I’m guessing we all have some specific holiday memories. Mine seem to encompass the entire month of December. Could someone explain why our twelfth month derives from the Latin word for ‘ten’? Ok, yeah, yeah, blah, blah…Roman year to Anglo-French and ta da…December which was once the tenth month but isn’t anymore. Clear as mud.
If you live in the northeastern US, the twelfth month can be wicked. However, it also sports some pretty cool holidays. My birthday in early November was far enough removed from 12/25 so it didn’t impact gifts. Though I like the cold less and less, I do enjoy being out in it as long as I’m dressed properly. Walking during a snowfall is one of my favorite activities. I’m not talking a blizzard, just a nice snowfall. It’s SO quiet and that always amazes me.
There are many things I associate with the month of December. The solstice occurs on the 21st and days begin to get longer. I do not like the prolonged darkness of the winter months. While December may be dark and overcast, the most challenging months of January and February are yet to come.
Back to December. In my youth, December meant the appearance of ribbon candy and the bowl of unshelled nuts in the living room. If it was an especially righteous year, the grandparents showed up with petit fours. Only one of those items remotely appeals to me now and I’m ashamed to admit it’s the bowl of nuts.
While I enjoy some holiday sweets each year, I grow tired of them quickly. Maybe it’s the film on my teeth left from the sugar. Maybe it’s the fact that if I indulge, I have to use more insulin. Maybe it’s just that I’ve eaten my fill. How sad would that be? December used to be a month during which I baked a plethora of holiday sweets and treats. Now I make very little. That said, there’s a pan of fudge cooling in the kitchen.
December makes me think of cold, red faces and runny noses and laughter. As a young child living in Vermont, winter was no big deal. Until our uncle Ro passed away. He was my mother’s uncle, so my great-uncle. I never met him but he’s been talked about enough that I feel I know the essence of him. His name was Roland and I’m thinking my great-grandmother may have read too much Robert Browning.
Uncle Ro passed on December 1, 1964. My mother drove from Burlington, VT to Portland, CT for the funeral, always dicey in the winter months. Sure enough, she ended up driving home through an ice storm. We had several inches of snow in Burlington and were spared the ice. My mother turned into the driveway that late afternoon, her car encased in a few inches of ice. It took a while to get the car door open, just to get her out. My father drove her car to the large indoor service garage (heated) at his business and it took two full days for all of the ice to melt.
Looking back, my mother must have been terrified. She said she was afraid to stop because she thought she wouldn’t be able to get home. We were happy to have her home.
Stories Are For Eternity 