She Made It Christmas

Patricia Neal has died.

This noted character actress, known for her smoky voice and often gritty roles, played in many famous theatrical films, including Hud, The Subject Was Roses, and A Face in the Crowd, and her private struggles were almost as famous as her roles: in the 1960s she suffered a severe stroke and had to learn to do the simplest things again.

For me, Neal will always be remembered as Olivia Walton in The Homecoming. While Michael Learned made the character famous, it was Neal’s arresting performance that first defined her. True, Neal not only was older than the Olivia character, who should have been about thirty-six or –seven, but the after-effects of the stroke made her seem older than her forty-five years. However, she personified not only the strict but caring Depression-era mother who knew what it was like to struggle to keep her family clothed and fed, hiding her sorrow that “Santa Claus” could not deliver the gifts she wanted to give her children. However "tough" that Michael Learned played the role of Olivia in the television series (and Learned was noticably more strict in the early seasons), she never quite captured the bleakness that Neal’s Olivia must face each day with a husband away all week earning a meager living, scraping together food to feed her growing, hungry children, losing sleep to knit scarves into the evening so that each of those children would have some sort of Christmas gift under the tree. But then The Homecoming was always more gritty than the series (the novel grittier still) and Neal fit into that aspect with perfection, like Dorothea Lange’s 1930s "migrant mother" photo come to life.

Good night, Miss Neal.

Easter Is...Peace

We are spending a quiet day after our busy one yesterday, all the busier since we were both up late: James was down in the "man cave," and I was on chat. Near the end of chat, when the conversation was getting spotty, I went to the Android Market to find a couple more games. I'm not much on games, but I like to have something for lines or mindless waits. I found a Bejeweled clone that's themed for Christmas that had an extra fillip, and something akin to "Cash Cow" called Color Drips. Then I found the demo version of "Space Physics." OMG, best game ever. I want the full version.

I was playing the ten demo levels until after 3 a.m.!

We had a leisurely breakfast this morning while I posted an Easter card on my main blog and surveyed Facebook, and we listened to this week's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," then at lunchtime I put Here Comes Peter Cottontail on. I love the songs in this one, especially "Puzzle of Life" and "If I Could Only Get Back to Yesterday."

The show, in its entirety:

Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1970) Part 1

Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1970) Part 2

Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1970) Part 3

Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1970) Part 4

Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1970) Part 5

At this point James retreated down into the "man cave" and I put on The Easter Promise. Here is a short clip from this third Addie Mills story. The stories take place in the fictional "Clear River," Nebraska, and Jean Simmons plays Constance Payne, the local girl who "made good" as a Broadway actress. But she has proven a disappointment so far to Addie and her friends after she shows up at their style show drunk. Here Constance tries to make up for her gaffe by giving the girls dramatic lessons:

Clip from The Easter Promise

(In the story James brings home pussy willows, which I wrote about in a previous post.)

Now I am listening to a December "This Week in Tech" podcast (speculating about the just-released iPad!)

[Later: put on some music and finished Jesus, Interrupted. We had ham steak and rice pilaf for supper, with ice cream for dessert. Had a few laughs from American's Funniest Home Videos, then watched the "Birds" and "Deep Sea Creatures" installments of Life.]

Pussy Willows

We love trotting through Trader Joe's, seeing the different varieties of food, sampling whatever is in the back, having a cold sip of water from the cooler. The cashiers are more relaxed than at a grocery store, and lining the windows in front of the store are seasonal plants.

Today they had a short line of three pussy willow plants in the window. Coupled with the first day of spring, it was enough of a nudge into the past. I petted one of the little silver-and-grey catkins, having done it dozens of years and dozens of times in the past.

One of the first signs of spring when I was a kid was of my Uncle Guido showing up at the back door with a big bunch of pussy willows in his hand. They were for my mother, ever the plant lover, with the philodendron plant in a ceramic dish in the living room carefully nursed year after year, the rose bush ruthlessly pruned back every winter always to resurrect in crimson blooms in June, the "bridal veil bush" which bloomed in tiny white flowers and gave us flower petal "snow" when the blooms were blown, and Mother's azaleas, huge bushes on each side of the front steps, which blossomed vivid pink right around Mother's Day.

Mom would take the pussy willow stems and put them in a big glass vase reserved usually just for them. I was allergic to anything that bloomed and the pussy willows were the only thing that didn't make me sneeze. When Dad bought Mom roses for Mother's Day, they had to stay out on the back porch. But the pussy willows I could enjoy, and pet as if they were tiny grey kittens.

Uncle Guido spent his whole life with plants. For years he was a landscaper at the Alpine Country Club. When he wasn't making his living with botanical items, he was tending a big vegetable garden in the rear of his house, and every year as long as he was well, he would buy marigolds and argeratums (the "fuzzy purple flowers," I called them) and red salvias and pansies and plant them in the dormant beds in front of our house for Mom to baby and tend and water for the rest of the summer. Unlike me, he was unafraid of earthworms and the creepy-crawlies in the dirt, and, as he knelt in the soft grass that edged the flower beds, his calloused hands would take up each tender little plant from its tiny cup and lovingly set it into the soil, tamping it around the stem so it remained upright, facing the sun.

Uncle Guido left to work in another Garden last May, at the age of 91, but the sight of pussy willows will always remind me of him.

Buona Festa di San Guiseppe!

A baker's "half dozen" of St. Joseph's Day articles!

Zeppole Are Just Part of the Family business at DeLuise Bakery

Italian Eyes are Smiling as St. Joseph's Day Approaches

Chicago's La Madia Celebrates St. Joseph's Day

Thanking St. Joseph With Pasta, Pastries and Prayers

Chiff.com's St. Joseph's Day Article and Links

Celebrate St. Joseph's Day With Zeppole

Celebrate St. Joseph Feast Italian Way

End of the Trail

A sad day today: I got rid of the snow on my Farmville acreage. :-)

I also started taking down the rest of the Valentines Day decor (I took the porch items down last week, but then had a relapse and ran out of energy again) and the winter decor. The kitchen and dining room are back to normal and most of the living room is cleared. Still have the divider, the foyer, and the porch to go. The front door wreath is ready, at least.

The Bradford pear trees are beginning to bloom, too.

As I've said elsewhere, I can't quibble with this winter. It's been nice and chilly. We even lucked out at the Apple Festival last October. Last! It seems like just yesterday...the days just went by too fast!

Winter's End?

It was in the low 60s yesterday, and mid-/upper-60s today. Today's actually quite pretty, blue and very bright. I have all the windows open as I type and the birds occasionally interject commentary.

Friday I saw some light-green buds on some bushes on the way to Kroger, and yesterday we noted buds on the Bradford pear trees. Today as we came past one of the houses on our usual route home, one with a stone retaining wall next to the driveway, we noted that the phlox plant on the wall is in bloom. So spring is on its way, but we still have a week of 50s and 40s to look forward to.

My Snurgly Valentine

I had a cold over Valentine's Day, so it wasn't the fluffy romantic day that most women might have wanted. I was feeling pretty wretched, to be honest.

When I was feeling better on Friday, however, I got a bee in my bonnet about the game night. I had looked in the stores for old-fashioned Valentine cards like this one.


But everything I saw was media-based. Instead, I noted the little Valentine card kit I bought at Michaels last year. Along with some cute animal stickers, I made handmade cards for each person. I also made a Valentine card for James with an original verse inside. It was fun. I should do projects like this more often.

No pics, sorry. These were little cards, and the stickers were Suzy's Zoo cats and dogs and one bear.

Shadows and Sunshine

Looks like ol' Punxsatawney Phil has seen his shadow, so the Northeast supposedly will have six more weeks of winter, while General "Beau" Lee did not, which means spring is in the offing. Whatever. We're supposed to get gallons more rain on Thursday and Friday, just a normal winter day in the south.

I've been quiet since Epiphany...just nothing to say. My after-Christmas ennui seems to get worse each year.

Couldn't burn a candle today for Candlemas, so will try to do so tomorrow. My "roasted coffee" candles are almost at an end. Must get more, or the cafè au lait ones. Nothing is as soothing as the smell of brewing coffee.

We are supposed to have a game night next Saturday. The Valentine decorations should be up by then and I hope to do a minor Valentine theme. That should be fun. The day before our game night is the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. We missed most of this last time because of moving, so I'm hoping to enjoy all that snow this year!

Farewell, Christmas

It never seems to last long enough—not just Christmas, but that whole golden season that starts with a glimpse of fun to come: DragonCon, Yellow Daisy Festival, even Blue Ribbon Affair, as small as it has gotten. Then the air starts to chill and the real fun starts: the Apple Festival, vacation, preparing for Thanksgiving and then for Christmas, days that go by in a twinkling on enchanted wings.

Our party is Saturday, and of course a few bright lights will shine: Valentines Day, Atomicon, Timegate on Memorial Day weekend, but otherwise it's all downhill from here. First it will get warm, then the pine pollen will choke us for weeks and blanket the landscape with its dirty, gritty yellowness, then the flowers will bloom along with allergies...and then it will be...ugh...summer and then, even worse, end of fiscal year (misery doubled).

Pretty lights. Pretty tinsel. Pretty music. Lights, fun, frolic. Cool, sweet air.

Ah, well, maybe the snow will come through tomorrow...

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: Christmas on the Home Front

by Mike Brown

This is a fabulous book I found in the Hamilton Books catalog; even more fab because the homefront they are speaking of is the British one, not the American. This easy-read of a history book portrays each Christmas from 1939 through 1944, with a postscript for 1945, with personal remembrances, recipes and advert excerpts, and even reports of what pantomimes, BBC Christmas Day programming, and sports were conducted during each Christmas season. As the years progress, you can see the decline in foods for feasting and goods for giving due to wartime rationing. The super bonus about this book are the photos and especially the period adverts and cartoons from newspapers and even the famous "Beano" peppering the text: everything from companies reminding people that their product will be back after the war to recipes for "mock goose" and "wartime mincemeat pies," dinners colored with colorful veg instead of fruits and instructions for home-made gifts like pin-on mascots made of knitting yarn. Super look at wartime Britain!

C is for Christmas Convocations (Continued)

We spent the rest of New Year's Day relaxing. I finished all my Christmas magazines—Victorian Homes was beautiful as always (and lots of simple decorating ideas) as well as Early American Life Christmas; the British Country Living was also quite nice, with articles about people who have Christmas-oriented businesses, like Christmas tree farms, and I even picked up the British Country Homes which had some very simple, pleasant decorations, like using red-and-white towels (no Christmas designs needed) to emphasize the Christmas theme; Cottages and Bungalows looked nice, but was a bit disappointing, with too many pale things; oh, and I bought O Magazine because Ellen made such a fuss to get on the cover, but sad to say I found it a little dull, with too much fashion—and we watched various things we'd recorded, like Conquest.

[Re O—when I was in Barnes & Noble the other day, I saw a British magazine called Women and Home. I have one of these from the 1980s, and have kept it because of the fascinating British-life articles, including a story about a woman who was an embroiderer who did robes for the Archbishop of Canterbury, with photos of a beautiful Pentecost robe with the "flaming tongues." I was so disappointed when I looked at the newest version: slick, glossy, like Cosmo and O, with lots of ads and articles about makeup and makeovers and fashion and clothing—ugh...nothing unique about it at all. How sad.]

Today we went down to Warner Robins to visit James' mom and sisters, and also his youngest sister and her husband, who were visiting from South Carolina. Between James' work schedule and Mom's work schedule, this was the first day we could get together; we even had to miss James' niece Nicki, who had to go home earlier in the week.

It was a nice, sunny day, but also very cold for Georgia: when we left it was in the 20s but with the wind chill making it feel like the teens. We made a slight detour to go by the hobby shop and bring Rusty a Christmas gift: a Confederate calendar with artwork done by Mort Kuntsler, who started out doing art on model boxes. Then we got on the freeway and headed south. Despite the new "Super Speeder" law, many people were just zipping along at the speed of light. Many "snowbirds" going down to the Kingdom of the Mouse, we assume, including a New York van that was simply encrusted with salt from top to tire. Once I was out of Virginia I would have run that thing through a car wash. My dad tried to get his car washed every week during snow season; the salt is terribly corrosive.

We stopped in Jonesboro at the complex where BJs/Books-a-Million is, to hit Wendys for something to eat. Well, yeah, we also went into the bookstore. I found the January Country Extra (more snow photos!)—no more until fall now—and a Robert Fulghum book I didn't even know existed from the $3 last chance shelf. Haven't read any Fulghum in ages.

Arrived at Mom's a little after noon. Instead of making dinner, we had little finger foods—chicken wings, veggie and fruit tray items, the peanut pork rolls James made, pigs-in-blankets, little meatballs, etc.—and watched NCIS while waiting for James' younger sister and her husband all afternoon (they just moved and their clothes dryer wasn't working properly). I've seen NCIS before—it was a show my mom liked and reruns were a godsend the six weeks I was up there in May 2005 (along with the various permutations of CSI) since she had no cable and I absolutely loathe reality shows—but I think that's the most I've ever watched of the series at one time. I love Abby! And of course "Ducky" (heck, I remember when all the girls swooned over David McCallum back when he was in The Man From UNCLE).

We headed home about 7:30 and didn't get home until wayyyyyyyy after ten because of 20 stupid miles between the Tanger Outlets and the split to I-675. It was stupid because there were no more cars on the road as there had been south of Tanger, but there it was the speed limit and whap! at Tanger it was stop-and-go until a half mile before the split. A lot of traffic went off right to the split, but in reality it looked like "poof!"—block gone! What a pain!

So home again and chatting...

from all of us here:
Linda
James
Willow
and of course
Schuyler

C is for Christmas Crafts Continued

Remember this?



Well, it now looks like this:



You can see roof, top glass, and pavement have been slightly "dirtied down."

Poster has a soldier with "We'll Meet Again...Buy More War Bonds" surrounding.

The handbill at front says "War Bond Rally...7 PM City Hall...Help our boys fight!"

Here's the other side:



"Kilroy" grafitti visible. The poster says "When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler...join a car-sharing club today!"

All done to a lovely accompaniment of Strauss on WABE: selections from Die Fledermaus and also "The Beautiful Blue Danube"—which, of course, I can't hear without thinking of Rudolf and Flavia dancing in The Prisoner of Zenda (the original, of course, with Ronald Colman...drool...).

I never could find a proper figure to go in the stair. I'll look again next year. I have a stray cat that can be placed outside.

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: A Christmas Promise

by Anne Perry

Okay, having a donkey and a dark-skinned foreign gentleman named Mr. Balthasar in a Christmas story is a bit derivative—but I found it didn't matter.

Thirteen-year-old Gracie Phipps—who will soon become a servant in the household of Charlotte and Thomas Pitt—lives with her impoverished grandmother in one of the poorest areas of London and soon faces life working in a factory. But just before Christmas she befriends 8-year-old Minnie Maude, whose Uncle Alf has just been murdered while on his rag-and-bone route. Minnie is desperately searching for Uncle Alf's donkey Charlie, who vanished after the murder, and good-hearted Gracie promises the little girl that she will help her look for the creature.

But as the two children start asking questions, it becomes obvious that others involved with the crime, like Minnie's aunt and uncle and the man who found Uncle Alf's body, are frightened, but frightened of what? And is the killer now stalking Gracie and her new friend?

Perry's descriptions of Gracie's life bring this little mystery to life: the cold, the poverty, the residents' efforts to celebrate Christmas despite their social situation. It's an exciting tale that solves a further mystery in its final two pages.

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: The Christmas Tree

by Daniel J. Foley

Another library find! I have Foley's Christmas the World Over, but this volume is a treat as well. Foley talks about the custom of bringing greens into the house, and the history, as far as it can be determined, of the Christmas tree custom, and the Christmas tree custom in the United States, followed by a history of Christmas tree lights and also Christmas tree growing. The book was published in 1960, so the photos are all in black and white except for a four-page color insert, and any photos with people have a quaint quality now, like those in the early part of the century, but I note that several myths that still persist to this day, such as Martin Luther being the creator of the Christmas tree, have already been gently debunked, or at least designated as "not proven," in this volume.

Legends connecting other plants with Christmas, a chapter on Christmas decorations from the original apples to the shiny Germany ornaments, and information on other Christmas-tree substitutes (like the German pyramid and the Italian ceppo) are also included, with a wealth of 18th and 19th century engravings.

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: The Light of Christmas

edited by Frances Brentano

Last year I purchased several older Christmas story collections (The Fireside Book of Christmas Stories, Uncle Toby's Christmas Book, etc.) looking for uncommon Christmas stories, ones I had not read over and over in multiple anthologies. I did find many, especially in Jack Newcombe's New Christmas Treasury, but I was still dissatisfied.

This year this book turned up at the library and darned if it wasn't just what I was looking for! It has six sections, the first stories centered around Christ's birth from various POVs—including a play written by Dorothy L. Sayers of Lord Peter Wimsey fame!—and then around the influence of the Biblical tale. The third section has stories about children at Christmas, the fourth about families, the fifth and sixth filled with fictional Christmas stories and Christmas memories. Several of them were familiar, like Robert Tristam Coffin's "Christmas in Maine," but all were joys, including the Biblical tales "The Sequel to Bethlehem," "Anniversary" (about a hunchbacked child), "Journey to Christmas," the Christmas chapter of Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, "Christmas on the Prairie" from Bess Streeter Aldrich's classic A Lantern in Her Hand, the Moss Hart Christmas anecdote later used in PBS' Simple Gifts, and more. It was an absolutely delightful read!

C is for Christmas Convocations

We had a quiet Sunday morning and afternoon. The moment we rose, James put both the gingerbread and the brownies in the oven, so they would be cool enough to decant before we left for the Lawsons' house. Read. Watched Schuyler. James eventually fell asleep in his chair. Nice.

From 4 p.m. onward we were at the Lawsons for a combination games night/gift exchange. The gingerbread and the brownies were a big hit, and even the cookies we brought had a big dent made in their amount. We got some majorly cool gifts which I opened so quickly and with such pleasure that I have pretty much forgotten which gift was from whom, but they were all fantastic: small things to use with electronics, a cool Disney book and a cross-stitch volume, two lovely plaques for the house, cashews, and others. The guys, as usual, went into the den and discussed changing the world, the kids played various video games, and we ladies played the new Mental Floss trivia game and a Cranium dice game where you had to complete three challenges, like totaling up to a certain number, finding three images, fitting a word into a sentence, or doing a "stunt." Both were wonderful fun!

Sadly, we had to head home about eight so James could get ready for work.

And so endeth St. John the Apostle Day...

C is for Christmas Crafts

One of the things I bought yesterday was the "Carol Towne" subway entrance:



Since about half of the mantelpiece village is a city scene, I thought it would be appropriate between two of the buildings rather than the trees I have there now.

But my scene is wartime/1940s and the Carol Towne piece Victorian era, and it also has no "snow" on it like the other pieces, so this morning I took it into my own "Santa's workshop" and started to work some magic on it. First I aged it just slightly by dry brushing some brown and grey paint on the "onion dome" type top and on the "glass" roof and overhang. I also put some on the floor to the entrance so it will look like people with dirty boots have tramped in and out. On one of the panes of "glass" opposite the newspaper box I drew a "Kilroy was here" figure.

From there I could have just added white paint, but I like the snow to be a little more three-dimensional, so I have used Elmer's glue to make little "snow piles" at the sides and in the cuts on the entrance dome. Right now those are drying and I will paint over with white paint when it is finished. I also used a black paint pen to correct something: the price on the newspaper dispensing machine (which they actually wouldn't have had back in Victorian times, just a newsboy) said "25¢"—good heavens, even magazines didn't cost that much at the time, and not even in the 1940s! So I blotted out the "2."

In the meantime I have printed out two WWII posters on James' color printer: the "You drive with Hitler when you drive alone" poster which I thought appropriate for a subway entrance, and another war bond poster, plus made a home-made sign announcing a War Bond rally for 7 p.m. at City Hall. Those will be glued on the sides of the entrance after it's "snowed." Then it will be finished, although I am toying with another idea. Of course there is no stairway "down" except for a black spot representing the stairwell. I was thinking of buying a figure and then cutting it in half, gluing the top half of the figure on the "stairwell" so it looks as if someone coming up from the subway.

Fun stuff...love doing this!

C is For Christmas Deflation

Gah. I woke several times during the night, and when James got up for work, and again, and again, and finally with a post-Christmas depression that just wouldn't quit. I've been fighting these depression attacks since after vacation and this one annoyed me. I have nothing to be depressed about. I had a nice Christmas. We are looking forward to a nice Christmastide with dinner out tonight and a games night tomorrow and a family visit next Saturday and a party the Saturday after that. But James is at work and I'm morose and for a while I huddle in my self-made misery.

Finally I roused myself to re-envelope and stamp a card that the post office returned. I had the right address; she went away for a few days and had the post awful hold her mail. When the box holding her mail got too full, they returned all the rest. Duh. And the USPS wonders why they are losing business. I also sent a card to cousins I hadn't seen in a while; she sent me a note via her son's Facebook page.

Then I dressed and went out to stick the cards in the mailbox, and went out. Stopped at Borders, which is starting a sale today. Found something for James and also Irene Pepperberg's Alex and Me. Stopped at Lowes, but evidently they have been clearancing their Christmas stuff for a while; the place was stripped. Where the Christmas trees were are flowers in pots. Only a few ornaments and village pieces remained, not even any light strings or bulbs. I found a subway entrance for my manteltop village, and something I just bought because of the nostalgic vibes. Except for the tiny wreaths on its sides, it doesn't even look like a Christmas building. It's a circa 1950s-1960s bowling alley, complete with a window to look at the bowlers, and a sign that advertises billiards, just like the old Garden City Lanes. I had to buy it. Maybe I'll use it as a nightlight downstairs or something.

Stopped at a CVS and bought some more tinsel. Heaven knows, maybe someday they'll quit making it, and then what will I do?

Finally went from one "Love Street" store to the next, spending my birthday savings. I found a gift in Love Street Home (and bought an identical piece for myself). Looked around the Love Street Heart and Soul store, but couldn't decide, so went across the parking lot to the main store. Bought some half-price Christmas ornaments, and a "girlfriend" for "Woody" the log reindeer. It's a log reindeer with holly for antlers, so I named her "Holly." It's also real holly, so I'll have to find replacements by next year or find something artificial.

What can I say? Woody looked lonely. :-)

Came home intending to eat lunch and ended up contending with an overflowing toilet. It made me cranky again, and I ended up not eating except for some bread and later an orange.

Gotta go...need to take Wil out before James gets home.

C is For Christmas (Evening Edition)

We had dinner at the Butlers...a small crowd this year: only four Lucyshyns and two Skidmores along with two Youngs and four Butlers along with Lin's mother, who did manage to visit despite her hip problems. We had a magnificent dinner, with ham, tenderloin, and a Cajun turkey (I skipped the latter, but I understand it was delicious), Ron's mashed potatoes, James' corn casserole, the Trader Joe's Thai ginger carrots I brought, brussels sprouts, Lin's apple stuffing, and other stuff I've forgotten. Plus for dessert there were big cherry and blueberry pies, and Lin made the little piecrust goodies as always. Between dinner and dessert there were presents, but the company was the best gift of all.

On the way home, James drove in and out of the streets so we could see more light displays, and then we came home and relaxed until it was bedtime, which was early, since James had to work on the morrow...