Only 25 Shopping Days

It is beginning to look less like fall in the Truckee Meadows. High winds have drained the color from neighborhoods and foothills. More than the sprinkle of raindrops predicted fell yesterday with the promise of more to come. The bowl created by mountain ranges that surround the Meadows has a dusting of white stuff, as seen from my kitchen window. However, judging by the almost audible cheers from peaks in the distance, new snow pack must be sufficient to have avid winter sports enthusiasts heating wax and grooming slopes. Me? I'm happy to have serious snowfall find its place at higher elevations and just dream of a white Christmas in the valley. Content to be inside, warm, and decorating gingerbread houses, the constant reminder from the media of, "Only 25 shopping days 'til Christmas", reminds me of...

Sister Kosh, a woman who looked older than her years, the result of severe health problems. A new member of the church or re-activated, I'm unsure, but she took her more recent involvement seriously. I'd never met her, personally, but she lived across the street from my Relief Society President. My name came up in conversation between the two. Then an unexpected visit from Sister Holmes, delivering what would be Christmas for four of my grandkids, from Sister Kosh--a very generous gift card. Thankfully, the kids were given this grand opportunity to experience service in action and be involved in creating heartfelt thank you gestures. She could also count on hugs and greetings at church. We saw her for the last time, gravely ill and dying. We could not touch her to hug her but she gathered the strength to tell me that her dream had been realized. She had been through the temple. A few days before what would be another very lean Christmas, I received a card in the mail. The sender was a name unknown to me. Inside, a very generous gift card for the 'South children', and a note. "Hello. You don't know me. I am Mrs. Kosh's son. She left instructions that I am to send this to you. I've added what I could to her offering....."

 Todd and Jenn surely remember the Christmas we gave the only thing we had to give--music. It wasn't hard to come up with a list of friends and neighbors--"It takes a village"--who had helped us through a difficult year. But I couldn't even afford to do the cookies-on-a plate thing. Instead, I called each one on the list to schedule a time with them, after work, during the week before Christmas. For those who didn't have a piano in their home, I invited them to our house as the last appointment for the final night of our performances. The kids were rehearsed in Fred Warring's, "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," and a few other carols. I accompanied on the piano. Todd was learning to play guitar so we three sang, in German, "Silent Night," to his accompaniment. To express a little more, the kids rolled into scrolls the poem I had written for the occasion, on plain white paper, decorated with inks and sealing wax from an earlier crafting life, tied, then presented one to each family once we had completed our singing. Performance had once upon a time been a grand thing for me, almost easy, but life happens and I had taken cover, retreated, withdrawn. It was very hard to stand with my kids to sing "Silent Night". With each performance, it got a little easier to peek out from within myself, a bit. It was quite the week, a flurry of activity, stretching gas in the car to make appointments but still get to work every day, and hoping our homespun offering would be accepted and considered a gift by some stretch of imagination. During that week, we began to find things in the car when we arrived home after each performance that had not been there before--fresh, warm pumpkin bread and other goodies, cash, even a Christmas tree! No Ordinary Christmas Tree

Shopping for the holiday? It feels so good to find just the perfect thing for someone and be able to get it for them. I love to give and receive nice things, simple things, sentimental things, expensive things but many favorite memories of holiday gifting are of the hardest times, the leanest, times when money to buy for others was near impossible but the want to give, the strongest. Learning to give was not hard for me. Learning to receive was a whole other lesson! I'm unsure if being an introvert has anything to do with either. I still have lessons to learn about giving and receiving, in meaningful ways. It's a part of who I am.

No Ordinary Christmas Tree

Written December 1986, as a thank you note.  I had no money for Christmas so Todd, Jenn, and I went to our friend's, the Abbott's, home to sing Christmas songs for them.  This was the only thing I (we) had to give. When we arrived home, we found a Christmas tree in the back of our station wagon.

No ordinary Christmas tree

But one hand picked with love,

By friends who saw its beauty

As it stood on the hillside above.

"Come and join us, little tree

Though we have looked at many,

There may be friends at home, you see,

Whose family hasn't any.

We'll share your strength and beauty

Your fragrant branches, spread

As open arms of friends would be

In love, by His spirit led."

The little tree stands proudly now

With lights and trim and glitter,

Making memories to last forever

Though its branches will soon wither.

The moment shared by mother and son

To affix the tree now standing tall,

Soothes aching hearts, and spans the gap

Creates new warmth, melts the wall.

The box holding years of memories

Forgotten stories come to life,

Past sounds and sights, Christmas delights

And for tonight, no room for strife.

Red jingle bells from childhood days

Treasures old and some quite new,

The stitches made by loving hands

Good works of many, His will to do.

And in the silence of the night

Faint strains of music heard,

A lonely boy, the little tree

Together, though speaking not a word.

The tiny lights twinkle simply

The trims, they weave their spell,

And now each evening at twilight

The family gathers to tell,

Of the treasures memories of Christmas

Of the smiles and sometimes the tears,

Of the best times each  one remembers

Kindness of friends through all the years.

This year there are now new friends

And this special little tree,

Surely this must be the best time

Right now, at home, we three.

Little tree of nature's forest

You hold many symbols for me,

They tell what caring and love does

Though it's something we can't always see.

The words never seem to come easy

But the meaning is perfectly clear,

Many other dear friends, and the Abbott's

In our home and our hearts, all dear.

Yes, its no ordinary Christmas tree

Hand-picked, good works to do,

By friends who saw its beauty

And shared that with us, too.

They've shared themselves so often

A hug, a kiss, a smile,

Shared words of wisdom, gospel truths

Time to listen, or walk that mile.

In another's shoes, to try to understand

To love in ways the Savior taught

These gifts they give at Christmastime

Are without price, and can't be bought.

No ordinary Christmas tree

But one hand-picked with love,

By friends who saw its beauty

And a chance to teach through love.

Gingerbread and Candyland Real Estate--THIS POST UNDER CONSTRUCTION/REVISION

The 2013 Gingerbread House Season has begun.

2012

This is a revision to add photos to a post originally written in November of 2012. So far, what I see in my draft does not appear the same way in the preview. For my next attempt, I may consider reading some instructions.

This flurry of added photos, representative of many more taken after 1993, comes as a result of my wishing for a photo of the first house, made about 1974, and others that followed while Todd and Jenn were kids. Those early examples would make a more complete story of this tradition spanning 40 years.

Some documentation began when my grandkids were
introduced to gingerbread houses.

Jessi

Zach

The dough--using "Grandma's" brand molasses--is mixed, chilled, then rolled out right on a cookie sheet.
Patterns for house pieces are hand-cut.

Once baked, each piece is re-cut. Windows and doors are marked or cut out while the dough is hot. 

Pieces are cooled, stacked flat and set aside overnight or for a few days.

Gage

To frame a house, Royal icing is the way to go. Small sweets and cookies of all kinds are put in place. The roof is added and decorated last. Sounds easy enough to do, right? 

That wasn't always so.

Oops!

Max

Gage

Why did I decide to build a gingerbread house, years ago? I wasn't a cook or a baker. I didn't particularly like the taste of gingerbread but a former patron of mine--from hair salon days--had given me a gingersnap cookie recipe that baked up crispy, melt-in-your-mouth rich, with just the right amount of spice. 

Gramma's Hands at Work

There was no computer, no Internet, no "Martha" or Food Network in my life, yet. All I had was Julia Child and a good tasting cookie recipe. 

Ginger Snaps
3/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon cloves, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ginger
1/2 cup sugar    *reserve 
CREAM shortening with sugar. ADD unbeaten egg and molasses and stir until smooth. ADD flour, soda, and spices to creamed mixture. MIX thoroughly.
FORM dough into 1-inch balls. ROLL balls in the reserved sugar. BAKE on an ungreased cookie sheet, 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

Instead of making cookies, I drafted a pattern on a brown paper grocery bag for a gingerbread house.
When the cut out paper pieces were taped together to form a house, I soon realized that I had little notion of what house dimensions should be. Fortunately, I had more than one brown paper bag. Those first attempts at pattern drafting produced houses that were either too BIG, too small, or the corners didn't meet. Once I had a pattern and pieces were cut from the cookie dough and baked, the question became, "How will I stick this together?" Scotch tape had worked just fine for my pattern pieces. I didn't have much of a repertoire for edible glue. Buttercream frosting was too unstable. My sister-in-law's delicious, cooked frosting was sticky enough but much too soft for mortar. Warm caramel, maybe? Truthfully, I don't remember what I used to stick that first house together. By my next attempt, I had discovered Royal Icing but it didn't taste all that great and set up like cement. Many builders I read about had no intention of actually eating their structures. That made no sense to me. I wanted every bit of the gingerbread construction to be edible.  With more trial and error, I found that just a tich of peppermint flavoring added to the Royal glue was my answer, making it less cement-like and better tasting.

We woke up to strong winds the day I got the idea to take that first gingerbread house to Todd's class Christmas party. Without a car to get us and the gingerbread there, I tipped an empty box upside down over it, and walked the eight blocks to the elementary school. Todd lead the way at a speedy clip. My 3-year old tried to keep up by hanging on to me, as we struggled against the wind. The house made the trip intact. But when I took the box off, all four walls fell in on each other. I was able to stick it back together enough to last through the "Oohs" and "Awes". Todd then crashed through the roof with one chop of his hand so everyone could have a piece. His classmates LOVED that part!

Breaking the house open in that way became a big part of the tradition. Todd and Jenn often chose a classmate to do the demolition. The grand-kids followed that pattern, too.

Sixth grade was the end of the classroom gingerbread for my kids. Other forms for dough caught my attention. One year, gingerbread became a train. Small--half-a-3x5-index-card--sized gingerbread houses were a real hit at a cookie exchange. Another year, it was sugar cookie dough fashioned as a Santa sleigh, and filled with homemade cookies. English cottages, made entirely of a chocolate candy assortment were adorable but expensive to do. When my first grandchild arrived, my thoughts turned again to gingerbread.

L to R: Zach, Topher, Jessi, Morgan - 1993 or '94

Walking into Little Rascals Day Care with a giant-sized gingerbread house and four grandchildren in tow had everyone wide-eyed! The tradition of taking a gingerbread house to a school class a week before Christmas vacation began again. Most teachers have been patient and agreeable to have one in their classroom with time to breathe in the wonderful fragrance. One teacher made the gingerbread house in his classroom a part of his lesson plan. He asked his students to design a wrecking ball, and figure out what velocity would be needed for the planned crash on party day. The classroom was rearranged to accommodate the demolition and keep the blast within sanitary boundaries so pieces could still be eaten.

Lots of kids have scoped out their favorite pieces of candy and cookies over the years of this tradition. Whether it was someone new to this experience or a classmate from a previous year, anticipation built until party day, when the roof got whacked and the walls came tumbling down. A question often asked by teachers and students as a new school year began was, "Will there be gingerbread?"

L to R: Max,
Zach, Gage, Topher

Everyone tries to be available sometime during a "Hot Scrap" event to eat the pieces of fresh-from-the-oven gingerbread cut away during the re-cutting of the pattern pieces. This has become as much a part of the tradition as making a finished house!

Gage and Gramma

All six grand-kids learned to use a frosting-filled pastry bag quite young. Each one has been encouraged to create their own house. 

Gage

Max

scheduled  building evening, I had just finished making a double batch of Royal icing. Just as I turned off my beaters, the power went out. Winds were high. Snow flurries had quickly become a major winter storm. I had one working flashlight and a couple of candles. We huddled together around the kitchen table, someone holding the flashlight while another placed candies and trims until all the kids had completed their houses. Todd braved the storm to find Chicklets, something we needed to give the appearance of tiny lights around the house roofs. He found them at 7-Eleven. It was such a find that he bought every pack they had left!

It was the morning of a Christmas Eve. One decorated house remained. I had wracked my brain trying to think of who I'd forgotten or why there was an extra. Finally, I called my Relief Society President. "Is there anyone in the ward or a neighbor or someone you know who needs this house?" I asked. "I can't think of one," she answered. I suggested that her own kids might enjoy this treat and she agreed but she wasn't available to pick it up. Bless the husbands of Relief Society Presidents! Brother Bollingbroke appeared on my doorstep in no time. He had not only come to pick up the house but knew of a family who really needed it, and delivered it to them!

Toph

Topher

2001

Another delivery tale is the time Topher was asked by an elderly customer at his workplace how she could get a house.  She had seen his most recent creation on display as a holiday decoration. He arranged to deliver one to her and had almost made it to his destination with house in hand when he slipped on the ice and ... well you can imagine! Fortunately, there was an extra one, unspoken for as yet, waiting to be placed.

Every house has its place. Our challenge has been to get each one to where it is meant to be.

My daughter was not a fan of baking or decorating gingerbread, as a kid or as an adult, though she loved tasting the elements, seeing each one completed, and distributing them. But she took over and completed the mixing and baking process a couple or three years ago while I was ill, then decorated or helped the grand-kids where help was needed, and delivered each one to individual school classes and a few to regular customers.  Jenn did a fantastic job! Every one should have an "Auntie Jenn" or "Mom" or "Daughter" who'll step in when it comes to having gingerbread...or not!  Two years ago, another first!  Jenn's boys, Gage and Max, joined their cousins, Topher and Zach, to mix multiple batches of the cookie dough. Their dedication and stamina was amazing.  They kept two mixers going and made enough dough for Jenn to cut and bake enough pieces to make 26 completed houses of three different sizes. 

Between Jenn and I and each of the kids designing and decorating their own, on their own, the tradition lived on for yet another season.  Every house found its home.

My gingerbread hobby is not cheap. I could make them more frugally, perhaps, but then they would look and taste more like the kits sold everywhere.  Ugh!  Sorry, to any of you who love getting those kits, but I've yet to hear that anyone eats those. We use good candy and cookies for trims--a LOT of it! A person can buy a finished house online, for a price. How do they pack those? I enjoy watching the gingerbread contests on TV. The designs are remarkable.

Topher's Toosie Dog House

I'm more interested in the smell of baking, the taste testers who can go through a plate of cutting scraps in the blink of an eye and watching creativity at work around our table as Topher sculpts a puppy from a Tootsie Roll, makes a mail box, a child's wagon, or decorates the inside of his house, too. 

Zach's Rock Climbing "UP" House

Or Zach, the boy who always wanted a house to take to school but would bribe his sister to decorate his for him, as he comes up with an intricate design and executes it all on his own, perfectly. Then he made a second one, different pattern, different execution, all completed beautifully. 

Morgan spends a long time cutting out fruit stripe gum to meet her needs and lining up pretzels for a wrap around fence. 

One of Morgan's Creations

Jessica 2012

She tries stained glass windows using fruit leather. Her natural eye for art shows up in her house decor.

Jessi

 Jess leans towards color schemes, adding trees and snowmen, lights around the roof or a lettered greeting and don't forget the frosting ice cycles. 

Gage's Elementary School Design

Gage has his work cut out for him, with a house twice as big as the big kids, in order to share with his large classroom of mates. He comes to the table each year, with an idea usually sketched out on paper and at 10, can do an entire house by himself.

Gage

Sample

2012

Max has moved on from safe-for-a-small-child candy like marshmallows and soft stuff. He loves to sample first, anything that will go on his house. This is his second year to take a house to his school class.

Yes, it is gingerbread season once more. I'm hoping for help with the initial baking and cutting out the patterns but I'm anxious to see if I can, despite arthritically re-shaped hands, hold and squeeze frosting from a pastry bag, pick up tiny candy-coated sunflower seeds and Chicklets to make Christmas lights in windows and around roofs, place window boxes made from KitKats, stand up soft peppermint sticks and place wafer cookies to create a front porch, and make lacy, dropped frosting ice cycles. Gingerbread is a part of who I am.

Over the River and Through the Woods

The day we call "Thanksgiving" is not far away. One could think that my celebrations of this day would be pretty much the same. I love the traditions of fixing the same foods, having the same conversations around the table, sharing the same feelings of gratitude every year but each designated Thursday gathering in November that I've experienced has memories all its own.

Thanksgiving had that "Over the River and Through the Woods" feel to it for me, as a child. We often had snow. Dad used a horse-drawn sleigh, his team's harness alive with sleigh bells, once snow accumulated. Mother didn't cook turkey, or goose, or duck for the meal. Her's was a simple meal. She cooked what she had--chicken. What I remember most was her pie and the dressing made from scratch using homemade bread, an uncooked egg or two, onion and sage. Once she had broth, made by boiling chicken gizzard, liver, and heart, she chopped the organ meats, then added this and the broth to the dressing, with the exception of the liver. That was hers to eat! She LOVED the chicken liver. She always drank the briny juice from canned olives, too. My sisters-in-law, Evelyn or Carma, made Parker House rolls. Mother made drop biscuits and bread but never rolls so those were a treat. I don't remember eating pumpkin pie or cranberry sauce until I left the farm. Mother's dessert for Thanksgiving was always Butterscotch Pie and sometimes her dad's favorite rag pudding served with a rich, caramel sauce or Evelyn's carrot pudding with hard sauce. Mother always set her table with a set of ruby red drinking glasses and matching water pitcher she'd been given by one of my brother's (I think). For years, I did, too, those very ones.

If Grandma South cooked a turkey, it had to be a fresh one from her favorite butcher. Nothing frozen would do! What she really wanted was a goose. Grandma had a way with potatoes. They were often lumpy but her family loved them. Having lived through war, standing in bread lines and often going hungry in her youth, she was a bit frugal in the amounts she cooked. As the family numbers at the table grew, the potatoes always seemed to run short. Judy and I, the in-laws, offered to help fix the meal but we would be waved off until time for the clean-up. One time, we plotted and got Grandma to let us peel the potatoes. You know what we did, of course. We peeled the entire 10-lb. bag or whatever it was! Grandma said nothing. I'm sure she realized it when her kettle would barely hold the lot of them. She cooked, she smashed, she served them up without a word, to her family and to her two, disobedient and extravagant daughters-in-law. Wouldn't you know that this would be the time when the demand for those white, lumpy mounds wasn't as great as it had historically been. We offered seconds, thirds, and more.

When my son, Todd, was just a baby, Frank and I went to my brother, Sylvan's in Chubbuck, Idaho for Thanksgiving, arriving late the night before. My 8-month-old child hadn't adapted to the change in his schedule so it was late when I got my fresh apple pies--my contribution to the meal--into the oven. As they baked, I fell asleep at the kitchen table, waking up to a cloud of smoke! The pies had bubbled over, creating mountains of black, crusty ash. The oven would have to cool before the mess could be cleaned up so I went to bed, intending to fix my mess before Carma, my brother's wife, started her turkey. Baby was fussy; I tried to keep him quiet; There was no sleep for any of us. I had just dozed off when I heard commotion in the kitchen on Thanksgiving morning. It was 5:00 am.  I was too inexperienced in holiday meal prep to know that the bird had to be started so early!  Carma went to put her turkey in and found an oven that couldn't be used until it was cleaned! After all these years, I still feel bad about that. Can you tell?

One of my favorite Thanksgiving get-to-gethers was probably the first one in our Salt Lake City home. We had no furniture, not even a kitchen table and only a tiny, apartment sized fridge in the basement, an old, old stove and no counter space to speak of. I invited all the nieces and nephews who were in the area attending college, my brother's--Sylvan and Marion--families, Frank's brothers and sister, their families, and the South parents for dinner. With borrowed card tables and chairs, my trousseau linens, dowry dishes and Grandma South's silverware, some guests were seated at tables in the living room, some brave souls juggled china and crystal while sitting on the stairs leading to the basement, others made use of the raised hearth in the 'great' room at the bottom of the stairs. I had such fun playing the part of a grownup!

MerLyn, my sister, and her family came for Thanksgiving our first year I think it must have been, in Sparks, NV. Her husband, Dennis, solved the space problem right away with a big sheet of plywood  set on top of my seats-six-if-you-don't-mind-sitting-cozy kitchen table.

So I was use to being with family for Thanksgiving meals, whether at the farm in Weston, at Marion's home in Preston, traveling to where family members were or gathering together as many as possible in our own home or at the South's on Commonwealth Avenue in Salt Lake City. Grandpa South always went around the table, asking each of us to express what we were most thankful for.  Whenever we came together in his house for a meal, whether it was Thanksgiving or a Sunday roast beef, before we could leave, he insisted on a chorus of hymns, "The Seer" and "A Poor Wayfaring Man", that reminded him of his grandfather, John Taylor.  Prayers were offered before the holiday meal, no matter where we were. Old family stories were repeated every year.    

The first Thanksgiving after the divorce was just plain awful. Frank took Todd and Jenn to Salt Lake City; I ate a TV dinner sometime during the day. I had no family close by. We hadn't lived here long. I had an invitation to join a family at their home but declined. I was so sad, hurt and angry, feeling betrayed and grieving the death of my marriage. I didn't want to put on a face or have to be good company. While my kids were out of the house and not present to witness or be frightened by my behavior, I wanted to wallow as much as I needed to and cry, scream, whatever, to let out what I had not yet been able to release. I embraced all the 'poor me' I could muster. I was not feeling 'Thankful' on that day.

Before another November passed, my neighbor, Dixie, and I had become friends, kind of "You go, girl!" buds. She was raising twins alone. Both of us were trying to regain our footing, keep a roof over our heads and feed our kids. We helped each other out here and there. It seemed a natural thing to create Thanksgiving together. Neither of us had money to buy anything special or extra for the meal. We would have to use what we already had. I volunteered to cook what meat I had. It wasn't turkey, I'm sure. And I had potatoes. She had said she wasn't much of a cook but she'd make gravy. I agreed. "Who can't make gravy?" I thought. Dixie wanted us to eat at her house so I carried my simple offerings across the street and down four houses, with my two kids in tow.  Her TV was blaring. She sat with us at the table long enough to serve her gravy--a clear container about half way filled with flour sludge with grease separated and floating like foam on beer, to fill the rest of the container right up to the rim. In the short time it took for us to eat what little we had to offer in our combined effort, Dixie ran about as much as the players on the screen, going back and forth from TV to table, back to TV and so on. No one said, "Pass the gravy".

Establishing new traditions required some experimenting. Being far away from any family had required some getting use to when we moved to Nevada but the feeling of being a bit stranded was intensified in those first weeks, months, and years of being on our own. The kids and I tried 'eating out' for Thanksgiving dinner one year when 'eating in' was just too hard, too emotional. We went to Harrah's Buffet in downtown Reno. The food was tasty. Once we got there and shook off our blue mood, the kids were well-behaved, people serving and those at other tables were friendly. There was a sort of 'family' feel to it all. An older 'Dear' pointed out the many choices of desserts to my kids. I lost count of how many tiny chocolate eclairs each of them ate. I was just hoping to get us all home before anyone got sick. It was lovely to be fussed over for a little while, and get out from under the ghosts of Thanksgivings past. However, we missed the smell of cooking the meal at home, as we had done when we were a 'family'. We missed having leftovers. We probably missed more than I'm remembering, given that I had spent the month's grocery money, eating out.

Sarah South Fenton, her husband and a whole houseful of kids moved to Reno, early 80's maybe.  Sarah is Frank's first cousin. I didn't know what to expect. I'd imagined that South relatives had crossed me off their list, being naturally supportive of their own kin, as wouldn't have been unusual in circumstances such as ours. I couldn't have been more wrong, where Sarah and Joe were concerned. They were thrilled to be invited to my house for meals and special occasions and they returned the favor. "We don't get many invitations; There are so many of us!" they said. A new chapter began, celebrating together at their house or mine. And so it was...such good times together for two or three years. Then Joe was transferred out of our area. He moved his family. It was Thanksgiving time again. I knew we'd really miss them. A day or so before the holiday, there was a knock on my door.  I opened it and there stood Joe, smiling from ear to ear, holding out a huge turkey to me. "I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to be sure you had one of these!" He had to have driven miles and miles outside his assigned territory to do such a kind thing for us.

"Over the river and through the woods, To Grandmother's house we go..."  This had been the case for lots of Thanksgivings. A few years ago, my grown children said they thought it was time to pass the torch. I got the feeling that they thought I'd put up a fuss about that but we were outgrowing my house and I had more difficulty lifting a 30-plus pound turkey in and out of the oven so my response was more of a "Hallelujah!" As the day of Thanksgiving grew closer, I began getting calls at work from one or the other, asking, "How do you do __?"  "Can I get the recipe for __?"  "So how much (how little, how long...) do I __?" The hosting gig came back to me within a couple of years. I continued for as long as I could but was both relieved and grateful when Jenn assumed that role. She does a great job. Todd, his wife, her sister and family have included all of us in their celebration in recent years, too. My grand-kids know their way around a kitchen. It could be one of them who makes the rolls and pies this year.

Many have shared a similar sentiment about Thanksgiving. "Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving. --WT Purkiser. John F. Kennedy is quoted as saying: "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." I have much to be thankful for, not the least of which are the years of varied experiences in marking Thanksgiving Day. I can't be sure I learned the lesson provided by each one but surely it was there, had I recognized and taken advantage of it. We could agree, that it is about more than a plentiful, even gluttonous meal and yet the meal often serves as the vehicle that brings forward thoughts of gratitude and thankfulness in us, opens us up to opportunities for helping others, and softens us sufficiently to use our blessings in the best ways.

Thanksgivings...68 of them! They are a part of who I am.

I Am, I See, I Feel, I Am...

I am...a woman who has seen sixty-eight November 9's pass by.

I wonder...who the old woman is, looking at me in the mirror, red hair now silvered, face wrinkled, eyes and posture drooping,

I hear...my name spoken when there is no one visible to have said it.  I think it is just to get my attention or renew my focus.

I see...in color when I dream, whether sleeping or awake. Some people see more in a walk around the block than others see in a trip around the world.  I'd like to be one of those.

I want...the best of everything.  That, to me, can be simple and unadorned.  Some of the best things in life are free.

I pretend...to be 'fine', even happy, when asked how I am if it makes someone more comfortable.  A good friend calls this the "Fake it 'til you make it!" approach.  Happiness is an inside job.

I feel...like I'm riding a roller-coaster, given the ups and downs of a disease called Rheumatoid Arthritis and it's cousin, Osteo.  It can be difficult to prevent health-related issues and aging from defining me. I feel blessed to be better than I would be if I were not as good as I am.

I touch...to determine if bread dough or pie crust is just right.  Touching piano keys requires greater effort now.  The ready hugs come easy for some but not for all.

I worry...Favorite worries are hard to give up.  Solving problems that create worry is easy.  It's living with the solutions that is tough.

I am...sometimes silent.  Silence is not only golden; it's seldom misquoted.  I am also tenacious and like the road to success--I'm always under construction.  While unable to leap tall buildings in a single bound, I am a climber of steep mountains, figuratively speaking.

I understand...a little bit of many things.

I say..."That's Gross. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I'm cold...put on a sweater. Is it hot in here? Don't even think about it! Can't trust the weatherman. Grandma's always right! Unthaw. (all things ending in "S"--WalMartS). It's not movie film"!

I dream...of companionship, dancing, figure skating, and in color with audio. Days of Demerol brought dreams of lacy cobwebs and one-way conversation. Old nightmares invade for no good reason.

I try...each day not to speak of pain, to use good judgement, to be courageous and less afraid, less judgmental, more at peace, more thoughtful and insightful. I try again the next day.

I hope...for more November 9's.

I am...just one person, but I am one.  Everything begins with one, whether it is a step forward or backward.