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Christmas holidays generate a lot of togetherness. A lot of togetherness means cooking, cleaning, searching for kids’ missing boots and gloves, digging through trash for a gift card accidentally thrown away, separating grands leg wrestling on the family room floor and plunging the kitchen garbage disposal.

It’s a lot of merry.

Ho, ho, hold it. It is so much merry that it can feel like peace on earth skipped a row.

Sometimes, a body just needs a little time alone—to breathe, eat the last piece of fudge and simply stare at the wall.

If you need a little time to yourself this holiday season, try these five magic words: “I’m taking down the tree.”

You don’t even have to say it loudly. You can say it in a faint whisper and clear a room. You can just think it, and people will know from your facial expressions that something awful is about to happen.

The good news is you don’t have to actually take down the tree to get alone time; simply announcing your intentions will do the job.

Grandkids will grab their coats and run outside. Even if the temperature is single digits.

Adult children will spring from long winter naps and race to the kitchen to wash and dry all the dirty pots and pans.

A son-in-law will go shovel the drive. Even if there’s no snow.

The husband will peel out of the garage to go check the air pressure in the tires and houseguests will summon Uber.

Everybody wants to help put the tree up, but nobody wants to take it down.

For years, people took trees down on New Year’s Day. Others kept them up until January 2, possibly celebrating World Introvert Day, but were too shy to say so.

For those who want the tree to stay, it may help knowing that National Spaghetti Day is January 4. Drape pasta on the branches and you’re good to go.

You can always leave the tree up until January 6, the Epiphany, which commemorates the arrival of the Magi. However, purists will point out that the Magi may not have arrived until several years later.

National Popcorn Day is January 16. String some popcorn and the tree stays.

A recent poll indicated the window of time for taking a tree down spans all the way from Dec. 16 to Valentine’s Day.

The husband, who never likes seeing the holidays come to an end, says we don’t need to take the tree down until the needles begin falling off.

It is an artificial tree.

If you’ve had a cold recently, you know the drill: you drag yourself to the store and prepare to spend the next four days scanning row after row of cold meds.  By the time you find the meds that fit your symptoms, your cold will be gone.

All the fine-print ingredients and warnings on the boxes, bottles, and origami folded sheets of paper inside the boxes, make reading the 70-page IRS booklet on filing a 1040 seem like a party.

To find the right med, you must first identify the problem: cough and mucus, cough only, cough and runny nose, chest congestion, nasal congestion, sore throat or dry throat.

Then there is the matter of how long you want relief and how sleepy you’re willing to be: fast acting, 8-hr., 12-hr., drowsy, non-drowsy, Nyquil, Dayquil and Tranquil.

We have a plastic tub full of cough meds in the linen closet, but they’re all for infants, toddlers and children up to age 12. I’ve aged out. Our cold and cough meds have aged out, too. Most of them are expired and need to be thrown out.

When I was a kid, it was not uncommon to receive homemade cough medicine. A parent would mix little bit of bourbon and a little bit of honey in a teaspoon, and there it was – homemade cough syrup. Technically, an entire generation of kids did shots in elementary school. Of course, times have changed and today’s pediatricians strongly advise against such homemade remedies. (For the record, I stand with today’s pediatricians.)

Another home remedy (and this one is still approved of) was to gargle with warm saltwater. To my knowledge, a saltwater gargle has never stopped a sore throat, but the mere mention of the prospect will stop anyone from complaining.

The best home remedy was, and still is, chicken noodle soup. To this day, I firmly believe homemade chicken noodle soup can cure almost anything.

The best cough drops ever made were Luden’s throat drops. They were cherry flavored and came in a box. I loved them. All kids loved them because they were candy.

The box said they were “medicated.” And they were. With sugar.

Alas, I’m with the times now. My go-to cold and cough meds are over-the-counter products because many come with a “do not use heavy machinery” warning.

I take that to mean the washer, the dryer, the stove, the refrigerator, the microwave and the vacuum.

I’m feeling better already.

 

The labor and delivery portrayed in the Christmas story has been highly sanitized, as it should be. We have softened the realities of Christ’s birth with pillowy mounds of straw, cattle gently lowing, moonlight streaming in through strategically placed windows, and an inexperienced husband attending the birth like a seasoned OB/GYN who has delivered hundreds.

Like small children moving pieces of a nativity set around, edging cattle and sheep closer to the manger and standing Joseph outside with the shepherds, we too, can only imagine.

But the crux of the Christmas story may not be so much in the imagery as it is in that small word “behold.” From the gospel of Luke: “For the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

The word “behold” is an imperative, a command that shouts “look!” “Behold” is meant to grab you by both shoulders and give you a shake. To behold something goes far beyond sight. The root of the verb can also mean “to know, to understand or to experience.”

My nephew, who was blind, could see things in that manner. The first time he held our first grandbaby on his lap, his entire being lit up like a Christmas tree. His face beamed and joy radiated from every pore of his being. Even without sight he could “behold.” He could touch, feel, know, understand and experience.

For the mother who has birthed a baby, “beholding” is the moment that newborn is laid upon her chest or placed in her arms. It is seeing that engages every sensory, emotional and cranial channel. Skin on skin, flesh on flesh, a small heart beating next to her own, as close as can be. It is the power, wonder, and miracle of new life. The hard work that preceded birth fades into the past, eclipsed by joy and awe.

The marvelous lights, colors, decorations and feasts of Christmas are merely embellishments. The true heart of Christmas is the invitation to behold the babe in the manger—not just with our eyes, but with our whole being.

I talked to Santa by phone today. Truly. He was in St. Louis getting ready to head out for an afternoon shift at the mall and after that a couple of runs on the Polar Express.

Mrs. Claus was helping with the custom-fit red and white suit (which his daughter makes for him), the belt, the hat, the boots, the gloves and the signature beard.

Santa shaves once the holiday season is over and starts growing his beard again in July. He likes his beard a little whiter than its natural color, so he gives it a quick blast of “Icy White” Punky Temporary Hair Color Spray.

“It doesn’t stink,” Santa says. “That’s the main thing. Santa shouldn’t stink.”

Agreed.

He says there are three types of Santas: The type that looks like Heidi’s grandpa with a bushy beard and wild hair, the Coca-Cola Santa and the Miracle on 34^th Street Santa. He’s the Miracle on 34^th Street type, give or take a few pounds.

I asked when he knew he was going to be Santa. Quick as a flash, he said, “When I was 16 and drove my dad around as Santa with my three brothers and sisters in the backseat of our 1967 maroon Pontiac Catalina. I was glad I could drive the car and not be dressed up like an elf in leotards.”

In the years between chauffeuring Santa and becoming Santa, he worked in newspapers before the baton, or reins rather, passed to him.

Santa does a lot of merry making, ho, ho, ho-ing, and smiling for pictures, but he’s also watching intently and listening closely.

He can read between the lines when a child’s Christmas request indicates that the child’s mother is either sick or no longer in need of earthly things. He knows his offer to “do his best” will fall woefully short.

He knows when an adult leans in and whispers a request for “Peace on Earth” that it will most likely require a restraining order.

He understands that the unselfish request for “good health to all” likely includes the one doing the asking.

Santa has a soft spot for special needs kids. He once saw a girl and her mother seated far away from the group at a Pancake Breakfast with Santa. He learned the family had to exercise extreme caution about picking up food particles, as a sibling at home had life-threatening allergies.

Santa sent word to the mother that, if she liked, he would come to their home to visit the little girl in a brand new Santa suit, brand new boots and brand new gloves, all of which had never been worn before.

The next night Santa paid a visit. It was the first time the 9-year-old had ever told Santa what she wanted. After he left, the little girl cried tears of joy.

Then there was the unforgettable boy with Down syndrome. He was ecstatic, jabbering and pointing at the lights. Nobody else was in line that night, so the boy hung out with Santa for 20 minutes.

Two nights ago, a woman came up to Santa and whipped out a cell phone to show him a picture. She asked, “Remember this?”

He did. It was a family from Georgia whose little girl couldn’t support herself sitting on Santa’s lap. So, Santa got up and put the little girl in his chair.

I asked Santa if he is a man of faith.

“Definitely,” he said. Santa has a heart so warm it could melt snow.

I asked Santa what was on his wish list this year. There was a long pause. I was about to ask if he was still there when he softly said, “It’s been a hard year. I’m wishing for happiness for my family, peace and contentment.”

Those gifts are on a lot of wish lists this year.

“One last question, Santa. Eggnog or hot chocolate?”

“Both.”

I set off the alarm at the grocery store over the weekend. I wasn’t going to mention it, but it’s always best to get ahead of a breaking news story. My story, my spin.

I’ve never set off an alarm before.

I take that back. I set off the smoke alarm in the kitchen about once a month, but high heat with cast iron does that. Other than that, my record is clean (and my cast iron well-seasoned).

I’ve never been stopped by security before.

I take that back, too. I am often pulled aside by security when we fly. My theory is airport security people figure a grandma on the small side isn’t going to be a physical threat and I can help make their quota.

My only interaction with security at the grocery has been when I make fleeting eye contact with the police officer standing in front of the lotto ticket machine on my way out, and we exchange friendly nods.

It was a typical Saturday. I’d made an early-morning grocery run and then a mid-afternoon run for the things I forgot on my early-morning run.

I was back for carrots, celery, onions and lettuce. It was a typical rabbit run and maybe a couple of other things. OK, fine, I grabbed a Hershey bar with almonds. Let’s just get it all out there.

I breezed through self-checkout, didn’t botch anything, didn’t need help scanning anything. Credit card in, credit card out. Totally routine. I grabbed the receipt, tucked it in a bag, exited the store and heard the alarm go off in the entryway.

Naturally, I kept walking because I figured the alarm didn’t concern me.

That’s when a tall shadow overtook me and a deep voice said, “Ma’am, you just set off the alarm and I need to check your receipt.”

He was a young guy, very tall, very polite, very professional. His momma would be proud.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said.

If he’s sure it’s nothing, why did he stop me? Do I call the husband now or wait ‘til he sees it on the news?

As the young man compared the receipt to the items in my bags, I offered to share the box of baby spring mix with lettuce greens. He said it was tempting. Good fellow—he eats veggies.

Then he said everything was fine. He didn’t know why the alarm had gone off.

I figured it was fate’s way of checking to see if my blood pressure meds worked.

They did and they do.

As I said good-bye to the security officer, I realized a small group had stopped to watch. It was three women about my age. They were all smiling and nodding in approval that I had passed inspection.

Even more remarkable was what the spectators weren’t doing. A different generation would have been recording everything on cell phones.

Once my heart stopped racing, I realized my run-in with security went well, although the Hershey bar was gone before I got home.

 

There were no witnesses, but all I said was, “Get Fred off the table and away from the food.” I thought it was a reasonable request, but from the look on her face I was out of line. Who knew a first grader with beautiful hazel eyes nestled above cherub cheeks could shoot a menacing look?

I was momentarily intimidated, but I also knew I had age, size and rank on her.

“Now,” I said.

She picked up Fred, who was nibbling on leaves in a plastic food storage container covered with a scrap of window screen, and walked away in silence.

Fred is a chubby, fuzzy Isabella caterpillar, more commonly known as a woolly bear caterpillar. Unfortunately, Fred has already had two close brushes with death.

When Fred stopped moving several weeks ago, the father of Fred’s keeper assumed Fred was dead and planned to throw him away when they returned home from their walk. Apparently, Fred overheard the conversation and rallied.

Last week, her mother was doing laundry and found a woolly caterpillar stuck to a T-shirt of Fred’s keeper.  Her mother’s heart raced to think how close Fred had come to death by washing machine. Turned out, it wasn’t Fred at all, but a second woolly.

Full disclosure: I’ve been on the child’s watch list ever since the butterfly incident this past summer. When the family was moving from one home to another, they moved in with us for a brief time. I transported the girls’ and their butterfly net cage holding five chrysalises, from their house to ours by car. Somewhere enroute, three soon-to-be butterflies fell from their perch and tumbled to the bottom of the net cage.

“Grandma killed the butterflies!” one cried.

“I did not kill the butterflies,” I said.

“You were shaking them!”

“I never touched them!” I said.

“It was your driving! You were driving wild and shaking them.”

“I did not drive wild! We were on bad roads with potholes!”

One day you’re a beloved grandma who bakes wonderful chocolate chip cookies and the next day you’re Grandma the Butterfly Killer. It’s a tough life.

As the “Yes, You Did” and “No, I Didn’t” drama continued, one of the girls quietly reattached the chrysalides to the top of the cage.

Days and weeks passed. I hoped, I prayed, I held my breath. The butterflies hatched and were released.

I was exonerated. Another close call for Grandma.

What Fred’s sweet and loving young caretaker doesn’t know, and I’m certainly not about to tell her, is that Fred will have to move outside soon so he can freeze solid. This is the only way Fred will emerge as an orange moth in the spring.

My plan is to be nowhere in the vicinity when all of this goes down. With any luck, we’ll be clear out of town.

There are days I feel like the last surviving gatekeeper to tradition. My mission is to keep the holidays from crashing into one another.

In my rich fantasy world, Labor Day is followed by Halloween, Halloween is followed by Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving is followed by Christmas. Never do they meet, mix or mingle. Welcome to dreamland.

The early Christmas bombardment at the big box stores in 90-degree heat of late summer is disorienting. This is why you see dazed people in the parking lot wildly waving key fobs in the air trying to locate their vehicles.

I’ve heard the reasoning: It’s almost Halloween, so it’s almost Thanksgiving, so it’s almost Christmas. With that line of thought, it’s also almost my birthday.

Our son’s family FaceTimed us on Halloween so we could see the costumes the kids wore for trick or treating. The whole family was gathered in front of a fire roaring in the fireplace—next to a lighted Christmas tree.

“When did the tree go up?” I casually asked.

“Oh, it appeared sometime in October,” came the pre-planned casual answer.

I’m a sequence and order person. I was a kid who separated the peas from the carrots. The ketchup goes next to the fries, not on the fries.  No evergreens in the house until the last slab of Thanksgiving pie has disappeared. Just because I like order doesn’t mean I have issues.

Hold on, I see a dust ball on the floor next to the baseboard.

Neighbors flooded the front of their house with orange and green lights for Halloween nearly the entire month of October. The evening of November 1st, the house was awash in red and green. They must not have November in their calendars. (A phone upgrade can fix that.)

The battle to keep the holidays sensibly separated is like trying to sled uphill or assemble a snowman from the top down.

If you decorate before Thanksgiving, you forfeit the right to complain about the Little Drummer Boy’s “pa rum pum pum pum” played on endless repeat. Ditto for Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.”

In addition to being a sequence and order person, I am also a realist. The battle is futile and I know it. Think I’ll go make a snow angel face down.

We look at paintings of that first Thanksgiving more than 400 years ago, with tables nearly sagging under the weight of wild game, venison, waterfowl, lobster and mussels, corn, beans and pumpkins, we often sigh and say, “Life was so simple back then.”

It was simple. Life was so simple that heat in homes came from logs crackling in a fireplace. There was no central heat with digital thermostats to program or air filters to change. People had no dreaded gas and electric utility bills, but they also sometimes froze to death.

Life was so simple there were no complicated configurations of indoor plumbing, no hot water heaters with annoying calcium and lime build-up, nor reverse osmosis water filters.

Toileting was so simple they didn’t even have to flush. They just waited for a spring thaw and dug a new pit for the privy downwind from the cabin. If you had to go in the middle of the night, you either held it and hoped your bladder didn’t explode, or walked through pitch black to the outhouse praying a bear wouldn’t eat you. Very simple. Hold it or possibly die.

With no sprawling hospitals, emergency rooms or urgent care clinics, disease and dysentery swept through communities wiping out multitudes in a single swath. Very simple. Here one day, gone the next.

As magnificent as the paintings are of that first Thanksgiving, they’re missing the smell of sweat and hard work, the sound of trees being felled, iron pots clanging and the warm feel of fresh kill being butchered for a meal. Paintings can’t convey blisters and calluses, the full measure of agony and fear, or broken hearts grieving the loss of loved ones.

Despite hardships, fear of the known and the unknown, the small band resolved to care for one another, to remain united and to survive.

Because the past is always part of the present, we stand as beneficiaries of those who have gone before. What the early settlers left us was not monetary wealth, but priceless models of courage, tenacity, perseverance and faith. So, how about a moment of thanks this Thanksgiving for those who laid cornerstones to our foundation?

I married a hottie. He loves the heat and the sun.

When the summer sun is scorching and most people hide inside to keep from flash frying, he goes outside to do yardwork.

I tend toward the cool side. Some like it hot, some like it cold, and for some mysterious reason they tend to marry one another.

Our favorite pastime is playing endless rounds of tag with the thermostat. Our banter over the temperature often sounds like a poker game. He says, “I’ll see your 68 and raise you six.”

“That’s 74,” I say. “I can’t do 74. I’m out.” And I will be out—passed out cold once the oppressive heat kicks in.

When summer heat arrived full force this year, I had to hide his flannel-lined jeans, affectionately known as his stuffed scarecrow pants. He spent the bulk of summer outside and I spent the bulk of summer fanning myself in front of the freezer door.

After intense negotiations, we agreed on warmer temps inside the house during the daytime and lowering the thermostat at night. It was a momentary truce in our cold war.

That said, I remain concerned whenever he is outside in blistering heat. When the sun hits the front porch, he goes out, sits in a wicker chair and reads. You know what happens when you read in the warm sun, right? You fall asleep. Your head drops, whatever you are reading falls from your hands and your upper body slumps.

I tell him I am concerned about this because we have numerous runners, walkers and cars passing by our house.

He says I don’t need to be concerned; there is a second chair if someone would like to join him.

My concern is that if people see a man of a certain age slumped in a chair, they could think there is a medical emergency and call 9-1-1. Then a fire truck and ambulance will roar up to the house with sirens screaming, I’ll run outside to see what is happening, see paramedics jerking him out of the wicker chair, then keel over from shock.

“Is that what you want?” I ask.

He says he can’t hear me. He is sitting in a patch of sunlight pretending asleep.

And now, fall has arrived, temperatures are dropping, the furnace is kicking in and winter is within sight.

The flannel-lined jeans have magically reappeared. I ask if the plaid flannel shirts are close behind. He says never question a man in plaid as he always has solid points.

We’re ready for whatever winter brings, my stuffed scarecrow and me.

 

Pity the evil queen in Snow White asking the magic mirror who was the fairest of all, waiting anxiously for the reply. Today all the queen would need to do is upload an image of herself to an AI beauty analysis app and wait a few seconds for the results.

Beauty analysis apps score faces “plain, pretty or gorgeous,” or “attractive, average or sub.” One app scores hair, skin, jawline, cheekbones, nose, chin and lips on a scale of 1-10. Another app uses percentages to rank symmetry and proportion. Yet another uses percentage points to score images for confidence, fun, smartness, trustworthiness and approachability.

Who knew you could tell all that from a simple headshot?

Beauty apps tease users with the lure of self-improvement. After critiquing hair, skin and face, links to products that may help remedy flaws and shortcomings magically appear. How convenient. Such benevolence.

Of course, these beauty analysis apps are targeted toward young girls still maturing, still developing confidence, still getting comfortable in their own skin and changing bodies. Some of the apps require users to be age 16+, but the majority have no age restrictions whatsoever.

I have a vested interest in this phenomenon. Of our 11 grandchildren, nine are girls. Four of those nine girls are teens now. They are flourishing in a myriad of directions, creating, sewing, designing, discovering athletic abilities and cooking talents, devouring books, playing piano, banjo, guitar, fiddle and French horn.

The last thing any of them needs is a computer app scoring their faces.

Beauty analysis apps, designed to entice tweens and teens, are one eyelash extension shy of being online bullies. They prey on insecurities.

Maturity is a process that happens over the passing of time. For a young person still in the process, physical critiques can be devastating. You can work hard and improve your grade in a class at school, but there’s no way to improve a 4/10 score on your jaw line, change the spacing of your eyes or the shape of your mouth.

Why would we think a software app can define beauty based on preset points of size, shape and symmetry programmed into AI?

True beauty has an abstract quality that transcends the physical. Beauty encompasses essence, being and movement. Beauty shines through kindness, selflessness, heart, mind, spirit and soul.

Perhaps the best affirmation of beauty is knowing you are made in the image of God. That’s a powerful place to start and a wonderful foundation from which to build.