the twelve days

As I get older, I am beginning to get more "in the mood" for the Twelve Days of Christmas, instead of casting all the Light on the one day, December 25th. I was first introducted to this concept when I lived with an Episcopalian professor, Dr. BonnieJean Christenson, back in Sycamore, Illinois. I was a junior at NIU and she was my rhetoric professor, newly widowed. She had young children so I became the live in nanny in return for a room and no rent. So that Christmas (must have been 1969), she hosted a Twelfth Night Celebration and I really liked it.

Since we put up our (artificial) tree only a week before Christmas this year, leaving it up until January 8th (two days past the twelve days, but we won't have time to take it down during the week), makes sense. It also makes sense to just savor this season as long as possible---not shift into fast gear just because it's 12/26 or 1/3 or whatever day most folks decide to "get on with their normal lives."

Who wants normal during the holidays? I like the following non-normal activities:

1. sleeping in past 6 a.m., 2. baking cookies while I am still in my pajamas, 3. opening Christmas Cards, 4. enjoying colored light decorations.

What are the non-normal/holiday activities that you enjoy? Isn't breaking out of our routines part of what keeps us alive and kicking?

We celebrated Christmas for the 2nd year, in Sierra Vista--not a glamourous location but the drive was very pretty into the Huachuca Mtns., the sky clear and bright, and the Xmas Buffet at the Windemere is a bargain for the two hour meal. This year, we also stayed at the Windemere and enjoyed two glasses (neither of us finished one glass) of wine after we saw "The Tourist" (a luscious movie set in Venice, Italy and although Angelina Jolie only wore three different dresses, each one was a visual/visceral delight). Today, we ate a big breakfast buffet, also at the Windemere, and then walked down the trail by the San Pedro River.

It was lovely: the skeletons of the naked cottonwoods shimmered silvery grey in the sunlight, the dry wild wheat tickled my fingers as I touched them. Birdsongs were in the trees and underbrush and the river was running low but lively. We walked in a different direction (north) than we had the past two visits because I knew the Southern trail had an uneven path I didn't trust with my ankle. Fortunately, the northern one was flatter and took us to two waterfalls, but it also kept going north. After 30 minutes, my ankle begins to tire and I was feeling some mild anxiety. But we found a worn truck trail that led back to the roadway and so we found a new route to try next time. As we walked along the San Pedro, I felt the melancholia blow through me with the light breeze. I started feeling sad on Thursday and it came and went with waves on Christmas Eve with my dad and Christmas morning. With my mom's absence and my son's work commitment taking away fond faces from a traditional family gathering, we have tried to create a new way to celebrate the season.

So, after the walk along the San Pedro, we headed to Bisbee, noon sunlight basking the hills in gold. We had a hot chocolate before walking to our favorite shops: an antique store (I bought a vintage children's book and two wooden toy blocks), the Full Moon on Main (I bought a string of dyed vegetable skins which sounds weird but is lovely to look at, hanging from a window), and PanTerra Gallery where Mark bought me a funky t-shirt. We had a sumptuous lunch at Cafe Cornucopia of sandwich, salad, tangerine lemonade and berry crumble. By 3 p.m. the sun had dipped behind the walls of the canyon and the Christmas lights, strong across Main Street, began to glimmer. I could stay in a cafe and people watch in Bisbee until well past sunset, but we headed home and arrived before dusk in Tucson.

Thus we have finished the first two days of a twelve day Christmas and I plan to bring the Christmas Spirit into at least some of each of the ten days to come.