Month: December 2009

My mothers’ family was gifted with beautiful voices and the ability to play musical instruments. My Dad’s family, not so much, they sang enthusiastically but flat. I always wanted to play the piano so… when Alek took lessons so did I. This ended when we moved to Fresh Meadows as the house did not have the room for the piano. Alek still made music in the school band playing the baritone horn. The darn thing is a baby tuba. After the first practice session he played in his room.  He was quite a good player but really a baritone horn is LOUD.

Those days are long gone and a new generation has arrived. Little Katherine has a very good voice and rhythm looks forward to the music lessons she will start in the third grade. They start the kids with the recorder to learn the notes.  Tom is in the third grade and has started. I thought “This is nice.”  Well I was wrong.  Tom now must practice in the guest room. The piercing sound of the recorder is worse than the baritone horn.

My son Alek gave Katherine a recorder for Christmas.  Now I have  squeaking  coming from two recorders. Isn’t this just ducky.  Perhaps this is revenge for making him practice in his room.

I love music, recorder practice does not qualify.

This year I was bound and determined to get the shopping done before the 23rd of December. Well the snow storm has put a spike in my plans. It is still possible to get things done if the driveway is not iced up,  really we only have 3 or 4 gifts left to get. Today we will leave around 9 a.m. to try to get a parking space. Once we are at the mall we will not move that car until we have finished! I never liked the Walt Whitman Mall but today I think I love it.

It is cold and the snow and ice don’t look as if they will melt soon, but the driveway is pretty clear so we will go out today.  Meanwhile at least the snow reflects the sun light and made the first day of winter beautiful.

For the last 10 years or so we have lived in our son Jan’s house. The one job  Leo & I were always did, was put up and decorate the Christmas tree.  Last year health issues kept my husband from setting up our Christmas tree.   The tree was put up by our son and he did a great job. We always put tons of lights on the tree. The lights alone were beautiful, the ornaments were the icing on the cake. We are all healthy this year but Jan will put the tree up again.

Tom and Katherine are ‘helping’ Dad to do this and so a new generation will carry  on the tradition. Jan has decided to put fewer lights on this year.  That is to say that we will be using many, many more lights that sane people use, but not excessively more than sanity dictates.  Once the ornaments are on the tree we will again have the best tree anywhere.

Now I have no excuse. I must start the Christmas cookies and make the Coquito. Coquito is the Puerto Rican eggnog  and is so very tasty and so very easy. This is a combination too good to be believed,

My mother didn’t talk too much about the Christmas in Puerto Rico. The Three Kings Day celebration was more festive. We forget that Advent was (and is) a solemnn time in the church year.  Christmas was for church, after that the parties began. People would go house to house singing carols and getting louder and louder until they were fed. On Three Kings Eve children would leave carrots,  hay,  and water for the camels. In return the Magi would leave gifts.

Once we moved to the mainland Christmas was the holiday we celebrated. Perhaps the camels were too tropical for the cold gray north. I don’t have memories of specific Christmases just scattered images.  The old fashioned lights that looked like candles, if candles were clear glass with colored water and lights in them. Angels’ hair– fiberglass hanks that were teased out and spread into webs that caught the light and spread it into halos. Glass light bulbs that could go out and you knew which ones could be individually replaced.  The angel hair looked pretty but like all fiberglass it itched like Hades. Stencils for the windows that were filled in with a window cleaner called GlassWax. It made cute frosted images on the window and when you wiped it off the window was clean.

The one gift that I remember is my Dale Evans cowgirl outfit! It was the whole deal. A skirt, vest, shirt and best of all– the guns and holster.   As  tomboys my friend Marie and I usually beat the boys at every game, but Cowboys and Indians needed guns. When Marie and I got our outfits we were in kid heaven. Now we could play every game and beat the other side there too. So strange as I now detest guns.

I hope my kids and grand-kids have as warm memories when they are my age.