Christmas Leftovers

 

On the day after Christmas, I sat by the fire eating a plate of leftovers.  Christmas leftovers, and Thanksgiving leftovers, are the best ever.  The feasts themselves are wonderful, but there’s something satisfying about picking through various bowls and containers the next day and making up a plate.

Thoughts about leftover food and treats led to thoughts about other leftovers.  Leftover feelings, which can be good or bad.  Leftover regrets, that can destroy our joy.  But wouldn’t it be incredible if we could hold on to and even multiply the leftover goodwill that Christmas seems to inspire?  Leftover smiles, leftover generosity, leftover thoughtfulness – a little more kindness, a little more grace.  A little more love your neighbor.

This was a different kind of Christmas season.  Uncommon cold gripped the South in 2022.  Pipes froze, snow and ice curtailed travel, an airline catastrophe crippled Christmas plans for many people, and the general feelings of dissatisfaction and unease threatened to overwhelm the goodwill to men that we sing about at this season.  I almost fell victim myself to the bah humbug virus.  I was suffering the effects of a abscessed tooth and its resulting extraction.  I had leaking water pipes and a huge water bill, and I was trying to keep eight horses fed and watered in below zero weather.  Cue the tiny violins playing a sad song.

On Christmas morning, I was at the water tank, hooking up a half-frozen hose and running frigid water for the horses when, out of nowhere, the words of one of my favorite carols burst into my head.  “I heard the bells on Christmas day,” I heard.  “Their old familiar carols play.”  Longfellow wrote those words at the beginning of the Civil War, shortly after losing his wife and seeing his son march off to war.  The first few verses are a little dark, crying out that “there is no peace on earth, I said.”  But then there is that last part that gives us all hope. 

“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

A few days before Christmas, I saw this on Facebook.  “Imagine what 7 billion people could accomplish if we all loved and respected each other.”  Maybe that is too much to bite off and chew at one time, but imagine what we could do if just the people in our own community could love and respect each other.  Or to begin even smaller, what could we do if the people in each family could truly love and respect each other?

So many times, we have seen the power of a community coming together to love and support one another.  Just before Christmas in my hometown, a horrendous fire engulfed a house just off the town square and very nearly took the life of a young lady who is one of the bright lights of her generation.  The prayers of Centerville blanketed that family and covered the firefighters who spent hours controlling the fire, which could very well have engulfed half of the town if it had spread.  Thankfully, our prayers have been answered and Maddie is on the road to recovery.  

On Christmas Eve, a dedicated group of volunteers collected food, cooked and served a holiday dinner for 500 people in our community.  A twenty-something year old tradition, skipped for a couple of years because of Covid, continued for no other reason than to share joy with the community.  On that same day, free toys were handed out at a local church for those who needed help providing for their children.  Another church collected toys and other items for a “Christmas Store,” allowing children to shop without money for gifts for their family.

Imagine what 7 billion people could do.

Where Are You, Christmas?

 

Maybe it has been the weather.  Maybe it has been a deluge of bad luck, beginning with my heat going on the day before Thanksgiving, and ending with the need to replace all the plumbing under my two bathrooms.  Oh, and did I mention that I’m looking at a root canal and a bridge replacement in my very expensive mouth?  But for whatever reason, I have had a hard time finding Christmas this year.

The Christmas Tree Lighting Festival in my town was great, in spite of a rainy evening, and I always feel a jolt of warmth when we light the first Advent candle at church, but I had a nagging feeling that something was a little off.  Even the Christmas parade in my small town, as fun as it was, didn’t quite inspire me to begin decorating my house for the holiday.  I opened the closet door a couple of times and was overwhelmed at the thought of pulling all those boxes out.  Never mind putting up a tree.  

Decorating for Christmas is an interesting thing.  Some people say, “Why bother with it if you are not having people over?  If you are the only one that will see it, it’s a waste of time.”  Yesterday at lunch that very topic came up.  My friend Margaretta expressed the best rebuttal.  “That’s not why you decorate.  You decorate because of the memories in the decorations – all the ornaments on the tree have a story.”  I said I felt the same, but sometimes I wonder if I could get the same effect by simply taking the ornaments out of the boxes and replacing them without putting them on the tree!  Somehow, I don’t think it would work the same. 

During that same lunch, something amazing happened.  The waitress came to the table and said our lunch was paid for.  “Who?” we all asked, looking around.  “I don’t know,” she reported.  On further investigation, we discovered that a young couple from out of town had paid the tab for everyone in the restaurant, a not insignificant sum of money for the busy after-church lunch crowd.  The owner said she had never seen them in there before.  Angels among us, perhaps?  In a world where kindness seems to be the exception rather than the rule, it reinforces hope for our future.  It made me feel like that closet was not quite as big a job as I had been thinking.  But it was a cold, rainy afternoon and the dogs decided that the fireside was the place to be.  I was chilled and the fire was warm and I had a lot on my mind.  I decided the dogs had the right idea.

That same night, with no progress toward my Christmas decorating, I made my annual journey to a little country church for their annual Christmas Singing.  It was a cold, damp night for the drive, but as I turned off the highway toward my destination I noticed, as I always do, the way the lights of that little church shone a welcome.  As many times as I have visited Little Lot Methodist Church, I always have a moment in the dark wondering if I missed the road.  But the lights that spill through the trees on the wooded hillside reassure me I am in the right place. 

I love my own church, and I love our sister “big church” in my hometown.  But, for some reason, this old church holds a special place – it’s a “thin place,” a place where the link to heaven seems especially close.  I am not sure how many years I have been making trips to Little Lot for special events – Christmas, Good Friday, singings, funerals – but I always get a warm feeling when I walk through those doors.  The people there, those physically present and those in the unseen world that linger in that space, make me feel at home.  It helps that one of my very best friends is the driving force at the church, playing piano and wrangling their dwindling congregation to serve the community more than many other churches twice their size. 

Last night was no exception.  The crowd was small – sickness had decimated the already tiny congregation this year.  But the spirit was large, as always.  David assigned me a reading, as he always does.  And he always picks out the most perfect things for me to read!  This year it was a sweet piece about puppies, which called up a reminder of my blessed summer of puppies.  I don’t know where he finds these things, but I’m glad he is willing to share them with me.

The program doesn’t change much over the years, and that is a good thing.  Several singers were absent and last minutes changes were needed.  But music filled the church, the stained-glass windows illuminated the room, excited children gathered around a microphone to sing Jingle Bells and somewhere between the verses of Silver Bells and Silent Night, Christmas touched my heart again.  The simple, familiar story, read to the background of the most familiar of all carols told me again why we celebrate.

Afterwards, there was fellowship, conversation and laughter, accompanied, as Methodist custom dictates, by food and drink.  I ate one final little pimento cheese sandwich and drove home, replete with food and with the Christmas spirit.  I think I can tackle that closet now.

 

Trucks, Mice and Other Misadventures

 

I suppose the Thanksgiving season started with my truck.  At least it was the harbinger of what November was going to be like.  First were the headlights.  I was reading in my chair by the window when, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but headlights.  “Who on earth is coming to my house at this time of night?” I asked the dogs, who were sprawled on the living room rug and offered no answer.  The lights went off, came back on, and after further inspection, I realized it was my truck.  My first thought was that someone was out there.  Surely not.  If they were trying to steal it, they would not want to advertise their presence.  After a few minutes of on again, off again, I summoned my courage and the four dogs and went out to investigate.  The dogs were only too happy for a nighttime adventure, even though they had no idea what it was all about.  No one was there. 

I asked around about what might be causing it and got a few suggestions and a lot of strange looks.  The electrical system was the consensus, varying from a short to a more serious and therefore, more expensive, malfunction.  Then, on Halloween night, of all times, the truck added a new trick.  I was in town for Halloween night and as I returned to my truck, the lights came on.  Okay, I was sort of getting used to that.  I unlocked the door, opened it, and the windows rolled down.  I wasn’t used to that.  The next week, the doors started locking at random, usually in tandem with the windows rolling down.  I promise, I don't make these things up. When the turn signal started coming on by itself, I decided enough was enough.  I made an appointment at the Dodge dealership for an assessment.  My friend Bill, upon hearing the story, asked if they had an exorcist on staff.  His sister was excited.  “I hope they don’t find anything wrong,” she said, with her eyes sparkling.  “Have you read Christine?”  I had read it, as a matter of fact, and I did not share her enthusiasm.  The week before Thanksgiving, I dropped the truck off and they discovered that the problem was in the key fob, not the truck itself.  Several hundred dollars later, my problem was solved.

In the meantime, Stuart Little and all his relatives had moved into my house.  Apparently they got word that there would be a big Thanksgiving dinner and that my dogs spent most of their indoor time asleep in the living room, leaving them free reign in the kitchen, laundry room and back hall. 

In his former life, Bear was a mighty mouse hunter.  He once tore the handle off the desk drawer trying to get to a mouse he suspected was holed up in the drawer.  On that same night, he completely emptied out the bottom section of a bookcase and almost succeeded in upending the couch.  These days, he heads directly for my bed when he comes inside – making sure the other dogs don’t get his spot when it’s time to turn in.

I sent Clay to the hardware store for ten mousetraps.  I already had cheese.  He baited the traps, scattered them around the likely mouse routes and left.  Before he got out of sight, I heard the snap of the first trap.  Moments later, the puppy trotted into the living room carrying a dead mouse still attached to the trap.  She was as proud as if she set the trap herself.  Other than that, the dogs’ main response to the mouse hunt was to raise their heads when they heard a trap snap shut.

The traps were effective, and I started to relax.  We would not have to share the kitchen and dining room with mice for Thanksgiving dinner.  Did I mention that I volunteered again to have Thanksgiving for my family?

I had practiced making Mama’s rolls enough that I was confident that they would be edible and since I had cooked my first turkey last Thanksgiving, I considered myself an old hand at that.  The only nagging worry was the size of the turkey.  I had bought a nine-pound breast and then was alarmed when Google informed me that I needed a pound and a half of turkey for every person at the meal.  Surely that was not correct – I can’t imagine one person eating a pound of turkey in one sitting!  I was expecting about 20 folks.  That would be 30 pounds of turkey!  I toyed with the idea of buying a second bird but decided against it.  A good decision, as it turned out.

I didn’t worry much about the partial deer carcass that the dogs brought to the house the day before Thanksgiving, because I had another emergency.  I woke up that morning with no heat.  I called the repairman and started praying for a quick cure.  My aunt called mid-morning.  “Is there anything else you need me to bring?” she asked.  “You might need to bring a heater,” I replied.  But my wonderful repair guy came through and I thought surely nothing else could go wrong.  I hoped not, because the truck repair and the furnace repair had just about wiped out my bank account. 

While waiting for furnace repairs, I mixed up the rolls, made the cornbread and chopped onion and celery for the dressing and got the turkey ready for the oven.  By my calculation, it needed to go in the oven about four thirty in the morning.  I set my alarm, went to bed and congratulated myself on how organized I was this year.

I woke up before the alarm went off and I stumbled into the kitchen to put the turkey in.  I was so proud that I had it already prepared and that I could go back to bed for a couple more hours.  The dogs didn’t even stir – it was too early even for them.  When I wakened again and looked at the clock, it showed 6:00.  I could smell the turkey already.  I reached for my tablet, thinking I would check the weather, and to my surprise, the clock on it said 5:00.  I looked again at my clock, which still said 6:00.   What time was it?  And what time did I really put the turkey in the oven?  I jumped up and hurried to the kitchen, where that clock also said 5:00.  The turkey was fine – browning nicely and smelling good.  I waited another hour and checked it with the meat thermometer.  It was at that point that I realized I had placed the bird in the pan upside down.  I still don’t know how long it cooked, but it was done. 

I learned a few things this Thanksgiving.  I learned that a nine-pound turkey breast is plenty for 20 people, especially if you have a lot of other food to go with it.  I learned to double check the correct time when putting the turkey in the oven.  I also learned that it doesn’t seem to matter too much if you put the turkey in the pan upside down.  I learned that I need a few more chairs.  I never learned how my clock got an hour ahead or why furnaces always break down at the worst possible times.  But I did learn again that even crises and near catastrophes don’t matter much as long as family is together for the day.