I can’t even remember December 2020.
My mother’s house was sold but I was still living there. It was the first December of the Covid pandemic. It was the first December without my mother. December had always been such a magical month, our month. Everyone loves the holidays of December, but for us, it was even more special. I was born on my mother’s birthday, and our birthday was in December.
This year, I’m singing a new song, The Twelve Days of December. It is my countdown to retirement. Twelve days. My last work day will be Tuesday, Dec. 21, and somewhat symbolically, the shortest day of the year.
It has been a month of cocooning, remembering, reading, remembering some more. It has been a time of healing and pampering, regrouping.
My cousin Denise started it off. She is downsizing in her Florida home while they are building a home in the mountains of North Carolina. She sent a photo of a newspaper clipping with no date. But I could place it in the years of my life. I was swimming in the 15-17 age group, my sister Lisa, 16 months younger, was competing in the 13-14 group, and my middle sister, Lee Ann, sprinting down the pool in the 11-12 age group. Suffice to say, it was in the last century.
Denise is not sure why she kept that article all these years and neither am I, but it brought a flurry of emails and chuckles. It also brought to mind that the time is now for more downsizing in Pleasant Gap.
As the December air sinks down from the Nittany Mountains to settle on my front lawn, I am easing into soup-making season. Carol Pilgrim’s Bay Scallop Chowder—or when I omit the scallops, Potato Leek Soup. Holiday Bean Soup. Chicken-Corn Noodle Soup. A little of the broth for Sandy’s dry dog food—one of his few treats since the vet complained that she couldn’t find his waist. What? Cute fluffy dogs have waists? Can’t find mine either. So, Sandy’s on a diet.
The Asplundh Tree Service men were in the neighborhood cutting down branches of pines and spruce. I asked and they allowed me to gathered boughs felled to earth from 60-80 feet above my neighbor’s home. I used these as a backdrop for gorgeous scarlet winter berries gathered at a friend’s home. I wonder if the winterberry hollies along the steam on Hottenstein had as good a year?
After dinner, I light candles, play my favorite holiday CDs, and settle down on the couch to read Things Worth Knowing (more about that later). My favorite music this December? The Christmas Attic by Trans-Siberian Orchestra (which we took the kids to see in Hershey years ago), December by George Winston, Réve de Noël by Josée Vachon, a talented friend who used to live in Kutztown when I lived in Kutztown, and A Christmas Celebration with Celtic Women whose concerts on WPSU-TV my mom and I never missed. I even tuned into Great Performances one night on my computer. It was a concert featuring Andrea Bocelli in Central Park—10 years ago—70,000 people on great lawn and as the camera scanned the audience, I spotted one face I knew too well: Donald Trump sitting right up front.
I bought Richard and his daughter Laís a Christmas gift of tickets to The Moscow Ballet’s performance of The Nutcracker. Omicron’s arrival in Belgium caused a flurry of texts of uncertainty. Possible Omicron Lockdown. But, on the eve of St. Nicholas Day, the show was a go—with audience members masked. Laís is the great-granddaughter of an Alpha Omicron Pi, but I never dreamed I’d come across the word Omicron as part of the pandemic.
When my mother ran The Country Sampler in Boalsburg she wrote an almost-monthly newsletter called Things WorthKnowing. Her cover letter featured food, family, friends, and festivities. Inside were notes and sketches of the new kitchen gadgets, cookbooks, stitchery kits, and upcoming classes, as well as a recipe. In December 2006, as a gift to my mother’s 12 grandchildren, I compiled a booklet of her best stories (selected from about 190 newsletters) and recipes, and gave them each a copy.
Each night, I read a few pages of Things Worth Knowing, which, for me this December, becomes Things Worth Remembering, Things Worth Realizing, Things I’d Forgotten.
Take, for example, this coincidence. I am retiring in 2021; my father retired in 1991, 30 years ago. His plans for retirement included creating Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Garden, traveling, and discovering his inner Italian artist by taking a marble sculpting course. My mother sold Mel’s book at her shop and among their travel adventures they often included shopping trips to Gourmet Shows in San Francisco, Chicago or New York City.
In Things Worth Knowing there are lots of mentions of the grandchildren, and I have to think that one of the reasons Wille, my chef-phew, became a chef is from his excursions to my mother’s kitchen where he would pull the cord of the salad spinner to race his tiny metal racecars or help Nonna make batter for a cake.
Things Worth Knowing ends with my mother’s retirement in 1997. She sold The Country Sampler to Jeanne and Jan, daughters of one of her original partners. She and my dad spent the rest of their retirement years entertaining, gardening, traveling, and enjoying their 12 grandchildren. As the book ends, I gaze at the candle on my tin tree. I watch the nub that’s left of the candle. The orange flame heightens, flickers to blue and orange, then extinguishes to gray smoke. Darkness. The end. Happy Holidays. Laurie Lynch
I took this photo of my entrance arrangement, not noticing until later that “Big Butt,” one of my Dad’s sculptures is centered behind …
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