Howdy, loyal friend. I’ve had a rather busy day and a bit of a sad day; this is in part why this post comes quite late. Not my favorite thing, such a late Thankful Thursday.
But, you know, I’ve come up with quite a lengthy post. Can I get a witness?
My youngest daughter made an advent calender for the family this week. It is amazing. She is amazing. I am amazed at her mind and hands. Her abilities to think through projects and to create things of sense and beauty. Both of my girls have amazing abilities. I think part of this comes from their Waldorf education. Maybe some of it can be attributed to them having inherited good brains. Maybe some of it has to do with good parenting. I’m not really sure, but I’ll take it. I think most children are exceptional, so it’s not that mine are necessarily more exceptional, but they are mine, so I notice and I rejoice.
I didn’t grow up with Christmas in a traditional way, mostly because my father was Jewish and my mother, who converted to Judaism but not really (that’s another matter altogether) would not have Christmas in our house out of respect for my father. She had grown up with Christmas as a young girl in Germany, but it was during the war and she had a childhood-from-hell (I kid you not and am not exaggerating in any way, but that’s another story and perhaps not mine to tell). To further boost the eschewing of Christmas, both of my parents were atheists. We did have Hannukah for a few years when I was young, but because my father didn’t give a flying !@#$% about it, it didn’t stick either. My father, in spite of growing up in an Orthodox household in Hungary (maybe it was Reform and I’ve got this wrong), was basically a hands-off religion guy. He just didn’t care about it. I now am so thankful for this, but it wasn’t always easy growing up as the only kid who didn’t have a religion per se. Now where I live, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting* someone who’s at least a quarter Jewish, let alone half-Jewish, let alone a goddamn atheist. So FINALLY, for the last 11 years of my life, I fit in!
We never had a Christmas tree at our house when I was growing up. We did, however, go to Germany when I was 4 and there we had a real German Christmas. I even remember live candles on the tree. And a fish in aspic which I thought was gross and scary.
We also celebrated Christmas at some friends’ in Canada after I was about 7. These became our life-long family friends who are more like cousins and aunts and uncles to me, especially since I came from a very small family and half of my relatives live in Germany. So, our family friends in Canada became family, period, and we did Christmas there for many years. Now isn’t that a kick in the nuts considering all I just said about Christmas?
Anyway, I have a long history of feelings about Christmas, but my children took to it with gusto. My youngest is still very enamored of it.
A few years ago, maybe 5 or 6, I guess we started to get the girls advent calenders. This was foreign territory to me and somewhat distasteful–too Christian or something, unlike certain parts of Christmas which I had been able to enjoy more easily and to separate from anything religious. There are certain things that are clearly pagan and so I could justify allowing and including and enjoying them even as a non-Christian, half-Jew. I think advent calenders aren’t really religious or pagan anyway, but something about them smacks of religion for me. Maybe the sparkly white kids and angels who are usually depicted all over them.
So, my Annie is away for the week at a class field trip to study geometry. She left the advent calender that she made for us so we could open a little tab and see a new picture each day. In spite of a troubled mind and a troubled world, in spite of death and sadness, I am especially happy that I have such amazing and beautiful daughters. And I LOVE the advent calender. SO MUCH.
Here it is. It is simply lovely (not too fancy) and organized, quietly beautiful and elegant, sort of like Annie herself:
I am most impressed by the way she had to measure it all out, line things up and use 2 pieces of paper in the planning and the way she drew a different secret tiny picture for each little window.
This is it, people, this is the satisfaction of being a parent. I feel blessed and filled.
See you soon I hope….g’night!
*An announcement from the management: Don’t tell anyone, but it’s Friday morning–so wrong since this is a Thankful Thursday post. But the management was up thinking about the phrase you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a (insert noun) for a good part of the time she should have been sleeping.
You know what I love? I LOVE folk expressions, not just idiomatic, but old-timey idiomatic phrases rarely heard any more. Heck, they are so rare that I only know about 3 of them. In any case, because I love cats and because I loathe the mistreatment of animals, that phrase is actually quite offensive. But it’s also rich and bewildering AND gets its point across like no other phrase I can think of. Can you help me? Is there another idiomatic turn of the language that accomplishes that meaning? And can you forgive me for using a string of words that is offensive? What if I do it again? Like this: you can’t swing a dead cat in the Pioneer Valley without hitting a massage therapist. Not only am I half-Jewish, but I’m a massage therapist to boot! I now think I can retire that phrase. God is it offensive! What would the Dakin people think?
twinklysparkles 
I had three paperback books that I bought at a garage sale and subsequently sold several years later at our garage sale. They were filled withfolksy sayings and I remember one title had something to do with a pig on ice. Maybe you can Google it.
This posting is quite beautiful, touching,moving. Thanks for sharing.
Matbe the girls can “interview” your Mom about her experience growing up. If her story is not captured now it will be lost. The book “Sara’s Key” has been made into a movie. The book is worth reading. The movie I have not yet seen.
Thanks for subscribing and commenting directly on my blog, Uncle Doug! Hooray, you made it!
I know that book. I was being a little facetious (hard to tell in print I know) about only knowing 3 of these folk expressions. That book is called “A Hog on Ice.” I’d have to dig it up off the shelves. I think the girls read it, too, and got a kick out of it (idiomatic expression right there).
I think back in Ohio, I heard more of these very colorful phrases because a lot of people had roots further south–Southern Ohio, Southern Illinois, Texas. Far from New England in any case. I think the “independent as a hog on ice” (a phrase used by none other than Tom Waits in one of his songs) and that whole book may have had expressions that sprang from the sea…or was that a different book? I can see that in New England, sea-related idioms would be more common than what one might find in the middle of the country, land-locked as it is.
I remember these: hotter than a June bride in a feather bed; mad as a wet hen; to have a bee in one’s bonnet…I think those are the three I know!
Thanks for finding something valuable in the post. I do know some of my mother’s stories, but I don’t know if they are mine to tell. I’ve written some things down, but certainly not enough. As my memory goes, so go the ones my mother has shared with me. She is not a writer, so I should get on this. So much of my father’s history was unknown to me. Now his last sibling has been gone for over a year and with him, the stories of a childhood in Hungary.
I don’t read much, but I will keep an eye out for the book you mention. I have heard of it.
You do crack me up Twink. If that’s the most offensive thing you can come up with, I think you’ll be alright.
This Thankful Thursday Friday I am thankful for you and the O’Brien because you both keep me smiling.
This, Mr. Alpha, sounds like a challenge, but you make a good point. Just ask my family if I can be more offensive….
It is just words and I’m aware that these particular ones aren’t too bad. I’ve tried to eliminate swearing too much on my blog because I do sometimes put my posts through to Facebook and I don’t want to offend too many people with fucks and dicks and oh, you get the picture.
Glad I can be of service. Your comments make me smile, so the feeling is mutual (insert smiling face emoticon here).
Your description of the advent calendar, and of your daughter, was so beautiful and loving and just right. -kate
Welcome and thanks for the complement, Kate. That is nice to hear. I just popped in to your blog and will leave a comment there. How did you find my blog? Just curious. Site stats aren’t helpful for everything. Your blog is impressive. I have only one brother, no sisters, so a family of 9 children sounds, well, fun and foreign.
Er… not sure how I found it, just happened upon it. Glad I did! 9 children is fun- and entirely chaotic. -kate
BTW, here’s a folk expression you can add to your treasure trove of colloquialisms but you may use it only if you employ the proper regional accent. While someone from the far down side of the Mason-Dixon line could help you with the pronunciation, it sounds something like this:
Y’alladummahnabagaMiss’sippimud.
It translates thusly for you Yankees:
You all (may be singular or plural) are dumber than a bag of Mississippi mud.
Depending upon who this insult is being leveled at, it may be very offensive to a bag of Mississippi mud.
You practice that pronunciation Twink, cause I’d really love to see a youtube vid of you talkin’ Southern.
Alpha–you are giving me good ideas. Making youtube videos could become habit-forming, but not yet….to be continued?
I do love a man with a Southern drawl. At least the drawl and so much better if he’s a. pretty and b. smart. Not sure which is more important….
I love folk expressions too 🙂 I’m Irish, and we have some weird ones on this God-forsaken island.
I’d love to hear about your mom’s childhood someday.
Tell your daughter from me that her advent calendar is amazing.
Oh, Jess. I’d love to hear some of your folk expressions. I am sure they are rich and full like your language, all of that history, all of that Gaelic.
I remember your Poetry Jam prompt. I think I remember my poem and it wasn’t too good.
I think you are much younger than I am. The time of my mother’s childhood in Germany during WWII was probably not untypical. I think the whole of Europe experienced something that is falling away from people’s memories. Of course we have writing and even some footage, but my mother is getting old. She was a young girl then. My German cousins seem less aware of that history because my aunt (my mother’s sister) wasn’t born until 1940…
I will tell my daughter you like her calender. The photo doesn’t do it justice, of course. She doesn’t even know about this post yet. Every day each new picture is so lovely. Today’s was a tiny cup of hot chocolate.
I think this is a fascinating post. Your daughter’s advent calendar is so pure and beautiful. What a lovely thing she made.
Just about gagged on my tea when I read, ” . . . so I could justify allowing and including and enjoying them even as a non-Christian, half-Jew</strong"!! That is such a great description; what a hoot!
Cannot compete with that phrase, although it really is abhorrent (my ex-husband did that in reality to my two kittens, killing them, and I think I suffer from PTSD nearly 40 years later). Still, as a writer you are within your rights to use a disagreeable term when it has the right punch, and that one sure jazzed up your example!
You are a massage therapist! My monthly massage is tomorrow afternoon and I could practically cry thinking about it. Healing hands…I love 'em.
[…] Hog on Ice the other day. Said book was referenced by our dear Uncle Doug in a comment on yet another recent blog post in which I wrote a bit about other idiomatic and/or folksy sayings). But Monsieur Funk had not a […]
[…] don’t have much to add. The Advent calender is coming along beautifully, I haven’t figured out much about Christmas presents, and we […]
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