In the Eye of the Beholder

There's been a lot of silly talk lately about colorful Christmas sweaters.  Some call them loud.  Others call them garish.  Still others call them ugly.  A good friend recently embellished her son's sweater to help him win an ugly sweater contest at a party.  Another close friend told of a similar ugly sweater contest that was part of her service club meeting.  Then, I read a newspaper article about colorful, loud holiday sweaters illustrated with loads of color photos to make their point.  Admittedly, I'm out of touch with the fashion scene so I maybe don't deserve to comment but I actually like those sweaters and fleece tops festooned with snowmen, trees, French horns, geese, Christmas ornaments, jingle bells and the like.  They seem to put the "merry" in "Merry Christmas," a perky touch to put a smile on your face during a dark time of the year.  Come to find out, according to the newspaper article, seasonal sweaters are now in vogue -- the louder, the better.  And "hip" people are proudly sporting them.  Perhaps I'm not as fashion-challenged as I thought.

White Christmas

I watched "White Christmas" on television tonight.  It was the umpteenth time I've seen the Bing Crosby-Danny Kaye Christmas classic, but I can't seem to get enough of its innocent, happy-ending message where love is pure, life is a song, and it snows just in time for Christmas.  Mom, Larry and I watched that movie the past two Christmas Eves.  We'd gather around the television eating our Christmas Eve dinner before the service at church.  We'd end the evening by driving around town to admire the Christmas lights.  We have unseasonably warm temperatures and green grass right now.  The only hints we have that Christmas is even nearing are the colorful lights decorating lacy, leafless trees and house roof lines.  Rain is predicted for tomorrow.  If our anticipated precipitation came in the form of snow, the meteorologist said it would equal 10 inches.  Admittedly, the warm weather is a welcome break from breathing in winter's chill and cleaning snow off of the car.  However, when I hear Bing, Danny, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen sing "Snow," it sounds so romantic. Instead, I'll hear the words of Bing and Rosemary singing "Counting Your Blessings":  "When I'm worried and I can't sleep, I'll count my blessings instead of sheep...."  And I'll think of those very special Christmas Eves when Mom, Larry and I celebrated together.

Festival of Love & Light

Tonight, our St. Clare Hospital hosted its annual Festival of Love & Light.  It is a time when the community gathers to honor and remember loved ones and to light Love Light evergreen trees in the St. Clare Healing Garden.  This year, the event was even more meaningful to me because of the grief  I feel from the loss three months ago of my beloved mother.  The minister who delivered the message during the event's program asked the large audience to contemplate how the actions of our loved ones have inspired action in us and how what we do now may inspire action in others someday.  I thought about my caring, loving, gentle mom, who even in her dying process, still found myriad ways every day to reach out to others and to show her caring for them.  Until practically the day she died, she shared her healing spirit, gentle touch and kind words with those around her.  Her actions, her very being, inspire me to try to emulate her, to carry on her legacy.  The question I find myself asking each day is: How can I be a healing spirit, a gentle touch, a kind word for others?  So, this Christmas season and beyond, I will try each day to take the gifts she gave me and give them to others.  Mom was a light to so many.  I hope to become that light and shine it on others.

Seven Swans (or 200 Geese) A-Swimming

With temperatures in the 40s and the sun shining brightly this afternoon, Larry and I took a splendid walk at Devil's Lake State Park.  Chickadees and other winter birds chattered to us overhead while what appeared before us were up to 200 honking Canada Geese spread out in a long chorus line across the lake.  I had never seen (or heard!) so many Canada Geese on the lake at one time. Ice is gradually forming over the lake's surface, creating an artistic icy pattern, and a little frosty snow connects the lake with the beach and is visible in the dormant vegetation.  The geese were in those areas where the water is still open.  The lake and its environs may not have the brilliant color of other seasons right now but the quiet beauty of winter affords the pine trees, red dogwood and bright blue sky center stage.  After our brisk walk, we headed home for another winter treat -- a nice hot bowl of homemade soup and a Green Bay Packer game on TV where the team appeared unstoppable.  A perfect mid-December Sunday afternoon.

Snowhere

Weather is always a popular subject for small talk.  In Wisconsin, we seem to be pros at talking about the weather.  No matter what is happening outdoors -- inclement or not -- we have an opinion about it, as if our discussing the weather can change or control it.  For the past couple of days, no matter where I've been, people have been comparing this year's weather to the last. We got clobbered with a big snowstorm a year ago this weekend.  This year, the temperature is cold but the grass is still green.  According to a local television meteorologist, the first snowfall of six-plus inches has arrived on or before December 10 for the past four years.  Not this year, though.  Once Daylight Savings Time ends, I start thinking winter thoughts, but a state climatologist was quoted in a recent newspaper article as saying that the meteorological winter season is technically from December through February.  I had to chuckle because there have been years when winter seems to begin at Halloween and end when the lilacs bloom in May.  With or without snow, cold or not, this December is a beautiful month and tonight's full-moon night sky is so magnificent that it warms my soul.

Chicken Run

Some close friends told us a sad story recently.  They have a beautiful property nestled in the bluffs where they reside with a delightful array of other living creatures.  Theirs is an easy-living, everybody's-welcome kind of home where outside the dogs can run, the children play and the chickens roam. These gentle, kind and peaceful folks have been raising free-range chickens for a few years, providing family and friends with eggs in white and brown, all the way to Easter basket colors of pale blues and greens. When our friend would tend her garden, she said that the people-loving chickens would come to greet her and keep her company with conversations of lots of clucking and head tilting.  A few months ago, however, they found their chickens reducing in number and discovered a fat and clever raccoon as the culprit.  Since then, they've created safeguards to prevent such devastation from occurring again. Slowly, their chicken family has been multiplying, but you could still hear the sadness in their voices over the loss of their special, egg-laying companions.  We get so close to our pets, whatever they may be. When we lose them, we lose a part of ourselves.  Hopefully, next summer, our friend will have a new generation of clucking gardening friends to pass the time of day with her as she peacefully plants and weeds and harvests.

This Little Light Of Mine

Since Daylight Savings Time ended a month ago, I have been leaving work in the dark.  The expansive, clear night sky is lovely as I walk eastward to my car.  Each evening, I watch for the position and phase of the moon and then my eyes rest on a lone, bright star in the eastern sky.  When Larry and I visited a planetarium-theme IMAX presentation last month, I thought I learned that the bright star I'd been seeing was the planet Saturn, but since then, a friend who's an amateur astronomer has said that it can't be Saturn and must be something else. Whatever that faraway, bright star is, it guides me at the end of my workday, helping me to slow my pace by revealing its beauty against the ebony sky. As Christmas approaches, it makes me think of the lyrics to "Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow": "There's a star in the east on Christmas morn...."  My parents used to sit outside in lawn chairs, enjoying the nuances of the summer night sky.  As a teenager, I was too busy being a teenager to spend time joining them in their star-gazing pursuits.  Now that I'm older, I, too, am captivated by those same celestial nuances.  How fortunate to live where the night sky isn't hidden by human-made light.  How blessed to have had parents who taught me gently, by example, to appreciate its beauty and mystery.  And how blessed I am to have my eastern star to welcome me each evening.