...more recent posts
Jan 04, 2001The Eleventh Day of Christmas
Jan 03, 2001The Tenth Day of Christmas
Jan 02, 2001The Ninth Day of Christmas
Jan 01, 2001The Eighth Day of Christmas
is also New Year's Day.
Dec 31, 2000The Seventh Day of Christmas
Dec 30, 2000The Sixth Day of Christmas
Dec 29, 2000The Fifth Day of Christmas
Dec 28, 2000The Fourth Day of Christmas
Dec 27, 2000The Third Day of Christmas
Dec 26, 2000
The Second Day of Christmas
Christmas, as you may know, has twelve days. The Arboretum having built up something of a backlog of images, I’m going to use the occasion as an excuse to post some unseen pictures from the past year. There being twelve months, to correspond to the twelve days, I’m going to put up a daily picture, one from each month. Of course, yesterday, the first day of Christmas, got special treatment, but everything was from this current December, so we’ll move now to last January, and by the time we reach Epiphany, maybe we’ll know what happened to the year.Dec 25, 2000
Merry Christmas!
A Few OrnamentsDec 24, 2000
The Night Before
Christmas Eve is here again, conjuring a Holiday out of the darkness.The whole thing hinges on a new dawn, full of mysterious gifts, deposited while we sleep.
But what of the night itself?
I’ve wondered lately, for this Christmas is different. Coming so close on the heels of my father’s death, it is indelibly marked by that event.
I would honor the Holidays, and I have a personal tradition of making a Christmas card, but it’s been a little harder this year. In searching for the theme, I thought about the nether side of Christmas, of how it’s babe is born to die, and how that’s not much mentioned. That’s for another day, no doubt, but it haunts the holiday no less.
Haunting is for the night.
There is the new dawn, and the triumph of light, and the splendor of illumination.
But also there is Night.
Beside the songs of joy and celebration, the cannon of Christmas Carols offers an alternative tradition of quiet, pensive night songs; lullabies, in fact, which acknowledge the mixed implications of the occasion. To these I turned for inspiration, finding a confluence of images and feelings.
For I thought of Mary, singing her child to sleep, fearing for his future.
And I thought of how children do not want to sleep, least of all on Christmas Eve, and yet, they always do.
And how it’s only then, in the unwilled moment of drooping lids, that the anticipated event occurs.
And I thought of my father, dozing by day, fighting to be present, yet restless at night, waking repeatedly, hoping for one more morning.
A different sort of anticipation.
And I thought how easy it is for me to sleep.
In middle life, without the nagging chafe of youth or age, I do not require lullabies.
All of which makes for a Christmas card that’s not quite celebratory, but is what the Holiday has brought me this year. I thought of tacking on some sort of uplifting final stanza, but it didn’t seem right. Even our most joyous holidays are deeply serious at the core. Our needs will be addressed insofar as we can express them.
That's prayer.
The rest is tinsel.
Anyway, here’s the card.
Cheerier next year, I promise.
Sleep tight, and no peeking.