2009 - Past Christmas memories

As I sit here at Coniston, on the 19th of December, we are not in traffic to the mall or madly wrapping, or working on our annual Christmas letter/collage (although we may get around to that this year before Christmas, and might wait until after to send it this year) I have spent a large part of this Saturday morning thinking about many of our/my past Christmas adventures.

Early memories were in Colorado, when it was magical that things appeared under the tree that I really wanted. One travel Christmas was to San Francisco where we shared Christmas on Yurba Buena Island with my grandparents and cousins, and aunt and uncle. That was the first time that playing charades on Christmas night, which was a tradition of my paternal grandparents, became a wonderful tradition and memory. I was describing this recently to a group of gathered family members. As I remember it, the entire house was up for grabs for props and costumes. It was no small game of guessing words, but rather one act plays to convey a single 4 letter word sometimes.

We had charades a few times in our first Brandon Vt house where one-third of our living room became the stage and the other two-thirds were the audience. Mom and Dad worked so hard to make that magical trip down the stairs to see the tree and presents from Santa. The oldest two kids always prepared coffee for Mom and Dad to wake them up. As a parent I now realize why they were so exhausted. We argued almost every year about whether the oldest kid or youngest kid was first in line. I think it was the youngest.

After opening Santa presents and stockings (hand made by Grandma Katie, and I still make this pattern for family members), we all stayed in our spanking new Christmas PJs for as much of the day as possible. We always had eggs benedict for breakfast. EGGS BENEDICT FOR 9+ people, many of them male in gender who could eat 3 or 4. How did we ever pull that off? Both my kids see eggs benedict as part of the Christmas morning routine, as evidenced by two years ago at Chris and Meg's we had it, and Bethany asking if we are bringing eggs benedict ingredients with us to Thailand this year.

In retrospect those were the Hallmark Christmass. They were magical and contribute to what I think is important in Christmas today, and this year. My two favorite memories of my kids on Christmas are: Chris getting 3 train sets one year, and my father down on the floor with him playing with the Brio one. The negative of that picture is lost somewhere, but Chris has the hard copy and I have the vivid memory. The one for Bee straddles two years. She kept saying that she wanted Pongo from 101 Dalmations. On Christmas Eve she wrote in her letter that she wanted Pongo and Perdita. We looked at each other with that UT OH look. Christmas morning her first words in the form of a question were "Where's Perdita?" Perdita came the next year.

I am thinking so much about "the ghost of Christmas past" because this year is going to be very untraditional. We won't have time to put up and enjoy a tree, since we are leaving on the evening of the 23rd to travel to Thailand to spend Christmas 2009 with Bee. That is most of our Christmas and what a present this is! We will hopefully make it to spend 3 hours of the 25th with her. We are also celebrating with Chris and Meg today at Coniston.

We have travelled a few times on Christmas to spend Christmas with English or overseas American family, so travel during this time of year is not unfamiliar. One year our plumbing backed up on the 25th, we had to get an emergency plumber to fix it, and we left late in the day to travel to England. That was pretty funny in retrospect. Bee, Murg and I also travelled to Burlington VT one year to celebrate with Chris on Christmas Day, after having the early morning Christmas with Bee in Lexington.

This feels rambling at this point. . . so,

This will be a fabulous year, a trip and a Christmas to remember. They have evolved over the years and the core important parts remain, family, magic, travels, and festivals of lights. Notice what is missing, most everything commercial, except maybe this year the plane flights.

Qammi stories - so sad - I have the memories

Today Qammi took her last breathe and it is a very very sad day. We have had her for 9.5 years and she has been a wonderful dog. She spent her first week sitting on Bee's lap and spent every night possible after that sleeping on her bed. She was a pretty spoiled dog. Many guests were surprised that she was allowed to sit on our couches and she often would crawl up beside one of them on the couch and lean her chin on their knee. Looking at them with those chocolate lab eyes as if to say "What, I spend more time on this couch than you do, and in fact you are sitting in my spot."

Last winter she really thought we had lost our minds when we participated in an event in North Hero called The Great Ice which is a 2 mile walk to Knight island over the frozen lake and then 2 miles back. Once we arrived on the Island she was pretty confused that we would venture back over the ice. It took a leash and lots of encouragement for her to do the return trip, until she could see the mainland again.

She loved to roll on her back whether in the spring grass, the fall leaves or the winter snow. In fact, in the early hours of her last day, she rolled in the new snow.

She loved water, and swimming. At my brother and sister-in-law's house in VT, she would be in the pond the entire day if we let her. She would chase a tennis ball as many times as someone would throw it to the point of over exhaustion.

At another brother and sister-in-law's house in VT she was chased by a cow once and did a sommersault over an electric wire as she tried to get away from the cow. We left Qammi with them one time and she got a cut above her eye from some metal on their truck. They took her to their vet for stitches, and we arrived home shortly after their return from the vet.

She was a bit of a chicken, never the top dog. At her favorite place to walk in Willard's Woods in Lex, if there was an agressive dog ahead she would make a big semi-circle around them to avoid the conflict.

We were on a morning schedule for walking her, I got M and W and the weekends, Murg got T TH and F. Qammi could tell by our morning actions, which one of us was walking her.

Almost every day of her life she would follow me into the bathroom and drink water from my bath. This morning she would not drink which is when I knew she was really not well.

There are lots more stories, which I will remember over the next few months. I am really going to miss those eyes, and that wagging tail. I am going to miss being greeted every time I open the front door, and her peeking through the window to see who is arriving home. I might even miss her barking at the dog walking in front of our house.

I am going to miss those morning and early evening walks on the bike path.

Life is so precious and fragile and when those that we love have taken their last breathe, we are left with the memories and the stories and the pictures of them.

Holiday Workshop and ramblings from a Weekend

Since I taught a Myers-Briggs workshop at work a few weeks ago, I have been thinking more about Myers-Briggs. I realize just now that I reserve weekends for my MBTI preferences. I have had a "deliverable" on a volunteer activity at church and it has hounded me for months. It is easy to not deliver on a volunteer activity because there is not the same level of accountability.

My deliverable is to document our annual Holiday Workshop at FPLEX. Here is the blog for that so you can see what I mean. Last Year, 2008, I was supposed to get this done, so 365 days later I am doing it. Typically for my P of ENFP, I get things done in a burst of energy. I went to the Holiday Workshop, have a wonderful husband Murg, who went home to get our laptop. I interviewed people who were running the tables at the workshop, many of them who have been helping run it since the early 1980s, and wrote up their projects in that other blog's posts. The husband of one of the orignators is a wonderful photographer and he is going to help with with some pictures for THAT blog.

My point is that this task has been weighing on me for 365 days, or longer, and with a few hours this afternoon I am going to get it near complete. The cool thing about the blog aspect of this, is that a blog does not to be done. You can keep adding to it and that is what I intend to do. My task is done, even though I will keep adding projects. The purpose of this blog is fact is to share with other congregations and for them to add their ideas. Blogging is perfect for P of the ENFP, because I don't ever have to be done adding my thoughts and for THIS blog, it clearly says it is my ramblings.

So, I fed myself this morning by going to one of my favorite activities of the church year, and I am near complete in a task for Green Sanctuary and I got some new insights about myself around Myers-Briggs. A good weekend so far and it is only 1:35 Saturday afternoon.