Tag: Guest Bloggers

Tomorrow morning when you wake up, try not to use your dominant hand for the first hour. Just allow it to hang by your side. Make your morning coffee; brush your teeth and shower. Ladies, apply your makeup and blow dry and style your hair using your non-dominant hand only. Men, you may want to use an electric shaver for this. Now get dressed. Button your shirt and tie your shoes. Are you feeling frustrated even though you know at any time you still have the ability to use both hands? Imagine not having that option. Now, imagine doing this all day, every day, for the rest of your life.

This is just a hint of what it feels like for someone who has survived a stroke, traumatic brain injury, severe nerve damage or amputation. Want to kick it up a notch? Try doing this same exercise while standing on one foot. Now, imagine if someone was yelling at you to hurry up or was being impatient with you for not being fast enough.

I’ve lived for almost 16 years with this reality, and still, I find that I will sometimes forget what it must feel like. That’s when I spend an hour with my right arm hanging by my side.

It seems each family has at least one holiday tradition that others may find unusual.

The best story I heard was the one about a traditional Christmas Eve ham. My friend told me that every year, her grandmother would bake this special ham. When grandma got older the dinner preparations were taken over by Mom. When Mom got to be up in years, the daughters took over the honors. Always, ALWAYS, that ham was prepared by first cutting off each end by about an inch. One year, one of the daughters forgot this crucial step and placed the ham into the roasting pan, ends uncut. A hush fell over the kitchen. Mom, hoping to avert what was sure to be the ruination of the centerpiece of the Christmas Eve buffet, gently reminded her daughters that they must never forget to cut of the ends of the ham first. “Why?” one of the girls asked. Mom just stood there, not really knowing the answer. “It just tastes better if you cut off the ends before you bake it. Grandma always did that, and she always made the best ham.” This made no sense to the girls, but since it had been done that way since before they were born, this tradition of holiday ham preparation surely must have some logical explanation. Grandma was now well into her nineties, but still mentally sharp and sitting in the next room enjoying the appetizers. They decided to go ask her.

“Grandma, we have a question for you. Why did you always cut the ends from the ham before baking it? Does it stay more flavorful? Is it better for the glaze to get in there?”

She looked at them as if they had hit the eggnog a bit too hard.

“I cut the ends off so the ham would fit into my roaster.” Then she shook her head and started to laugh.

Holiday tradition. Sometimes we just continue them without ever asking “Why?”

 

I’ve never known anyone who loved Christmas the way my late friend did. She was my husband’s cousin, and they shared their childhoods through family gatherings and holidays. He speaks fondly of those days, but she spoke of them with reverence. They were, in her mind, nothing short of perfection. She remembered, in great detail, every food, cookie, candy, gift and song. She could recall which years they had snow and which years they did not. She would even talk about the wrapping paper and decorations.

Thinking back to my own childhood, I can’t remember any major holiday catastrophe. I spoke with my mother about this, and she filled me in on the time Dad began to paint the living room the night before she was set to have all twenty-five members of our family come to our home for Thanksgiving. They both laugh about it now. We reminisced about the time we got a “fresh” turkey that turned out to be anything but. We had beef that evening instead.  There were mix-ups over gifts; there were out and out bad gifts. There were ruined desserts. There was the time my grandmother set her freshly made peanut brittle out on a bench on her porch to cool, and when we went out to retrieve it we found my cat curled up on the warm pan, fast asleep, fur stuck to Gram’s handiwork.

The point is this: Holidays are not perfect. Nothing in life is. But if we focus on the good things, the happy memories, and learn to laugh at the calamities, maybe we can stop stressing and learn to have that same love of the holiday season that my friend had.

The season of giving and generosity is upon us. The familiar red kettles, bells being rung by their sides, will be filled with loose change, dollar bills and the occasional anonymous, newsworthy contribution.  Holiday trees adorn many department stores, decorated with wish list tags for families or children whose address may not be on Santa’s route. Lions Clubs, Cub Scouts, schools and churches deliver holiday food boxes to families and individuals who otherwise may not have much of a feast. We will watch classic movies, cringing at the stinginess of Ebenezer Scrooge and cheering the daffy generosity of Clark Griswold. We will see made for TV specials featuring down on their luck single moms and struggling elderly folks, all in need of a bit of Christmas magic and love from a benevolent stranger.

It makes us feel good to give during the holidays. We want to donate and we want to think that perhaps we had a hand in making Christmas a little more special for someone in need. And yet, those same exact folks we are so happy to assist on Thanksgiving and Christmas may be going to bed hungry once our trees are untrimmed and our decorations are put away for the season. They may not have heat in their homes, medical care or warm clothing. Why do we transform them, in our minds, from strangers worthy of our Christmas spirit into dregs unworthy of our compassion? Why, in our minds, do we magically morph the working poor, the elderly, and the indigent, into drug-addicted thugs who just want something for nothing? Perhaps our conscience is more comfortable turning it’s back to that image than it is to the holiday image.

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”  Charles Dickins

 

“Maybe you can make us a traditional Irish dinner for Saint Patrick’s Day.”

My husband and I are going to have our grandson overnight. I was thinking carryout, but Gary was going by what usually happens in our house when there is a major or minor holiday, special TV show, event in someone’s life, or time when I am feeling creative; we have some kind of ridiculous theme dinner. Back in the years before I became bored with American Idol, I hosted a finale party that was both over the top and greatly anticipated by my guests. I’ve made Halloween food that included cheese goblins, stromboli snakes and shrunken apple heads floating in hot mulled cider. This past December I threw a Hanukkah party; we’re not Jewish. My latest project was baking 90 black and white cookies, 4 inches in diameter each, to save my daughter $135 had she ordered them from the bakery. Doing these things can be tiring, but it is something that is fun for me.

That being said, sometimes when we hit midlife, we woman tend to become ever so slightly unpredictable. I’ve discussed this phenomenon with my same age friends, and we came up with a few possible theories. Perhaps it’s the lack of sleep from the all-too-common complaint of insomnia. Maybe we’re just burned out from years of doing it all. Could it be that we are now too smart not to know that we can just go get ready-made food or let someone else take care of the work? We’re pretty sure that Hilary Clinton has better things to do than make baked brie en croute in the shape of a football, or fret over the blueberries being in a straight line on her July 4^th flag cake. Yet we wonder, does she sometimes board the plane and sit there in her seat, exhausted, and wonder, “OMG! Do I have to do EVERYTHING around here?”

And so what was an innocent suggestion, “Maybe you can make us a traditional Irish dinner for Saint Patrick’s Day”, ended with me slamming a box of Lucky Charms and a bottle of Guinness onto the counter. Sure I dug out my recipe for shepherd’s pie and homemade dinner rolls. But what is served will greatly depend on which Me wakes up on Saturday morning.