time, and I can soak until I am pink and warm. Of course, then I pass the suffering on to my skin, and if I don't slather myself in lotions, it gets all itchy and dry. Once I apply the lotions, wouldn't you know, they make my skin cool, and I get cold again. But, it's winter. Whatcha gonna do about it? Some people love it, and they're entitled to their fun, too.
It is beautiful, but I wouldn't mind if it only lasted a month. I'd be happy if it did nothing but snow for that duration, with temps hovering around zero. That's a huge concession on my part. I'm fine with temps down to 25° Fahrenheit, as long as the sun is out and the wind isn't blowing. If the thermometer gets any lower, and with any breeze at all, I find it best to stay in my own camp and commiserate with my homies there. I don't really want to debate the obvious: it is cold. Either you like it or you don't, but cold is cold.
Yet, where would I be without the cold weather to naturally round out my life? In “my” weather, I happily flit to and fro, awhirl in activity and complaining about there not being enough time. I don't fro as much when it's cold, and flitting is a seasonal term. I cuddle up -- this is when I spend real time with friends and loved ones. I establish almost all of my close ties with people in the coldest part of the year. It's a time to lavish attention on each other, accidentally exploring how we fit into each other's lives, and consequentially strengthening the bridges that connect us.
Last year I had a couple of coffees at my house, one in January and one in February. There was third, a neighborhood morning set aside to welcome a new neighbor. It was great to get together with some of the people we usually see outside. The other two coffees were with women I have always wanted to have coffee with, but never had the opportunity. There are literally hundreds of women like that in my Iowa town, women I just want to spend a little more time with. That's what winter is for.
I don't know if I invited Cuddle Uppers or Rosy Cheekers to my coffee times, but it didn't really matter. These women all wanted to spend time connecting with other women, too, and no one cared who else was invited. None of them questioned, “Who else is coming?”, because whomever they met here would warm their winter. It's cliqueless -- independent women don't ask who else is coming. Some of them even bring along a friend of their own to add to the mix. It's winter! That's what we do!
Sometimes an afternoon with a new friend is called for. Hubba and I spend one every now and then with some of our younger friends. We've adopted a couple of transplants from Oklahoma, who left both sets of grandparents behind. They only have one aunt, so Hubba I do a hybrid aunt/uncle/really young grandparents with them. It's my kind of winter blast -- we fake them into thinking we're cool, then we let them do whatever they want. When we send them back to their parents, all four of us are looking forward to another mutual winter reprieve. The transplanted Oklahoman parents need it, too, now that the real family is far away. I think they call that a win-win, or in this case, a win-win-win.
I'm planning a new set of winter gatherings for 2006. I will host some old-fashioned Midwestern think tanks, huddling with women of all ages, maybe in transition, who own their lives and are reluctant to concede control of them to other forces. These are women who bring value to their families and community, and who know it, and who are willing to flaunt it. It's exciting to be on the cusp of a new adventure, perhaps addressing a nagging itch beyond the reach of a satisfying scratch. Together we can search out the source of the itch, and discuss its treatment. Maybe it needs a cooling lotion, a deep massage, or a devoted kiss. We'll think-tank about it.
I will fit the think tanks in among a few coffee coffees, the chat-a-thons that heated my home last year. They are the best after the busy Christmas season, after the New Year relaxes us into looking for each other. Planning them brings peace to the season of peace, joy to the season of joy, rebirth to the season of birth. It's the Happy of a Happy New Year.
Ah, winter. Personally, I hate it, but I'm so ecstatically glad it's here.
Copyright © December 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
Camp Rosy Cheeks is inhabited by those who love to be outdoors doing things, especially things that involve snow and/or ice. There are skiers (both cross-country and downhill), snow shoe enthusiasts, ice skaters, hockey players, horseback riders, snow fort builders, ice sculpture artists, sledders, ice fishing zealots, and the list goes on. Even the motorized set has organized to maximize their enjoyment of the winter's snow -- snow mobile traffic signs dot the ditches along many state highways and county roads.
Camp Rosy Cheekers look askance at any notion that life would slow down for the mere lack of a warm day. They wait all year to get out into nature, into the hushed cover and muffled sounds of a snowy day. Animal lovers delight in seeing our fellow creatures sustain themselves happily, and without summer's green to camouflage their movements, our furry and feathered friends can be observed searching for food and playing together against nature's white mat.
Camp Cuddle Up is where the indoor winter people gather. Inhabitants of Camp Cuddle Up prefer to stay out of the cold as much as possible, but aren't ready to go so far as to move to a warmer climate. They figure cold and snow is a fair trade for spring and autumn. They love to look out their windows at the snowy beauty draping their views – crystal icicles and sequined snow clinging to branches and bushes, geometric tracks of bunnies and deer, the “smoke” of warm air escaping from chimneys, and the crunch of snow beneath tires on a cold, sunny January day.
Activities at Camp Cuddle Up include reading, snuggling with a pet/offspring/spouse, quilting, nesting, reading, baking, quilting, knitting, making paper, reading, quilting, and reading. And looking out the window. As opposed to snow suits, Cuddle Uppers wear indoor fleece, oftentimes fleece that has been altered with fabric to look less like fleece and more like clothes. Some just stay in their jammies when they're inside.
Believe it or not, this system is totally free from political fallout. There is no implication of evildoing, regardless which of these two factions one aligns oneself with, and I have yet to hear anyone be criticized from the other camp for their preferences. It's so refreshing! No one is blaming America for having winter and not doing anything about it, or calling someone a racist because they like to play in the snow. Rosy Cheekers are as apt to enjoy a blazing fire on a cold winter's night as a Cuddle Upper will enjoy a day of snowman building with the kids or grandkids. These aren't warring camps.
I should probably interview a member of Camp Rosy Cheeks, just to be fair. I am the head counselor at Camp Cuddle Up. Winter. Ick. But I mean that in a good way. I don't really like to be cold, but once I get bundled up, it isn't too bad. Some days I get cold and can't warm up on my own, so I run a hot bath in our old cast iron clawfoot tub. The cast iron keeps the water warm for a long time, and I can soak until I am pink and warm. Of course, then I pass the suffering on to my skin, and if I don't slather myself in lotions, it gets all itchy and dry. Once I apply the lotions, wouldn't you know, they make my skin cool, and I get cold again. But, it's winter. Whatcha gonna do about it? Some people love it, and they're entitled to their fun, too.
It is beautiful, but I wouldn't mind if it only lasted a month. I'd be happy if it did nothing but snow for that duration, with temps hovering around zero. That's a huge concession on my part. I'm fine with temps down to 25° Fahrenheit, as long as the sun is out and the wind isn't blowing. If the thermometer gets any lower, and with any breeze at all, I find it best to stay in my own camp and commiserate with my homies there. I don't really want to debate the obvious: it is cold. Either you like it or you don't, but cold is cold.
Yet, where would I be without the cold weather to naturally round out my life? In “my” weather, I happily flit to and fro, awhirl in activity and complaining about there not being enough time. I don't fro as much when it's cold, and flitting is a seasonal term. I cuddle up -- this is when I spend real time with friends and loved ones. I establish almost all of my close ties with people in the coldest part of the year. It's a time to lavish attention on each other, accidentally exploring how we fit into each other's lives, and consequentially strengthening the bridges that connect us.
Last year I had a couple of coffees at my house, one in January and one in February. There was third, a neighborhood morning set aside to welcome a new neighbor. It was great to get together with some of the people we usually see outside. The other two coffees were with women I have always wanted to have coffee with, but never had the opportunity. There are literally hundreds of women like that in my Iowa town, women I just want to spend a little more time with. That's what winter is for.
I don't know if I invited Cuddle Uppers or Rosy Cheekers to my coffee times, but it didn't really matter. These women all wanted to spend time connecting with other women, too, and no one cared who else was invited. None of them questioned, “Who else is coming?”, because whomever they met here would warm their winter. It's cliqueless -- independent women don't ask who else is coming. Some of them even bring along a friend of their own to add to the mix. It's winter! That's what we do!
Sometimes an afternoon with a new friend is called for. Hubba and I spend one every now and then with some of our younger friends. We've adopted a couple of transplants from Oklahoma, who left both sets of grandparents behind. They only have one aunt, so Hubba I do a hybrid aunt/uncle/really young grandparents with them. It's my kind of winter blast -- we fake them into thinking we're cool, then we let them do whatever they want. When we send them back to their parents, all four of us are looking forward to another mutual winter reprieve. The transplanted Oklahoman parents need it, too, now that the real family is far away. I think they call that a win-win, or in this case, a win-win-win.
I'm planning a new set of winter gatherings for 2006. I will host some old-fashioned Midwestern think tanks, huddling with women of all ages, maybe in transition, who own their lives and are reluctant to concede control of them to other forces. These are women who bring value to their families and community, and who know it, and who are willing to flaunt it. It's exciting to be on the cusp of a new adventure, perhaps addressing a nagging itch beyond the reach of a satisfying scratch. Together we can search out the source of the itch, and discuss its treatment. Maybe it needs a cooling lotion, a deep massage, or a devoted kiss. We'll think-tank about it.
I will fit the think tanks in among a few coffee coffees, the chat-a-thons that heated my home last year. They are the best after the busy Christmas season, after the New Year relaxes us into looking for each other. Planning them brings peace to the season of peace, joy to the season of joy, rebirth to the season of birth. It's the Happy of a Happy New Year.
Ah, winter. Personally, I hate it, but I'm so ecstatically glad it's here.
Copyright © December 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
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