a truly home Christmas

There’s one distinct advantage to moving house (and country) so very many times.

When you’re home, you know it.

Red Gate Farm has done its usual magic at Christmastime.  We are home.

But I’m getting ahead – way ahead – of myself.

Ten days ago found us in our London flat with me fretting and fussing over leaving Avery there alone, to make her way to a DIFFERENT AIRPORT from the one we were departing from, to board a plane on her own (not that she hasn’t done that a hundred times, but you know what I mean – we were leaving from the same city to arrive in the same city, but not together.  I freaked out a bit.).

We waved to her from the London pavement below our building, and made our way to Heathrow, while she made hers to Gatwick.  And some seemingly million hours later, we met up, miraculously as it seemed to me, at the rental car agency at JFK and came home to Red Gate Farm, where we were met by Rosemary who had had a couple of quiet days here in the peace of this little house.  A house surrounded entirely by a whole fall’s worth of leaves, as it turned out in the light of day!

“I guess I knew the lawn guys hadn’t come for the fall cleanup,” John said, “when Anne told us so, but I didn’t really picture this.”

It was kind of beautiful, in a neglected, Grey Gardens, abandoned-home type of way.  Kate came from across the road to kick in the fragrant piles.

I myself enjoyed a bit of kicking, and the autumnal, Charlie Brown-y smell.  All too quickly a new set of lawn guys turned up to blow them all away.

And then that was that.

Because it was Christmas, and leaves don’t feel very Christmassy.

The Leaf Men themselves were models of efficiency, energy and professionalism.  The head guy came in to talk to John.  “This is an awesome house,” he said, bending down to admire the floorboards, for which “random” oak is no exaggeration.  You could lose a small pet between some of them.

“When I did my house, I laid concrete down first, then a layer of sheeting, then the floorboards, and sealed them between.  It’s warm in the winter and cool in the summer.”  Whereas we can see the light from the basement shining between our floorboards.

Jetlagged, we wandered around the property identifying buildings that were falling down more than other buildings that were falling down.

Mark came to feed and water the horses in the meadow, and we stood happily in the early-morning light, hearing about his autumn, most especially his new project of culling the local abundant deer population with – I’m not making this up – a bow and arrow.  We readily gave our approval for him to use our acreage, and as a result he came by later in the day with a package of venison steaks from his latest triumph.

Quite simply the most delicious, tender meat I have ever eaten.  I want lots  more – to grind and make burgers and chilli, and can you imagine venison meatloaf?  I can.

Oh, Mark, you are so cool.  So American.

Avery traipsed off to Manhattan for a couple of days with a friend, so we went to the Laurel Diner for sustenance before a busy day of Christmas preparations.  There is a new, completely delicious dish called the “Kiki.”  Perfect hash browns, topped with sausages, Cheddar cheese and sour cream.  Oh my.

And then onto Christmas tree-shopping.  Which in Connecticut means AROMA.  I wish I could convey it to you, the intensely piney, evocative, mysterious, perfect aroma.

Oh, why can’t it be Christmas all year round?  Is there anything more beautiful than the evergreen?

Our friend Judy’s friend helped us choose, with the “bah humbug” assistance of young Kyle, whose contributions to the proceedings were variations on, “Whatever tree you want.  This one is okay,” and “I don’t know.  It isn’t going in my house.”  But even he could not stay glum in the face of my extreme holiday happiness.  We chose two trees.

On the way home through the grey landscape we came upon this fairytale vista.  Sometimes in Connecticut you just look up and find a page from a calendar.

We set up the trees and put on the lights, preparatory to Avery’s arrival the next day to decorate.  And for just a moment we all thought, “What decorations?  Just lights are fine.”

Oh, the smell of the wreaths in the windows, the greenery on the table, the trees.  Simply heavenly.

It was time to journey to Jill’s house to pick up the mountain of parcels poor Joel had been receiving since the autumn, and storing in his basement.  I hope he doesn’t mind.  Their house looked gorgeous, as always.  What a tree!

Molly grabbed the camera and got a slightly fuzzy but absolutely perfect picture of Jane and Jill.

There were real live carolers!

Avery came home from Manhattan and we decorated.  We remembered how much we love every single object, collected over so many years.

 Everyone hangs ornaments, exclaiming over favorites.

The magic of Christmas is in the feeling that childhood has come back again, not complicated as it was in real life, but simple and perfect.  The taste of a candy cane, the smell of a wood fire, the glittery of ornaments I remember hanging on my mother’s tree.  The aroma of a tangerine at Christmas brings back the childhood feeling of sitting on my father’s hearth, eating an orange he’d been sent by a colleague who wintered in Florida.  Fires, the beauty of a decorated house filled with people who have travelled great distances to be together, the smell of Rosemary’s cappuccino cookies, key lime cookies, little brownies tied up in red ribbon.  Nostalgia, pure and simple.

The silver bell tree, so perfect.  This year’s gift from Rosemary said “NEO Bankside,” and Avery’s “University College, Oxford.”  That pretty much sums it up.

One afternoon when the temperature was somewhere between North Carolina and Florida, Rosemary and I got ambitious and decided to wash the downstairs windows, she on the inside and I on the outside.  It was very satisfying to remove the grime and see the Christmas lights shining through.

Until, that is, my ladder slipped and went through an ancient pane.

“Oh no…”

Some days later a burly man, ex-Army, self-described NASCAR nut, came to repair it, with his blowtorch and putty knife and a diamond blade.  He reminded me of my dad, so I kept him company while he got to work, explaining to me that he was removing all the old putty, which he could date to somewhere in the last 25 years based on its composition.  Then quick as anything, the new pane was in place.

He’s coming back to do the barn windows later in the week, a long overdue job.

It occurred to me that there was a theme running through our holiday – hunter and firefighter Mark, the intrepid Leaf Men, Sam the Window Guy.  There is something that I identify as a sort of quintessential American spirit: it’s to do with boundless energy, ingenuity, self-reliance, a positivity about the responsibilities of life.  I know American women like this too.  There’s my friend Anne-Across-the-Road, who never met an acre of land she didn’t intend to preserve, and Judy, my farmer friend, who can jell, can or pickle anything, whilst knitting sweaters with John Deer Tractors on them, and my friend Lauren, who is a granola-making, Haiti-volunteering pediatric nurse.

It was a wonderful reminder of the good and great things about the American character.  I’d love to be one of those people, but I’m wise enough to know that my greatest strength is appreciating them, not trying to be one of them.  They’re the kind of people you want on your side, the kind of people who actually welcome being grown-ups.

Christmas got more Christmassy when Anne’s family came back up from the city to celebrate.  We got to go on a second tree-shopping trip, just to help them decide.  I taught Kate the fine art of tree-sniffing, including getting one’s nose poked by needles.

She, Anne and David found the perfect tree.

We carried on to the grocery store to order my Christmas Eve oysters.  “You want a GALLON of oysters?” the girl’s eyes were wide with astonishment.

We repaired to Kate’s house in the evening for s’mores in their ancient fireplace.

In a rare moment of exhaustion, I simply couldn’t face cooking dinner and so we ordered a pizza and collapsed in the living room with the tree sparkling and the Christmas books in a tempting pile.  There is just nothing funnier than the “The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming.”

“And then they ate him.”

Oh, the favorite ornaments.  This demure, hand-crossed lady.

The little blown-glass German ornaments remind us of all our Christmas trips to the antique shop up the road in Woodbury, every year.

 I think the happy carolers might be my very favorite.  To think of this ornament making its way from Germany probably just before the war, a symbol of all that was right in a country facing such dark times.

 Everyone needs a shopping kitty.

And treasures from the London Christmas Fair, too.  Such happy memories.

Because life is never perfect, no matter how hard you try, Avery made a very unpleasant discovery of mouse poison in her pillowcase!  Subdued shrieks ensued and a father-rescue.  Oh, Red Gate Farm.

She had picked up a nasty head cold from somewhere, so we journeyed to Jill’s once more without her, to see my beautiful mother and my brother!  Finally, together after so many months.

Christmas Eve came, with bizarre sultry weather which made it possible, for once, to light all the candles on the hydrangea and watch them burn with perfect flickering flames.

We moved the gorgeous evergreen table decoration to the bench in the dining room – oh, so sparkly and beautiful.

The house looked just beautiful, waiting for everyone to arrive.  It was a gloriously loud, delicious, crowded Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day dawned bright, sparkling and unseasonably warm, again.  Presents were gleefully received.  Avery loved her book of English Gothic art, a new passion.

I gave John a beautiful drawing, a plan of Potters Fields, from his beloved architect in Paris.  He was very happy.  I myself received a precious Kitchen Aid mixer!  Rosemary pored over her photographs of Avery’s matriculation at Oxford.  Avery and John gave me felt creatures.

We were off to Jill and Joel’s for the Christmas Day festivities, and gorgeous presents.

Of course I carried home the turkey carcass to concoct a pot of soup, with tiny turkey meatballs.  What a welcome thing, with Avery coughing away.  I wish I could share with you the savoury aroma.

Of course, the most delectable parts of Christmas aren’t things you can convey – you really can’t capture what you want to – the feeling of the candlelit living room with the glittering tree and the fire popping in the background…

There was the luxury of sitting for hours with my mom just chatting about the latest outlandish plots on Days of Our Lives, or our favorite mystery novel series.  There is the smell of the wood fire coming from the chimney when you pop out to the shed on an errand and look up to see the full moon hovering over the meadow.

You can try to convey the feeling of “across the road” when you come home from s’mores to see the Red Gate Farm lit up like a little doll’s house, or the sheer loveliness of family, all together for such a brief time.

To console ourselves after my family’s departure, we drove through a spectral evening, admiring everyone’s Christmas decorations, to have dinner with Mike, Lauren, Abigail and Gabriel.  Their house is such a haven of love and comfort and fun.  Abigail and John bonded over picture books, and the contents of his wallet.

There was Cheddar cheese and chicken soup.  And kitty Jessica, such a wonderful memory from little Avery days of kitten fostering!

And finally, in the middle of the night last night – it snowed.  I happened to be up and grabbed my camera.

This morning all was wet, disconsolate drippiness, but still, indisputably, snowy!

Cisco enjoyed a chilly drink, unaware that he was posing for another of those accidental Connecticut calendar photographs.

And so our holiday winds itself down.  The presents have been opened, the oyster stew enjoyed, friends and family have been reunited and then have said goodbye again.  This evening Avery will make the long journey from the train station at Brewster to 125th Street, then in a cab to JFK, thence to Gatwick, and finally home to our glossy flat, all on her own.  I’m still getting used to that idea, but it’s the future.

We will have one more party – a quiet little New Year’s Eve bash – and then Rosemary will make her way back to Iowa.

It’s been a wonderful Christmas.  I hope very much that you and yours shared a beautiful one, too.