Scrooge and Marley, I Presume

Today is December 1. It happens every year.

There was a time when I looked upon the winter holidays with excitement and anticipation. That was back when presents really mattered because I didn't have an independent income so I couldn't buy the things I wanted. You know, the early years.

Even the decade or so after my unseemly early marriage, at the tender age of eighteen, there were college and baby and low wage jobs, but Christmas was still pretty magical. It was when I could justify spending a little more than we could afford and figure out a way to make it up later. It was often a time when my parents swooped in from Europe, bearing good cheer, good beer, and interesting gifts.

It wasn't until I was well into the second marriage, and sober, that I started taking responsibility for creating magic myself. I was a late bloomer; for decades I thought Santa Claus was real, and I was still awaiting his arrival. There comes a time, though, when you have to start making your own Christmas or it'll sneak up on about the 24th of December and bite you on the ass. Having little kids around helps.

During my forties, I was so busy creating Christmas Memories for the world at large, that I sometimes had trouble finding the time to be with my own family. When you are in the living history biz, in whatever capacity, the holidays are a busy time of year. People who wouldn't dream of cooking over a fireplace themselves, or hanging out in an unheated log house, will pay good money to watch someone else do it. Nostalgia reigns.

The teaching decade, in my fifties, was interesting when it came to Christmas. I finally had a little something extra leftover at the end of every month --- kids grown, steady work, actual paychecks, an employed spouse, ---- and that took a lot of the fun out of getting presents, but increased the fun of giving them. I also met my match when it came to creating magic. You can hardly imagine what it's like in December, to live with someone who used to own a Christmas store. Really. Have you ever wondered where that merchandise goes when it's not in season?

By the time I retired, at sixty, I was ready to dial it back to cookies baked by someone else, decorations put in place by someone else (thank you, Jill), and dispense with the presents, already. This house is full up, and don't tip off the folks at Hoarders. No, it's not that bad, but it is hard to think of things besides food and underwear that we actually need to shop for.

So here I am in the kitchen, December 1, the first Sunday in Advent, ready for company. As per 55-year family tradition, those of us who are still in an upright position will gather around the Advent Wreath with the well worn volume of "A Christmas Carol" and whoever draws the short straw will read the first stave aloud. We used to do it in the evenings, but now night driving is much more difficult for some of us. We used to gorge on the traditional foods ---- pearl tapioca pudding made from scratch, party mix made from scratch, popcorn, sodas or cider, and whatever cookies anybody had been baking for the holidays. Now, everyone needs to lose the pounds, some don't eat gluten, some avoid dairy, nobody drinks sodas and the coffee is decaf. Temperance applies (except to the pudding!).

Change happens. We four were little kids when our parents devised this amalgam of traditions from each of their families, and applied it to the family they had created. We, in turn, have spread it to our own spouses, children and some to grandchildren as well. Older generations have passed on, crucial people are passionately missed, but this afternoon the candles will be lit, the popcorn popped, the pudding dished up and along about 3:30, as the sun begins to sink lower into the afternoon sky, a shiver will run down my spine as the familiar words are read:

"Marley was dead: to begin with."

Time marches along

Just a breath while I review the last few days. Lots of family, way too much food, plenty of laughter and games, but tears as well. It's hard to say good-bye at the end of a visit. It's hard to reconcile how things are, with how they used to be.

Because of our joint interest in history, whenever Ashley and I get time together, we go on jaunts to museums and historic sites. We talk about what we see, exclaim over the surprises, and yes, get a little snarky about the design or the interpretation sometimes. It sparks interesting discussions and speculation and often sends us to the computer or back to the gravestone or architecture guides that line the bookshelves at home.

What is ever-evolving for me in all of this, is my perspective on time and how quickly life seems to be evaporating. It is not possible to stand in the rooms where innumerable people have stood over the past 200 years, and not think about mortality. What survives through time and what doesn't ---- it's not necessarily related to its social or political importance. Sometimes it's just luck. Or neglect. The stories that are earnestly told about people who have gone before, no matter how well researched, cannot be complete because we don't know what individuals were thinking ---- they may not even have known why they did what they did. How often do you do something and then thump yourself on the head and ask "What was I thinking?"

I love evidence that people lived everyday lives. I'm glad that the interpretation of history has taken that turn in the last few decades, to include everyday life of everyday people, not just battles and elections. But there's still always the possibility that we're getting it wrong. Or that we're neglecting and leaving out significant parts because either they are uncomfortable to talk about (taboos) or we simply don't know about them since life has changed so much.  I'm glad when I hear or read about things like tooth pain and menses and fading eyesight, the stuff that really affects how people live, even though it doesn't show up in the historic record. We tend to take the many, many images we've seen on the screen as truth, even knowing that it can't possibly represent real life. Bonanza? Andy Griffith? Wagon Train? But when you watch movies and tv shows that have some of the trappings but not the grit --- missing teeth and B.O. and vermin and not enough warmth or cooling against the weather. It all looks so . . . . Gone With The Wind. Hoop skirts and satin, dashing soldiers and beautiful women against a backdrop of luxurious antebellum mansions.

Well, I'm not exactly advocating for absolute historical accuracy in all media portrayals ---- really, who does want to watch romantic leads with bad teeth and lice? Not too appealing, in the world of fantasy. But a little reality in the educational setting does add a great deal. Not skirting around issues like slavery and violence, child labor, tenements and open sewers and epidemics, is the stuff that makes history most interesting, most accessible, and much more relevant to today.

The other part of having my family here, rolling out the decades-old traditions like we do at Christmas, is bringing into the family circle the ones who have gone before. We sat in the great-great grandparents' chairs, heard echoes of the grandfather's reading voice, listened to music handed down through generations, ate the special dishes from grandmother to daughters to grandchildren. At the same time, the traditions are renewed with newer family members, born or brought in, to carry them into the future.

I lose myself in time. Sometimes I feel like I'm swimming upstream against a current that's dragging me where I don't want to go. I don't want to join the others, the ones whose presence is still represented, but fainter every year as memories are lost. This chair. This ornament. This song. I know where they came from, what they have meant, who those people were, but what happens when I am gone? Will this mahogany secretary cease to be the piece that Mom and I bought in England, and simply become a piece of furniture? Will these beads be tossed aside as just another necklace, even though they were Mabel's 20th birthday present from her mother in 1923, passed to Nancy with a letter, 65 years later? On one level, it's just stuff. On another, it's the stuff of life.

Another project for this week has been cleaning and organizing the upstairs, my own creative space. It's currently littered with the detritus of my teaching career. Ashley has a knack for organization and can be relentless when it comes to tossing things. We managed to take a carload to Goodwill, load the trunk with pass-alongs, fill two trashbags and a recycle bin, and it's still not done ---- but it's way better. I kept thinking -- and saying aloud --- I better do it now, so you don't have to do it after I die. Kind of a downer, but way too true. Nice holiday sentiment. She assured me that the Indian bag and oil lamp parts I was dithering over would be tossed if the bus were to hit me tomorrow. Off they went to Goodwill, by my own hand.

The underlying theme is passage of time. It's ticking away at a steady pace, whether I am aware of it or not, whether I notice and acknowledge it or not. I have a framed photo of a woman I don't know, hanging in my room upstairs. I bought it in an antique store because I found it so compelling. She might be in her 40s or 50s, wearing small glasses and looking directly into the camera. Her crooked smile reveals a few teeth. She looks educated, wise, amused. She is my writing muse. I have no idea what her name was or who her people were. She probably has living descendants somewhere who might even like to have her picture. But she's mine. I adopted her and I'm keeping her. And someday, one of my descendants will try to figure out where she falls on the family tree. So maybe the stuff ---- the pictures and old books and paintings and letters--- just scatter to the winds and land where they will. Landfill, collector, antique store, great-great-grandson's living room --- or the wall of a stranger who gives new meaning to continuing life.

It's not like I have any control over it, after all.