Saturday morning, 4:30: I’m writing the column early this week. We have an early deadline because of the holidays coming. But mostly I want to capture the excitement of awakening to snow covering the ground and still falling.
I had come down to check the fire and fill the wood stove. The ground, snow-whitened, caught my eye. I turned on the outside light to see snow falling. It was already thick on the ground and caught in every branchlet and twig, picked out like a drawing highlighted with the palest line in the palest color. The PeeGee hydrangea tree outside our living room windows has snow caught in its dried flower heads, now whitened again into rounded puffs.
Talley wanted to go out. I opened the door, and noticed Nelson’s footprints from an earlier foray. They were almost filled in. Talley stepped off the porch and disappeared, obscured by thickly falling snowflakes. They appear to make a trail as they pass through the light.
It’s supposed to get warm today after the past two days of winter cold and loudly soughing wind. Glad we brought in extra wood last night.
Saturday morning, 9:15: My beautiful snow is almost gone. Rain has been falling for awhile, melting snow, and puddling atop the cooler ground. Slush that’s thick, slippery and wet, that soaks through my shoes and socks when I walk outside for the paper. Should have worn boots. My wonderful newspaper lady has wrapped the paper well, so it’s perfect, dry and readable, inside its blue bag.
Sunday evening into Monday morning: Can’t sleep. It’s been a busy day. I start writing longhand from notes, then sleep for awhile, awaken and begin writing again about 4.
Our art group’s Christmas party at Liz Taft’s at noon. Our whole group is there. Leslie Baker and I drive together from West Tisbury, with time to visit in her car. Liz and Nancy’s house looks festive and smells fragrant from a delicious buffet laid out and the greenery they have decorated with. Jeanne Staples hands us glasses of perfect mimosas. Everyone is talking at once.
I had hoped to make it to the Long Hill Christmas party and the concert at the church. Instead, Mike and I went searching through our woods for the perfect Christmas tree. It was an opportunity to enjoy and observe our woods. We hadn’t walked in a long time through what used to be called “the nature trail,” paths from Mike’s Aunt Janice’s house and our house to the clearing to his parents’ house and meadow. The paths are overgrown now. Both houses have been sold. There’s just a wide strip of woods that’s ours. I found a grove of beech trees. The white pines my father-in-law planted 30-some years ago now reach to the sky. Birds drop seeds throughout those woods. Perfect little spruces and firs spring up out of nowhere. They become our Christmas trees.
This is a funny one, open branches spread as wide as the tree is tall. After much discussion, we decided on a small tree to go on the table in our sunroom. Mike had to retrofit the stand, but it works, and our little tree looks perfect. It fills our view. Lights sparkle. I glance over and see Nelson already in the branches. It will be a miracle if that cat doesn’t electrocute himself or upend the whole tree on top of himself.
Later at Katherine Long’s Solstice party, I was telling Katherine, her sister Mary Ruth, and Sandy Atwood about Nelson and the tree. Mary Ruth had a much better story. One year, she had brought in a tree that had a mouse living in it. Not for long, as she had seven cats at the time. Seven cats who not only rid that particular tree of its inhabitant, but seven cats with years of experience climbing into, knocking over, and destroying Christmas trees until Mary Ruth began securing the trees with systems of wire and screw eyes. Gravity and cats. Curiosity and playfulness and cats.
It was a great Solstice party. Loads of friends and food and twinkling lights. The highlight was clearly Katherine’s great-granddaughter, Emma Rose, who gurgled and flung her arms and legs trying to crawl across a soft blanket, and watched us all as we watched her. I got to see Brian and Kate Athearn before they left, had a lovely, long visit with Steve and Sandy Atwood. Mariko Kawaguchi and David Kish, Glen and Rosemary Jackson, Minor Knight and her dad, Christina Brown, Wendy and Bill Colbert, proud grandparents of the amazing Emma Rose. It was a great Solstice party.
Monday morning, 8:30: More parties and occasions to come. The library this afternoon. I can’t wait to hear the Dunkls play Christmas music and to see everyone. Don’t forget that the library closes at 2 pm on Saturday, and remains closed Christmas Day and Monday, Dec. 26. The library is showing family and young adult movies at 1:30 pm through school vacation week. The Community of Mindfulness will meet Tuesday, Dec. 27, at 6 pm. Meet your town nurse and get your blood pressure checked on Wednesday, 1 to 3.
The church’s Advent services have been a respite from all the bustle and preparations. Only one Wednesday to go. The pageant begins at the Ag Hall at 5 pm on Christmas Eve. Hundreds of people attend, so plan to come early to park and get a seat. Elle Lash is directing this year. She and Libby Fielder have been rehearsing with the cast, getting music, props, and costumes ready. This year there will be a real Baby Jesus in the manger. Cooper LaRue, 4-month-old son of Cristina and Justin, who was baptised at church on Sunday, will make his acting debut in the pageant. At 10 pm, my favorite service, Lessons and Carols, takes place at the West Tisbury Church. We all leave by candlelight, a service so beautiful and moving. There is a service at 10 am on Christmas morning, and everyone is welcome to join carolers at Windemere at 3 pm.
Pam Glavine wants everyone to know that the little tree on her husband, Carl Widdiss’, grave is lit and ready for anyone who wants to bring an ornament or make a Christmas promise to do a good deed or kindness for someone in Carl’s memory. The tree will be up all winter in the Aquinnah cemetery on Rosemeadow Way, off State Road.
Marsha Winsryg is exhibiting her egg tempera paintings of the Vineyard and Tuscany and Paul Karasik is showing his cartoons from the New Yorker, Edible Vineyard, and Martha’s Vineyard magazine at MVTV. The show opened last Friday evening, and will be up through January. MVTV, on Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road, is open Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm.
I’m sitting here looking at boxes of lights and ornaments in the sunroom, unwrapped presents in bags on the dining room table. The plan is to lock myself in the house for the next couple of days to decorate, wrap presents, and bake cookies. Nelson is asleep on a wing chair, although I am sure one eye is watching the tree, seeing if anything breakable, chewable, or swattable appears. Amaryllis are shooting spikes up from fat bulbs. My mother’s Christmas cactuses are blooming. They must be at least 50 years old. I have begun putting the buildings, trees, and characters of my Christmas villages out on windowsills all through the house.
Every year I want Christmas to be the same, yet different at the same time. I want to feel the magic of my childhood, but limit the amount of work for Mike and me. Being an adult is contradictory, especially as we age, but it all turns out every year. Sometimes I just stop and put everything undone away. Some years, every ornament gets unpacked and placed just so, every present is wrapped and delivered, every card is signed and mailed. By Christmas Eve, when I walk home from church and come into our yard, the lights are welcoming, the tree is lit, and decorated, and cookies are waiting for Santa. It always feels perfect.