Mamaw's Yard pt. 2

Mamaw never knew what she had bought us for Christmas. After opening gifts on Christmas morning she’d often say, “Let me see what I got you.” She’d give mom the money for us and trust that mom would get us what we needed. This particular year she’d bought me a pair of American Eagle khaki pants and I was pleased as punch.

Another of our family talents is our penchant to make Christmas last as long as possible. Growing up I always enjoyed this tradition of making the holidays last longer. First of all it gave me more opportunities to wear my new Christmas clothes over the holiday break (hello new khakis!)  But also I loved holding my relatives hostage in Pound at Mamaw’s house, once they all left I’d still be there and I appreciated the company. Therefore, Osborne Christmas dinner is not held until December 26 each year.  

No one gets to sit around waiting on dinner, everyone’s given a job. In the last years of Mamaw’s life she’d encourage me to hone my domesticity around the holidays. For example, the year I got married when she pronounced this would be the year she would let me make the chocolate pies. But in my middle school days the tasks entrusted to me were much simpler though still never anything I looked forward to.

On the third day of Christmas and no doubt thanks to the confidence I possessed in my new pants I was sent to the dairy on the hill to fetch two jars of something I couldn’t be bothered to remember the name of. Chow chow? Kraut? Whatever it was I knew it would not make its way onto my plate.

The back yard is a hillside with 5 little rinky-dink steps on the steepest part. I carefully took the steps up and opened the creepy door to the dairy, ducked my head to enter and pulled the chain so the single light bulb could illuminate the spider webs and mystery jars. I retrieved my treasure swiftly and with jars in both hands headed toward home.  

Although disgusted by their contents I knew that much like pimpin’, cannin’ ain’t easy. So when I missed one of those pathetic little skinny steps and began to fall my priority was securing the jars! Unfortunately, this made a casualty of the Christmas khakis.

The only thing injured was my pride, Christmas dinner was served (complete with the mystery canned goods from 1980) and Mamaw patched the knee of my pants with a stiff piece of fabric that never gave the way the knees of pants should. A sobering reminder of my clumsiness each time I wore them and attempted to sit down.

Even now, grown and with a garden of my own, I’m still a disappointment to her (she is a mountain mamaw after all).  I haven’t learned to use the sewing machine she left me so that I can patch my own clothes. I’ve never mastered pie-making and my canning recipes come from Pinterest. But each time I use my water-bath canner, gather eggs from the chickens or slice a cucumber I’d like to think she notices and is proud. 

Mamaw's Yard pt. 1

 My family owns its own Santa suit. In some ways that tells you everything you need to know about us but another of our more brief holiday traditions may help create a better-rounded picture of us.

My grandmother’s house, where all holidays were celebrated, sat in a cozy little neighborhood in our small southwestern Virginia town and her front yard was home to many a game of kickball and freeze tag. Whatever image you’re conjuring up of her yard, it was smaller than that. Long, skinny and sloped. Also if you kicked the ball too hard it’d go rolling down route 83 never to be seen again.

We went through about a ten-year period where my cousins and I had all aged out of wanting to hide and hunt eggs on Easter. Our mothers still insisted we color eggs so come the day of resurrection we were left with three to four dozen multicolored eggs sitting in the refrigerator with no real intention of doing anything with them.

Boredom was not a word any of us were allowed to use and that made us resourceful. Hence the scene that lay before me that Sunday. Before I could comprehend how it had come about a gutsy cousin was on the pitcher’s mound i.e. middle of the front yard (again whatever you’re imaging it’s too big) tossing eggs underhand toward my brother who waited at the opposite end of the yard with a bat. When the egg made contact with the foam t-ball bat the pitcher’s reaction time was key to shield their eyes and mouth from the egg debris.

This went on for some time considering the number of eggs we’d been forced to color. The pitcher was exchanged every time someone needed to go remove the boiled egg and purple shell from their hair. Each of us had our turn at bat leaving a carpet of boiled egg all over the front yard.  

Video cameras rolled while we laughed our asses off at each other and soon Mamaw emerged from her perch on the couch inside to stick her head out of the door and take in the scene. Mamaw, never one to mince words, waited until she had everyone’s attention so she could demand “Who’s gonna clean this shit up?”

Today we have lots of babies to hunt Easter eggs so some of our traditions have returned to the more conventional. My husband still dresses in that red suit with pillows stuffed in his pants every Christmas Eve speaking in an unidentifiable accent (Jamacain?) but our batting eggs tradition died with Mamaw. There was an unspoken understanding that there would be no way to top that opening game with her most sincere reaction. I keep a pack of Marlboro Lights in my sock drawer to light up when moments like those get foggier than I would like. I take a long draw and close my eyes hoping to hear a bit of her sass and relive those moments on Beech Street. 

Holiday Hurts

"There are a thousand ways you can suffer brave.

An no one knows.

No one knows that like Habakkuk, your heart quakes a bit inside. At how headlines hit too close, how in a blink on an ordinary day, it could be one you love who is bloodied by the senseless violence, busted in a crash, begging prayers for life, getting chemo pumped through the veins. We all lose every single person we love. There is never another way. Think about tat too long and you find it hard to breathe.......

Olives fail. People fail. Dreams fail. You feel like you fail. A thousand things mount. Some days it's hard not to panic. You can feel it- we are driven by fear of failure. For all our frenzied running around, could it be that we are actually fleeing-trying to escape all the fears? All this pain? All this failure?

We all live these lives of quiet terror. Of soundless, hidden grief. You could just bow your head in the quiet and weep for all that isn't. For all that you aren't.

In the barrenness of winter, Habakkuk offers this gift to always carry close: rejoicing in the Lord happens while we still struggle in the now."


-Ann Voskamp, The Greatest Gift

This is my first year doing advent. That is evidenced by the fact that I'm unsure which verb to place in front of advent. Doing? Practicing? Partaking in? Or is advent the verb? I guess it probably is. The waiting and the rejoicing of the arrival.

Selfishly I've had a bit of a rough few weeks but things like test scores and teenagers being insensitive aren't what matters when there are real hurts in real lives.

Loss. Distance. Disappointment. Disapproval. Hatefulness. Depression. Arguing. Needing. Hurting. Injustice.

I love Christmas more than anything but if I focus on the wrong things I can get sad quickly. If I focus on anything other than the true gift and the waiting and watching for the Thrill of Hope I want to wallow in the ugliness of the world. The grandparents who are no longer here to share in the festivities. The fear of who may not be with us next Christmas. The marking of time. Another year, gone.

 Usually I make it through Christmas and to New Year's Eve before becoming incredibly sad and down. I truly hate New Years. Always.

Advent has brought me so much peace in the midst of a lot of ugliness in the world this holiday season. Between stress personally, and the worrying about the truly difficult situations of loss and lonesomeness of close friends and family I must remind myself to cling to Emmanuel.

So many people are struggling and the long nights of winter seem to make it harder. But we are reminded in this time of loss, hurting and failure that the King is coming. Yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Rejoice.

Holiday in Pictures

As one dear cousin put it "we made it through the holidays kids." It may not seem like much but with each passing year I am more and more impressed with mine and Drew's ability to simply survive the holidays. We were home for almost a week and we were booked up non-stop till today. But plenty of fun was had by most:

 

 

The highlights: Christmas jammies, Drew was Santa, made some ornaments, babies, friends. There were other notable occurrences that do not have a picture but just know it was a lovely holiday, we enjoyed it and we are happy to be back home. Hope your holiday was merry and bright!

The Big 5-0

My dad is turning 50 this week so we spent this weekend with him in Asheville, NC at a lovely cabin in the mountains. Honestly, the mountain could have been on Bold Camp (the holler my parents were raised in back home) and it wouldn't have matter because we didn't leave the place for 3 days. We stayed in our comfy clothes, ate lots of yummy food, napped, read and played games. It was just what the doctor ordered for my no frills Deno.

 

 The puppies opened their stockings while we were there:

 

 There was no Christmas tree so Drew cut down this beauty and we decorated the best we could:



 

 

 

Mom wanted to take our "tree" home with her

 

 

 

Getting to the cabin was a bit tricky:

 

Looks like he had a good time to me, what do you think? 

 



 

The rental company we went through was Carolina Mornings and I was sold once I found out they would allow our pups. The cabin was simply lovely and had so many extras. We had no reason to leave!