an embar­rass­ment of riches

It’s that time of the hol­i­day sea­son when I can feel Jan­u­ary breath­ing down my neck, and I just want to con­cen­trate on the hap­pi­ness, bright lights, won­der­ful aro­mas and tastes, love­ly peo­ple and sheer FUN of the last month, appre­ci­at­ing it all to the fullest.

I am try­ing to wrap my head around the idea that our Thanks­giv­ing din­ner in Lon­don was exact­ly a month ago, but it’s been a month so filled chock-a-block with excite­ment that the rest of the year will have a hard time catch­ing up.

For one thing, nobody in our fam­i­ly has quite got over the over­whelm­ing excite­ment of “Les Mis” at school.

I will nev­er for­get all the tis­sues that were required for me to attend two per­for­mances of that sub­lime musi­cal, the sheer amaze­ment at tal­ent like that com­ing from kids the old­est of whom was 18, the devo­tion that they had all put into a musi­cal that if I’d paid £50 to see in the West End, I’d have left happy.

Part of the sense of cel­e­bra­tion was hav­ing John’s mom with us every step of the way, just as crazy about all the music as we were, unable as we were to get “Do You Hear The Peo­ple Sing?” out of heads, day and night.  “You think YOU have the music in your heads?” Avery asked rea­son­ably.  I thought back to my own high school days, play­ing Nel­lie For­bush in “South Pacif­ic” and the feel­ing that what­ev­er life might have to offer in the future, this moment onstage was pret­ty much the apex.  Thank you, Avery, for giv­ing us such fun.  I wish it had nev­er had to end!  The two of us are going to hit the West End pro­duc­tion in the New Year.  Some­thing to look for­ward to.

Hav­ing John’s mom with us for Thanks­giv­ing made it all the more fes­tive, play­ing the Macy’s parade in the back­ground as we cooked, see­ing the kitchen fill up with more and more peo­ple — 19 in total! — fuss­ing over the Turkey That Cooked Too Fast, mak­ing the best gravy in the world… the secret to the gravy?  Brine the turkey for five days in the dregs of all the opened spice pack­ets in your cup­board — Ital­ian sea­son, gar­lic salt, hot pep­pers, cel­ery salt, some­thing called “bolog­nese mix,” along with lots of good salt.  The result­ing turkey juices were just sub­lime.  A lit­tle cream, and bob’s your uncle.

And then sud­den­ly it was Christ­mas!  I’ve long since resigned myself to the trees in Lon­don not smelling like Christ­mas.  Some per­ni­cious tree-sci­en­tist has come up with a vari­ety that nev­er los­es its nee­dles, which would be good news except that the price is: no smell.  But even that could­n’t damp­en our spir­its.  We spent a glo­ri­ous evening dec­o­rat­ing, and then I woke up in the mid­dle of the night absolute­ly sure I’d for­got­ten a box of dec­o­ra­tions in the base­ment, and so I had!  Anoth­er love­ly evening ensued, hang­ing the pre­cious baubles whilst con­vers­ing entire­ly to the cadence of Javert’s big solo song to 24601.  “We have found anoth­er box­ful, let the hang­ing now com­mence, we’d nev­er buy anoth­er bauble, if we had some com­mon sense.”

Of course, the skat­ing rink came to life, with the usu­al win­try drama.

The per­fect accom­pa­ni­ment to such fes­tive activities?

Creamy But­ter­nut Squash soup

(serves 4)

1 large but­ter­nut squash

1 tbsp butter

4 sage leaves

black pep­per

chick­en stock to cov­er the squash, per­haps 3 cups/700 ml

1/2 cup/118 ml light cream

Cut the squash in half length­wise and scoop out seeds.  Place half the but­ter in each hol­low and two sage leaves inside.  Sprin­kle with black pep­per and roast at 425F 220C until very soft, about 45 minutes.

Scoop out the flesh of the squash and place in a saucepan.  Cov­er with chick­en stock and sim­mer for 10 min­utes.  Add cream and blend with hand blender.  Sprin­kle with more black pep­per and serve warm.

All too soon, it was time for John’s mom to fly away to Iowa, but we part­ed with count­less mem­o­ries of our adven­tures: long walks over Kew Bridge, lunch at the Depot, a sur­pris­ing­ly fes­tive shop­ping trip to West­field, Sat­ur­day after­noon at Por­to­bel­lo Mar­ket, din­ner at the White Hart, misty evening walks up the High Street to the book­shop, Two Peas in a Pod, girly lunch­es with Fiona, Kim and Sue — and we had light hearts because we knew in just a few weeks, we’d be togeth­er for Christmas!

And because vol­un­teer­ing waits for no man, it was then time for the termly Lost Prop­er­ty Sale, the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to see the girls as they queue up for lunch, to exchange hol­i­day greet­ings with teach­ers and staff as they pass, enjoy the Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions in the great mar­ble hall, called, appro­pri­ate­ly, the Marble.

Our reward was the Christ­mas con­cert, fea­tur­ing a new­ly-formed adult choir of par­ents, staff and just com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, singing Mozart’s Requiem along with the Senior Choir.  Anoth­er heav­en­ly, impres­sive, tear-mak­ing musi­cal expe­ri­ence at school that left me in awe of these chil­dren, who some­how find time and ener­gy to become so pro­fi­cient at their craft while also being intel­li­gent, hard-work­ing stu­dents, and very nice fam­i­ly mem­bers.  The per­fect way to set off the Christ­mas season!

The head mis­tress actu­al­ly sought me out and said, “Kris­ten, I almost did­n’t recog­nise you.  I don’t think I’ve EVER seen you with your hair down before!”  I KNEW it was worth it to spend three long hours in a styl­ist’s chair!  John of course had to speak up and explain that for the past sev­er­al years, he’s been cut­ting my hair.  So much for my glam­orous image!  But I do like my new look.

And then came a day I had been dread­ing: say­ing good­bye to my beloved Home-Start family.

Of course it is in the con­tract with each fam­i­ly that a year is the lim­it for our rela­tion­ship, and in the begin­ning the year sounds so long that I feel quite com­fort­able with the notion of ulti­mate­ly say­ing good­bye.  But some­how in the inter­ven­ing twelve months, the hours of hold­ing lit­tle sweaty hands, of lis­ten­ing, com­mis­er­at­ing, wor­ry­ing and car­ing, added to up an inde­fin­ably impor­tant part of my life.  On the last after­noon, I shared lit­tle Christ­mas gifts with them all, kissed and hugged every­one good­bye, and final­ly had to go, through every­one’s tears.

2014 will bring anoth­er fam­i­ly to me.  And with each rela­tion­ship and good­bye, I gain some­thing immea­sur­able, to bring to the next experience.

Then, unex­cit­ing­ly, it was time to squeeze in a head­cold, con­ve­nient­ly spaced between Thanks­giv­ing and Christ­mas, neces­si­tat­ing an emer­gency batch of chick­en meat­ball soup made for me by John.  Thank good­ness he knows how!

And before we knew it, we were on the plane to Red Gate Farm.  Time to tromp through the thick lay­er of snow, throw open the heavy door and smell that unique com­bi­na­tion of smells: old books, leather, dust, moth­balls, wood­fires.  Snug­gling down under thick woollen blan­kets up under the eaves in our cozy bed­room that night, sip­ping a Scotch and read­ing a Christ­mas mys­tery, I felt com­plete­ly hap­py.  The morn­ing brought a mirac­u­lous sunrise.

John went off to get his mom at the air­port and we head­ed straight to Judy’s broth­er’s tree farm and came home with two beau­ties.  And they SMELL!  We hauled the var­i­ous box­es of dec­o­ra­tions and lights out of the base­ment and var­i­ous cup­boards and trunks and start­ed right in.  Avery revealed a hid­den tal­ent for lights, thank goodness.

John fell asleep at this point and his mom, Avery and I spent one of the pleas­an­test evenings ever, dec­o­rat­ing togeth­er in the cozy sit­ting room, watch­ing the snow out­side, smelling the amaz­ing piney aro­ma, laugh­ing over each trea­sure, care­ful­ly judg­ing the place­ment of every one.

She liked her new cam­era orna­ment very much.  “It’s accurate.”

 The next day I entered for­eign ter­ri­to­ry for me: crafts!  I had been sore­ly tempt­ed by a gor­geous big red burlap bow that I saw in a cat­a­logue, but sim­ply could not bring myself to pay $49 for a piece of burlap.  So I rash­ly ordered a roll of green, and a roll of red, and fig­ured some­one in my cir­cle would be able to trans­form them into bows.  And of course, John’s mom, moth­er of two, grand­moth­er of three, for­mer Junior Lea­guer and gen­er­al­ly good at all things, could!

Final­ly we were fin­ished.  The sit­ting room was a place of glory.

The orna­ments them­selves were some­thing to exclaim over, piece by piece.

The next day we devot­ed our­selves to pol­ish­ing the 24 sil­ver bells, our tra­di­tion­al annu­al gift from John’s mom, to hang on their very own tree.  Being mar­ried 24 years (today!) looks very impres­sive in silver.

It was time to see fam­i­ly!  Two huge roast­ed chick­ens just bare­ly fed us all, with Joel’s tra­di­tion­al gift of the choco­lates our dad used to give us every Christ­mas fill­ing in the chinks.

It is always such brief, glo­ri­ous fun all to be togeth­er.  The bang­ing of the out-of-tune piano, the girls’ shriek­ing, a quick vis­it from Anne and Kate: in short, a typ­i­cal Red Gate Farm evening.  We decid­ed to pose for the oblig­a­tory awk­ward fam­i­ly pho­to, 2013.

The next day it was off to Jil­l’s house to see their tree, for me and my moth­er to gos­sip about “Days of Our Lives” and bul­ly every­one into watch­ing a doc­u­men­tary on the wan­ing indus­try of the soap opera, “Who Shot The Soap?”, kind­ly taped for me by my dar­ling broth­er in law.  Jane watched entranced, ask­ing, “Who’s JR and who shot him?”

We repaired to the kitchen for a new tra­di­tion: string­ing cran­ber­ries and pop­corn!  Lit­tle Mol­ly per­se­vered with an amaz­ing atten­tion span.

The next after­noon Avery’s and my strings graced the hydrangea, with the tra­di­tion­al Vic­to­ri­an candles.

The fin­ished tree looked lovely.

And that night, after a MOST mem­o­rable fam­i­ly Christ­mas Eve din­ner, we lit the can­dles in the (thank­ful­ly) still air, and stood back to admire.

The next day found us exchang­ing glo­ri­ous gifts, each one per­fect­ly suit­ed to the per­son.  John got a t‑shirt that says, “Pot­ters Fields Design Team,” his mom an iPho­to book of all our cook­book pho­tos, Avery a tote bag bear­ing the redact­ed titles of banned books, and I?  I got the per­fect gift, com­bin­ing my two obsessions.

Then it was a rush to make cheesy spinach, take the dish­es of stuff­ing from the cold shed, and pack up the car full of presents to take to Jil­l’s for our sec­ond Christ­mas, equal­ly fes­tive.  We all cooked togeth­er, with time for a hug from Jane, one of my absolute favorite nieces.

A per­fect­ly love­ly time was had by all.  I ate much, much too much.

Since then we’ve enjoyed calm, peace­ful days around the Christ­mas tree, drink­ing in the bal­sam aro­ma, watch­ing the orna­ments wig­gle gen­tly when the reg­is­ters emit a blast of heat.  We’ve read our Christ­mas books (at least half of us on a screen rather than on paper, shock­ing!).  We’ve been to the mall where I laughed hys­ter­i­cal­ly over a Williams-Sono­ma jar of “turkey brin­ing herbs” for $18, we’ve been for a long walk up the road and Phillips Farm to John’s Dad’s Bench, on a cold and sun­ny after­noon with Anne and Kate.

Avery and the wor­ship­ful Kate paused a moment on Gladys Taber’s bench, or “The Lean­ing Bench of South­bury” as Anne laugh­ing­ly calls it.

Avery is con­tem­plat­ing a major hair event lat­er this week, so just let me memo­ri­al­ize her as she is now, in case it all goes pear-shaped.

I’ve man­aged to slip in two very suc­cess­ful bell­ring­ing prac­tices at my beloved Brew­ster tow­er, home to such hap­py times.

The first prac­tice involved lots of chil­dren, and as such was rau­cous and live­ly and joy­ful.  We all had a fab­u­lous time, me on Grand­sire from the Three (a mean­ing­less fac­toid for most of you, but a big mile­stone for me).

And yes­ter­day, on a vir­tu­al dare, I man­aged Grand­sire from the Four!  I had a bit of a pri­vate han­dling les­son from Tom, a New Eng­land gen­tle­man, schol­ar, musi­cian, min­is­ter, and ringer of epic skill.

The tem­per­a­ture is drop­ping steadi­ly this evening over the mead­ows of Red Gate Farm.  I’m burn­ing steadi­ly the pine cones Jill gave me for Christ­mas which give off a blue light, and I’m already plan­ning what to wear on our Big City Trip on Wednes­day.  Actu­al­ly, while Avery is shop­ping with her friend, and John and his mom are tak­ing in some “cultchah” at the Guggen­heim, my main plan is to hun­ker down with a cou­ple of girl­friends over cof­fee and lunch and ignore the city entirely.

As New Year’s Eve approach­es, let me wish you each the very best that 2014 has to offer, and all the hap­pi­ness in the world from our home to yours!