Christmas Pajamas

Christmas in my family has always been a festival of fantastic gifts. Even though we weren’t wealthy (or anywhere close to it, by any measure), there were always lots of presents, ranging from practical gifts of clothing from family members, and toys, music, books and sporting equipment from the famous, fabricated giant -- Santa Claus.

When I was young, my family celebrated Christmas Eve together with varying combinations of great-aunts (who we called "Aunt") and my Mom's cousins and friends. The gatherings felt very glamorous, with the ladies in nice dresses, the men in ties and jackets, and we kids in new Christmas outfits from my grandmother, Mummu.

The family party rotated between the homes of my grandmother  and her sisters, but my favorites were the years it was at Mummu’s apartment. When it was her turn to host, I got to help her cook, bake, and carefully set out the good china serving pieces, trimmed in platinum and used only on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas. There was the excitement of last minute hustle and bustle and Christmas music blaring from the radio.

At Mummu’s parties, the traditional Christmas Eve menu included finger sandwiches featuring egg salad, ham salad, and tuna salad, each delicately sprinkled with paprika for color. There were relish trays of sweet baby gherkins, black olives, and green olives, with tiny plastic cocktail pitchforks for serving. Just before the guests were due to arrive, keilbasa in an intoxicating sauce of brown sugar, vinegar and ketchup was set to bake in her Roper Deluxe gas stove and heater. (I loved standing beside the stove in the winter, enjoying the hot air blasting out the vents on the side.) Finnish coffee bread from a local bakery was surrounded by dozens of home baked cookies, some so fresh they were still warm from the oven. 

Our Christmas Eve parties always featured a grab bag gift swap between the adults featuring gifts both mundane (socks) and spectacular (alcohol and cigarettes). There were practical gifts of hats, scarves, socks and underwear from the adults to my brother, sister, me, and any others of our generation. Sometimes the gifts from the great-aunts were a bit off target, like the year Aunt Mary gave me a pair of navy blue stockings. The kind that require a garter belt. I was ten. I thanked her politely and saved those stockings in the original packaging for years, but never came into the hardware required to actually use them.

For decades, in addition to the new outfits we were wearing at the party, my grandmother gave us each new pajamas to open on Christmas Eve, and every few years there was also a new bathrobe. I loved waking up on Christmas morning in my new nightgown or pajamas. It felt special. It was almost as glamorous as the party the night before. One year in high school, I was crushed when my new pajamas, styled like long johns in blue flannel with a red and white snowflake pattern that made me think of ski lodges and reindeer, were too small. Mummu usually bought all the pajamas at the after-Christmas sales and held them until the following Christmas, so there was no opportunity to exchange them. I never even told her those didn’t fit. Like the navy stockings from Aunt Mary, I kept the pajamas for several years.

 Christmas pajamas, many years ago.

With time and the passing of the eldest relatives, changing of family compositions, and the members of the younger generation relocating, the parties got smaller until it was just Mom, Mummu, and the three of us kids with any significant others we may have had. My sister and I eventually picked up the reins and hosted, and when I moved away from our hometown for what became a 20 year stretch spanning four cities (including a foreign country), my sister became the host.

Mummu died in 2005, and although the party begun with her generation continues, our tradition has changed. We attend Christmas Eve church service before the party now. During our party in 2013, as I was quizzing my nieces about what they would wear to bed and for unwrapping their gifts on Christmas morning, I learned that my nieces, born in 1999, 2002, and 2004, never had the family traditional gift of new pajamas on Christmas Eve. Maybe we need to resurrect the Christmas pajamas. Of course, there is the risk my nieces may not find it fun at all. Or at least not as much fun as the keilbasa and cookie traditions. I, however, would love some new Christmas pajamas (hint, hint).

Civic Duty

Today is election day in America. If you are eligible to vote and didn’t, please don’t whine or try to engage me in any form of political debate later. As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t express your opinion at the polls on election day, you aren’t entitled to an opinion on political matters after election day.

Yes, voting can be inconvenient. If you work, you might need to squeeze it in before or after or during your workday. Yes, it might be crowded at your voting location (it was when I went), but that’s a good thing! It means your neighbors are participating in the process that people in America and other countries have fought for (and in some cases, died for). Standing in line is trivial. Chat with the people around you and meet your neighbors.

Mom and I went to vote this morning around 8:45. The parking lot at our Ward 1 voting location, the Knights of Columbus Hall, was crowded. The atmosphere was cheerful.

I had a minor hiccup at check in -- I wasn’t listed at the address for my Mom’s house, where I’ve lived at for nearly two years. Even though I registered to vote when I transferred my driver’s license and registered my car in March 2013, and even though I voted one year ago in the city election, and even though I hand-delivered a city census form for our address to the City Clerk’s office, I wasn’t on the check-in list. I was listed as “inactive.” Umm, how much more active could I have been?

I guess that explains why Mom and Butch received candidate mailings and I didn’t. But in the grand scheme of things, it is still trivial. Minor. I had to go to another table and fill out a form and show my license, then return to the check-in line with the yellow and pink copies of a form. It took five extra minutes. Barely an eye blink to express my position on the next few years.

Meanwhile, Mom had finished voting, visited the check-out table and was standing in the line to place her ballot forms in a big machine. Unfortunately, the machine kept rejecting the forms of a voter ahead of her, which held up the line. One lady was nervously checking her watch, and announced she needed to get to work.

I got my forms and visited the booth to color in my little ovals. Luckily, there was an empty booth. These are not private little stations, they accommodate two people, each facing a corner of the space. But they look mighty cozy for two people, and I was hoping nobody came to the tiny counter in the other side of ‘my’ booth, triggering claustrophobia.

I felt prepared to vote, having read the Massachusetts Information for Voters booklet that arrived at our house several weeks ago. Unfortunately, my preparations still left me unprepared. The booklet contained four questions on the ballot, but it turned out there were actually six. There were offices listed on the ballot I hadn’t heard of, so I was still flying blind in a couple areas.
As I was filling in the ovals on my ballot by hand with the provided black Flair pen, the voter on the other side of the flimsy booth wall was shaking the booth like a damned earthquake, making it challenging to stay in the lines, and making me worry the machine wouldn’t read my ballot if the circles were all crazy. Yes, voting can be exciting, but calm the heck down and stop shaking the entire booth!

When I finished dealing with the shaking booth and coloring ovals and puzzling over positions I didn’t know were up for grabs with candidates I never heard of, I stood in the line to feed my forms into the machine, until someone pointed out I needed to go to the checkout table first. I hadn’t been on the check-in list, but fortunately I WAS on the check-out list. Umm,  OK.

But it’s done. Now I wait for the coverage tonight to see the results. And you know what? Compared to the countries where people have no say in their government, my tiny issues mean nothing. I didn’t have to fight for the right to vote, others before me already paved the way for me. The least I can do is show up and be part of the process. The same goes for you.

Beer Fashioned

One night last fall, a gal pal and I visited a new local restaurant/watering hole where the menu is interesting and the beer list ripe with microbrews and craft beers. The place was packed with the novelty of newness and a long wait for tables, so we sat at the bar. Note: saying “we sat at the bar” may be too casual. After scoping out the bar, I strategically chose seats next to an attractive guy with a goatee who I spotted when we first entered the place. While sitting opposite him would have allowed for full admiration of his handsomeness, being next to him meant we might actually talk.

Many wines give me stuffy sinuses and a rash, so I ordered a dark beer from the 70-something beers on the menu. As my friend and I talked, I stole glances over her shoulder at Mr. Handsome, who was drinking a beer alone and not wearing a wedding ring. It seemed we were seated beside an available, age-appropriate man, and I was trying to figure out how to start a conversation, because partway into my pint of dark beer deliciousness, I feared he would not speak first. Feeling ready to consider dating again after a three year boycott, I thought the universe might have put us in the same restaurant for a reason. Of course, sometimes I over-think things.

Thanks to my inescapable dorkiness, varying levels of social anxiety, and the ever present voice of my grandmother telling me at least ten million billion times that “NICE ladies don’t chase boys,” with “chase” including looking at, telephoning, and/or initiating a conversation with an unknown male, breezy conversation openers do not come easily.

Yes, as a woman in America in the 21st century I am free to (and probably should) shed definitions and social restrictions rooted in the Middle Ages and advocated by my grandmother in the last century, but I like some of them. I like it when the man makes the first move and opens conversations -- and opens doors -- and takes the initiative to plan dates. Call me old fashioned. Based on this, you may just call me old.

One time I started a conversation with a man in the lodge of the ski resort where we both worked and we dated for several months afterward. It offended me when he told a friend we met when I “hit on him.” Evidently, his definition of “hit on” was what I considered innocent co-worker conversation, specifically, “Aren’t you _____ from_____? You were a year ahead of me in high school.” If that’s hitting on a guy, it’s easier than I thought.

But back to the guy at the bar. He and I were doing the thing where you notice another person and then avert your eyes when they look at you. Or maybe it’s just me who does it, and he and most of the world’s population beyond high school age are more socially adept at meeting people. Scientific confirmation of this notion would not surprise me.

When Goatee Guy asked for a menu, it felt like a natural opportunity for conversation. I offered what felt like a bold, unsolicited review of our meals. A discussion about my beer followed, with Goatee Guy commenting he “didn’t know that women drink beer,” and acting like this was a revelation akin to the discovery of gold or uranium or chocolate. Seriously?

This guy must not get out much. He was impressed that my beer was as dark as night. I feared if I told him my name graces a plaque in a restaurant in Clarksville, TN for completing not just one, but TWO beer tours comprised of 110 beers each, he might think I was going overboard trying to impress him or worse, that I was lying.

It has me thinking that maybe my dark beer fondness could help me meet a man with a similar interest? In my imagination, I date someone who likes brewery tours and beer festivals and occasionally debating the finer points of Beer A versus Beer B. It’s what I was hoping the time I attended a brewery tour alone, but the only guy who was there without a date told me he didn’t drink, and didn’t seem at all interested in me.

As for Goatee Guy ... we went out a few times -- apple picking, a spontaneous lunch, a couple dinners. I may have accidentally offended him on what turned out to be our last meet-up. While he was using the restroom I paid the check, and he acted really weird when I told him. Maybe it’s the contradiction of my being old fashioned in some things, but not all.

Touchy Feelie

When I shop, I touch. It used to make my Mom crazy. We’d be browsing a clothing department, and I’d be running my hand along the garments hung on the racks. Mom would ask, “Do you have to touch everything?” as if it was personally offensive to her. As if I was feeling up her own clothes or something.

My response, delivered with an exasperated eyeball roll was along the lines of, “Um, yeah.” It was (and still is) my position that if it doesn’t feel nice, why would I want it? It made no sense to me that the woman who taught me to sew when I was a kid wasn’t equally interested in exploring the drape and touch of manufactured clothing.

I like the texture and feel of things. The heat of summer beach sand and prickle of sun-dried seaweed. The softness of flour. The silkiness of warm water. The scaliness of rows of sequins. The mild abrasiveness of fine grain sand paper.

And there are things I don’t like the feel of, like vinyl tablecloths sticking to my elbows which shouldn’t even be on the table. I itch recalling the burlap pants made for the Johnny Appleseed costume representing my heritage for a beauty pageant in my 20s. Why did I think Johnny Appleseed wore burlap pants, anyway? Maybe it was inspired by the ridiculous Disney fabrication of him also wearing a saucepan on his head. It was definitely rooted in our family (apple?) tree, shared via his mother, Elizabeth Simonds Chapman.

Somewhere along the timeline of my days, I became a fabric snob. Cashmere sweaters. Merino wool sweaters and 100% virgin wool pants. Fine silk blouses and dresses and skirts that skim the body and flutter with movement. It may have been cultivated in college when I worked in a retail store selling top quality brands, which I could buy at cost. My textile snobbery was soon accessorized with a bold disdain for cheap prickly wool and sweat-inducing acrylics.

Exposure to top brands taught me the quality differences between lined, virgin wool pants and skirts and their cheap-blend, unlined sisters that made my legs itch and required wearing pantyhose, which in turn made the pants cling with static in all the wrong places. (Is there a ‘right’ place for static cling?) School girl acrylic sweaters looked nice the first time worn, but the subsequent sweating and little fabric balls weren’t part of my style statement.

For a while, polyester became a vile curse word with its petroleum based, heat-trapping, sweat-inducing properties. Sure, it doesn’t shrink, but at what cost? In high school, I once set the iron too hot and burned the vest of the navy blue, three piece polyester suit I got for Easter. The edges of the perfect iron-shaped hole melted to a hard crust. Unlike a tear that could be stitched, or knee scuff in my best jeans that might be covered with ball point pen, there was no repairing this mistake.  And it delivered nightmares of polyester garments grafted to my skin after passing too close to a candle or a bonfire.

My history of touching fabric developed an acuity for visual recognition which is useful. I can power shop a thrift store, ferreting out merino wool, cashmere, silk, and linen items in a flash. And in my current part-time gig in retail I am actually paid to touch things! Ok, really I am paid to fold and hang things and return them to the sales floor, but I can’t exactly do that without touching them, can I? If you see some weird lady fondling the cashmere sweaters or stroking the sequin tops, it’s probably me. Come say hello. I’ll gladly take you on a tactile tour of the nicest feeling goods.

Candy Trade

I’ve sat through business school courses and business meetings, but I think the best view of calm, civil negotiation was the trick-or-treat candy swap at my sister’s house on Halloween night.

On this night, my nieces donned their costumes (a pirate skeleton and a creepy, haunted version of an American Girl doll) and I applied their makeup to complete the looks. Then they played in the driveway and handed out candy to the first Halloween visitors as they patiently awaited the arrival of their cousins and a couple friends.

Meanwhile, I marveled at their patience. When I was ten or twelve, I would probably have gone certifiably insane counting the precious minutes lost in the door-to-door begging and tabulating the candy I might be missing. What if some houses ran out before we got there because our friends were late?

When everyone finally arrived, the five kids walked the neighborhood gathering candy, escorted by three dads and two moms. Back at my sister’s, a group of adults and the two teen-aged cousins gathered in the dining room snacking from the table laden with food. Out in the driveway, candy was quietly handed out. At the end of trick-or-treat, the kids returned, shed parts of the costumes now deemed unnecessary, convened in the living room, and dumped the candy onto the floor.

The kids sorted their candy. Pirate niece had a neat circle of treats that looked like a clock face, and doll niece had a pattern of tidy piles. The boys were less artistic in their heaps, but still organized. I was resisting the urge to count everything. It was hard. I like candy statistics. I used to sort M&Ms by color and note the results, tracking the averages for vending machine and half-pound bags. But I’m weird like that.

One boy (a cousin) left some candy in his double-bagged plastic grocery sack, which I pointed out to him. He nonchalantly said, “Oh, it’s okay, I don’t care.” Whatever. I didn’t really care, either. I was just an observer resisting the urge to create tallies and graphs and charts of the loot, trapped in a corner of the room by five kids and a rug full of candy. I was too far from the other adults to participate in their conversation, so I ate tiny cocktail wieners in barbecue sauce and watched the trading floor.

The candy piles were impressive -- each kid had at least one full-sized candy bar (mostly Hershey bars) and two or three small bags of popcorn or chips. Chocolate treats ruled, with fun-sized KitKats dominating. (Maybe they were on sale.) Plentiful little packs of red Twizzlers, but not black. The kids noted the absence of Good & Plenty and the rarity of M&Ms and Skittles. There was not a single example of my own most hated Halloween candy -- the nasty Necco wafers. Talk about lucky kids.
 

Civilized action on the trading floor.

Trading proceeded for close to thirty minutes. “Who likes Snickers?”  “Who wants Skittles?”  “Anyone like Almond Joy?” Pirate-niece methodically traded candy for almost all the chips and popcorn. Doll-niece held fast to the only full-sized KitKat in the room, even though her cousin kept sweetening the deal until he had offered up nearly half his candy in trade, and despite my whispering to her that it was a good deal based on sheer volume. It was a weird attempted trade, as he had his own pile of fun-sized KitKat bars, but he wanted the big one. Desperately. Finally sick of the badgering, doll-niece announced she was done, calmly returned her candy (including the coveted full-sized KitKat) to her orange bag, stood up, and got herself a hot dog. Soon, her sister and the boys followed suit.

As the kids bagged up their candy, the cousin who wanted that full-sized KitKat bar looked in his sack and dramatically announced, “Oh, hey, I forgot about this candy here!” and tried to reactivate trading. None of the kids fell for what seemed like the shady, contrived introduction of the candy he had earlier told me he didn’t care about. When the trading floor has closed, it’s over. It was time for hot dogs.

Issues 'n Stuff

I am “careful” with my “stuff.” “Stuff” means practically every thing I own. “Careful” means a near-obsessive need to know where my things are located and desire to keep them looking new. Forever.

I can read a paperback book multiple times and it will still look brand new, with nary a mark in the spine, not a single page dog-eared, any stray fingerprints on the glossy cover carefully and methodically eliminated. Few others share my opinion on the “proper” treatment of books. For this reason, it is rare I lend them out.

Objects owned for decades remain pristine thanks to obsessing over placement, cleaning, and storage. Some items, including many bought during a three month stay in Korea in 2001, are in the original boxes awaiting that elusive, mythical “someday” and perfect house/room/life for their display/use. When (and if) that magical “someday/place” ever arrives, they will emerge into the light in near-perfect, blinding vintage newness. Or possibly, forever tainted with the icky smell of decades spent languishing in various basements or attics.

I once had a housemate who “walked heavy.” Furniture and decor shook (in fear, perhaps) when he lumbered by. Each rattle of the delicate Japanese lidded candy dish that was once my grandmother’s made my heart skip a beat and I held my breath. No longer able to bear the stress, I finally packed it away again for safety. Both his and the dish.

Vigilant oversight of my things probably started in toddlerhood. I was a thumb-sucking blanket-dragger. Following some respected adult’s suggestion, one day Mom disposed of my beloved, tattered blanket while I napped. It’s a miracle I could ever sleep again after that.

When I was 10, we moved across town. Unpacking my things in the room I would not have to share with my younger sister, I frantically searched for my favorite stuffed gray elephant which had long ago lost an eye and both pink felt ears. There I was, in my unfamiliar “new” room, in our creepy “new” 50-year-old house resembling a horror movie setting, trying to sleep through unfamiliar steam radiator racket, haunted house noises, and other strange goings-on, and my beloved, defective gray elephant was gone. Days of searching and grumbling (I KNEW it went into the box) finally elicited a confession – Mom had tossed it in the trash because it was ratty. Robbed again.

Further crimes were perpetrated against my personal property when an ex-husband chucked the box of treasures including my childhood diary and a rhinestone tiara won on the runway of the Ms. Yankee Pageant. A cohabiting ex-boyfriend tossed my albums of childhood photography and school yearbooks. Note to all – it is recommended you keep your filthy hands off the diaries of fledgling writers, crowns of beauty queens, early work of future photographers, and school memories of the sometimes sentimental. Unless, of course, you wish to fast-track your way to the title of “ex-.”

Worse than items gone missing or ruined by family and friends (whether unintentionally or deliberately), are things lost or destroyed by my own hand. I once had beautiful white gold and aquamarine earrings from an ex-husband who traipsed solo through a maze of market stalls in Seoul after I admired them while shopping together. They disappeared a few years later in Tennessee. After searching the house and a string of sleepless nights dominated by reviews of my habits which usually included removing my earrings and setting them on the coffee table, and later gathering up multiple items to efficiently transport to the trash and other rightful locations, the best theory was I accidentally tossed them in the trash with a handful of stuff during a multitasking tidying episode. There is a landfill in Tennessee accessorized with a gorgeous pair of earrings from a Seoul designer. After our divorce, I bought a silver skull and crossbones ring with citrine eyes which I wore daily and removed nightly for a year until it disappeared without a trace. There are times I wish the walls could talk.

The most unforgivable loss involves family documents entrusted by my grandmother. The plan was to have the beautifully hand-lettered in the Finnish language marriage certificate and birth records from the 1800s framed to give to my mother. And in a ridiculously chaotic move in 1996 that spun wildly out of my control (courtesy of the same yearbook and photo album chucking ex), the cardboard tube containing the documents disappeared. Forever. The scrap of paper with the colors of the inks and dimensions of the documents still survives, however, so every time I come across it, I can beat myself up again.

Yes, there are issues. I usually try to keep them under wraps. It’s why I hate being asked to lend items. It’s not you, it’s me. Ok, maybe sometimes it is you, and that’s why I’m like this.


Originally published September 8, 2014 on www.Unite4Women.tumblr.com.

Knee Socks and Bedazzlers

Mom bought some new paver blocks to set next to the house under the trash bin, recycle bin, and hose reel. The previous blocks were decades old and had cracked, chipped and deteriorated. It was time for an upgrade. After the cruddy old pavers were swapped out for the new ones, Mom sat down on the screened porch and said, “Now I’m happy.”

I was in the kitchen doing something or other, and yelled out to the porch, “Wow. You’re easy to please. Who knew?” I was, of course, trying to be funny.

Mom said she was always easy to please. As evidence, she added that all she wanted every year for Christmas as an adult was knee socks.

Wait. What? Knee socks?

Not jewelry, new cars, or fancy leather jackets? Not the latest kitchen gadgets?

Nope. Turns out that Mom, when asked what she wanted for Christmas, had specifically requested knee socks. For years. And she never got them. She told me she didn’t want to spend money on them, but she wanted them. So year after year she asked. And year after year, she continued to want for knee socks.

My best guess at this tardy date is that we thought she was kidding. It’s a problem in our family. We kid around a lot, which makes it hard to decipher sometimes when one of us is actually being serious. Maybe it’s like when I respond with “plaid,” when asked my favorite color, because I don’t have a singular favorite color. I like most all the colors, and it really depends upon the context -- clothing? Automobile? Hair? House paint? Perhaps we assumed she was adding a face-saving, low cost option in case we were broke. Maybe we were just dense. I dunno. It was a long time ago.

I’m guessing that we probably deemed it a “stupid gift” and went searching for something more expensive, more impressive, more worthy of wrapping paper and presentation at such a major gift giving holiday. I hate to think that all three of her children would willfully deny Mom the simple pleasure of knee socks. So she suffered through the years, graciously accepting the parade of gifts that may or may not have been of particular interest to her. And all she really wanted were some damned knee socks, that she wasn’t going to buy for herself. (Did I mention we are also stubborn?)

I understand now what she meant, if not back then. I also had a coveted item making annual appearances on my extensive and detailed Christmas lists drafted and distributed at Thanksgiving in the 1980s and 90s for the convenience of my gift-giving family.

My desired (and unfulfilled) gift was the “as-seen on TV” fashion staple, The BeDazzler. For years I dutifully added the “only $19.95 plus shipping and handling” item to my list. Each time I was confident that this would be the year I would debut my newly bedazzled with metal and rhinestones clothing on New Year’s Eve. Each year I was disappointed.

I received many, many fine and wonderful gifts over the decades, including expensive gold and silver jewelry ablaze with real gemstones. Beautiful clothing. Home decor items. Money, which I suppose I could have used to by my own stupid glitz-applying tool. But never The BeDazzler.

Although the details surrounding my unfulfilled want are a bit fuzzy, it’s possible I wanted The BeDazzler as a gift so that when my friends made fun of my glittering, bedazzled attire, (and it was pretty much guaranteed they would), I could honestly and blamelessly say, “It was a gift,” as if that would shift the potentially questionable nature of my fashion sense a few degrees away from gaudy and slightly more towards mainstream acceptable.

Maybe everyone thought I was kidding, or adding some ridiculous, red herring item to increase the odds of a “better” gift. Maybe it was perceived as my low-cost alternative, akin to how we viewed Mom’s knee socks. 

In any gift-giving event, Mom has still not received her knee socks. And I’m still waiting for my BeDazzler. Maybe this year. Hint, hint.