epiphany

it's offical. the holidays are over.

today is january 6th. twelfth night. epiphany. or is it?

this is what wikipedia has to say about it:

Twelfth Night is a festival in some branches of Christianity marking the coming of the Epiphany and concluding the Twelve Days of Christmas.

It is defined by the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as "the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany, formerly the last day of the Christmas festivities and observed as a time of merrymaking".[1] However, there is currently some confusion as to which night is Twelfth Night:[2] some count the night of Epiphany itself (sixth of January) to be Twelfth Night.[2] One source of this confusion is the Medieval custom of starting each new day at sunset, so that Twelfth Night precedes Twelfth Day.

we always wait until the 6th to take down the trees. (and now i read that it *may be bad luck* to leave up decorations after the sixth.....i'm sunk, if that's the case) january seems so bleak without the glow of miniature lights twinkling inside and out. now, i'm thinking that i'll rush through this chore tonight....getting it all cleared up and halued to the basement before midnight. i may turn into a pumpkin. oh....wrong story. but, it does feel a little cinderella-y all this tidying and sweeping. :)


best
deborah

hoping for a christmas miracle

now i did it.

i took this last picture of true and wanted to adjust the camera a bit. that's all.

but then, the camera began acting all odd.

so, i twirled every dial. and pushed every button.

some--maybe 47 times.

and now my camera is acting all weird and making beeping sounds. like it's gonna' back-up.

great.

just in time for the holidays.

perfect.

so, if you need me. i'll be in the other room with my head in the camera manual-- hoping for a christmas miracle.


best
deborah

what i asked for....

i have a confession: this weekend i made my first turkey dinner--complete with dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy. yep, my very first. ever.

when dreaming about christmas this year and my intentions for the holidays, i realized that i truly have everything i could ever want, materially. perhaps, even more than i really want. new gadgets don't make my skirt fly up or curl my toes in the way they to do for some people. and i have plenty of sweaters. however, what i did want was time with those that mean the very most to me--those relationships and doing things--making memories that will last a lifetime.

so after r's basketball game (which they won in double overtime....phew, that was exciting!!!!) my folks headed back to our house. they were coming to teach and supervise their turkey making recipe and methods (tent-foil steam roasted, just like my grandparents used to do. i swear, my dad looked so much like my grandpa folding the aluminum foil so precisely--very engineer-like). i followed all directions. with hardly any back-talk;) really--you measure the celery and onions? really? this much butta'?

r played board games with my folks and won *legitimately*--says my dad, while big red and i hand-washed the china.

what a fun and sweet and lovely night. we also decorated one gingerbread house and made two kinds of cookies. alright, the cookies were from an envelope mix--because really the fun is in the rolling out, shape making and decorating. well--b says it's in the *eating*.


later we caught the last hour of "it's a wonderful life". and, you know, it really is.


best
deborah

our family tree

i changed my header photo. it is from our big christmas tree.

it is so much how i feel at christmas--bright and happy and nostalgic.

that stripe-y ornament is from my grandparent's. not just from them--but from the trees they had each year. i'm pretty sure it is from the 1930's.

the turquoise bulb is straight from my own parent's very groovy silver aluminum tree. that tree had it's own rotating light wheel that would cast red, blue, yellow on the tree--and for a brief few seconds the yellow would become green and the blue would turn all violet before turning red. those turquoise, magenta and purple balls are all circa 1962. i remember sprawling out on the floor staring into that light wheel, while listening to my dad's christmas records on the stereo.
this is probably the last year we had that groovy tree--1972. (it says so on the back of the photo. it also says i am 5 years 4 months) and maybe, the last year my mom had that totally remarkable hair. i can almost smell the "adorn" hairspray. my mom wasn't in many of my childhood photographs. she did most of the picture-taking. well, because as you can see my dad did not count or give us any warning to smile or anything. i think my mom is telling my little sister and i to say....*cheese*. i'm pretty sure my mom doesn't show up again in a photo until the early 1980's. in those days, the self-photograph wasn't so common. but i digress.

and then there are the ones we--big red and i have collected. all together on one tree. traditional christmas--passed from one generation to the next.

i love this family tree of ours.



best
deborah