I have already established I am a creature of habit. A byproduct of my adherence to daily routine is that I'm a sucker for traditions. My family has historically been one of immigrants and poor people, so our traditions are few and small, but those few carry weight. Christmas is nothing if not a time for traditions, and since we've managed to stay in the same country for going on three generations, leaving poverty behind, family traditions are starting to accrete.
My father claims his father made it up out of convenience one year, and so far between Google and people I've asked, this may be so. Grandpa put only blue lights at the top of the Christmas tree. Whether he accidentally bought a string of only blue lights, a string came from the store with all the blue bulbs at one end, or he only had blue replacement bulbs one year, the reason he gave is the reason we carry on now, more than 50 years later. We put only blue lights at the top of the tree to remind us of the people who can't be with us this year.
My grandfather was born to German-speaking Mennonites in Ukraine in 1920. Stalin ruled the land, and people starved. Through a convoluted series of events I may never get sorted, the end of WWII found my grandfather in Hamburg, his parents, sister, and one brother exiled in Siberia, and one other brother in a POW camp in Holland. After my father's uncle was released from the camp, he was reunited with my grandfather through an improbable series of coincidences. They came to Canada in 1948 on the first civilian trans-Atlantic airline, arriving in Montreal for Canada's Independence Day, which they took as a welcome party. Neither of them spoke a word of English or French.
Those brothers survived starvation and war and more uncertainty than I can comprehend and never saw their parents or brother again. If he did make it up, I don't think Grandpa realized that he had the ingredients of an icon: the act and explanation are simple, the act is noticeable. Of course, he never forgot about that family in Siberia. He was able to rescue the survivors to West Germany in the 1980s via German ideas around ethnicity and citizenship that don't make sense to my Canadian mind. I met Grandpa's sister and sister-in-law before they passed away, as well as several of their children and grandchildren.
My parents' tree always has blue lights at the top, as does my sister's. My aunts and uncles and cousins put blue lights at the top of their trees. Rosie's Mama and I will be setting up our tree on Friday, blue lights on top and prayers whispered for ones who aren't with us.
Showing posts with label tradition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tradition. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Monday, November 26, 2012
Throwing waffles
We were broke when we married. Lots of schooling and not much training. I dropped out of college and took a dead end job, she stayed in school. If that job hadn't come with so much overtime, we wouldn't have made it. We scrounged dimes to rent a VHS movie and we would walk to save the gas. We donated blood as a date (Mama's idea) because, hey, free cookies.
Trips to the grocery store in that state of affairs are nerve-wracking. Bread, milk, eggs, a bit of ham for sandwiches, not much more. We ate a lot of pancakes and grilled cheese sandwiches. I was turned away from donating blood once for being anemic. But, as Tevya says about Motel and Tzeitel at the end of Fiddler on the Roof, "They are so happy, they don't know how miserable they are."
Our first weekend at home after our honeymoon, I made waffles for breakfast. I don't remember how it started, but I threw a waffle at my bride. She probably dared me to do it. It turned into a ridiculous game of trying to catch each other off guard with a flying waffle, or to get it down the other's shirt. We ran around laughing ourselves silly. That first place we lived was a dank little hole, but our memories from there are of mostly good times.
Money or no money, newly married is newly married. We had no television, no internet, just a library card and each other. We're still happy together, though we have more things. If we aren't getting along, I can always throw a waffle at her and we remember when we only had each other and it was enough. It still is.
Trips to the grocery store in that state of affairs are nerve-wracking. Bread, milk, eggs, a bit of ham for sandwiches, not much more. We ate a lot of pancakes and grilled cheese sandwiches. I was turned away from donating blood once for being anemic. But, as Tevya says about Motel and Tzeitel at the end of Fiddler on the Roof, "They are so happy, they don't know how miserable they are."
Our first weekend at home after our honeymoon, I made waffles for breakfast. I don't remember how it started, but I threw a waffle at my bride. She probably dared me to do it. It turned into a ridiculous game of trying to catch each other off guard with a flying waffle, or to get it down the other's shirt. We ran around laughing ourselves silly. That first place we lived was a dank little hole, but our memories from there are of mostly good times.
Money or no money, newly married is newly married. We had no television, no internet, just a library card and each other. We're still happy together, though we have more things. If we aren't getting along, I can always throw a waffle at her and we remember when we only had each other and it was enough. It still is.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
A ritual life
Life is full of rituals. Mine is, anyway. Mostly little things that link together to get me through the day. I get up at the same time every morning, I run the same route, eat the same breakfast, make the same lunch, leave at the same time, every day. I get where I need to be, on time, and my mind is free for more important tasks than remembering to put on pants.
Some rituals are less utilitarian and more enjoyable. Every afternoon, weekday or weekend, I drink yerba mate. Fill the kettle with cold water and put it on the stove to boil. Pour the remainder of the previous day's water out of my black pump and stand it in the sink. Dump the previous day's leaves in the compost pail under the sink, and give the guampa a rinse. As a bachelor, I kept my supply of dried leaves in a rusty old coffee can I had hauled around college dorms, apartments, mountain tops, construction sites, and tree planting camps. As a married man, I keep it in a stainless container next to the brown sugar on the counter. Pull that out, fill the horn about 2/3s, shake it on its side, pack the leaves so they taper from the lip to the base, and insert the bombilla. Stand it up, fill with cold water, and let it stand until the hot water is ready. When the kettle makes its first peep, turn the element off and let the residual heat in the coil finish the job. Take the kettle off before the whistling gets shrill, and pour it into the waiting carafe. Ideally, I can take the water and the guampa and sit down at the kitchen table to finish what I didn't read of the paper in the morning. The first shot is just the cold water that isn't absorbed into the leaves in the horn. By the second "real" pour, it is up to full heat. Fill, drink, fill, drink, until eventually the leaves are leveled out and their frothy green goodness is drained. Put it to the side, and look forward to tomorrow afternoon to do it all again. If Rosie's Mama is home, the ritual takes longer, because she likes to be included, but can't handle it at full heat.
There is joy in these little rituals. Some people fear boredom from eating the same thing every day. To me, it is comfort. Every day, I know that I have enough food in my lunch. I know because it was enough yesterday, and the days before that. There are enough variables in a given day to create stress. Why add to that by not being sure you have enough food? Or the microwave might break. Or you have to leave the office for most of the day. My lunch does not need a fridge or a microwave, and can mostly be eaten while driving. Cheap too. My sandwiches, fruit and yogurt cost less than a wilted salad or lukewarm piece of pizza from the "convenience" store next door, and I don't have to question the provenance of fruit.
Some rituals are less utilitarian and more enjoyable. Every afternoon, weekday or weekend, I drink yerba mate. Fill the kettle with cold water and put it on the stove to boil. Pour the remainder of the previous day's water out of my black pump and stand it in the sink. Dump the previous day's leaves in the compost pail under the sink, and give the guampa a rinse. As a bachelor, I kept my supply of dried leaves in a rusty old coffee can I had hauled around college dorms, apartments, mountain tops, construction sites, and tree planting camps. As a married man, I keep it in a stainless container next to the brown sugar on the counter. Pull that out, fill the horn about 2/3s, shake it on its side, pack the leaves so they taper from the lip to the base, and insert the bombilla. Stand it up, fill with cold water, and let it stand until the hot water is ready. When the kettle makes its first peep, turn the element off and let the residual heat in the coil finish the job. Take the kettle off before the whistling gets shrill, and pour it into the waiting carafe. Ideally, I can take the water and the guampa and sit down at the kitchen table to finish what I didn't read of the paper in the morning. The first shot is just the cold water that isn't absorbed into the leaves in the horn. By the second "real" pour, it is up to full heat. Fill, drink, fill, drink, until eventually the leaves are leveled out and their frothy green goodness is drained. Put it to the side, and look forward to tomorrow afternoon to do it all again. If Rosie's Mama is home, the ritual takes longer, because she likes to be included, but can't handle it at full heat.
There is joy in these little rituals. Some people fear boredom from eating the same thing every day. To me, it is comfort. Every day, I know that I have enough food in my lunch. I know because it was enough yesterday, and the days before that. There are enough variables in a given day to create stress. Why add to that by not being sure you have enough food? Or the microwave might break. Or you have to leave the office for most of the day. My lunch does not need a fridge or a microwave, and can mostly be eaten while driving. Cheap too. My sandwiches, fruit and yogurt cost less than a wilted salad or lukewarm piece of pizza from the "convenience" store next door, and I don't have to question the provenance of fruit.
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