Traditions Take Time

Traditions Take Time

Taking Time to Create

     Gingerbread-brown is her new name for it – the color of the pullover. Even after spraying it with water and laying it flat the cables are still springy. The Lady-of-House made the neck roomy.

     Little children have large heads and some don’t like to be stuck in the dark, inside a tight pullover, even for a moment. “Help,” she could hear her two-year-old grandson whimper while trying to dress himself. He can be screech-volume-loud when kicking a ball around, or when his brother accidentally knocks his blocks over, but in asking for help he manages to lower his voice to a piteous, impish plea. It works like a charm when there are females present. Is he conscious of the power of his cuteness?

sweater, n. :  garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.            Ambrose Bierce

     Years back, at the culmination of a complicated Christmas, the Lady-of-the-House slouched on the sofa with a long sigh. Gifts were unwrapped that morning, stomachs were full with Christmas dinner, dishes were washed . . . and she was relaxing. It was a gray, foggy afternoon. Heavy raindrops had washed away all the pretty white snow. The woodstove heated the room to a drowsy-comfort.  “Now I can hook my sheep,” the Lady-of-the-House said. She opened the Harrisville kit, nestled the round-edged hook in the palm of her hand, and pulled her first piece of wool into a little loop. “I think I’m going to like this craft,” she prophesized.

     It had been the busiest and most exuberant Christmas season ever. Children’s music rehearsals and recitals, church ministry, parties, shopping, caroling, cookie baking, hospitality, filled the schedule to the brim. Now a lull was welcome. She pulled loops all that week, adding extra yarn to the border of the design, hooking round and round as the canvas would allow.

    

     That tiny rug rested, here and there in closets - for an embarrassing amount of years. Only recently had it occurred to the Lady-of-the-House what to do with it. The notion entered her mind after inspecting her woven-in-American tablecloth which had covered many a holiday dinner table - and dinners in between. “This has seen better days. It’s in a permanent state of stains,” she pronounced. “I can’t give it away. But I can’t throw it away, either. Hmm, I’ll cut away its stain-free borders for fabric and make a pillow with my little sheep in the middle of it,” she recovered brightly. And so she did, this season.

Taking Time to Wander

     This year Christmas is uncomplicated. The Lady-of-the-House chose to forego a tall tree. What a quiet joy to see so many of the family ornaments now decorating her married daughters’ homes. She also passed along a stack of Christmas books, saving a portion of for her own basket. She’s been told that similar reading-baskets bedeck the homes of other self-taught people. This tradition of enrichment places cheer, interest, and inspiration in easy reach.    

     “I remember this,” she exclaimed to her then already teenage children while sorting through dusty boxes in a ramshackle used-book-shop in Owl’s Head, Maine, some years back. Thus, Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree by Robert Barry published in 1963, was purchased for old-times-sake. It is a 5-minute story with black and white pen-drawings shaded only in green. This cheery fairytale has a Goldilocks-and-the-Three-Bears-feel-to-it in its theme of size and reads in rhyme like the poem, The Night Before Christmas.  

     Mr. Willowby is well-to-do as evidenced by his house fronted with stately columns. His ceilings are lofty but not quite high enough to fit the over-sized Christmas tree. Baxter, the butler, climbs up a ladder and chops off the top. He presents the piece to the upstairs maid. She sets it on a table in her attic room but to make it fit she snips off the top and throws it out. The story reduces down in scale to the size and circumstances of each owner as families of people and woodland creatures find one piece of Mr. Willowby’s tree smaller than the next and make it part of their Christmas festivities. The last page is the cutest.  

     In the Maine-days, her sister mailed the Lady-of-the-House this stylized St. Nicholas, obviously sympathizing with life in the back woods. His cross-country ski poles are tipped with a touch of glitter. The basket on his back is filled with fruit and gift boxes. Where had the Lady-of-the-House seen a similar St. Nicholas? “Ah, that’s right,” she thought, “in Efner Tudor Home’s The Christmas Cat, illustrated by Tasha Tudor.” 

     
     In the story a tall man with a brown beard, dressed like a lumberjack, is cruising through the snow into a clearing in the woods, balancing on a large bobsled that is pulled by two heavy draft horses. The man has an owl on his shoulder. He is a friend to the forest creatures and stops to feed those that have followed the sound of the horses’ bells. Among them is a gray cat shivering in the cold. On Christmas morning the cat appears in the house of two little boys where it curls up on a pillow by the fireside. But who is the generous man? Shh, don’t tell anyone, but he looks a little like another bearded fellow in the story.

     Tasha Tudor’s watercolor scenes inside and outside the house, transport the nostalgic-prone to simpler times.

Taking Time to Wonder

     With the woods bare and white, a few brave Pennsylvania birds can be spotted now and again by those who are accustomed to peering out of windows at different times of the day. The Man-of-the-House and his Lady abruptly stopped their lunch preparations. They were startled by a bird’s song. It sounded so loud and clear that they momentarily wondered if the bird were inside the house. His Lady traced the source to the fireplace. “It must be perched on the chimney,” she said. Two verses were shouted from the housetop. That was all. But they were beautiful, sweet verses.

Taking Time to Worship

     The chimney-top bird affirmed their efforts toward hospitality and “friendship evangelism” this season, bringing the chorus of a Christmas song to mind.

Go tell it on the mountain

Over the hills and everywhere

Go tell it on the mountain

That Jesus Christ is born

     Wishing you traditions of enrichment,

Karen Andreola