The Christmas Cactus

A little less than a year ago, I received a Christmas gift. It was a Christmas cactus with a note attached explaining that if I took good care of it, next Christmas it would bloom.  I set it on my desk at work, and as the new year began I made a pledge to myself that despite my decidedly not green thumb, in this case I would channel my father the master gardener and tend lovingly to this cactus, in hopes of seeing the promised Christmas blooms.

The Internet is your friend in cases like this and I found a wealth of advice on how to care for a Christmas cactus, with promises of abundant blooms next holiday season.  I conquered my sense that it would be hopeless (based on the mourned deaths of houseplants past who were unfortunate enough to be under my care).   I acted on faith alone and  entered a repeating note in my computer calendar for each Tuesday morning that said:  “Smile.  And water the Christmas cactus.”  Each Tuesday I did just that.  

A few months ago something told me to move the cactus to a sunnier corner of my office to catch the western sunlight.  In early November the Christmas cactus pushed out many promising buds.  By Thanksgiving, glorious pink blooms emerged.  And they’ve continued to grace my office with their happy color all this holiday season.

I assure you that I am grateful for the many ways this past year I’ve seen proof that faith can work miracles and bring unexpected blessings; I wish both of these for each of you this Christmas season.

Good King Wenceslas

Ye who now will bless the poor

Shall yourselves find blessing.

“Good King Wenceslas”, John Mason Neale

On one of my many Boulder walks one recent winter morning I pass by a bus stop where a man sits alone with a huge backpack. Just as I pass him I hear:

“How ya doin’?”

I think of ignoring him, walking on; you’re not supposed to talk to strangers, right? But I turn around, smile and say, “I’m doin’ okay—how

about you?”

“I’m good,” he says. “Can you tell me if I can walk to Table Mesa from here?”

It is maybe a mile away and I’m not sure how big a walker he is. “Depends—are you a walker? Dressed warmly enough?”

“Oh yeah, I’m warm—except I need a hat that comes a little further down to cover my ears, and some gloves.” Sure enough, the hat’s a little small for his head and his gloves are the kind with holes in the fingertips—he holds them up and wiggles them for me to see. It is icy cold and breezy. His bright eyes look out at me from a brown face as he tells me he plans to go up to Table Mesa and play his boom box to earn the $8 he needs to buy a hat and gloves at Savers. He just came here from Oregon he says, and was fired from his job for giving away food. I explain that Pearl Street is the place for street performers, not Table Mesa—but he says he’ll buck the trend and see what happens since he’s on his way to Golden anyway where he has a place to stay for the night.

So I hand him a $20 and tell him good luck at Savers. With a huge smile of thanks, he shakes my hand.

Was I naïve? Crazy? Maybe. But despite the donations we faithfully make to the Boulder Homeless Shelter, Habitat for Humanity, and Community Food Share each year, this seemed more real.

Cardinals and Snow

As I gazed at my Starbuck’s latte and pondered what I would say in the Christmas letter this year, I noticed a phrase printed on the side of the cup: “We invite you to LISTEN to your DESIRES and to RENEW your HOPE. To see the world not as it is, but as it COULD be. Go ahead. WISH. It’s what makes the holidays the HOLIDAYS.”

This contrasts with the Buddhist philosophy to neither hope nor fear, to let go of longings and be mindful of the joys available in the present moment. Can one let go properly (the lesson I keep working to learn over and over again) and yet retain hope and optimism? It seems that in order to renew hope one must begin by paying attention to the present moment and being mindful of all there is to be grateful for, here and now. And there is an optimism perhaps in Max Ehrmann’s phrase from Desiderata: “no doubt life is unfolding as it should.”

If a therapist were consulted, she might say that the first part of the Starbuck’s exhortation, the part about listening to one’s desires, is a very good plan, especially for those who have a tendency to try to make sure everybody else has the oxygen mask in place during the plane emergency and end up almost passing out from oxygen deprivation themselves.

A meditation on one’s own desires seems selfish and not in keeping with the holiday season—unless perhaps you have lost hope and you need to find a way back to the vision in the shining child’s eyes, seeing a Christmas morning where all wishes come true. For the Christmas book this year, my book club chose “A Redbird Christmas” by Fanny Flagg (also the author of “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Café”). This is an unabashed fairy tale in which good people and a young child hope when it seems that all hope is lost, and end up with a Christmas miracle beyond their wildest imaginings involving redbirds and snow in the Deep South.

I have always associated red cardinals against a snowy background with Christmastime. I remember when I was around seven my mother wrapped a package especially for me and taped a red cardinal to it, carefully cut out from an old Christmas card. I don’t remember what was in the package, but I remember the love and thoughtfulness represented by the cardinal decoration. I also remember watching all the birds, including the cardinals, flock to feast on the sunflower seeds my Dad placed out on the upper deck bird feeder during the coldest, snowiest days of winter at our Sugar Lane house back in Southern Indiana. Those birds had reason to hope each year and also seized any opportunities in the present as well. So I will have my cake and eat it too, combining hope with mindfulness of the present. No doubt events are unfolding as they should.

So I wish that everybody who reads this has a great holiday. May all of you take a deep breath, be present, and renew your hope in the coming New Year.

The Tinsel Controversy

It is surprisingly hard to get a good picture of a Christmas tree. This year our tree looks perfect to us (more perfect than usual) – just the right balanced shape and very beautiful. It is very fresh, smells wonderful, and soaks up lots of water from the stand each day. We are not proponents of the decorator Christmas tree with all matching ornaments in a single color, but more into the kind with the ornaments dating back many years. Some of the ornaments were handcrafted by us one year with friends on Boulder's Marine Street in a pre-child era; we stirred up a batch of clay-like substance, made our shapes, baked them, and then painted them. We still have several to this day made by friends we see each Christmas at the caroling party.

Other ornaments, each with their memories, were bought over time, or sent by grandparents to our children. Minnie and Mickey Mouse were sent from Indiana by my mother many years ago when my son was still young enough to be so excited on Christmas morning that sleeping late was absolutely not an option, and my daughter was a baby who also frowned upon late mornings. These ornaments still bear my mother’s neat, fifth grade school teacher handwriting on the backs: “From Granny and Grandpa, Christmas 1988.”

My husband likes the kind of ornaments that reflect prismed light, and we all spend a certain amount of time positioning these ornaments near lights on the tree.

This year we had quite a quandary about tinsel. The tree seemed to look very beautiful without it, and we thought long and hard, but in the end we placed the tinsel on the tree once more. Accordingly to tradition and theory it is carefully distributed one strand at a time. In reality there is a wild frenzy of tinsel throwing and messy clumping that must later be straightened out by the compulsive among us.

I learned recently that a good friend of mine also has the tinsel controversy at her house every year, and I suspect it is much more common than can be imagined.

Christmas Letter 2007

hen a person is expected to come up with a Christmas letter under a strict deadline, that person has to take her inspiration as it comes. As I lay on my back on the family room floor with the Styrofoam tube under my spine doing my chiropractor-recommended exercises, with Emily the cat sitting on my stomach purring loudly and reflexively digging her claws into my chest, inspiration struck.

However, it is not really a blow-by-blow account of our family’s year that I want to write about (although there would certainly be some drama in that), but rather how profoundly grateful I am that we are all still going strong as the year ends. Anne Lamott says the two best prayers she knows are: “Help me, help me, help me” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I’ve said both of these a lot this year.

Okay, I can’t resist a little recap. Happily, Caitlin and Shannon are both living on their own in rentals but attending CU in Boulder now, so I get to see them almost any time I like and they are often over for Sunday dinner. In fact, last weekend Caitlin helped me put up the outdoor lights, including the brand new, politically correct LED lighted doe and stag in brilliant blue. The stag’s antlers are poorly designed and he has trouble consistently standing up straight, whereas the doe is steady, stalwart (i.e. boring), and has not given anyone a lick of trouble. Who knew?

Caitlin is doing quite well with her classes this fall and working hard toward a degree in Biochemistry. Ironically, she's living in a house on another part the same street she grew up on in South Boulder. Shannon turned 21 in July and is pursuing a degree in Integrative Physiology. He also has a new job working at a restaurant on Pearl Street. He’s climbing a lot and really enjoys his membership at a local climbing gym called The Spot.

Mark put up the inside decorations last night and got three poinsettias today, so things are looking pretty festive both inside and out. Mark’s doing great, by the way, watching a Denver Nuggets game as I write this. He is still smarting from a severe trouncing I just gave him at 9-ball in The Foundry, Boulder’s local pool hall. Tonight the hall was packed with people in a billiards tournament, a situation that makes me a little shy as I attempt to take my shots without being in anybody’s way or revealing too blatantly my own inability to consistently make bank shots (although I get lucky once in awhile).

Did I mention I got a digital camera about a year ago and have been trying to figure out how to use it ever since? It has been a lot of fun, actually.

The company where I work is doing very well and shooting for their first $1B year with good prospects. I had the opportunity in September to travel on business to visit two groups that I manage in China and Singapore. The visit was productive and I got to be a tourist one Sunday in Xi’an.

Christmas letters are often not read beyond the first page (or perhaps the first paragraph) and I’ve already exceeded that, so I had better wind this up.

To all of you from all of us we wish you the merriest of holidays and best wishes for a happy and healthy 2008.

Christmas Lights

Cait and I put up the Christmas lights today. The little golden deer were dead on arrival so we had to go buy new stuff. When we got to Target, we found a brilliantly blue stag and doe made with the politically correct LED lights that use much less electricity, so we got those, along with some additional lights for the front bushes.

It is so much fun to have Cait’s help when I put up the lights, and once they are up they always cheer me. We’re a good team. Once we got everything set up we took a few pictures; it’s not so easy to capture Christmas lights but we did our best with my trusty digital camera.

Homeless Encounter

In the warmth of the South Boulder ATM I encounter three homeless men with all their worldly belongings, sheltering from the cold. I don't feel unsafe getting my cash; they seem harmless. They remind me of someone I loved who was homeless for a while. One of them is struggling with a stuck coat zipper.

“Do you know anything about zippers?” he queries, and the others go very still for a moment. But I’m pretty sure the question is innocent.

“Bring it all the way down first and then work it back up,” I say inanely although the real stuck zipper solution is of course more complex. It is very cold, and snow lies heavy on the ground. A broken coat zipper can be a real issue for people living outside. “Do you guys have some place to go tonight—the shelter?”

“Oh yeah,” they all assure me.

“I’ve seen worse than this weather in New Orleans,” says the one with the flushed face and the southern accent. “This is nothing compared to that!”

“Well I saw pigs after a tornado,” says the one standing nearest me, his eyes wide. “Lots of dead pigs after the wind, their legs up in the air.”

“I grew up in Indiana – I’ve seen tornadoes too,” I say.

The quietest hunkering tiredly in the corner nods and says, “I’m from West Texas, and I’ve seen tornadoes too.”

“I got it!” says the guy with the stuck zipper, and indeed the zipper now slides smoothly.
I pause before leaving, and the West Texan lies, “Don’t worry. We’re fine. Just waitin’ for a ride.” There is no discussion of money. I walk away remembering a coat I bought long ago for another homeless guy who lost it the next winter. But I would like to believe that for a time it gave him warmth.

Ghosts of Christmas Past

"It wore a tunic of the purest white, and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible...
'Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me.' asked Scrooge.
'I am.' The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.
'Who, and what are you.' Scrooge demanded.
'I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.'
'Long Past.' inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.
'No. Your past.'"
- A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

Long ago I couldn't understand people who became sad at Christmastime. It was a happy, delightful time! Why would it make anybody sad?

I understand better now. As the years go by, people from the past are no longer with us, but they still inhabit our memories, no more strongly than at Christmas. Regret at things unsaid, at memories and history lost, haunt us. Christmas becomes a contradiction of sad and happy, summer and winter, youth and age.

As trite as it might sound: Replace the sad memories with the happy ones and live in the present. This is my mantra.

The Christmas Letter, written December 2

It is snowing in Boulder today with more than a foot already on the ground. The tiny, lighted deer graze under the maple tree in the front yard, looking like they have thrown thick white fur overcoats across their shoulders to keep warm. The multi-colored lights framing the front porch glow softly beneath the snow. This year we’ve had several visits from real deer, more often than ever before. One large rogue buck with huge antlers and a large tag proclaiming him to be #90 has spent much quality time in our back yard, nipping off the heads of all the roses in a feeding frenzy. paying no mind at all to our objections. Teams of wildlife service people have shown up with their radio frequency devices to track #90 and verify his location for their records.

I have begun my yearly practice of singing Christmas carols in the shower, in preparation for the annual caroling party, beginning with the lilting “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” and moving toward a crescendo with “O Holy Night” and “Silent Night” as the traditional finale. Since this is my only effort at practice, I approach it with hybrid vigor, as my father might have said.

I also find myself humming a certain Joni Mitchell song called “The Circle Game.” You may remember it. The chorus: “And the seasons, they go round and round and the painted ponies go up and down. We’re captive on a carousel of time. We can’t return, we can only look behind from where we came, and go round and round and round in the Circle Game.”

I don’t know about you, but this time of year makes me think more about missing family members and friends. Sometimes we wish for one last conversation with them, so we can say those things we should have said. This perhaps reminds us to say those things while we can to the living.

I have learned (I hope) by this point to remember the best and most wonderful things. Lately I am remembering my brother Paul, who left us in May. Paul had a rough time over the last few years (and in trying to help him, so did I). But I remember the great joy with which he played his fiddle, and the huge energy he devoted to riding his beloved bicycle in the mountains, and the hilarious sense of humor he had when we spent an evening in the old days cooking barbecued ribs on our back porch and drinking beer. He did love singing the Christmas carols also. Let this paragraph be a small tribute to the best things in Paul.

Another thing I do this time of year is remind myself of how lucky we are. Caitlin has graduated from high school and moved on to Colorado State University in Fort Collins, where she is doing very well in school and also getting some experienced as a DJ with the local college radio station. Shannon continues as a junior at the University of Colorado in Boulder, also doing very well and working toward a degree in Integrative Physiology when he is not snowboarding.

Mark and I are in relatively good health and grateful for our cozy house and our love for each other on this cold winter’s day. We are heading out later to look for the perfect Christmas tree. Recently we have seen positive change in the country, and have a growing hope for a better direction in the coming years.

Much love to all of you with the wish that you will have a peaceful and loving holiday season.