Yet Another Phase of Goodbye

For many years, I’ve collected Santas. I have some made of wood, cast iron, tin, plastic, resin - even felt-wrapped Styrofoam. They're tall, short, and in-between; the kind that sit on a table or hang on a tree, or balance precariously on a stand. Some ride in cars, trains, and sleighs, or sit on the moon; one even rides a sheep.

Several hold an evergreen tree in one arm, and a staff, a child, a deer, a bag of toys, or even snowshoes in the other, to ensure they can get to children in the snowiest parts of the world.  They wear red, of course, but also plaid, and robes of green, white, blue, or brown; some have sparkly accents or fully sparkly outfits.

My collection has grown in the years My Sweet Baboo and I have been together; I don’t think a single Christmas has passed without him gifting me another Santa. Others were gifts from my mom, from friends, or received as holiday party favors.

Every year, but never before December 1^st, they come up from the Christmas Room in the basement, or from the hall closet, where the cast iron ones spend the off-season. I open the totes and the boxes, sometimes with a plan, but more often haphazardly, freeing the Santas from their wrappings of old newspaper, nearly airless bubble-wrap, and tissue paper at least a decade past when it last saw better days.

Slowly, randomly, I'd start placing them in the foyer - on the sideboard, or the bookcase, or the table where the family pictures usually sit, or the table by the door. I’ve followed that process here for nineteen Christmases. And then came this year: the first Christmas without my mother, who passed in March. 

She loved my collection and looked forward to seeing how they were displayed each year. And she had her own collection, too.  Some of them I suspect came from kids she had in class during her nearly thirty years of teaching. She saved everything they gave her, just as she saved everything my brothers and I gave her over the years. Her collection was augmented by My Sweet Baboo - he gifted her a Santa each Christmas for the last 15 years or so, too.

Earlier this month, after I brought my Santas out of storage and prepared to put them on display, I struggled to stay motivated. I'd work for a while, walk away, and then give up. For the first time, it felt like a chore rather than a favorite holiday tradition. I knew why, of course – there were other Santas out there, in a closet half an hour away.

I hadn’t been out to the house - Mom's house still, even though I officially own it - in weeks. Honestly, I can't remember when or why I was there last. Too much emotion, too much stress, too much to do, too much… everything. I had planned on going, a couple of times, and planned on getting the Santas, a couple of times, but those ‘couple of times’ never worked out. And here I was, in December, needing to make the trip, needing to 'make Christmas'. 

Out we went. While I sorted through some of Mom's things, making 'keep' and 'toss' decisions on books and placemats and random artifacts of her life, My Sweet Baboo rescued the Santas from the closet under the stairs. When I had had enough, had done enough for one trip, we loaded them up, along with Dad’s old schoolmaster’s desk (a gift from Mom) and a small Christmas tree, and brought them all home.

The next day, I stood in the foyer, surrounded by Santas. They were all over the place, wherever I had unceremoniously left them, looking ridiculously forlorn and forgotten. A tote and four shoeboxes of my Santas sat on the floor, unpacked. A tote and a bag or two of Mom's were nearby.

I took a deep cleansing breath: a full, slow inhale, then a full, slow exhale, and then I took another, inviting in the emotions I knew would come as soon as I started unboxing her collection, and then forcing them out, refusing to let them overwhelm me.

It took two or three hours to arrange them all, blending hers with mine, placing them just so amid the strings of lights I put out to help show them off. For the first time, the collection spilled up onto the picture shelves on the wall, down onto the floor, and over to the corner bookcase. I needed to recruit a plant stand from the porch, too, which would have made Mom smile.

The whole thing - seeing her Santas seamlessly integrated with mine, miraculously no two exactly alike - would have made her smile. And finally, I was able to smile, too. 

Could Alexa Even Handle the Decorations?

Folks who know me well know I sometimes question the value of all our modern technology. For example, here's an old post where I designed my own robot, one that would actually do meaningful and helpful things, rather than stuff like turning on the oven I'm standing in front of... I remember my now sister-in-law once said that I was like the Unabomber. 

She meant it in the nicest possible way, of course, but I'm still not so much a joiner in some of the tech stuff.  I'm known for chuckling at the ridiculous 'smart' things and the ads trying to convince me I can't live without these devices. This is my current favorite. Not for nothing, but unless there's a robot coming out of the woodwork to get the bowl out of the sink and onto the floor, well... As all pet owners know, the only thing worse than an empty dish is a full one your pet can't reach.

Another sis-in-law, who shares similar feelings about commercials (don't get us started on the perfume ones!), tagged me in a Facebook post (that's it to the right), and while we both laughed, I started thinking about what that would look like at our house - or anyone's house, for that matter. 

I can't imagine just telling her to "take down the Christmas decorations" without any additional instructions. I mean, how would she possibly know what's involved?

Would she know that the cute little boxes stacked so festively on the front stairs are nesting boxes? Would she know she has to take the lids off all of them except the smallest box, then put the smallest one inside the next smallest one, and then put that lid on, and put those two boxes inside the next biggest one, and then put that lid on, and then put those three boxes inside the last box, the biggest one, and put that lid on? And then put the box of boxes into the tote labelled Boxes and Pictures, which is downstairs in the Christmas room? 

Would she know to get to the Christmas room by going from the foyer to the dining room to the kitchen to the back door (not to be confused with the back porch door), and down the stairs, then cross the basement heading towards the front of the house, and if she runs into the bikes hanging on the rack, she's gone just a step or two too far? 

And that before she puts anything in the Christmas room, she's going to have to take out a bunch of trees and decorations that we didn't put up this COVID Christmas?

Would she know the framed pieces of some of our favorite wrapping paper hanging on the wall need to come down? And that they, too, go in the Boxes and Pictures tote in the Christmas room?  And that there's a difference between a framed piece of wrapping paper and the picture of me and My Sweet Baboo?

And the Santas? OMG, my Santas! 

Does she know the difference between cast iron, glass, ceramic, resin, metal, wood, and felt? Which need to be on the bottom of the tote, and which on top? Would she know that the tall skinny wooden Santas need to have rubber bands put on them, before being wrapped in bubble wrap and tied with ribbon, so their arms don't flail about and possibly break off? Does she know those don't go in a tote, but instead are placed gently on a shelf? That all of the motion-Santa bases get wrapped together, to make it easier for me to find them next year?

The cast iron ones? They get wrapped in newspaper and put in a tote, sure - but would she know that it doesn't go in the Christmas room, it goes in the closet under the stairs? 

Or that the smallest of the Santas, and the flattest of them, get wrapped (unless they don't need to be) and they go in a separate box that goes inside one of the Santa totes? 

And if you put the Santa's away 'wrong' you could end up with way too much space, or not enough, in the totes? And if it's too much space, would she try to fill it with other decorations, co-mingling them with the Santas and messing up the system? I did that (once) - is she smart enough not to?

Would she be even remotely curious about the newspapers everything gets wrapped in, some of which are more than a decade old? Would she even look at the articles, or no? And will she know whether to replace the least viable newspapers, or if they'll make it one more Christmas before being recycled? 

And what about the memories? 

Will she smile at each Santa as she gently puts them to bed until next year, remembering which came from where, or who, and why? 

Will she know which of the cast iron ones I got years ago in one of the first booths we visited at a massive antique show, and carried in a knapsack for hours as we wandered around a field of 1,000 dealers? Will she hear My Sweet Baboo cursing my foolishness that day?  

How could she possibly know which was the very first one he gave me, or the most recent? Whether it was from our first Christmas, or our second? The tenth? Twelfth? Does she even know this is our 18th Christmas this year? Could she actually put the decorations away without knowing our history, our Christmas history?

And, will she do this? Is she able to do this, the real work of De-Christmasing? 

As I put things away, I find myself pulling out the decorations that never left the tubs, the ones that didn't make the cut. Could I have put this ornament on the tree? Could I have put this stocking somewhere? Could the candy cane candles have gone on the sideboard? I spend almost as much time thinking about the ones that didn't get used, and how I had used them last, as I do remembering how much we enjoyed the ones that did.

Thanks, Alexa, but I think I'll take them down myself. Although, if you want, you can take care of the lights...

Wondering on Wednesday 12/23/20

Ready... Set... Wonder!

There's so much wondering in my head today. For example:

Who will be in the next round of pardons, clemencies and commutations? 

Why is the United States considering offering immunity to Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi royal who's such a good What's App friend of Jared Kushner, for his role in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi?

Who will be the next target that the president will attack, now that he's gone after the #2 Republican in the Senate? Any guesses?

Why are people all of the sudden worried about foreign policy? Why haven't they been complaining all along? And why are reporters and politicians lying about it?

Why did the president decide, suddenly, to be interested in the pandemic spending bill once it had been approved, after not paying attention - for months?

If you don't put out cookies for Santa Claus, does he get free returns on your stuff? And does he keep all those receipts? 

How many Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons do you think they get at the North Pole, anyway? And, of course, while I'm typing this, a BB&B coupon landed in my inbox... 

We've been listening to our collection of Christmas CDs (we're old - we don't stream) and my husband said that the "Mayhem Steamroller" tunes would be coming up soon... and can't you just picture THAT Allstate commercial? 

How do we get out of the mess, all of this stuff I posted yesterday?

Why are people STILL so concerned about the House Speaker's ice cream habit? And why do people think that she could fund the stimulus with it? And am I a bad person for buying craft ice cream myself?

How many people will follow the applicable COVID restrictions where they live? How many of the three million+ people who've moved through TSA airport screening checkpoints around the country are going to quarantine when they get off the plane? 

How much does Dr. Deborah Birx regret travelling with multiple generations of her family?

News is breaking that the president has vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act, the $740B military spending plan, mostly (he's said in the past) because it allows for renaming military bases, and because it doesn't remove protections for Twitter and Facebook, which have aggressively labelled his posts as fake news - and, really on both, what do they have to do with the military? 

How long will it take for his veto to be over-ridden? Probably not long.  And does Trump know he's the first to not sign the bill in nearly sixty years? And does he consider being the first another notch in his #winning  hair spray bottle? 

Should pandemic-denying Republican members of the House and Senate be getting the vaccine ahead of front line health care providers, the elderly, essential workers, and folks of all ages with pre-existing conditions? Are they really that much more valuable or that much more worthy of the protections than, say, my 90-year-old-with-a-heart-condition Mom?

What are you wondering about?

Wondering on Wednesday (v157)

I'm thinking maybe we'll do something different tonight, and not talk about anything having anything to do with anyone who's anyone, and instead wonder about completely different things, how does that sound?

I wonder how many people believe in the spirit of all of the holidays people celebrate at this time of year?  I'm not talking about religious beliefs, I'm talking about people who believe in the true spirit of opening hearts and homes (and yes, wallets too) to help others, to entertain them, to encourage and support them?

For example, there's the man in West Virginia who paid off a woman's mortgage so she and he sons wouldn't lose the only house she had ever owned. The anonymous donor is now five years into this tradition of helping someone else out of the goodness of his heart.

It looks like I came and gave a great gift to someone, but in fact the gift is to me because if you never felt the spirit of giving, there's nothing like it. It's the best feeling that you can have. This is the best Christmas present that I will receive this Christmas.

I wonder how much longer he'll be able to keep this up, and I hope that there's another Santa waiting in the wings to take his place when the time comes.

This type of charity is similar to what we've seen around the country in recent years, when people walk into a Walmart and pay off the entire layaway balances - $40,000 or even $50,000 at a time.  It's both an anonymous thing, and a famous person thing now. Tyler Perry and Kid Rock are among the celebrity types who have done this.  I don't know about you, but I think it's pretty cool when no one knows who did it, vs. it being a household name.

Need another example? There's a website run by fans of Syracuse University sports - nunesmagician.com  - which combines a love for the Orange with an irreverent streak with a charitable streak. The last time SU went bowling, the guys at Nunes Magician ran a campaign to get folks who weren't going to the game to put up money for tickets so kids in the bowl town could go tho the game.

They're at it again this year, seeking to raise $14,444 (44 being an important number in these parts) to hopefully send at least 130 underprivileged Orlando-area kids to the Camping World Bowl.  The kids get to sit in the SU section, get SU merch, food while they're at the game, and get to be part of something they'd otherwise have no way to experience. So far, more than half the needed funds have been raised via a gofundme page and a hashtag - #cusetixforkids.  I wonder if folks would be willing to share the hashtag and the fundraising page?  That would help.

Need more examples?

• There was the woman who set out food for a dog that was waiting for its owners to return home after the Camp Fire in California; she also located the homeowner's other dog almost 90 miles away.
• Or the man who gave up his first class airline seat to a mom and her sick child. 
• Or the Cabela's Santa who got down on the floor with a blind, autistic child and allowed the child to feel his clothes, his beard and his 'twinkling eyes'

This type of stuff happens all the time, in my neck of the woods and yours. Just as, we know, all that other stuff we're NOT wondering about tonight does: the palace intrigue, the inside baseball stuff, the sausage making that is politics and government in this day and age. 

Enjoy the interlude - we'll be back to the regular wondering next week, if not sooner.