Christmas Eve Phase 2: A Trip to Bethlehem and Nazareth

December 24, 2022Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

My mother-in-law mentioned that she was making fried chicken and potato salad for Christmas Eve dinner, so I of course said I would come. If there is something I love, it’s her fried chicken and potato salad. She also made ham and a honey glaze. And stuffed shells. I put honey glaze on my chicken.

My brother-in-law made figgy pudding. That was tasty.

My mother-in-law always has a heap of homemade Christmas cookies and the family fruitcake recipe is unbelievably tasty. And the goofy sugar/coconut/strawberry JellO crystal cookies are one of my favorites.

The Teenager says she likes when I come to family functions, because I liven them up a bit with my big mouth.

The kids opened presents– the eldest great-grandchild received a learn-to-tie-your-shoelaces wooden shoe (The Teenager received the same but in book form at that age) and “The Old Lady Who Swallowed The Fly” finger puppets (as The Teenager also did as a child, except the Teenager received a creepy old lady doll with a creepy gaping mouth). I tried to engage the whole family in a sing-along of There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed The Fly, because all the children in the family, I believe even back to my husband and his siblings, were raised with that morbid song.

No one went for it.

If you don’t know the song, here’s a version on YouTube.

I’ll give you some nice holiday photos of the tree and The Teenager opening her exciting new clamps from her uncle, who always knows what she needs for her growing tool collection. And she also kept swapping out the baby Jesus in the manger for first a goose and then a turkey.

With our bellies bursting with cookies and figgy pudding– so yummy, I do love figs, we left Bethlehem to travel to Nazareth to visit one of my former Target colleagues who now works there. We exchanged some Christmas hugs. I put gas in the car. And The Teenager got a salted caramel hot chocolate.

This low-key holiday is working out perfectly.

The Magic of Yule Time

December 22, 2022Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I consider myself agnostic, animist pagan with a foundation in some Christian values and appreciation for religious myths. I wonder if maybe I would be a better Jew than Christian, but in the end I think our behavior overshadows our labels when discussing the “goodness” or “worthiness” of a person or a way of life.

I have struggled with my share of issues this past year– as many of us have and do– but yesterday was the start of Yule and the Teenager wanted to lean more into our pagan side.

She purchased a small live tree and wanted to decorate it with items in homage to nature, such as pine cones.

Today was my last day at work before the holidays and the leadership team have designated that I get all the pre-boxed work. For some reason I felt energetic and more myself in months, if not since my father died. So, I decided to take the early out from my shift, clocking out at 9:44 a.m. I came home, had a cup of coffee, did some dishes, and whipped up some really yummy macaroni and cheese.

It was that good that the dog and I licked the bowl and then the dog ate the spoon. Oops!

I invited Gayle over– because Gayle knows the fleeting nature of my holiday spirit– and she brought a summer sausage to share with the Teen and I as we ended up popping and stringing popcorn for our miniature tree for Yule. The Teen brought down the sewing kit which is really an old, plastic storage bin for Matchbox cars that we stashed yarn, needles and other small sewing implements on one side and The Teenager moved all our embroidery thread to the other.

While it may be under three feet tall, and has only pine cones and popcorn on it, it stands in our living room like a marvel.

Let’s talk a little bit about the holidays

December 4, 2022Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

The Christmas season, in general, makes me anxious and uncomfortable. The reasons for this don’t matter. Just accept the statement. I spent Thanksgiving alone this year, though I know I could have gone to my in-laws. This year has been a year of firsts, first everything without my father. And spending most of my holidays home alone has been part of my grieving process. A great big letting go of all the expectations and obligations.

It’s the first weekend in December. The Teenager has asked to give up the Christian trappings and embrace our pagan side. So, we intend to celebrate Yule. She wants a small tree covered with pine cones and other items of nature. I’d like to make a dinner that includes rabbit or venison.

Yesterday, we ended up in Bethlehem– The Christmas City– and stopped to see The Teenager’s grandparents (in part because The Teenager added the grandparents to our phone plan since a certain phone service that focuses on seniors has sent phones Grammy cannot use and that don’t dial 9-1-1 when her husband is having diabetic seizures in a stranger’s driveway. Good job, Consumer Cellular.) Grammy is learning how to use her iPhone 13 and even FaceTimed her sister who lives six hours away. Even if the FaceTime was an accident.

I got to see Grammy’s tree and train, and eat the last slice of Grammy’s shoofly pie. While Grammy comes from Pennsylvania Dutch stock, she struggles to make a wet bottom shoofly pie. So she’s been working on it. And we brought the dog, so the dog got to see Grammy and Poppop and the squirrels in their backyard.

Then the teenager and I spent some time doing chores and resting before embarking on the one totally ridiculous thing that is our holiday tradition: watching Denis Leary in The Ref. And this year we watched it sipping chocolate laced wine, eating dusty road sundaes without the chocolate syrup and waxing our legs.

Every day I see more and more ways The Teenager has absorbed the values of my estranged husband and I, and the things that make us uniquely us are important to her. And that makes me happy.

And it’s not easy to be happy these days, under the weight of grief and the stress of disability.

Half way through the movie, The Teenager wanted potato chips. So she called her dad. He happened to be in the middle of Target. He brought us two bags of Doritos, one original red for The Teen and one Cool Ranch blue for me.

Because we’re all still family.

Tree Trimming Party

December 21, 2019December 21, 2019Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Once we got our tree together we had a small gaggle or friends over to decorate.

We ended up with three trees: the real tree, the mini tree of the teenager’s special ornament selection, and the “Who” tree, our artificial tree decorated like a tree from Whoville.

The wines I reviewed earlier:

Wines from the Tree Trimming Party

We even invited some neighborhood dogs, Buddy and Sobaka.

Highlights:

The teen’s childhood Christmas compilations including the ones where she sings are still adorable.
We lost some of the tree lights and couldn’t find them until the tree was lit.
Dark chocolate hummus is very tasty on raspberries.
My big dumb cat Oz is always a party favorite.