Ladies of a Certain Age ~ for those invisible powerful, dynamic, vital women

Note:  Thanks to everyone who participated in the fall hikes.  We had a lovely time, meeting new friends, having great conversations, and sharing meals together.  While we were at my dining room table after the last hike, ladies shared how they “did Thanksgiving,” keeping the traditions and altering them when that made sense.  This dialogue started me to thinking how much I am repressed by holidays past.  Last week a lady I know said that historically the short winter days before the Solstice was considered the dark time of the soul: a time to reflect on how we did life and the things we did and thought that got in the way of us enjoying our full potential.  This blog is about some things I have discovered recently in my life that have prevented me from enjoying the holidays thoroughly.  Enjoy the Solstice this Saturday.  At the cairne (burial site) under Hill of the Hag in Ireland, the sun shines only during the winter and summer Solstices. These are times for rejoicing.

Never again will I actually see my then 40-year-old dad come through the door Christmas Eve with a large box of Christmas cookies from his good customer, Volmer’s Bakery, Denver’s premier bakery in days gone by. 

Never again will I enjoy those cookies and a little eggnog with my parents – Bob and Rose – and Aunt Kay and Uncle Paul, all who passed many years ago, my cousins Bob and Murph, who I haven’t seen in years, and my sister Jan, who I rarely see.

Never again will I go caroling with Jan, cousins Mary Lynn and her tuba-playing brother Philip. (Both cousins have passed away.) Our cousins’ Pueblo neighbors enjoyed our carols We were quite the quartet those Christmas nights.

As dear as these memories are – memories from about 60 years ago! – I realized this year how they hold me bondage and affect my behavior during the holidays. See – I measure present holidays against these idolized standards.

Good grief! For decades I have not been in the now, and I have fictionalized – I am sure – many of the old memories.

I don’t want to miss the now anymore.  I want to value and appreciate the smoked turkey my daughter cooked this past Thanksgiving. (No, it was not the golden baked turkey with raisin stuffing my paternal grandmother made.) How dare my other daughter suggest a hike and then a simple Thanksgiving meal? (Gee, it sounded like such fun! Why would I care about the turkey?  I have been a vegetarian for over 20 years.)

And, so what if some of my family members do not appreciate my Aunt Jean’s simple, delicious and low-calorie yams or green beans. If they want goopy, sweet, high-caloric vegetables, so be it!  Thank goodness my daughters and their families are with me, and darling little grandchildren, too!

I could “wring their necks,” as my mom used to say, when my grandchildren “put up their noses” (another one of her expressions) and won’t eat special holiday dishes.  My parents would have “sent me away from the table,” – maybe.  Probably, I would have been spanked for “putting up my nose.” My children indulge their kids.  And, that’s just it – they are not my kids.

My children did not hear growing up, like I did, tales about the depression, food rationing during World War II, or about the horrible newspaper pictures of emaciated concentration camp prisoners.  They have always had available to them all year long a bountiful variety of fresh food from all over the world.  

Just because I chose to replicate the beautiful holiday meals of my mother’s family, doesn’t mean my daughters have to too, or that I have failed passing down beloved family traditions. Further, I have given up my ideal of having my family around my long holiday dining room table.  It’s much easier just to go to one of my daughter’s homes and chill out while kids run all over the house.

God knows what my grandchildren’s holiday memories of me will be – after all, it’s really none of my business.  I’m just going to enjoy myself and put my old memories back in their place of days gone by.