Reflections Without a Campfire

The majority of the photos in today's post were taken at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge and the Opryland Hotel in Nashville (both in Tennessee).  These establishments truly know how to do it up right for the holiday season. 

Earlier this month, Alan and I took an impromptu trip to Tennessee.  For years we had talked about visiting both Dollywood and Nashvillle during the holiday season.  This year a Tennessee Christmas adventure finally fit into our schedule – after the holiday shopping was done but before the gifts were wrapped and in between two critical dental appointments.  I needed a shoehorn (remember those?) to wedge it into our calendar, but wedge it I did.

We nicknamed the trip the “Wing and a Prayer” trip, although it’s officially known as the “Tennessee Christmas” trip in my notes.  The nickname came about due to the speed with which it was planned and the hope that the weather would cooperate.  It didn’t.  We endured several drippy days in Pigeon Forge, and Ryan had to plow out his sister at home not once, but twice, in Alan’s absence.  When Kyra awoke one morning to yet more snow and with Ryan already at work for the day, she took it upon herself to take Alan’s sub-compact tractor out and cleared the few inches of snow herself.  Just for the record, yes, we did feel bad for the kids.  And no, not enough to say we’ll never do that again.

With the travel trailer winterized for the year, we hoteled it.  I am definitely spoiled by having my own personal space and easy access to all my “stuff” when we travel with the camper.  Schlepping our luggage in and out of hotel rooms and sleeping in a bed with a gazillion other people (that’s figuratively speaking, people) took some getting used to.  So did the difference in cost between a campsite and a hotel room.  I almost had a blue Christmas.

On our way to Tennessee, we stopped in Hershey, Pennsylvania, to enjoy the Sweet Lights tour.  It was a two mile, drive-through loop with a number of very impressive lighting displays.  Once we hit Tennessee, it was off for a very full day of music shows and attractions at Dollywood that were accompanied by some really gorgeous displays of holiday lights.  While there in Pigeon Forge, we also took in shows at three different theaters and spent two days in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  One day during our stay, we backtracked a bit to visit the Bush’s Beans Visitor Center in Dandridge, Tennessee – a favorite stop for us.  We enjoyed a tasty lunch and good conversation with the staff at the “bar” in their Café and wandered through the recently renovated museum.  Just delightful!

Joe Bruner over at Easin’ Along and his wife, Helen, made time in their holiday schedule to meet us for a meal as we traveled through Tennessee on our way from Pigeon Forge to Nashville.  It’s always a treat to see the Bruners!  Upon our arrival in Nashville, we enjoyed the Grand Ole Opry Christmas Show with friends Kathy and Albert, and spent a fun-filled day with them catching up and checking out the beautiful Christmas lights in Franklin.  They indulged my desire to eat at Amerigo’s in Brentwood again – home of the best ever Chicken Piccata!  YUM!  It may have been only a 10 day trip, but Alan and I jammed a whirlwind of activity into those 10 days and took home lots of happy memories.  But that’s not really what this post is about.

Being on the road for 2,000 miles, give or take, during the holiday season gives you lots of time to talk, listen to Christmas carols, admire holiday decorations and think.  Although this trip did kinda sorta throw a wrench into our usual holiday schedule, it was a ton of fun and allowed plenty of quiet time on the road to reminisce.  Even though the week between our arrival home and Christmas Day was a bit of a scramble, the reminiscing continued.  I enjoyed a total of three solid days of solitude while baking Christmas cookies and wrapping gifts.  The last time Alan baked anything was before we were married.  (In case you’re wondering, it was a chocolate cake with homemade frosting and it was excellent!)  This year he was happy to fulfill his usual duties as Chief Cookie Taster, and he did help me clean up the cookie sheets.  We don’t wrap presents together since we have only one table set up with gift wrapping supplies for community use.  So, it was a pretty quiet three days for me – all the better to think.

I was thinking about Christmases past. When I was young, my mother went all out for the holidays.  Mom decorated our small house with every cheerful bauble that she had collected over the years, stitched her own red and green placemats and tablecloths, baked dozens and dozens of cookies every single year and infused our home with her enthusiastic love for and celebration of all things Christmas.  My parents didn’t have a lot of money to spare, but Mom always managed to conjure up the BEST Christmases.

While baking dozens of Christmas cookies, my thoughts turned to the ghosts of Christmas cookies past.  Our family has so many favorite Christmas cookies that I have to rotate them in and out to prevent my death by baking exhaustion in any given year.  The recipe for Marzipan cookies is probably 60 years old - and handled very carefully due to its fragility at this point.  I remember it from when I was a little kid baking cookies with my Mom.  Our daughter, Kyra, doesn’t even like Marzipan cookies, but she reveres the recipe because of its history.  My preference is for glass Pyrex measuring cups, but every year Mom’s old (dare I say “antique”) aluminum measuring cup waits on the counter, just in case I need an extra.

My “Baking with Mom” adventures didn’t end when I became an adult or even when I married Alan.  Every year until 2003, when Mom passed away just three days before Christmas, I would go home to bake Christmas cookies with her.  Our kids joined the annual tradition as toddlers, and my mother considered every Christmas cookie minute spent with her grandkids to be treasured opportunities to smother them with love and cover them with flour.  Her passing on December 22^nd was bittersweet.  She went home at Christmas, her favorite time of year.  Our home at Christmas would never be the same.

With Christmas carols playing in the background and treasured memories of baking with Mom keeping me company this year, my thoughts covered a lot of territory.  Every year I ask Alan, Kyra, Ryan and now our daughter-in-law, Anya, for their Christmas cookie requests.  Every year Chocolate Crinkle cookies top the list.  Alan and the two kids have loved them for years; even Anya names them as her favorite.  This year I baked a double batch so there would be plenty to take to Ryan and Anya’s on Christmas Day.  They – oh, so fortuitously – said they wanted to host Christmas dinner this year for our family and Anya’s parents.  At the end of the night, I told Ryan to take whatever cookies he wanted to keep from the platter we brought.  When I wrapped up the leftovers later, I saw that all of the Chocolate Crinkle cookies were gone and I smiled.  Some things never change.  And I hope they never will.

Gift wrapping provided me with another opportunity to reminisce, particularly because there was an overabundance of smaller, less expensive gifts to wrap this year, as opposed to fewer, more expensive gifts.  This year, I spent a copious amount of time wrapping a boatload of gifts and thinking about how we’ve enjoyed Christmas as a family over the years.

That tiny sign in the lower right corner says, "Santa's Watching, Do Not Climb!"

When the kids were young, we’d pick one night during the holiday season to drive all over the county looking at Christmas lights – or “Chrislits” as we call them.  The lights tour would be followed by a stop at Dunkin’ Donuts for munchkins followed by hot chocolate.  This was a beloved tradition, especially when “Nana” was alive because she would come with us and we would all gather around her kitchen table afterward.  She would serve hot chocolate in special Christmas mugs for the kids.  I still have those mugs and we still use them.  Every year, as Christmas approaches, Kyra says, “It’s almost time for Nana’s mugs!”  She was only four when my mother passed, and it’s heartwarming to see that she still enjoys such a deep connection with her.

Although Alan and I almost always take a Christmas lights tour during the holiday season, the kids have, alas, aged out of coming with us.  So, we instituted the Secret Santa Run as a new holiday tradition.  Alan and I pick a day during the holiday season to deliver a gift to Kyra, Ryan and now Anya, too, while they’re at work.  As much as I don’t like admitting this in public, I have to tell you that our young ladies are very inconsiderate.  Anya works in a school district an hour north of us; Kyra works in a barber shop an hour south of us.  Ryan, good guy that he is, leaves his truck at a Verizon location right in the middle.  So, Alan and I drove a total of three hours and 150+ miles to leave token gifts on cars or, in Anya’s case, in the school office for them.  (We decided early on that it’s not a good idea to go prowling around a school parking lot looking for her car.  We’re not sure the kids would be willing to pony up bail money.)  Sometimes, we have a win; sometimes, a fail.  One year, some of Kyra’s barber colleagues were taking a break on the back deck and spotted us sneaking into the lot to leave the gift in her car.  Of course, they called her out and we were busted.  We had better luck this year.  It was a win with Ryan – he spotted the box of dark chocolate covered raisins on his windshield despite the fact that he returned to his truck in the dark.  It was a win with Anya – she got called to the office (to pick up her gift) and became concerned when it looked like the Assistant Principal was waiting there for her.  She was happy to find out that she had been summoned only to pick up some fresh croissants.  With Kyra, it was a combination of win and fail.  We remained undetected as we stealthily cruised the parking lot in the rain, but I had forgotten her extra set of car keys and we needed to leave her favorite bakery treat – a sugar raisin bun – on the windshield of her car.  It was protected by a plastic bag, but we still felt the need to text her to suggest that she check her car.  Because it’s such a busy time of year at the barber shop, our Secret Santa Run wasn’t even on her radar.  It ended up being a win and a fail because it was a surprise, but not a surprise.  I always laugh about our Secret Santa escapades.  We spend way more in gas than we do on the gifts and we have no idea whether or not the kids think it’s as much of a hoot as Alan and I do.  Maybe years from now the kids will reflect on their own Christmases past and will recall the hilarious antics of their off-the-wall parents.  Hope springs eternal.    

Another Christmas morning memory that replayed in my mind this year as I wrapped gift after gift was our kids’ involvement with our nativity set.  Alan and I were raised as Catholics, as were our kids when they were young.  We no longer attend church, but I like to think I still have a good relationship with God.  Traditionally, the nativity is set up in our living room on the second shelf of the entertainment unit, right hand side.  One of the sheep was dropped a long time ago and broke into several pieces.  He was glued back together and named Joshua after the crippled lamb in the book of the same name by Max Lucado (“The Crippled Lamb: A Christmas Story about Finding Your Purpose”).  The cow in our nativity set was named Abigail in honor of Josh’s best friend in the story.  The Three Wise Men are tucked back in the corner of the shelf waiting to begin their journey to follow the star.  The Baby Jesus hides behind the stable until the day of his birth when he “miraculously” appears.  Every Christmas morning when Ryan and Kyra were young, one of them would reach behind the stable to bring out Baby Jesus and set him next to Mary and Joseph.  It warmed my heart to see this tradition continue throughout their teenage years and on into adulthood.  I find it puzzling though.  Neither of our kids attends church; neither is overly or overtly religious.  Yet the Baby Jesus continues to “be born” first thing every Christmas morning.  Even after Ryan had moved out of the house, he would still check on the Baby whenever he came for Christmas dinner.  This year Kyra asked me to video her reaching behind the stable for Baby Jesus so that she could still share the event with Ryan who was celebrating Christmas morning with Anya at their own home.  It’s such a little thing and yet one that has prompted great reflection and, just maybe, a tiny threat of tears.

When I was a kid, we would open our presents early on Christmas morning and then go to Mass.  Somehow (and, to this day, I still don’t know how) my mother would serve Christmas dinner at 12 noon for our family of four, then turn our dining room into party central by 5:00 p.m. when my aunts and uncles and cousins would come over for Christmas night.  I can’t imagine how she managed to prepare all the food (big Italian family = LOTS of food) and not collapse from exhaustion.  (Note to Self: Exhaustion seems to be a recurring theme during the holiday season.  Plan accordingly.)  Our small home was jam-packed with people, laughter and, best of all, love.  As aunts and uncles passed and cousins grew up and moved away, my mother’s family’s tradition of gathering on Christmas night fell by the wayside.  Still, she continued creating Christmas feasts for our immediate family and, in time, my husband, my brother’s wife and the four grandchildren we produced among us.  My mother was in her glory – family and food – life didn’t get any better than that.

I enjoy hosting Christmas dinner, but I’m not as invested in the event as my mother was.  When Ryan and Anya offered to host this year for our family and Anya’s parents, we were delighted to accept their invitation.  Could I have pulled off Christmas dinner having just arrived home from Tennessee a week earlier?  Yes, absolutely.  But I wouldn’t have enjoyed the process nearly as much as usual.  So, we happily packed up the presents, a six-pack of sparkling juice and the platter of all of those Christmas cookies that had prompted my wanderings down Memory Lane.  Anya had asked if I would make the gravy for the roast.  So, Ryan and I worked side by side at their stove to get it done while Anya prepped the side dishes to be delivered to the table.  When Ryan spooned up a bit of the gravy for a final taste test, his eyebrows shot up in surprise as he announced, “It’s good!”  It was my mother who taught me to make gravy; now I’ve passed that skill on to our son, and another tradition endures.

No formal seating arrangement at Christmas dinner meant that the seven of us were free to choose our chairs.  Ryan and Kyra opted to sit next to each other.  Despite their ages (28 and 23), they still whispered conspiratorially, prompting several threats by the actual adults at the table to separate the two of them.  Unfortunately, this seems to be yet another tradition at our family dinners.  Some things never change.  And I hope they never will.

By the way, just so you know, I was originally going to title this post, “Reflections Around the . . . Fireplace.”  Since we ran out of propane while watching a Hallmark movie on Christmas Eve and the fire in the fireplace abruptly put itself out, I thought it best that I not.  We decided to wait until the next morning to swap tanks since it was so darn cold outside.  Alan had checked the tank not that long ago.  Since our kitchen stove runs on propane, I’m thinking it was all that Christmas cookie baking that did us in.  Let’s hope that doesn’t turn into an annual tradition.

"When we are gone, it's the memories we made that remain with those that loved us." 

                                                      ~ D. Davidson

No matter what holidays, activities, traditions and events you embrace at this time of year, I hope your days have been filled with the love of family and friends, the joy of celebrating old memories and making new ones, and more than enough laughter to carry you through the upcoming year.  Best wishes to each and every one of you for all of life’s best in 2023!