Reflections of Christmas Part 2

As an adult I spent Christmases in lots of places. I remember the year my Mom came to visit me in Los Angeles, 1980. I had a cute little house and it was going to be her first visit to me out west. As I decorated my little tree, TV on in the background, they announced John Lennon had been killed.. As a surviving original screaming Beatlemaniac, I just sat down and cried. Why? I'll never forget that day that put a huge damper on Christmas spirit all over the world.

Above is my mini Christmas tree and my Maine Coone Tigre, saddened that one of our personal heroes had been senselessly murdered. And so this was Christmas.

On a brighter note, I worked in the entertainment biz and my Mom got to meet one of her favorite stars that year, one of my "bosses" Paul Williams.


There are great memories of Christmases at my brother's renovated Victorian house in San Francisco's West End, where my mom drank her first tequila and accidentally ate some of his roommate Bruce's magic brownies set out for Christmas snacks. I remember enjoying many a Christmas gathering in San Francisco with my brother Larry, cousin Higgins, other former Toledoans, and new California friends .

Jumping back to Hawaii, I'd have to say my happiest years there were the ten years we lived in our rented coffee shack. It was affectionately known as the "Halfway house"...because it was halfway between the bay where we all worked on the Fairwind boat to everyone's homes. It was a funky house you'd expect to find in old Hawaii. The 100 year old house was constructed of one-by- twelves, with so many coats of paint, we felt that it was only that paint and the termites holding hands that was keeping the house standing. That coffee shack, where our good friend Dave is smart enough to still be living at $500 bucks a month, was the epitomy of my idea of living in Hawaii. We lived on acres of fruits and coffee trees with a wide open view of Kailua Bay. The coffee trees often flowered at Christmas creating a look of snow covered branches.  The poinsettias bloomed everywhere, big red splashes of color with bushes of white snowflake poinsettias next to them.  It was beautiful and felt like Christmas to me. People say the tropics 'just aren't Christmas' without blinding snow, freezing ass cold and blizzards.  But I disagree.  The photo below of the coffee trees flowering looks like fresh fallen snow but smells like lilies of the valley permeating the air. Give me the flower scent over the freezing ass cold any day.

 
 
I kept a patch of globe amaranth that I strung every year in fifty foot strands to decorate our tree.

But first we had to take the trip up the mountain and find our tree.  After a few years of driving up and marking our tree, we lazed into calling in an order. So we'd climb the mountain (in our trucks), walk around the tree farm looking for a ribbon with our name on it,  and came home with an almost identical tree every year. Below are Jim, me, Naomi and Jerry.  There are more pictures like this in my albums with other fellow annual tree seekers.  Not present, who should be, are Jack and Lisa who went up  the hill with us nearly every year for maybe 15 years? My apologies, I started getting carried away with the scanning!

Left to right, Dave Winters, me, Marylei Drake and Barbara.  We made the most of tree decorating parties.  Ok, we made the most of any occasion to party! We were young!

We liked to dance while we decorated.  I came to Mexico to dance more often, but my Hawaiian friends were such spontaneous dancers we didn't need any organized dance time.  Someone would just pop up and say, "Time to dance!" and we'd all follow suit. Dancing below are Robin, Jerry and Naomi. Not in the picture is James Dean, who jumped up and said, "Ok, everyone dance naked now!" and proceeded to strip down to his skibbies and dance on the railings.  He'd want me to pay him for the right to print those pictures.

This half decorated tree below and the above photos might be from 1995, but I'm not sure. The years ran together and.the trees always looked amazingly alike, so our parties every year also had the same constant components.  Lots of friends, food, drink and fun.

Slow dancing to- probably to Ray Charles Silent Night or something like that - (below) are two of my oldest friends. No, that's wrong, they're not old! These are two friends I've known for a long long time.....can you see the love?  Here I see the spirit of Christmas. Dancing a slow song while loving eachother eye to eye.

These are my cousins who come from the beautiful house on the river in Michigan.  They loved spending the holidays in Kona with us, and this is just one family shot of us enjoying Christmas Hawaiian style.  In the shot below we have, left to righ, Bill, Therese, Bruce, Lin, Dave, Megan, Amy, Reina, (behind)Anne, Ian, Chris(hiding), Richard, Renee and Jim. 

My reflections of Christmas really only touch the surface of great memories. Let's face it, at my age one has to have a shitload of memories of Christmases.  Once I started pulling pictures to scan from photo albums, I realized it would be a huge project to actually pull from every era.  So this is kind of a recap of good memories from Christmas seasons past.  I wish I had photos of lots more friends and family gatherings scanned to share here.  For me Christmas is about sharing, and remembering, and showing love and living peace.

The City of Merida spares no expense on Christmas lights or decorations.  The stores are packed with people and traffic is snarled.  For the wealthier residents, I imagine their gatherings to be like a typical American Christmas, with a huge tree in color coordinated decorations, underneath it an excess of expensive toys and presents inspired by US TV commercials.  The poorer people, today, on Christmas Eve, are taking their annual bonuses and scrambling to find a bargain here and there so they have gifts to exchange.  More than likely they will have a great family dinner, but often no Christmas tree.  Instead the priority is to spend time together, eating and drinking and telling stories.  Showing love and living peace....until they get too loaded and start fighting. That's another topic for another day. 

Christmas dinner at the coffee shack in 1995 with Mom and the Nolands.  

I guess I get nostalgic for Christmases past.  Although I've been in Merida for over three years, I'm going to have to say it's not that easy for me to make friends.  There isn't the comradery that I felt in most other places I've lived.  But this is a big city and I think that makes a difference.  When I first moved to LA I found it difficult to find a circle of friends.  It took a while there too.  Unfortunately this place is unique in the way that the foreign population doesn't socialize much with the local population, so that creates limitations I'm not familiar with.  I haven't bonded well with the expat community here, it's a tough nut to crack because I don't fit their mold.  I've gotten used to it and look forward to Christmas being quiet time at home together, eating well, and letting the madness go on outside and all around us.  Peace to all.  

Reflections of Christmas

Merry Christmas, Everyone. Feliz Navidad. Mele Kalikimaka.  I have many half written blogs but haven't had the brain to write.  The cat bite has set me back.   There are no words to describe the pain involved in a punctured achilles tendon. I'm learning that pain and brain power are very closely connected.  I have bouts of either the pain or the brain.  It sucks. 

My "agenda" in moving to Merida was personal rebirth.  I needed to overcome grief and sadness and reinvent myself.  I've had a difficult time reviving Christmas.  Our Christmases in Hawaii were special and unique.  First of all the cost of living there  is high, so the spirit of getting together and creating delicious meals together, enjoying each other's company, and in most cases not exchanging gifts other than a sweet tasting dessert was our norm.  We didn't live a typical American material life in Hawaii where Christmas was purely commercial and trendy and designed to impress.  The people there were more artsy and spiritual.  Besides, when you have to do all your Christmas shopping at WalMart or Costco your options are limited.  My forté wast to made ornaments, baskets, chile powders, etc.....I even hand made the tons of Christmas cards I sent out. I loved doing it.  Christmas made me happy.  We always had fun and friends around and often even family came out to the islands for a tropical holiday. We would go up to the top of Mt. Hualalai and pick out a Monterey pine tree at the Christmas tree farm. It was so much fun to don our hideous Christmas socks some aunties sent us the year before, put on our Santa caps, shorts, and hiking boots and head up the mountain a'carroling. 

I'm finally getting back into the spirit of the holiday.  We've had a decorated tree lighting the house for weeks and filling the air with the scent of pine, and the plan is to have a nice quiet time at home with the cats.  We received  little care packages and all have a few gifts to open, plenty of Christmas music to keep us in the mood, TV in the background with football, and plenty of turkey to overeat.

I dug out some old photos! Here I am meeting Santa the first time in 1953.

Mom and me in front of the aluminum tree.

I used to love Christmas.  As a kid in Toledo we had this tacky aluminum tree with the revolving blue, yellow, red and green lights behind it.  Mom and I would take the bus downtown to Christmas shop at the big department stores.  I loved to wrap, so that was always my job.  We always had presents to open, practical things like socks and sweaters, but fun things too.  I remember my brothers coming homr from college and going to midnight Mass together at St. Hedwig.  I think the service was in Polish and Latin.  I loved those Gregorian chants and trying to sing along with the Polish songs.  I never did take the church part too seriously.  I liked the singing and socializing. We could open our most of our gifts after church at 2am and have one egg nog.  In the morning we had a couple more presents to unwrap.  One year first thing in the morning my brothers had to play their new albums, I'm remembering the Righteous Brothers and Del Shannon at this moment, on my new record player.  Later we'd drive north to Monroe, Michigan, where we'd have a huge family dinner with my cousins Bill & Therese Noland and their gang of six.  Every Christmas day we'd wake up to the dirty snow of the city and spend the afternoon on the pure white snow covered river bank, a picture postcard of rural winter. 

A look down Lagrange Street toward St Hedwig Church taken in front of the house where we grew up.

Cousins' Noland house along the River Raisin.  The river is on the back side of the house. This shot was taken from the road. The house probably looks much like this photo today, decorated, snow covered.  It looks a lot like Christmas!

When I started reviewing photo albums of Christmases past, I remembered so many memorable Christmases that it cheered me up from the moment I started this post. I decided to publish this in installments.  I'd like to take this opportunity to ask everyone to reminisce on some of the great old family and friend Christmas gatherings you've had, in order to recreate some of the original intention of the spirit of the holidays.

Feliz Navidad

The Christmas Canoe.

We are spending the holidays at home this year.  We have house guests and thought this year we would show some Christmas spirit by decorating a little. That means I didn't unpack all the goodies this year and go crazy.  It is a subtle approach this season.   Inside the house we created this little showcase. 

We got carried away lighting up the plants outside in the zen garden and only had this one white strand left.  It is festive.

I have a collection of ornaments I either made or was given over the past several decades.  The ones pictured above are from seed pods, shells and other treasures I've collected.  I went through a long stretch where I made different ornaments every year and gave them as gifts to my friends. 

Father Christmas has done a lot of traveling and is a bit worn, but he is still looking great and found a place in the dining room.

The angel made of philadendron sheathes is still guarding the kitchen year round, and now she has some of her old friends hanging out with her. 

The little bells below are made from regular sized styrofoam cups.  I think we made these in the early 1990's when Jim was working on the research vessel.  My friends and I painted the cups and the crew took them down in a dive bag attached to a submarine.  They went to visit Loihi, the newest Hawaiian island.  It is 3000 feet below the surface.  The air is sucked out of the styrofoam with the water pressure and they come up shrunken cups.  That was a fun year painting those cups.  Putting up the ornaments brings back a lot of memories.  For me especially, since each and every ornament I own means something to me.  I have a few Christmas balls, but even those are unique and were special gifts.  So, simple it may be, still it seems to add a bit of holiday cheer to the household. 

Another Christmas Passed

Jude, Pablo and Jill on Pre-Christmas Eve.


The Navidad altar.

Busmo guards his present.

We celebrated Christmas Eve on the 23rd: Pablo, Jude visiting from Georgia, Jill visiting from down the street...actually she was taking on the commando during our absence over Christmas, the commando and me. There were a few gifts under the Christmas altar, and Busmo was particularly attracted to one which happened to be their new scratching post. The catnip inside probably clued him in. Watching the cats enjoy opening gifts was more fun than receiving gifts myself.

One of my gifts from Pablo was this cool pair of "slipper" slippers.

I macramed some friendship bracelets with the clay beads we brought back from La Calma, Honduras. Daniela, Pablo and I painted most of them. I also made some keychains. People love bracelets around here, so I was able to gift several. It was not my most artistic year, but at least I made an effort.

Busmo wins the cutest photo of the week posing in the canoe.

I will catch you up on the holiday happenings as soon as I get reorganized. Happy New Year! ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

And So This Is Christmas

Today is December 21st. Christmas is happening all around me, and I woke up a little sad because I have not put much energy into the holidays. I used to enjoy making cards, writing letters, making ornaments, putting up the tree and getting together with friends and family. Jim and I had a couple of rough Christmases, but as my girlfriend reminded me, other than those two years the holidays were always fun. I feel guilty that I don't make the effort to get together with my family, especially since my brother invites me every year.

But I am still getting accustomed to a new life in México. I have a family in Pablo and the cat commando. The thought of traveling to the US intimidates me. Having spent the past year trying to get accustomed to the culture here, I cannot just culture hop, not yet. I have trouble switching my brain from Spanish to English in a bilingual situation. I see it in my writing, my thoughts are more formal and my sentences structured oddly. I am also still a little lost since my life changed and try to avoid those family situations where they sit you down and ask, "So what ARE you doing?"

You are looking at my Christmas decorations. Pablo gave me a pipe cleaner tree. The cats tore it up, but I reconstructed it and put it on some pine needles I had left over from Guadalupe day flowers. This is the Christmas altar. We put up a tree and my Mom's nativity scene last year, and then decided to drive around southern Mexico and Guatemala for two weeks.

So this year I decided a token altar, with a Mayan god, St. Francis of Assissi and the pipe cleaner tree with a little scent of pine would be just perfect. Another consideration was the five kittens, and a big tree full of tempting hanging items is just a disaster waiting to happen. Jude is visiting and we are heading to Akumal for Christmas, back to our roots in México, where we met over 20 years ago.

Feliz Navidad. Merry Christmas. Mele Kelikimaka. Happy Holidays. Be safe. Appreciate one another.

The First Carolers

Today is Tuesday, December 2, 2008. It is 7:30pm. I am sitting at the computer in my office aka opium den and I hear faint sounds of children singing. I slide to the door because I am wearing socks. I have learned to run and slide so as to not run and fall on my ass. These cement tile floors are slippery. I grabbed coins on my way to the gate. This is what I find outside:



The first thing that strikes you is the kid with the crossed eyes, isn’t it? You are thinking, like I did, ah, the kid has a chance to make a face for the camera. Yucatecans generally don’t like to be photographed; you have to ask permission first. You could steal their soul by reproducing their image in that camera. If you look at the second photo, however, you see the child has a real eye problem.
I know they are not singing about Christmas, it is about the Virgin de Guadalupe. She is the patron saint of Mexico. However, I don’t understand the obsession nor the protocol with the Virgin no matter how many questions I ask. Virgin of Guadalupe day is December 12th and celebrated here on the 15th. The patron saint of the church two blocks up the street is also the Virgin. That gives her double importance in this neighborhood.

What I don’t understand is the reasoning behind the songs they sing to me. By the time I get from inside the house, run toward the door, find change, and get to the gate, they are almost finished with the first song. It is always the same. Then I throw the change in their collection box and they sing the second song that blesses the house and everyone in it. I think the first song has to do with the miraculous patron saint the Virgin of Guadalupe. But I am not sure. It is not Jingle Bells, I know that.

So if you don’t give money, do they sing a curse this house song? Yes, they sing something that is akin to the trick in trick or treating. I think they sing “you cheap bastard, we’ll be back to toilet paper your house, and by then all your hair will fall out, etc.”