Because We Just Can't Stop Celebrating Stuff

I love how calendars in this day and age are so egalitarian, so politically, or should we say globally correct. In most modern versions you will find every holiday from Botswana to Iceland to the tips of Patagonia represented, not to mention all the newly formed holidays that are forever popping up... Secretary's Day, Teacher Appreciation Day, Remember Anything That Doesn't Yet Have a Holiday Day.

 I tend to like the ones that have a couple hundred years behind them, but that cuts out a lot of modern day events so I need to work on getting over that.

Living overseas in a country with holidays far different than my own, and among other foreigners who bring their own set of traditions and celebrations, new reasons to celebrate seem to be popping up all the time. Yesterday was November 11, and on that one day alone...

• The feast of St. Martin (or Martinmas) is celebrated all over Europe
• Remembrance Day is celebrated in the U.S. (which used to be Veteran's Day, which began as a memorial to the WWI armistice signed on Nov. 11th at 5am)
• Pepero Day is celebrated in Korea (a brilliant marketing plan)

My observance of Remembrance Day was limited to reading all the comments on facebook. My interest in Pepero Day began on the walk to school where I first heard about it and continued to rise throughout the day as it was brought up again and again. Where was my Pepero is what I want to know?

With all of its history and the fact that its celebrants walk around with lanterns, Martinmas was a dead ringer for me. There was a local gathering put on by some expats living here, to help the children celebrate by making paper lanterns and then taking a lamplit walk. We couldn't go because of scheduling conflicts, but we made our own lanterns in the afternoon and then lit them during our evening meal together. 

It was fun and so simple, and gave some festivity to our otherwise midweek Thursday meal. I'm not sure that the Europeans serve Indian Curry at their Martinmas dinner feasts (I think goose is traditionally the way to go), but it worked for us. 

As a whole, I think Martinmas is a sweet little holiday. It's history is simple, and perhaps not entirely compelling, but it does have all those years behind it which moves it up a few notches in my book.

Just one more stop, one more bit of preparation and festive enjoyment on our way to this upcoming season we call the Holidays. I'm hopeful they can all be this calm, simple, and full of Light.

To Bless and To Be :: The Honing of Hospitality

I can remember with severe clarity many of the first meals I served as a newly married novice in the kitchen. Eager to invite people into our home, to begin the journey of cooking and preparing a meal to share with friends, we hustled them in as couples, as groups, as families and single friends. I can think of undercooked chicken, one pot meals that were barely enough, over-salted chowder, strange orange chicken concoctions, and the list goes on. Then there were the dynamics, the ones that our personalities as a melancholy and introvert were sure only to exacerbate. 

I suppose like anything, the road to hospitality began long before that, growing up in a household with four siblings and a mother who was forever filling our weekends and holidays with the lonely and afflicted, the ones who didn't get invited anywhere because they drooled or talked too much or were just plain weird. We were always encouraged to bring our friends over, no matter how late or how many; ours was an open door, and I know that it must have left a mark on me.

As the years of attempting to share our home and our food and our lives have crept by, I've thought a lot about my weaknesses in this endeavor, and my strengths too. I've struggled with wanting to be an open home, but finding the way to do it without too much fanfare, or too little. 

Perhaps the thing that has helped the most (and is helping me still) is seeing the ways others have done it and admiring the goodness in their ways. Things like my husband's mother, being flexible enough to make dinner for any guest her husband happened to drag in the door unannounced. She made things special, without feeling the need to make them elaborate. She was stuck in a place where access to grocery stores was limited and she made do with what she had, but never made her guests feel the weight of that. She cut toast into hearts, turning humble pie into a gift of grace. I think about that often when I am tempted to feel like I need a spectacular meal, or just the right ingredients, when I know that the most important thing is that they are welcomed in, made to know that in this house they are brought in with gladness.

Then there are the uncomfortable memories of my childhood. Most of this discomfort was a result of my bad attitude, which I now see with regret. And yet I am affected by it... wanting to keep the numbers "just right" so no one feels squished or ignored, or God forbid, uncomfortable. But even that, I've had to learn to let go of a little bit. I want to be thoughtful, and I want my guests to know that they are special and that I have thought about them, but a perfect orchestration of numbers and people does not always guarantee that this will happen. And sometimes a heart too bent on making it just perfect isn't thinking about her guests at all.

Perhaps it is the age of Martha Stewartism that we live in, which makes the gathering of a meal all about beautiful table arrangements and the presentation of gourmet food with impeccable and hard to find ingredients. Or maybe it is the fact that so little of our regular days are spent in honest to goodness meal preparation, that we are left feeling like we need to "up it" when someone comes to dine. At best, there hopefully lurks somewhere a desire to simply bless our guests with an offering of love made tangible by edible food for sustenance and the joy of sharing it together.

I suppose I've begun to see, and to attempt to pursue the fact that the sharing of a meal is an important part of the sharing of a life. This is the essential quality I am after... and the adorning of it with food and atmosphere is an important part, but it is not the center stage. Yet, the meal is an important one to share because it is a gift of grace, and a respite from the day's activities when we can rejoice in the goodness of its provision. The meal is a time for festivity, and festivity with thanks must be one of the great joys of community. I'm reading through Dietrich Bonhoeffer's, Life Together and he brings to light so many simple but not often thought about truths.

The fellowship of the table has a festive quality. It is a constantly recurring reminder in the midst of our everyday work of God's resting after His work, of the Sabbath as the meaning and goal of the week and its toil. Our life is not only travail and labor, it is also refreshment and joy in the goodness of God. We labor, but God nourishes and sustains us... Through our daily meals He is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day. 

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer Life Together

When friends gather here, I am grateful for their presence. When strangers come in, I am hopeful for their comfort. When too many arrive, I am amazed at how it can all still be enough. When we feel the lack in our personalities, I pray that food and presence and a sense of welcome will sustain them. And as I present our home, at times with too much ado and at times too poorly, I have received much grace (even forgiveness!) and love from my guests. Hospitality can truly be a means of blessing to us all.

This post is also a part of The View From Here weekly photo challenge. This week's theme, {the days grow short} was about taking natural light indoor shots... aiya.

A Trail of Half Empty Mugs

My mother wrote an email asking where I've been... on the blog at least. Grandma's need pictures and updates about life that don't always make it into the skype calls.

The last few days have been, well, scattered. I did sit down and write a few thoughts about hospitality because they were brewing on the forefront of my mind, then saved it and decided to let the thoughts brew a bit longer. These are thoughts mind you, not instructions or advice. 

I've taken a few pictures, but was uninspired by them, and so decided not to share. Blogging can do funny things to your mind sometimes; make you think you need to say something when there is nothing to say, or drum up post when you need to just be quiet. No harm done, I have to remember. It's not like this is the NY Times or anything.

Thinking about my silence and the slight decrease in inspiration lately, I started noticing what it is I have been doing. I started noticing a lot of half empty coffee cups. 

What does this mean? What does it tell you about the activities of my day that, here and there I began to notice half drunk creamy pots of caramel colored liquid, strewn about like a trail of the unfinished business I have been about? It's not that we've been overly busy, but that I feel so much coming up to prepare for, and in trying to slow down and quietly think through that, I keep leaving bits and pieces of time, and projects, and coffee strewn about the house. Because let's be honest, any quiet or sit down activity gets interrupted quite regularly when there are children about. 

So I suppose this is where I've been... soaking things in but not quite ready to spill them out. 

Thinking about coming days but still heavy with the growing, forming thoughts.

Trying to put things away, but feeling like they are forever getting tossed and turned back out.

Could that be any more vague?

I promise, or hope for, more clarity soon.

Orientation: On Holidays and Walking Home

The looming holidays have made me contemplative about preparations. I've shared a little about the lack of inspiration I feel, perhaps due in part to the fact that, here in China, the western and Christian holidays are not forced into your every sensory receptacle like a fire hose letting loose in your face. Compared to some places in the world, it is quiet here.

I could just sit back and let them roll by without much fanfare or ado. But that seems rather sad to me, and then I look around and I have all these little people who I want to grow up strong with traditions and memories and sugar plums dancing in their heads. There is that. But I am also drawn out of my reverie by a sense, a belief really, that the holidays are here to help me, to bring some sense of order and wonder to my everyday life. There is of course, a tendency to run around making the holidays all about us creating something, some event or atmosphere. As I think about it though, and muse on the wisdom of others before me, I am beginning to think they are more about bringing us to a place of orientation.

Last year, I experienced a bit of this with the season of Lent that leads to Easter Sunday. I enjoyed the Lent journey so much, but the consummation of that preparation was something that had little outward flair. Yet it brought such peace and joy and worship in spite of its humble circumstances. This, I think is what I am drawn towards as I look to these upcoming days and preparations. I want to re-orient. I need to start preparing, and in doing so, experience what all the ages of Followers before me have taken part in, the Holidays as a means of grace to help us remember, to help us rejoice, to help us be together in our re-orientation.

Yesterday, I walked home from the market, one hand heavy with small, juicy oranges and fresh vegetables for a salad, the other clinging intermittently to the chubby fingers of my two year old. She wanted to stop at every object of interest: the shriveling berries poking out from roadside bushes, construction cones with hollow tops, curbs that begged to be jumped off of and scampered up again, cigarettes flung carelessly on the pavement. I found myself thinking about how irksome it is for me to try to walk home with this child. I wandered in my mind to all the articles or books I've read recently that seem to promote this faddish idea of "being in the moment" and being grateful for the present. I think this way of thinking has some merit of course, but as I struggled with the very moment I was in, I wondered at how often it falls short. You can tell yourself until you are blue in the face to just "be present" and know that all you have right now is all you need, but am I the only one who is unable to do that moment by moment, day after day?

It brought me back to orientation. Being thankful or grateful inherently implies an acknowledgment towards something or someone. I think this is where C.S. Lewis would chime in with some eloquent discussion of the way this phenomenon in our morality points to the fact that we as human beings are created with an Orientation to Someone. And this, I believe is where thankfulness and gratefulness and being in the moment can and must lead us if they are to do us any real good.

In my thanksgiving, I am led to worship. In my remembering, I am led to worship. In my delighting in festivals and food and joyous community and all that they lead me to think on, I am led to worship. And worship, my friends, is it not the one thing that orients us the most? Whatever we turn to, wherever we place our expectations, our hopes, our praise and our thanks, that is what we worship. Whether it is the Earth, ourselves, materialism, feminism, political activism, or any other ism, we orient our hopes and desires to that thing. My worship is always in need of re-orientation, because I am disoriented. I am always turning my face to other things.

Which is why the holidays, they are a gift... the opportunity year after year, in the midst of our day to day, to Re-turn it back around.

Today I...

• Took my Dad back to the airport.
• Searched on Ravelry for a pattern for someone's upcoming birthday. So many options and ideas but I think I settled on something simple enough to finish in a week (what??) and yet different than my recent projects (it's not a hat).
• Walked to the vegetable market and picked up cauliflower, pumpkin, and some potatoes for dinner.
• Hung all the sheets out to dry.
• Stacked some books up next to my favorite chair in hopes of reading or re-reading them all soon.
• Ate leftover chicken cordon bleu and twice baked potatoes with broccoli... yum.
• Thought about my dad's visit and what a blessing it was. Thought about my mom and how she told him to go instead of her this time, since one of them must stay home to care for someone in their house. Thankful for and missing them both.
• Decided to get my head out of this slump regarding holidays... got mildly excited about looking into ways to prepare for Thanksgiving and the Advent Season.
• Remembered I still have insurance claims to file. Ugh.
• Listened to Eva Cassidy on Pandora
• Cuddled under warm blankets with two sleepy children, who didn't wiggle or try to get out, and read Rain, Goodnight Gorilla, and The Big Red Barn until they fell asleep.
• Mushed up pumpkin.
• Perused my favorite Op-Ed Columnist.
• Had one, two, and then three cups of coffee.
• Many other things. Some more, some less important than those mentioned here.

Tis the Season for Hatmaking

I am accepting the fact that I am just going to be making hats for a little while yet, if not forever. We all need them, they are quick and easy, and the air is only going to get colder.

I love earflap hats, and this was a first attempt so I learned a lot and already know some things I will do differently next time. For you knitters out there, the cable cast on method is really helpful, and I only learned it for the second (smaller) hat. It made a big difference I think. There is an easy how-to video here. Must I say again how sad it is that this is the way I learn, via You Tube, and not at the feet of my grandmother? Yes, I must say it again.

The pattern is found here. But like most knitting projects, I did make a few changes.

Oh, they are so sweet cuddled up in their warm tweedy hats and acting like they just hug each other all day long. They don't, in case you were wondering.

We Tried, Sort Of.

Normally, I am a bit fanatical about the holidays. It's all about the atmosphere, the right foods, the traditions, and of course the meaning and reasons we as people and cultures celebrate these festival days at all.

But for some reason this year I am not feeling the holiday juices flowing.

I completely forgot about Halloween, and Reformation Day until the neighborhood gathered for a little party.

I am unmotivated about Thanksgiving.

I am excited about Christmas primarily because we will have more family here, but little else about it has entered my mind. 

Last year I was very inspired by Lenten practices and started reading more about the Orthodox Church Calendar, which has reminded me that sometimes the routines and disciplines whether daily or yearly are the very things that help you enter in to a place of worship and joy in the life you are living. 

Yesterday the kids rolled out of bed from their afternoon naps and I slapped a few lines on their faces that resembled a kitten, then belted up an old sweatshirt to look like Robin Hood's. We meandered outside to see our friends and some new faces at a neighborhood outdoor party, and then returned home to share homemade pizza and hand out candy to trick-or-treaters.

 I was thankful my children were unaware and unperturbed by my lackluster planning for the day, but am hoping in the days to come my enthusiasm looks a little more like my father's as he showed number one grandson how to bob for apples yesterday, and a little less like my thrown together costumes.