And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.
From A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
O, Christmas Tree
We got our Christmas tree on the second Sunday in December. We’d had our second snowfall of the year, just an inch, the night before, so we were expecting Butler’s Orchard to be scenic. But to our surprise they were almost out of trees. The field where the trees are usually sold was closed and the few trees that they had left were stacked along a wall outside the farm market. We were sorry not to be able to walk through a snowy field decorated with seasonal wooden cutouts and snowmen made of hay bales or Christmas trees fashioned from tractor tires painted green, but we started to browse the small selection of trees.
We often get a six- or seven-foot tree, but the biggest ones they had left were marked five feet. When we held them up and stood next to them, though, it was clear some were closer to six feet, if not quite that, because Noah is five eight and there were trees taller than him. We chose one of these. Though short, it was very full and had an attractive shape. We were all pleased with it. Once we had a tree strapped to the top of the car, we went into the farm market to browse for treats and small gifts. Then we dropped Noah off at the Panera in Rockville where his game club meets each Sunday afternoon and drove home, satisfied with the results of our outing.
The tree spent the next six days in the garage. We had some trepidation about having a tree at home, with the cats. We’ve only spent Christmas at home twice in the kids’ lives (in 2013 and 2014) and back then Matthew and Xander were ten and then eleven years old and in a more sedate phase of life than our not quite two-year-old cats. Plus, these cats, especially Willow, are more expert jumpers and climbers than their predecessors were at any age and it just seemed like asking for trouble to bring a tree into the house and adorn it with breakable objects. If it had been up to me, we probably wouldn’t have even gotten a tree, but I was outnumbered. If you can stand the suspense, I will tell you how it worked out later in this post.
Misfortune Seemed Our Lot
Two days after the got the tree, Beth was hit by a car while crossing the street on her way to the Metro. She’d been planning to work in the office that day, but that plan quickly changed. She was able to get up and walk away, but her foot and knee were hurt. She went first to her own doctor and then to get X-rays taken. Nothing was broken. A few days later, she saw an orthopedist who told her kneecap was subluxed and gave her some home exercises to do. She was using crutches for a few days; now she’s getting around with a cane, but she’s still sore.
The three of us who were not hit by a car all got sick that same week. Noah was the canary in the coal mine, but a couple days later North and I were sick, too. Our symptoms varied (North was the only one with a fever, for instance) so covid made sense. I picked up some tests while out on a series of holiday errands (masking at my stops) and sure enough, North tested positive. Noah and I tested negative, but it seems likely that’s what we had as we were exposed and sick. My worst symptoms were deep fatigue and an overwhelming amount of snot, but now we’re all nearly recovered.
Deck the Halls (and Make the Cookies and Mail the Cards)
Despite injury and illness, Christmas preparations went on. While we waited to decorate the tree, we decorated other parts of the house, inside and out. Over the course of the week, North decorated the mantel and Noah strung lights on the porch to join the candy cane lane and lights in the dogwood tree Beth had installed earlier and North put the decorations we re-use every year on the wreath.
There was also a lot of baking and candy making. Once North finished their exams, several days after arriving at home, they made candied cranberries, almond butter cookies with Hershey’s kisses, pinwheels, and chocolate-peppermint cookies. Noah made eggnog pudding and a pan of very convincing copycat cranberry bliss bars. (We’re supporting the striking Starbucks baristas by boycotting Starbucks, and it turns out cranberry bliss bars are what I miss most of their holiday offerings.) Beth made cashew butter buckeyes and she’s thinking of making pizzelles between Christmas and New Year’s. I made mint brownies before North came home and then the kids and I made gingerbread cookies two days before Christmas. And this wasn’t baking precisely, but I made gingerbread pancakes for dinner on Christmas Eve and they were a hit. There were requests that it become a tradition.
“Do we usually have this many cookies?” Noah asked me toward the end of the baking spree. The answer is no. I’m not exactly sure why we went so crazy this year, but it could be 1) that being home meant we had more time because we didn’t have to pack or travel, and 2) it’s my fifth Christmas with diabetes and after a few years of restraint, I am just not as strict as I was in the beginning and I know more hacks to keep my blood sugar under control (basically protein, fat, timing, and exercise), so I felt like going all out. It was fun and I’m glad we did it, but perhaps next year we’ll be more restrained.
On Christmas Eve morning I delivered plates of cookies and buckeyes to our next-door neighbors and a family around the block. Within a couple hours the next-door neighbors had reciprocated with a container of cardamom cookies. This exchange felt very festive. Meanwhile, we are setting aside some more treats for people we won’t see until after Christmas.
While not decorating or baking (or working—Beth worked until Christmas Eve and I worked until the day before that), we watched all our canonical Christmas specials (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, Frosty Returns, A Year Without a Santa Claus, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Christmas is Coming Again) and two more holiday romances: Keller Family Christmas and Christmas Baby. This was the one about the lesbian couple who find a baby on their doorstep (actually, in the store where one of them works) and they must decide whether to keep it. Go ahead and guess what they do. You already know the answer. On Christmas Eve, we continued our Christmas media binge with The Muppet Christmas Carol, which may be my favorite Christmas movie of all time, partly because of its faithfulness to the original and partly because of the changes.
The Happiest Christmas Tree
We bit the bullet and set up and trimmed the tree on the last Saturday before Christmas. Noah went through all the ornaments ahead of time and picked out the least breakable ones. The cats did not knock the tree over or try to climb it and we have North to thank for that. They read somewhere online that many cats strongly dislike the smell of oranges, so we bought a couple of bottles of essential orange oil and treated the mantel and the area around the tree and some of the ornaments and the presents with oil. It worked surprisingly well. At first, when the oil was freshly applied, they hated it so much they would run from the room. They did acclimate somewhat, but they still don’t like it. And now when you walk into the house you smell orange more than pine. Luckily, I find the scent more pleasant than the cats do, as we need to keep re-applying. North also made new ornaments out of dried orange slices for good measure.
Initially, Willow seemed frightened of the foul-smelling tree. She would hide in the cave part of the cat tree or inside the cat tunnel and stare at it. After a few days, though, she was used to it and was relaxed enough to sleep in the living room again. Both cats will occasionally bat at low-hanging ornaments and that’s our cue to re-treat the tree with orange oil.
We finally got our Christmas cards in the mail, with the last batch going out on the Monday before Christmas. I did most of the addressing but on Saturday morning, Beth, North and I all sat at the table and addressed cards together, trying to get as many done as possible before pickup from the mailbox around the corner at ten a.m. Then I finished up the rest on Sunday. I don’t suppose they all arrived by Christmas, but they should arrive before the festive season is over.
All Is Bright
We went to Brookside Gardens to see the Garden of Lights the same day we mailed the last of the cards. This is a walk-through light display in a botanical garden. The theme of the decorations is nature, so many of the lights are in the shape of plants or animals, but there are also several tunnels you can walk through and the branches of trees along the paths are outlined with colored lights. It was magical, as always. We were starting to recover from our illness by then, but we all masked just to be safe. We visited all the old familiar lights (my favorite is the sea monster that breathes steam) and some that may have been new (a field of tulips).
On Christmas Day, On Christmas Day
On Christmas morning, North made scrambled eggs and a very yummy cranberry-pear crumble for breakfast. We opened presents afterward. Books and flannel sheets and gift certificates seemed to be the most popular gifts this year. Beth got one for REI, Noah got one for the GAP and Panera, North got several that are good for multiple businesses in Oberlin. Beth also got a lot of chocolate in the form of bars and two different hot chocolate mixes. I got new sneakers and a cutting board. Noah got a couple games and a puzzle. North got a messenger bag, long underwear, two jars of fancy olives, Earl Grey concentrate, lemon curd, and two pairs of earrings.
After presents and lunch, North and I went for a walk down by the creek, where I posed by a decorated tree in the woods and then I continued to walk on my own, while North went home to start the orange-cranberry meringue pie they were making for Christmas dinner dessert. While I was out walking, my mom called and we had a chat until the wind go too loud for her to hear me. When I got home, she talked to everyone else.
Noah and I read and I spent a good bit of the afternoon blogging while North worked on the pie and Beth made a spinach lasagna. That night we watched Elf. It was the first time for all of us, except Noah who once saw part of it. It was enjoyable, but probably not something I’d watch on repeat. (Sorry, Nicole!)
Because we travel so often during the holidays, it sometimes felt strange to be where our regular life takes place and not a grandmother’s house or a cabin in the woods or a beach house. But despite that strangeness and some medical obstacles, we managed to keep Christmas well. And as for travel, we will be hitting the road on New Year’s Eve. More on that later…