Kids will be kids… if we let them

On a playground recently I watched a little boy pick up an acorn and impressively chuck it clear across the swing set.  He was a little kid, but his throw had major-league heft.  A couple of the dads chuckled.  “Hey,” said one, “nice arm.  He’ll probably be a baseball player.”

In my observation, this kind of statement was not an isolated comment.  I’ve heard parents everywhere attribute some current action or personality trait to some fantastic arc for their child’s future.  My niece is tall, so she’ll probably end up being a basketball player.  My friends’ child shows an aptitude for tending the hurt, prompting us all to tell her she’ll probably make a great nurse (or doctor!) someday.  My daughter loves to dance, so, predictably, she’ll be a ballerina.  My nephew likes to play video games so he’ll probably be a whiz at computers.

As I listen to parents assign adult characteristics and dispense life pathways for children everywhere from the classroom to the crib, it makes me wonder why we feel the need?  What may just be a passing interest in blood, or a new muscle figuring out how exactly it moves, we adults assign life goals to our unsuspecting children.  No wonder kids are always asking adults, “What should I be when I grow up?”  Apparently, we have the answers all laid out for them.

What exactly is this fixation we have on assigning life-long adult characteristics to little humans, just discovering themselves and the world?  Is it our own unrealized dreams transferring onto our children?  Is it our own specific wishes for their precious, yet-unlived lives?  Is it some deep-seeded competition between adults over whose child will be more successful?  Or are we, as adults, simply incapable of appreciating a moment as children do, admiring and enjoying a skill as it waxes and wanes?

As parents, perhaps it is our role to nurture passions, but not assign them a specific purpose.  My brother started cooking us family meals at age 8, prompting many to believe he would grow up to be a chef.  Instead, he has chosen to make cooking simply a wonderful part of his life, and not a career.  Sometimes passions are simply there to enrich our lives and not make us a living.

My best friend recently attended her 4-year-old’s pre-K parent-teacher conference.  The teacher spouted off all his wonderful personality traits.  At the end of his speech, my friend leaned forward eagerly and asked, “So, based on these qualities, what do you think he’ll be when he grows up?”

I had a good laugh when I heard this story.  When I asked her why we feel the need to constantly wonder what our children will grow up to be, who will they become, she answered unequivocally, “As parents, we will just always worry about our children and wonder if they will be all right.”

There is real truth to her statement.  I wonder if my daughter ate all her chicken fingers on the rare night I am not there to give them to her myself.  When it is finally time for me to set her free upon the world, I am sure I will be fraught with anxieties. 

The boy I saw on the playground didn’t fawn over the fathers’ attention at his amazingly strong arm, nor do any of the other children I know crow about their outsized abilities and passions.  Usually, after doing something extraordinary, they smile widely at the cheering adults and move on to the next activity, usually accomplishing that with just as much spirit and grit, if not aptitude. 

I think adults could take a lesson in humility from children at the very least and certainly a lesson in living for the moment.  Appreciate a job well done, a game well played, a dance that garnered a joyous moment, and move on.  Life is too unpredictable to assign pathways that are undoubtedly far out of our hands anyway.

Previously published in "The Star," Grand Coulee, Washington. April 18, 2012

A cookie -- or two -- for a century

The month of March marked two important American anniversaries that are seemingly disconnected, but that I find to be united in their achievements. You don’t have to be a cookie lover to pay tribute to the Oreo’s 100th anniversary, nor do you have to be former troop member to mark the Girl Scouts’ 100th anniversary, but we can all be thankful for March 1912 when both organizations debuted.

On March 6, 1912 the first Oreo was sold in New Jersey, and that happy little cookie has been finding its way into homes across America ever since, selling 345 billion cookies since its debut. This classic sandwich cookie is unique in its ability to perplex the eater. How do you eat an Oreo? Some like to dunk it in milk, some to twist it open and lick the frosting out, and still others like to pop the entire thing in their mouths. How you eat an Oreo may define you from your neighbor, but my guess is that however you eat it, everyone appreciates it all the same. To think that people have been figuring out just how to eat this exact same cookie for 100 years is remarkable in an age where most products disappear off the shelves faster than we can buy them.

Kraft Foods, the parent company of the great cookie, staged flash mobs across America to celebrate its 100th anniversary, proving that the Oreo’s purpose, as well as its appearance and flavor, has changed very little in the 100 years since its debut. The Oreo, as a cookie, is here to remind us to have a little fun every now and then, indulge in a delicious cookie, and if you feel like dancing in the streets with a flash mob, the kid in you that just licked frosting off a cookie won’t protest.

The Girls Scouts of America also celebrated their 100th anniversary this month and while the cookies they sell didn’t show up until a little later, the monumental achievement of this organization makes its anniversary too hard to pass up without notice.

The first troops of girls to sell homemade cookies to finance their local organizations began selling cookies just a few years after its foundation. The cookies as we know them today began to show up in troops across America in the mid-1930s. Save for a slight break during World War II -- when most troops resorted to selling calendars due to butter, flour, and sugar shortages -- Girl Scouts have been using their burgeoning entrepreneur skills to sell these cookies for more than 80 years.

Today, there are 60 million living alumnae of the organization (myself included) and 3.2 million active members worldwide. And while the Girl Scouts only show up on the national map once a year when they sell their cookies, in actuality they are serving a much broader and nobler purpose than stocking our cupboards with dessert.

From its conception by a 45-year-old widow in Savannah, Georgia, the Girl Scouts of America have aimed to help girls of all backgrounds, at a time when this was a radical view. It has always been an organization that would form itself to each specific girl. Each girl could identify a skill they wished to achieve and work towards winning a merit badge, be it an outdoor skill, leadership skill, business skill or homemaking skill.
These activities bring vital skills to girls in a world where the woman’s place is no longer simply in her home but is an evolving location. Recognizing the need for multiple skills, even in 1912, the original organizers placed equal emphasis on homemaking skills and teaching women to be independent and acquire abilities to support themselves.

This month I have happily bought my share of cookies and celebrated not simply the advent of two different cookies, two different entrepreneurships and two different goals. I’d like to celebrate the idea that in our world of change and upward mobility, we can still find quality in something that has been around for a century. Here’s to another one, may millions of taste buds everywhere be thankful.

Previously published in "The Star," Grand Coulee, Washington. March 28, 2012

Technology vs. Imagination

Recently, I spent some time at my childhood home in Georgia. One day my mother surprised my daughter and her cousins with boxes of toys we had packed away together when I was a pre-teen. I was delighted to have a small peek into my childhood, and I’m sure my face mirrored that of my daughter as we opened the lids. While I didn’t remember saving these particular toys, I can remember my mindset at the time. I understood I was too old to play with toys anymore, but too young to realize that the charm of plastic playthings fades with time.

The first things to catch my daughter and her cousin’s eye were the Barbie dolls. In my memory of my childhood self, I rarely ever played with dolls and only had a few. In actuality, I had boxes of Barbies accompanied by all her many and varied accessories. As each item was unearthed, it was clear that none of the three little girls gathered around the box had ever seen such a toy. In their world where almost every toy requires batteries, I couldn’t help but smile that they would be so elated by old plastic dolls. Watching them made me wonder: in our emerging world of technological dominance, is simple imaginative play losing ground?

I understand that my child will grow up in a world vastly different than the one I grew up in, and even more different than the one her grandparents inhabited. This is a truth that is impossible to ignore. When cursive is taken out of the school curriculum and Morse code is no longer taught to our military, it is clear that the children of today will have a vastly different toolbox than the one I was taught.

I also am keenly aware that these are new skills that are vital to learn. Learning cursive is a time-consuming process and one that they are unlikely to use in a world where any personal and professional correspondence is done with a keyboard. Clearly, there are more relevant things to be taught in the classroom. But a part of me can’t help but be nostalgic for some of the old learning that will be lost to future generations. As these skills are eradicated, I wonder if the new skills they are acquiring still teach our children to use their imagination? In their new world of graphics and 3-D imaging, are we sparking their clever minds or inhibiting them?

As I watched my daughter and my nieces play with a simple doll, it was easy to see that at least one thing has not changed since I was a child. For all the new skills they will learn over the coming years — ones that even now we can only imagine — I was happy to see that the world of imaginative play is not something that has to be taught, or even learned. Open a box of dolls, even one with decidedly out-of-date clothing and plastic that has become too fragile, and an entire imaginary world comes out with it. The imaginative world is one that will inhabit and grow only in the minds of the players, incomprehensible to any adult who may be watching.

Sometimes, to the grown ups among us, it seems that the children of today are different. They mature faster, are interested in different things than we were as children, and have an aptitude for technology that outpaces their elders. But with all the joys that technology brings to us, adults and children alike, when I see a group of children using simply their imagination to create an alternative world, I am heartened to see that children really haven’t changed all that much.

Previously published in "The Star," Grand Coulee, Washington.  March 14, 2012

Spring comes early inside

Somewhere in humanity’s past, spring cleaning became some sort of tradition. I imagine this probably originated when we all lived in one-room cabins. When fresher weather arrived, the necessity to cart everything outside and beat it clean with a broom was essential after months of living together in a small space without much (if any) bathing and little (if any) outdoor activity except the daily trip to the barn.

I don’t know how many people still partake of the full meaning of spring cleaning. I certainly don’t haul my couch outside every spring, nor do I even take the rugs outside to beat accumulated dust out of them. Some wonderful entrepreneur invented the vacuum for that purpose. But there is still enough of the ritual ingrained in taking care of a house that when I do catch that first scent of spring, I want to throw open the windows and make everything in my house as fresh as the world outside.

Unfortunately, by the time this sensation has registered I no longer have any desire to actually be in my house. With that fresher air, warmer days and outdoor pursuits pull me away with much higher frequency. Spending the day with my nose in my closet, rooting around for accumulated dust is not how I imagine spending a fresh spring day. I want to be out of doors with my hands in the soil or my face to the long-hidden sun.

Therefore, many years I find myself on a “spring cleaning” rampage in late winter. Spring is close enough to arriving that it feels as if it is time to give the house a fresh start, but still far enough away that I find myself indoors for most days.

I find spring cleaning to not just be a good time to get rid of accumulated dust but also to get rid of accumulated stuff. It’s remarkable what can pile up around the house in the space of a year. So while I don’t exactly take every item of clothing out of my closet and beat it clean with a broom, I do find myself flipping through the rack, culling out items that are too threadbare to wear anymore, or putting toys in the donation pile that my daughter has outgrown.

Recently, a friend was remarking that her 10-year-old daughter is a pack rat and has trouble throwing anything away. I was reminded that I used to be this way too. I clearly remember boxing up stuffed animals and toys when I was a teenager, telling my mother that I wanted to save them for my children to play with and under no circumstances were we to give them away. Either that was serious foresight, or an inability to let go of items that I had outgrown.

When we are young, throwing away something that was once special is terrifying. Like insinuating that by discarding it, we are discarding something that defined our young lives. We wonder that if we throw it away we won’t remember what it was like to curl around that soft teddy bear or win that three-legged race or read that favorite book.

It is not until we are older that we realize that possessions can sometimes simply become clutter and an excess weight to carry around in our already heavy lives.

Having just moved across the country a year ago, I executed a fantastic purge of superfluous belongings. Moving is even better than the yearly clean out and clean up of the house. With that in mind, I find my spring cleaning to be a little light this year. Regardless, it’s still remarkable just what can accumulate in the corners of the house, everything from dust bunnies to worn out shoes and outgrown toys still need to be purged.

And although the official start of spring is still a month away, I suppose as long as we are still cooped up inside, I might as well tackle those dust bunnies.

Previously published in "The Star," Grand Coulee, Washington, Februrary 22, 2012.

In Awe of a Winter Wonderland

If I could wave a magic wand and change something about myself, topping the list would be how affected I am by the weather.  I am nearly always too cold.  Occasionally I am too hot; it’s either too sunny, or too cloudy, or too wet or too dry.  Rarely am I perfectly content with the temperature or my reaction to it.

I used to think this was simply a personality glitch, but then I got frostbite—first in April and then in August—and I knew my body was clearly unhappy about the weather too.

There is one exception to this litany of complaints, and that’s when the sky opens up and dumps out a snowstorm.  I absolutely love snow.  If it’s very cold, I don’t want to go outside, but if it’s very cold with snow, then I’m the first one out the door.  The child in me emerges and my feelings about the weather run towards giddy.  Having spent most of my childhood in warmer, southern states, it still feels exceptionally magical when it snows, however juvenile that may sound.

I suspect I am not the only adult who professes a childlike love of a good snowfall.  A few weeks ago, the Grand Coulee area got a wonderful snowstorm.  Friday night saw crowds of families at North Dam Park careening down the local sledding hill.  It didn’t seem to matter that the mercury didn’t even top 20 degrees.  Kids from toddlers to teenagers were bundled up, shoving the powdery snow in their mouths and flopping down in the soft white fluff to make snow angels.  Adults were scattered across the rim of the hill, content to watch their happy children cavort in the snow.  Some of them, myself included, catapulted down the hill with them, laughing in equal delight.  Someone even put their muscles to work and built a questionable jump off the concrete benches for the downhill racers. 

Regardless of the temperature, after a few trips up and down that hill toting a sled and a toddler, cold is the farthest thing from my mind.  The simplistic wonder of frozen precipitation apparently can bring out the best in me—I wasn’t cold one bit.

The anticipation and activity of the holiday season has passed us, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we have to cocoon ourselves in our houses until spring.  With only four seasons to the year, it seems a shame to waste one of them simply waiting for it to be over. 

So, we go ice-skating in Wenatchee, skiing in Idaho, snowshoeing in Northrup Canyon, and sledding wherever we can find a suitable hill.  People seem to be extra friendly when they are outdoors in a winter wonderland, like everyone is sharing in a small gift.  Smiles are wide; conversations with genderless strangers, bundled head to toe in unidentifiable gear are friendly and swift as you ride the chairlift or console a crying child who flipped their sled.

Like when I was a kid, snow seems to bring out the best in outdoor fun.  There has been a lull of some months where playing outdoors was top on our list of daily activities.  It has been cold and dark.  But somehow, when it’s cold and dark and snowy, the effect is softer, more inviting. 

I know that snow offers a substantial amount of inconvenience to most people.  Shoveling a driveway is serious work.  Roads are icy and dangerous, boots are muddy, and the parking lots are slippery.  As I write this, the rain is washing away much of our accumulated snow and the feeble sun is melting the rest.  I know most people around town will be happy about this, but I can’t help but hope the weatherman will tell me another big storm is on its way before our next season is upon us.

Previously published in "The Star," Grand Coulee, Washington.  February 8, 2012

Internet Road Rage

Earlier this month, Real Simple magazine sponsored an event known as “Be nice on the Internet week.”  When I came across the advertisement explaining the idea, I have to admit I was intrigued.  I immediately had simultaneous conflicting thoughts.  First, what a good idea!  And then quickly followed by, why is there a need to be nice?  The Internet is not a person with feelings.

But that thought alone made me realize just how critical such an awareness of our Internet manners probably is.  In the grand scheme of things, the Internet is really still in its infancy.  We learn more each day about our individual interactions with the global community through cyberspace and how that affects our own lives.  Therefore, learning how to interact politely and with respect should probably be a high priority. 

In point of fact, how many times have you looked below an article you just read and saw a plethora of nasty or, at the very least, thoughtless comments?  Rarely do I come across a comment following an article that is helpful or thought provoking.  Most are simply nasty jabs or shallow one-word exclamations of praise.  My personal experience of browsing comments following an article I’ve read online has prompted me to almost always skip the comment section altogether.  I seldom gain any further understanding of a subject by reading what the global community thinks of it.

When I saw the week being sponsored by Real Simple magazine, it made me really think.  Perhaps we need new lessons on etiquette for the Information Age?  As our world grows smaller and we are connected to people across the globe by a simple website, perhaps we need to relearn some of the simple lessons from our childhood. 

As youngsters we are taught some basic levels of etiquette that are sometimes easy to forget as we grow up.  I think these are especially easy to forget when we are online with no real feedback from someone’s body language or facial expressions to keep our instantaneous criticisms to ourselves.  Remember, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”?  Or perhaps, “Think before you speak.”  And maybe most importantly, “Treat someone else like you would want to be treated.” 

If we are to try and impart how essential it is to maintain some basic level of humanity, even when faced with a computer screen and not another human, are there new rules that apply?  What exactly is the issue behind Internet etiquette?  Is this something that should be taught at school or taught at home, as lessons of etiquette used to be?  In other words, is this a writing issue or a manners issue? 

My instincts tell me it’s both and that we need to recall those early childhood lessons and turn them into useful techniques for modern times.  Instead of reading the newspaper and discussing its contents, we now email each other links to articles with our own comments attached.  Therefore it is essential to teach both good writing, in the form of critical thinking when faced with contrary ideas, and good manners to form those criticisms into complete sentences that wouldn’t offend your grandmother, were she to happen upon your name in the comment section.

In gathering information for this column, people have given me suggestions as to why thoughtless comments abound on the Internet.  Perhaps society as a whole is simply ruder now.  Etiquette isn’t taught like it used to be, so we are simply less educated as to what is polite.  Or perhaps we are simply comfortably protected at home behind our computer screens. 

I’d like to think we haven’t descended that far and that humanity, like the Internet, is still learning how to adapt to a rapidly changing world.  Certainly interactions in the real world have not descended into such baseless one-line razes as you can find below any number of articles, columns and videos online.  But perhaps we could all use a refresher course in being kind to others and reminder that if you wouldn’t say it in front of your grandmother, don’t say anything at all.

Stories to inspire at all ages

It seems to me that as our world has changed from the hunter-gatherers we once were to the high paced technological world we are today one thing hasn’t changed, and that’s the way a story can impact your life.  After all, isn’t that what the ancient cave drawings were?  They were telling a story.  It’s also clear to me that this isn’t a vein of teaching that is reserved strictly for the classroom.  We begin telling stories to our children in infancy and continue listening to stories our entire lives.  

Any night of the week at my house finds my daughter cuddled in the crook of our arms, cozy in her footie pajamas reading a book.  Right now, we are in a transition period.  We’ve left the simple board books like Goodnight Moon behind, but we’re far from chapter books like Little House on the Prairie and even farther from Harry Potter.  But as we’ve moved from those simple rhymes into books that have actual stories behind them, I find myself strangely moved as I recall the lessons they imparted upon me when I was a child, even if I don’t remember reading the actual books.

Sometimes as we read these slightly complex moral tales, I wonder how much my two-year-old is actually taking in.  Is it possible for children, let alone adults, to learn from anecdote?  If we read Green Eggs and Ham enough times, will she really be willing to try something new, even if it looks kind of strange?  Does she know that The Little Engine That Could is forcibly convincing herself that she is the master of her own limits?  Is it the slightly creepy Wild Things that are giving her nightmares, or are they telling her to use her imagination when times get tough?

Almost by definition, a children’s book must be teaching something.  Whether it is something academic like the alphabet or something moral like being kind to others, somewhere someone decided we had to take every second we could to impart these important lessons upon our impressionable children. 

I wonder, in our current world of high paced entertainment, if adult fiction requires as many guidelines.  That’s not to say we don’t get lessons out of the stories we read as adults, we do.  But when talking about the books we read as children, I find that there is a special brightness when these stories from our past resurface.  As if we are remembering a moment in our lives where a good story utterly changed our world.

I’m sure that since I was a child, there have been volumes of wonderful chapter books written that are more time-appropriate for children today than the ones that I read.  Even so, I can’t help but anticipate the day when my daughter might want to read Little House on the Prairie or Anne of Green Gables.  Books we read as adults rarely inspire the kind of emotions we hold for those stories that most likely did change our view of our world when we were young.  I think the stories we read as adults are still woven with the life lessons we were taught as children, they are just not quite as apparent to less impressionable grown-ups.  Be nice to strangers, inner beauty is what’s important, share, say please and thank you, everybody uses the potty; we’re all really very alike, but different too.

At this stage in my daughter’s life, I still have 100% authority over which moral lessons she is getting from her books.  I know this period will not last.  As long as it does, perhaps I’ll be able to instill enough of these ideas into her subconscious that if she ever finds herself lost, she’ll remember that it was Winnie the Pooh who taught her that sometimes you have to get lost first to find your way home.  Or when faced with a hard challenge a mantra from the distant past may surface in her head: “I think I can I think I can I think I can.”

Previously published in "The Star," Grand Coulee, Washington. January 11, 2012

Real resolutions await

It was John Lennon who said “And so this is Christmas, and what have we done.  Another year over, and a new one just begun.”  This week marks that week where we flip over, shaking off last year’s excesses and unwrapping those new blank calendars. 

The most common thing to do around New Year’s—besides one last night of indulgence—is to make a resolution.  Sometimes resolutions are made lightly; lose 10 pounds! Others are made with all seriousness.  Either way, many times in this week leading up to New Year’s when I evaluate the resolution I made the previous year, I can hardly remember it, let alone declare it conquered. 

I find Lennon’s sentiments to define how I usually feel at this time of year.  Another year has passed.  How have I spent it?  What did I do?  For me it’s a natural time to look inward and ask myself some probing questions about my life, my health, my state of mind, my ambitions or whatever it is that feels like it could be better in my life. 

I’ve been to New Year’s Day parties where resolutions are talked about as if we’re discussing what to have for dinner that night.  Sometimes that’s fun.  Sometimes it’s nice to breezily say that I plan on joining a gym, or writing the next great American novel.  But New Year’s Resolutions don’t have to be empty promises.  Last year I made a resolution and not only did I keep it, but as I pursued it the goal evolved into three separate avenues that very quietly and slowly made me more fulfilled at the end of every day.  One affected my health, one affected my creativity and one challenged me to learn a new skill.  I had no idea that making that one off-hand resolution would evolve over the course of the year into something that would add richness and pride to my life. 

Now that I’ve experienced the thrill of achieving one of those lofty New Year’s Day promises, I find that I am eagerly looking forward to this years’ and wondering where it might take me over the course of the year.  I also feel like I owe it to myself to make another reachable resolution that I might actually keep and not one that I know to be vaguely vacant of any true motivation.

I recently came across an article entitled “12 Things Happy People Do Differently” on the website marcandangel.com.  I was already swirling ideas around for this column about the merits of New Year’s Resolutions and I was pleased to see that number 10 on their list was “Commit to your goals.”  If that’s not a reason to stick to a resolution, then I don’t know what is.  Science has proven that people who make a resolution, or goal, and stick to it are happier people!  On the flip side I believe they are telling us that if we put something down in our minds as a goal and don’t stick to it, we will feel defeated with ourselves.  The trick there is to fully believe that you can still accomplish those resolutions, no matter the challenges.  The websites corresponding point is number two, “cultivate optimism;” people who see challenges positively will find an opportunity in every bump in the road.

The official “holiday season” ends on New Year’s Day, but I find myself feeling ready for that much anticipated time of year to be over on the day after Christmas.  We’ve all indulged.  Gifts have been exchanged, family has spent time together and the tree is starting to shed its needles all over the living room floor.  As I take down my Christmas decorations and put my house back into a more natural state of being, I feel like I too am tidying myself up from a holiday season of indulgence.  The tree gets dragged out the door, needles falling behind and like it, so does last year’s problems and challenges.  A whole new year awaits; new resolutions to make and goals to achieve.

Previously published in "The Star," Grand Coulee, Washington. December 28, 2011

A Partridge in a Pear Tree? Does it come with free shipping?

Just before Thanksgiving I looked in my post office box and saw it overflowing.  I sighed in resignation; this was a day I had been expecting.  The catalogs had begun to arrive. 

It was like this for weeks.  As they started to pile up around my house, I found myself glancing at them out of the corner of my eye.  In years past I’ve browsed through some of them, but mostly they’ve gone straight from the mailbox to the trashcan.  But this year, in the flurry of getting ready for guests to arrive for Thanksgiving, before I chucked them in the bin I made a concerted effort to look through them.

The more I looked I realized that maybe this year catalog shopping was the way to go.  After all, I can’t just run out to the nearest mall or big box store to get a last minute present.  Many of my presents are going to relatives across the country, and you can’t beat those free shipping deals.  The more I thought about it, the more determined I was that this year I would not just browse through the mound of catalogs for ideas, but for actual purchases.

Thanksgiving passed; Black Friday passed and Cyber Monday arrived.  This is usually a day I ignore, but because of my pre-Thanksgiving organization I pounced.  In fact, I bought most of my Christmas presents that day or in the days that followed.  It appears as if I wasn’t alone either.  Americans everywhere descended upon their computers as Cyber Monday morphed into “Cyber Week.”  According to the digital analytics firm comScore, in the week following Thanksgiving Americans spent $6 billion Christmas shopping on-line (no that’s not a typo, it says billion). 

This is a staggering amount of money, but it seems lavishing your loved ones at Christmas is rooted in history.  Perhaps it can be traced to the Christmas song “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”  This year, if you were to replicate the song you would spend $101,119.84 on your true love.  Who can live up to such expectations?  Does love demand that we buy such rare gifts as a partridge in a pear tree or send your sweetheart 12 lords-a-leaping?  What happened to a simple fruitcake or tin of homemade fudge?  Are we expecting too much out of our Christmas giving?

My shopping, or shall I say buying, is just about completed and I pat myself on the back for being so organized.  But to be completely honest, I feel a slight sense of loss.  I’ve always had an abundance of Christmas spirit, and this is a time of year I look forward to with great anticipation.  I like the baking and the decorating, the cheesy music and the twinkling lights.  I like to stroll through my favorite local shops thinking of my favorite people.  In my flurry of online shopping this year, instead of feeling wrapped in the Christmas spirit, I feel instead as if I were simply checking people off a list.  Is searching for the best deal taking away from the Christmas spirit, or is it that bottom dollar deal that makes it?  Are the presents that we open on Christmas morning the best part about the season, or is it everything that leads up to that moment? 

There is a song that says “we are all children on Christmas Day.”  I’ve always felt this to be true.  There is a special magic that materializes around Christmas that smacks of the unexplained we once believed in as children.  Now that I’m buying and preparing for my own child, I understand that the gifts she opens on Christmas morning will enhance the magic of the season for her.  But I also understand that my thrill for the twinkling lights on our tree, the special once-a-year treats we’re making together, the frenzy of looking for the perfect gift in a crowded mall, and the anticipation of a visit from Santa are just as magical as the latest deal I found online.  And if “we’re all children on Christmas Day,” then I’m not expecting a partridge in a pear tree, but just a small sparkle of that old magic.

Previously published in "The Star," Grand Coulee, Washington. December 14, 2011

Combating Leaves

One morning, not long ago, I awoke with a new understanding of an expression I had heard before.  Overnight my rectangular patch of green grass had transformed into an actual “blanket of leaves.”  You can imagine my surprise when I looked out my kitchen window and could not see one speck of green anywhere in my yard.

To be completely fair, there had been some patches of leaves on the grass in the days leading up to this, but nothing to inspire me to go outside and remove them.  Just a few harmless leaves, why disturb them?  But on this one morning, there was no denying it; I had to get rid of them.  I looked up.  It wasn’t readily apparent that my great silver maple had dropped any leaves at all.  This was a tad troublesome, as it looked to me like there were at least 100 trees worth of fallen leaves on my lawn already.  More was coming, of that I could be sure.

As I pondered the new vista out my kitchen window, I realized this was the first year of my life that I have ever been solely responsible for leaf disposal.  In my adolescence my parents owned a blower and had sufficient space to simply blow the leaves off their grass into the adjoining forest.  And while I certainly appreciated the blowers’ efficiency, I am embarrassed to say that for all these years I have viewed raking leaves as quite a romantic pastime.  It’s like a postcard for a picture perfect fall day: colorful autumn leaves drift slowly from the stately trees and a woman wrapped in a woolen sweater and bright knit hat peacefully rakes leaves in front of her white picket fence.  Hot chocolate and perhaps an apple pie await her indoors.  Beautiful, yes?

My husband, who grew up in leafy New England and knows better, happily handed over raking duty to me.  I bundle up my daughter and grab that ancient instrument of leaf removal, the indomitable rake.  There is a certain finesse to raking leaves I hadn’t realized before; a rhythm, a pattern.  At first I am simply enjoying hauling them into a pile to let my two-year-old leap into.  She shrieks with laughter.  I take pictures. 

After only a short time she loses interest, much faster than my own child self imagined.  When I was her age we lived in southern California and although we had one magnificent tree in our small backyard, the ground was mostly a slab of concrete and bounding into piles of fallen leaves never entered our sphere of play.  I’d always imagined that for a child it would be enormously fun.

No matter.  I turn up the intensity with my dear rake.  A wind has picked up and I notice my ever-growing pile of leaves has begun to flitter back across the lawn.  My daughter is banging at the door to go inside.  I do what I can with the piles I have made and go inside to reevaluate.  To my dismay there is no hot chocolate or freshly baked apple pie.  I’m starting to feel a little gypped. 

The next morning I awake to find a brand new “blanket of leaves.”  We repeat the process except this time my daughter loses interest after only a few minutes and I’m left alone, silently cursing this ancient instrument called the rake I had so adored just yesterday.  My arms and back are a little stiff, but they are calling for snowfall tonight.  And although I don’t know what happens to a blanket of leaves when snowfall covers them, I’m pretty sure its not good.  I’m thinking of chucking the rake and asking my neighbor to borrow his leaf blower.

After days of this repeated pattern I look around with satisfaction.  A terrific windstorm has hastened the process and just the last few holdouts cling to the silver maple in my backyard.  Whenever the wind finally loosens the last remnants of a once vibrant fall, I suspect they will be spared the rake for this year. 

Previously published in "The Star," Grand Coulee, Washington. November 30, 2011