Out With The Old 2010, In With the New 2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Christmas In The City

The view from my hotel window

     I had a wonderful time over the Christmas weekend in Philadelphia. However, I have only this one photo to show for it. During the snowstorm and downtime in a hotel room, I was reading my Nikon camera guide trying to learn some things I didn't know about my new camera. Unfortunately, I thought I was deleting one picture but it turned out I was deleting about 20, including the horse and carriage ride I took with my son Alan and a wonderful picture of my two sons and I standing in front of a beautiful Christmas tree in the elegant lobby of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. My heart is still crying which is better than the cussing out I gave myself at the time.

     The highlight of my weekend was two fabulous, and expensive, meals at two fine dining restaurants on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Paying for them was my Christmas gift to my sons and son-in-law. Then they turned the tables (pardon the pun) and informed me they were paying for the Christmas Eve feast. When I saw the bill the next night, I was very glad they had helped me out that way. But thinking about it, I have always spent that much and more when I've entertained family here at Castle Yonder for Christmas.

     We ate at Fish one of the top 10 restaurants in Philly and chose to have the traditional 7-course Italian dinner with the wine pairing. Selected wines were brought in small portions that complimented that course. We started out with baby Bibb lettuce salad with anchovies, then (and I won't remember these all in order, I'm sure) an oyster on the half-shell, clams with linguini, roe, shrimp, octupus (!), and salt cod. These were all served with lovely sauces in beautiful presentations. Dessert was a cake-like nut bread with whipped cream and tiny diced peaches. The restaurant setting was very intimate, and the ambience was warm with dark red walls, and low, artistic lighting. 

     Our Christmas dinner was at the Ten Arts, a restaurant inside the elegant Ritz-Carleton Hotel. Our table was surrounded by mammoth marble columns, and crystal chandeliers hung above us. It was as elegant as Fish had been intimate. We chose the 5-course dinner with the wine pairing. The courses I remember was a magnificent truffle soup with a parmesan and foie gras embellishment and the thinly sliced skirt steak. I'm sorry I can't remember all the courses but by this time there were just too many unfamiliar foods to remember. 

     It truly was two of the most elegant dinners and restaurants I've ever experienced. My sons don't eat this way except on very special occasions, but they are fine food conniseurs. My son, Alan, was trained as a pastry chef and graduated from the Philadelphia Restaurant School twenty years ago. I had the same fun I have when I go on a cruise which is pretending to be a member of the jet set. That's what happened to many of us who grew up during the Golden Age of movies. We aspired to be the Beautiful People.

I make no apologies.  

Christmas Blessings

GOD BLESS YOU MERRY LADIES AND GENT'MEN

Nostalgic Christmas Presents

     What does the recording of The Nutcracker Suite, a toy machine gun, and oversized red mittens have in common? They are all gifts I remember from my childhood that I received at Christmas time.

      I think The Nutcracker Suite was my favorite. My brother-in-law, Bud, worked on the B&O Railroad in Garrett, Indiana where I grew up. He loved to go shopping on Maxwell Street in Chicago when he had to lay over there on his trips as a fireman on the steam engine. Laying over meant he shoveled coal into the engine's furnace all the way from Garrett to Chicago; then the rules prevented him from turning right around and riding an engine back to Garrett. He would go to a boarding house, bathe, eat, and rest and then wait until his assigned engine made the trip back to Garrett. Maxwell Street was an infamous city street where great discounts and sales could be found, both inside the stores and outside on the streets. Bud loved to get a bargain.

     One year when I was about 8 he brought home an early Christmas present for me. It was a small  electric turntable in a brightly colored case that had a small record with it--The Nutcracker Suite. I had never heard music like that before, and immediately fell in love with Tchaikovsky. I'm sure I wore that record to grooves and scratches. I have no idea what happened to it or the turntable, but I still have the memory of Bud and his present whenever I hear "The Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairies," and all the other compositions.

     I grew up during the Second World War. I was 7 when it started and 11 when it ended. These were my "tomboy" years. The street on which I lived, Second Street, was full of kids my age, eleven if I count everyone from a little older than I and a little younger. Some people called us "The East End Kids." We loved to play War although all of us played American soldiers, and the Nazis and Japs we killed were all imaginary. One neighbor had a beautiful bing cherry tree with one low branch that made an ideal airplane, and we were excellent marksmen as we bounced on it up and down. Amazingly, it lasted a couple summers before it finally broke.

     Another battleground we created was in the large empty lot next to my house. My brother, who was eight years older than I, had found a discarded telephone pole, erected it in the field, and put a basketball hoop on it. However, when he joined the Navy at age 18 and left home, my Dad took the pole down. This left a large hole where the pole had been which became a perfect foxhole. We knew about these military things because many of the movies we saw had battles and war themes.

     In keeping with my Army spirit, even though I felt loyal to the Navy because of my brother, I wanted a toy machine gun that made a eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh clicking noise that would make our games more realistic. I don't think I still believed in Santa anymore, but I could still make out Santa wish lists, usually based on the Sears, Roebuck Christmas catalog. I put a toy automatic machine gun on my list, and amazingly, I got one! Fortunately, it didn't shoot bb's or I might have put my eye out!

     The third memorable Christmas present was more of a lesson than the machine gun had been. I was a young teenager and both my parents and I were shopping in The Boston Store in my little hometown. It was unusual for the three of us to be shopping together because my Dad worked for the B& O also, and his work schedule was erratic since he went to Chicago also when certain trains went. The Boston Store had a little bit of everything in the way of clothing for babies, children, juniors, women, and men. We were easing around the aisles picking up and unfolding things, feeling material, appraising and generally shopping. Then I saw the most amusing item. Bright red fuzzy, and oversized, mittens. They must have been a good 12 inches long, sticking out way past the end of my fingers when I tried them on. We all laughed when I waved them in the air. "Do you like those?" my Dad asked. "Yeah!"

     But honestly I did not like them well enough to be my major Christmas present that year! But they were, and I wore them and at first had fun when my friends saw them.  But the fun and the novelty soon wore off, and then I was stuck with bright red fuzzy oversized mittens for the rest of the winter. I learned to be careful what I enthused about on future shopping trips.

     These are lovely memories that let me know now that I was loved. Happy Christmas presents to you all!   Mimi

A Personal St. Nicholas Eve

     When my family came to the United States from East Germany in 1906, they dedicated themselves to becoming Americans, especially my father and mother who started their own family in 1917. Through each year they put more and more of the German traditions and customs aside--except for Christmas.

     My mother continued to bake her special Papanut cookies. That's what she called them using the low German dialect, the language of the folk who lived in the lowlands near the Baltic Sea in the northern Province of Mecklenburg. This is not the high German taught in the schools and used by authors in literature.

     My father loved to belt out "O Tannenbaum" every day of Advent. He also joyfully decorated the Christmas tree and loved to sit and look at it in the silence of the evening. Every year he'd tell the story of how his mother baked Papanut every Christmas holiday, a ginger cut-out cookie, and hung them in a china cabinet and how he got in trouble because he ate them one day when all the family had gone to church. 

     He took an active part in putting the tree up, twining all the lights around, and then hanging each ornament hook by hook. He let me help him a little more each year. When the tree was loaded with every last ball and bauble, we would throw packaged icicles on all the branches for the finishing touch. Then we'd turn off all the overhead lights, run out the front door and across the street to ooh and ahh over our lighted tree which was placed right in the middle of our living room window.

     But even more magical than that moment was the moment I saw Santa Claus on St. Nicholas Eve. This was a well-loved legend that had come across the pond with my family members who hung onto it until their four children had outgrown Santa. I, as the youngest, was their last chance to vicariously enjoy the innocence of childhood.

     The saint for whom December 6 is named has many legends and mythology based on his life although the facts of his bio are brief and obscure. His legends have now been documented back to the Nordic pagan culture. The evolution of many myths have now been traced throughout the northern area of Europe. St. Nicholas eventually came to be known as Sinterklaaus in the Netherlands and Belgium. One can easily see how Sinterklaaus eased into Santa Claus. In fact, my father always referred to S.C. as Santy Claus which is very close to the European.

     Sinterklaaus came into the United States with the Dutch settlers of New York. However, the English speakers eventually prevailed and it's been Santa Claus ever since. For more history of St. Nickolas, type it in the Search box on Wikipedia. For my personal memory, read on.

     I was five years old. December 6 had been a snowy day, and when I came home from school my mother met me at the door and swept me off with the broom because I had made snow angels all the way home and my snow suit was covered with snow. She took off my boots and set them on the doorstep leading into the house.

     At the supper table, my 13 year old brother started talking about Santy Claus and wasn't this the night he flew overhead and left presents in children's shoes if they had been good? My mother answered yes and then passed around dishes of Jello with sliced bananas. Suddenly, my brother jumped up and said, "Listen, I think I hear sleigh bells!" 

     My mother agreed and grabbed her heavy sweater that hung on the doorknob of her bedroom door. My sister, Vi, grabbed my snow suit jacket and started pushing my arms into it. Everyone was talking at once, about hearing sleigh bells. I didn't hear a thing.

     We rushed out the door and down the porch steps. They started looking up in the sky and pointing. I remember seeing bright stars overhead. "Look, there's Santy Claus," my brother yelled and was jumping like he always did when he got excited. My sister knelt beside me and my mother held my shoulders from behind me. "Do you see him, Irma Rose? Do you see him?" I didn't see a thing.

     But they insisted, and I wasn't one to give up even at age 5. I looked and looked, strained my eyes looking at black spaces between the stars.  "Look Irma Rose, it's Santy Claus, look right up there." And my sister gently turned my head a trifle and tilted my chin upwards. And suddenly I could see him. I saw him in his sleigh gliding across the dark sky. "Can you see him?" they asked and I nodded my head, too overwhelmed to speak.

     And then Santa was gone. Off to somewhere else to excite a family and bring wonder to the wee ones.  We walked toward the house, and as we climbed the porch steps, my mother stopped, and said, "Look Irma Rose. There's something in your boots." I looked and there was a flat package wrapped in white tissue paper with a red ribbon around it. My sister, Vi, took it out of my boot and handed it to me. "It looks like Santy Claus must have left you a present. You must have been a good girl this year."

     We walked into the house and Vi pulled my jacket off me. I sat down next to the hot air register and pulled the red ribbon off the package, and then I tore the tissue off. It was a book! It was an Uncle Wiggley book! I opened it, and started looking at the pictures. "I'll read it to you when you get ready for bed," Vi said.

And she did.

     I eventually outgrew Santy Claus and the next generation of my family let the St. Nicholas legend become only a memory. But when I tell it, it becomes a story.

Top Ten List - " I Know I'm Not Aging Gracefully When..."

    I've been trying real hard to age gracefully, but I just can't do it.

Oh, I age all right--just not gracefully.

     I try to be joyful about it, put on a happy face; I say aging doesn't matter; quote articles about how older people's brains work better in some instances than younger ones; how exercise, fiber, and pedicures keep one feeling sexy; how aged wine is quality wine; how other cultures revere the aged; how people grow wise, not old.

     But it's no use. I hate aging and never have been particularly graceful. I hate losing my figure, getting wrinkles on the back of my arms, psoriasis on my legs, breasts that look like pendulums, colorless hair, not being able to walk across the room without poot poot pooting six or seven times.

     I cannot deny my own behavior. Every 24 hours I'm reminded that now I'm a day older. Not wiser, not revered, not even graceful--no more "Master of my Fate;" no more "Commander of my Soul."  Since my body grows more ungraceful, how on earth can I say I'm aging gracefully? Who even suggested such a thing? It must have been some social worker who didn't want her clients to look so unhappy. "Gracefully," I can imagine her saying, "A real lady (or gentleman) ages gracefully."


Here's a Top Ten List I created:

 Ten Ways I Know I May Be Aging, But I'm Not Doing It Gracefully

• I may need a rolling walker; I order it and use it to fight my way through stores on Black Friday,
• I use my cane because I love style and bought it online at  fashionablecanes.com,
• I prefer to rest in the evening with a glass of wine to socializing at a church social,
• I play computer games all night and get my rest by sleeping all day,
• My favorite TV shows are nostalgic pieces like Mad Men, and Boardwalk Empire because they use "dirty" language and it helps me stay in touch with the younger generation,
• I accept dinner invitations not so I can be social but so I can bring home the leftovers for lunch the next day,
• I refuse to call cotton t-shirts "layers." I call them underwear because I'm cold and that's what my Mommy put on me when I was a little girl,
•  I cuss like a rapper after measuring myself for new clothes and discover my chest, waist, and hips are all the same size,
•  I substitute a bag of microwave popcorn for my veggies; after all, corn is a vegetable,
•  I write lists like this to get people to pay attention to me, an old lady.