Writing from the Heart, Reading for the Road

A New Year 2024

December 30, 2023 at 8:53 am Leave a comment

Our Christmas celebration this year was a wonderful mix of old and new. One of the things that was new was that we had a very special guest we’ve not had with us before on Christmas Eve. My son’s partner, Diane, joined us for Christmas Eve this year, which is for me a very special, even sacred, holiday. And she shared with us a very special tradition from her family, which you see pictured above. When we arrived back from getting a last-minute Christmas tree, she had prepared a 13 desserts-de-Provence array, a tradition passed down in her mother’s Provencal family. We didn’t have 13 different sweets in the house, but Diane managed to gather 10 and arrange them on this pretty wicker platter. The festive tablecloth is one of many things that had been kept in captivity for eight years (!) in a storage locker in Maryland. I was very happy to be able to release the contents of that locker this summer with the help of one of my sons, who was good enough to spend part of his summer vacation helping me with this far-from-fun task. What a great guy!!!

Another item rescued from the storage locker was my beloved piano! (Interesting fact: when you ship things by sea, you do not pay by weight, you pay by volume; at least that is the way it was for me. So I was able to ship the piano to France at a reasonable price, and in fact it cost less than it probably would have to ship it to some other location in the US–with the added advantage of it now being where my son and I can actually play it! And play it we did, and we will continue to do so in the months and years ahead. What a joy to have this wonderful musical instrument back in our home again. And it has somehow made this place feel even more like home than it did before.

There were many other things rescued from the storage locker, none of them nearly as big as the piano, but altogether they filled one “lift van,” which is essentially a wooden crate that holds about 200 cubic feet of whatever you put in there. In my case, not surprisingly, most of the space was filled with boxes of papers (letters, journals, baby books, photos, etc.), and books; but there were also a few trunks and plastic tubs of things like Christmas decorations, many of them handmade by my Swedish grandparents, and some special quilts and the like. Plus assorted miscellaneous things my sons had been separated from for all those years. Some of it was stuff that should have been pitched long ago, but most of it is not; it is “stuff” that is good to have, and to be able to sort through and digitize and/or save. Or just to enjoy.

We don’t emphasize gift-giving in our home, which removes a lot of the unnecessary stress leading into the holidays. But there are usually a couple of special gifts that are given. This year Diane was very happy to receive her very first Christmas stocking (“We didn’t have them, it’s not really a French thing,” she explained.) And I was really happy to receive some beautiful watercolors painted by my older son, created from images he captured in photographs when we were in Sweden this summer. What a wonderful way to keep the memories of a wonderful time spent in Småland; and beautiful additions to the artwork in our home.

Clockwise, starting from upper left: the creche I grew up with; Diane and her new Christmas stocking; Champagne, smoked salmon, pain paillasse, and various French cheeses, color me happy! Phin and Sam planting a new tree; apéro time; new artwork for our home, images of Sweden!

I like to go to Christmas Eve church services when I can, and my sons are very good about going along with me, even though it’s not really important to them. However, this year, due to their busy schedules, we only had about 36 hours when we were all together. So even though they offered to go to mass with me, I said I preferred to stay home this time and just enjoy being together. We had so much to do in such a short time! We had to have special Christmas treats (smoked salmon, Swedish meatballs, champagne, bûche de Nöel); Diane needed to call her (French) family, who were gathered in New York; and we even got in a couple of rockin’ Christmas tunes, with me on piano, Sam on guitar, Phineas on tambourine.

Another one of our Christmas Eve traditions is to read aloud. Sometimes it is How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Sometimes it is a passage from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, or The Best Christmas Pageant Ever; sometimes it has been A Child’s Christmas in Wales. This year I read aloud the Christmas letter I had written to friends and family after the last Christmas we had in Brooklyn, when my sons were four and seven. Then we watched Charlie Brown Christmas, which offers the important (to me) recitation of the Christmas story as told in the Book of Luke, by sweet little Linus. If I get to hear that beautiful passage read aloud at least once on Christmas Eve, for me the essential meaning of the holiday is acknowledged and honored, and I am happy. (As Linus says: “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”)

We’ve started another new tradition in our family in the past couple of years, of planting a tree on Christmas Day. This started the year we lost 32 spruce trees in one year (!) due to an insect infestation that is devastating this type of tree all over Europe. That year it felt somehow not quite right to buy a dead tree! So since then we have been buying living evergreen trees that are not vulnerable to this destructive little insect, and have been planting one, or more, each year.

So now we all arrive at a New Year, here on planet Earth. It’s certainly not hard to imagine many ways in which it could be better than the one we’re just finishing up. Let’s all see what we can do, each of us, to make that happen–shall we?

Janet Hulstrand is an American writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher of writing and of literature who lives in France. She is the author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You, and A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France; and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home.

Entry filed under: Neither Here nor There.... Tags: Christmas, Christmas in France, Christmas traditions.