Getting into the holiday spirit, one tradition at a time…
Once again, the season is speeding by in a red-and-green blur. In a few more weeks it will be over and we’ll all be back to business as usual, going to work, making dinner, reading stories. I’m feeling a little out of it, I suppose because money’s tight and the kid is sick and my family suddenly seems so small since my grandmother, grandfather and aunt passed away. I miss them. I miss the traditions, the rituals, the comfortable predictability of this lovely season.
The holidays are about family, not the toys you can buy or the parties you attend or the rich foods you can eat. Now that those three wonderful people are gone from our lives, we have to make new traditions. Notice that I’m not even touching upon the frustration and sadness surrounding divided, divorced families during this time of year, or the sad wish that if only the parents would honor child support and visiting arrangements, the season wouldn’t be so thin and pale.
We’ve been lucky to be included in so many friends’ traditions, celebrating Hanuka and Diwali, in addition to inspirational Christmas celebrations like the Christmas Concert hosted by St. Martin’s every year (yes, it’s the most amazing Catholic, African-American church and if you are in the mood for worship in D.C. on a Sunday, I can’t recommend it enough).
We’ve been to see the train exhibit at the Botanic Gardens almost every year of the King of Everything’s little life, and while this year was less than dramatic, it was comforting to go and marvel again at the models of our city’s famous buildings done in organic materials. We try to go with friends every year, and it was so good to spend time with the little single mother family who took us in when we got back to the States.
Yesterday, I gave my whole little family a Christmas present and took them to see the Christmas Revels. To have my parents and my son share such a magical afternoon with me meant so much more to me than anything you can wrap in pretty paper. The King of Everything woke up in the middle of the night (or very very early in the morning) and ran into my room. “I loved that theater we saw today, mama!” and he snuggled against me and laughed and relived the entire show, from the funny man who danced with handkerchiefs (Morris dancers), to the dance we did with the actors that led us out the hall and down the stairs in a chain of singing, laughing people, to the children who mesmerized him… the Mummer’s Play, the sword dances… he was amazed the entire time. Enchanted. My father took my arm and thanked me, for he had not wanted to go, but was utterly charmed by the performance as well. As for my mother? I got to watch her hold my son in her arms and whisper explanations to him when the action got a bit esoteric–it was an Elizabethan revel, after all.
Next weekend we’ll get a Christmas tree and decorate the house, invite friends over for hot chocolate and Christmas carols. Weekend after that, we’ll go see a group of young adults singing carols at the National Gallery of Art, and meet up with a new group of single parents for potluck and like minds. We’ll make a Yule Log and fill it with whipped cream, ice it with chocolate ganache and make little marzipan mushrooms. Then it will be Christmas, and I will be grateful for the love and support of my family and friends.
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3 opinions for Getting into the holiday spirit, one tradition at a time…
worker bee
Dec 11, 2007 at 1:28 pm
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome, Yule!
Christina
Dec 11, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Aww, thanks for posting that. Saturday was the first time I’d heard that in I don’t know when. You know, I saw one of the first Revels, it must have been, back in ‘84 or ‘85. Glad to have the tradition back.
worker bee
Dec 11, 2007 at 4:08 pm
did you happen to see the one with the rollerskating dragon? i saw photos of it last weekend . . . we’ve come a long way, huh!
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