My father-in-law, Glyn, moved to a nursing home in early December. We came bearing gifts on Christmas day – my husband, me, our 10-year old son, along with my husband’s brother and his 11-year old daughter.

Glyn sat in the dining room. A first for him as he had been taking all his meals in his room. He ate his prime rib with gusto as we hovered around the table. Conversation was sparse. I had thought that this visit to the nursing home would be sad but it felt okay.

Holding a gift box and tearing the wrapping paper off was difficult for Glyn. My husband helped him open a large box filled with a heavy black jacket. I wondered if he’d ever get the chance to wear it.

“Did you bring the camera?” my husband asked.

“Yes,” I replied, fumbling in my purse and hoping the batteries were charged.

I focused the camera on my husband, our son, his brother, and our niece as they stood behind my seated father-in-law. I felt a rush of anxiety. Should we be taking this picture?

No, no, not here, not the annual family picture in a nursing home. Pictures would stop with last year. No more, no.

The nervous surge receded. I could take the picture. This is where we gathered, where we honored Glyn this year. I pushed the button, capturing the three generations.

“This is the nicest Christmas I’ve had in a long time,” my father-in-law said.

“I’ll bring his presents to his room,” I said and quickly grabbed the jacket and another gift. His room was a short walk down the hall. I barely made it before bursting into tears.

By Marianne Lonsdale

Labels: annual family picture, By Marianne Lonsdale, Christmas, Gifts, nurseing home, prime rib, tears, video camera

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Before you know it the holidays will be here. That doesn't mean buying toys for our kids. This tells us it's nearly time to buy new appliances for our house. They love to stop working at just about the same time that the holidays are breaking our bank accounts. 

Instead of Toys R Us I'm scurrying to Best Buy or Sears to replace some expensive but can’t-live-without-it item, like the dishwasher that just fell apart all over my kitchen floor.

Last year, it was the central heat and air conditioning unit that whirred and buzzed for a few days before shutting down altogether right before Christmas. Temperatures in Sacramento where I live were dipping into the 30s and 40s at night and my kids complained they could see their breath. A contractor spent two days on the roof fiddling with the unit before he could determine how to fix it, which he managed to do the day before my mother arrived from Connecticut and I hosted 13 people for dinner.

The worst example is from our first Thanksgiving in Sacramento. That’s when we were hosting my husband’s family for dinner and our one and only toilet backed up so badly a hole was blown in the pipe that led to the city’s sewer line in the street. The pressure had built up so much that when the pipe burst it sent the, uh, debris that had been flushed down our toilet high into the air creating a geyser of, uh, stuff in my front yard. My husband and I watched in horror from our living room window. Finally, he turned to me and said, “We could laugh about this or we could cry about this.”

We laughed until tears poured down our faces.

Determined to break this expensive albeit memorable tradition, I tried over the last several weeks to ignore the dishwasher’s decline. First, the front cover broke off, revealing a wall of tubes and wires. Then the control panel worked itself loose and dangled precariously above the floor remaining connected only by a slim handful of wires. A friend who visited recently gawked, “What is wrong with your kitchen?” When my husband insisted I face the undeniable fact that this holiday season would not be the one to end the cycle of poorly-timed appliance breakdown, I resisted. The dishwasher still worked, I reminded him, and suggested he duct tape both panels back onto the front of the dishwasher.

The dishwasher has since stopped working. I’ve been scrubbing dishes by hand for a week and somehow have avoided admitting to my husband that I was wrong. Nonetheless he wisely disappeared for a few hours over the weekend and returned with an early Christmas present.

The new dishwasher will be delivered tomorrow.

By Laura-Lynne Powell

Labels: appliances, Best Buys, Christmas, contractor, dishwasher, holidays, Laura-Lynne Powell, refrigerator, scrubbing dishes, Sears, Thanksgiving

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I admit it. I’m a fan. Or an addict.

As I watched Jason, the formerly dumped dad, finally pick his whisper of a bride-to-be on a Monday night on ABC, twirling and twirling her gowned figure around and around, as only a short man can do with an itty-bitty woman, I thought, grabbing a tissue, sniffle, True Love!

But then, at the Most Shocking After The Rose Ceremony Ever on Planet Earth, where we’re supposed to finally meet, live, and have kids, the happy couple who’d been twirling and twirling and pulling the moon into an alternate orbit -- the bomb drops. Jason doesn’t really love his ex-Dallas Cowboys cheerleader sprite. He wants the other one. The one he dumped. Flat. On. Her. Incredulous. Face.

If you don’t watch the show, let me lay it out for you. Single, unlucky in love dad goes on a date with twenty-five women. He gets to play with all the women however much he wants – kiss, tickle, tempt them with his shirtless body, take helicopter rides and laugh – ha ha! – for the countless cameras that surround their every move. And then politely dump them by not handing them a rose. Dating under a microscope is the appropriate cliché, ‘cept this microscope has twenty bazillion fans (addicts) who just can’t get enough of poor Jason’s quest for love.

This season, according to Chris, the well coiffed and patiently disgusted host of the show, Jason’s journey has drawn more viewers than ever. And I can see why. To add to the drama/trauma, we viewers all already knew and held a stake in Jason’s fortune as we had all watched him fail at finding love on last season’s Bachelorette. The one with the Greek gal we all had girl-crushes on. Deanna. You see, Deanna dumped Jason last minute, and chose the completely inappropriate snowboard dude instead.

A nation wept.

Of course, to make the soap opera circle complete, (and feel free to skip this paragraph if your kid needs a diaper change or Ed McMahon is at the front door) back to this season, the same Deanna flies all the way to New Zealand where Jason is about to propose to his itty-bitty slut, I mean, fiancée, while unhappy Deanna confesses that she made a BIG mistake last season and wants Jason back!

Can it get any better than this? Reality TV soap opera at its best!

Confused? Head a-twirl? Good. Because isn’t that what love is, confusing? Dizzying? And that is what has drawn so many (educated!) suckers like me into this orgasmic, minefield of drama played out for us on Monday nights. This isn’t a sappy, happy story of boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy marries girl happily ever after. This is the 2009 version of how love really works (uh, sorry, Shakespeare), and Jason’s angst and complete bungling of making the “right” choice for his small family reminds me of some of my friends and acquaintances who have recently made their own tough, love choices and are leaving their marriages and relationships even after ten plus years and three point two children.

Fortunately or unfortunately for them, my friends don’t have helicopters whisking them and their kids on date nights or long-stem, red roses determining their fate. But their world is twirling, around and around, as I watch and hope that their new, single-mom ride is smoother than the bumpy, public one our sweet Jason, Bachelor Dad, has chosen to take. And, hopefully, I will watch them and engage with compassion and empathetic angst on a different level than I do with my guilt-ridden Bachelor addiction.

By Annie Yearout

Labels: ABC, addiction, Annie Yearout, Christmas, Dallas Cowbosy, Deanna, dude, Ed McMahon, Jason, New Zealand, Reality TV, shirtless body, Soap Opera, The Bachelorette, The Bachlor

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The holiday season will soon be over.

Then I will finally put away my “Christmakkah” decorations: the unobtrusive fake tree, which resembles more of an ornament holder, the driedel and Hanukkah menorah, the Nutcracker, and the evergreen garland that just had to do for that Christmas smell I love so much.

We ate or gave away all of the Hanukkah cookies my daughter and I made while listening to my favorite Christmas CDs. But now, I put away the conundrum that occurs every year in December and feel secure again in my decision to have a Jewish household.

The only time of year I question my conversion and raising my daughter Jewish is around Christmas, but I think that time of year presents some unrest for many Jewish individuals, even those who grew up in Jewish households simply because Christmas is so embedded in our culture. I have heard the Christmas tree debate and discussion many times and know many Jewish families that put a tree up in December simply because it’s festive, ignoring the true meaning of Christmas.

There are many reasons I wish to be Jewish, but Hanukkah isn’t one of them. It doesn’t compete with Christmas and is really a minor holiday in the Jewish religion. The gift giving for eight nights is done mostly because of Christmas, and, as my husband’s father said, “Hanukkah is really for the children.”

The smell of frying latkes doesn’t have the same nostalgic impact on me as fresh evergreen. Even what is celebrated during Hanukkah, namely a battle won, on the surface does not strike an emotional cord like the birth of a baby in a manger. Fighting, even if for a good cause, is a result of human failure, whereas the birth of a baby, Christ child or not, is truly miraculous and beautiful.

I try opening my mind and looking a little deeper. Perhaps it is good that this time of year encourages me to reflect and question my decision to be Jewish. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons I became Jewish was because I was attracted to the freedom to think for myself and the lack of hierarchy found in Reform Judaism.

It is more of a religion of deed and not of creed. It tests my power of individual interpretation, a value greatly cherished in Jewish thinking. And so Hanukkah not only celebrates a military victory against an indomitable force, but also the importance of taking action instead of relying solely on faith or giving up before starting.

The Jews could have decided that King Antiochus was too powerful, but instead Judah Macabee took action and he and his army saved the Jewish lifestyle. Commendable and inspirational. In this light, maybe even miraculous and beautiful, too.

Every December I’ll unpack my few holiday decorations, wish I had a real tree, and sing my favorite Christmas songs. I’ll also light my menorah, eat my jelly doughnuts, and give my daughter Hanukkah gifts. I know I’ll feel the confusion again and wish for that simplicity I felt as a child, sure Santa on his sleigh will bring me a gift.

And, worse, I might even wish my daughter could experience the simplicity of Christmas as I did as a child. Instead, she’ll know both Christmas and Hanukkah and realize at a very young age, that there are many ways to celebrate life and multiple interpretations, too. As messy as it is, reflective questioning and open-mindedness are essential aspects of the “Christmakkah” season for me, and I hope for my family, as well.

By Rebecca Elegant

Labels: Christmas, Hanukkah, Mixed Religions, Rebecca Elegant

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The young girls in holiday finery caught my eye as I stepped off the escalator onto the BART platform at the Civic Center station in San Francisco. 

They sat on one of the round marbled benches, maybe seven and nine-years old, carrying on a lively conversation with their wooden nutcrackers.  Their mother, in a black and silver lace blouse, was standing and looking up at the electronic schedule display.  I smiled and was about to ask how they had enjoyed the ballet when a lump swelled and my throat closed. 

My body had reacted before my memory caught up. 

The memory of standing with my mother on the steps of the War Memorial Opera House.  I was six, my sister, Cathy, was nine and big brother, Jimmy, was ten.  Mom was bent down, holding my coat collar, telling me to obey Jimmy and Cathy.  No squirming around and no talking during the performance.  She would meet us right back on the steps when the ballet was over.

The performance was magical! 

The beauty and glitter of the ballerinas, the enchanting music.  My memories are swirling collages of many colors, silver and gold sparkling, and wishing I were the star in my own ballet slippers, on point. 

The most glamorous event of my young life.

My mother barely scraped together the money for our tickets.  She could not afford to buy one for herself and she had my other two brothers at home to care for.  She was thirty years old with five children, making ends meet on a firefighter’s salary.  But the magic of the Nutcracker was a necessity she would not let her older children miss.

I still have the playbill tucked away with other childhood treasures. 

Thank you, Mom. 

Merry Christmas.

By Marianne Lonsdale

Labels: Christmas, Marianne Lonsdale, Nutcracker

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No separate wrapping paper and tags. Not having to disguise one’s penmanship or remember whether Santa’s cursive slants left or right every year. Not having to remember that the girls can’t yet read cursive. I guess there are a few benefits to Christmas with nonbelievers.

But mostly it makes me sad that we no longer need to dispose of scummed-over cocoa and apples for the reindeer after the kids have finally gone to bed on Christmas Eve. (My brother trained his kids to leave beer for Santa.)

It wasn’t so bad when our eldest daughter grew suspicious about Santa’s largesse. In fact, she seemed more impressed that her notoriously cheap parents were the ones springing for all that loot than by the idea of a fat guy squeezing down millions of chimneys in the space of a few hours.

Plus, she was a good sport about keeping the charade going for the sake of her little sister—and parents.

I remember spending Christmas a long time ago with the same brother who so cleverly customized Santa’s repast. His kids tumbled into the living room where I was trying to sleep, unable to contain their excitement a minute past four a.m. They spied the riot of plastic tunnels and the squeaky rotating wheel under the tree.

“A hamster!! Oh, thank you, Santa, thank you!!” they gushed into the darkness. Nobody had to prompt them into politeness. Theirs was a spontaneous outpouring of reverence.

Now politeness is about all we can expect. The girls are teenagers with exacting and expensive taste. They write out detailed wish lists while making it clear that my judgment is not to be trusted, that I shouldn’t venture off-list.

Then they are disappointed to get everything they want except the element of surprise. But their manners are impeccable as they dutifully thank us.

I miss Santa.

By Lorrie Goldin

Labels: Christmas, Gifts, Lorrie Goldin, Santa

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