Holiday Season Letters and Semantics of Season
Who would have thought that whether to say "Christmas" or "holiday' would be a major PC issue in 2005. Tonight my significant other and I had heated disagreement on it. I will not share my views; it's too hot a topic, but interesting sociological note.
What I was thinking of is how a lot of friends I correspond with are writing very poetically.
One friend wrote about a stump of oak tree in her front yard which kept sending up little green leaves and her husband kept cutting them back. Finally she stopped him, and after ten or so years, they have a kind of mini tree on top of stump.
And one year her son strung this little odd "tree" with white Christmas lights. She remembers sitting with him on the front porch, cold, late at night, watching the lights and the tree. He died this year. But she keeps coming up with these wonderful memories of him. I know it's too soon, but I keep thinking, she's got a book here. Maybe only for family and friends, but it's good.
I've become very "attached " to this man I never met and who died a year ago. And he had a lot of faults, but he saw with an artists's eye.
Then there are the older among us who seem to be pulling out stops on remembering holiday seasons "back when." Back when grandfather lit the stove in parlor and we ran in cold to warm up before attacking gifts and our grandmother's fantasia of a breakfast. How pipes broke and a layering of quilts was necessary to stay warm.
Another friend writes of how her extended family is making out spread sheets to keep straight what everyone wants for holiday gifts. And the difficulty of updating these sheets ,when some members of family are less computer literate than others, is producing tight--lipped Family Conflict.
A friend sent me a bulb which I was so afraid wouldn't make it. I have no green thumb. I worried about it with her, and finally , she, I guess, tired of hearing my laments, mailed me another one with bud already out. But, guess what, my own little plant, cared for by a non- green -thumb -person has sprouted a bud. I was so happy and proud and picked up planter to PEER at it. Feeling as though I had given birth. Now the question is, will we have sibling rivalery?
A friend is sick and going in hospital for tests. Holidays do not protect us from the abrasions of life. Fear and danger walk hand in hand with music and candles. Our holiday has many faces. Nite. Claire
What I was thinking of is how a lot of friends I correspond with are writing very poetically.
One friend wrote about a stump of oak tree in her front yard which kept sending up little green leaves and her husband kept cutting them back. Finally she stopped him, and after ten or so years, they have a kind of mini tree on top of stump.
And one year her son strung this little odd "tree" with white Christmas lights. She remembers sitting with him on the front porch, cold, late at night, watching the lights and the tree. He died this year. But she keeps coming up with these wonderful memories of him. I know it's too soon, but I keep thinking, she's got a book here. Maybe only for family and friends, but it's good.
I've become very "attached " to this man I never met and who died a year ago. And he had a lot of faults, but he saw with an artists's eye.
Then there are the older among us who seem to be pulling out stops on remembering holiday seasons "back when." Back when grandfather lit the stove in parlor and we ran in cold to warm up before attacking gifts and our grandmother's fantasia of a breakfast. How pipes broke and a layering of quilts was necessary to stay warm.
Another friend writes of how her extended family is making out spread sheets to keep straight what everyone wants for holiday gifts. And the difficulty of updating these sheets ,when some members of family are less computer literate than others, is producing tight--lipped Family Conflict.
A friend sent me a bulb which I was so afraid wouldn't make it. I have no green thumb. I worried about it with her, and finally , she, I guess, tired of hearing my laments, mailed me another one with bud already out. But, guess what, my own little plant, cared for by a non- green -thumb -person has sprouted a bud. I was so happy and proud and picked up planter to PEER at it. Feeling as though I had given birth. Now the question is, will we have sibling rivalery?
A friend is sick and going in hospital for tests. Holidays do not protect us from the abrasions of life. Fear and danger walk hand in hand with music and candles. Our holiday has many faces. Nite. Claire
posted by claireHolcomb at
12/13/2005 11:44:00 PM
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