Two stories I've never shared.
Pssst. As always, my posts are far too long for e-mail format… so click ‘read more’ to see the whole thing!
Dear Kula Diaries,
This week I will be taking a short hiatus from sharing the final installment of the Creepy Cat Detective Agency story… to tell two different stories about Christmas. Tomorrow is Christmas Day, so I decided to share two stories that I’ve never shared publicly before. These stories are both very close to my heart, and it felt like unwrapping a gift to write them out and watch them come to life — until this moment, they’ve only ever lived in my mind. While I am personally a Christmas-celebrating human, and I also recognize that not everybody is — I’m hopeful that these stories will capture the essence of the holidays in general, no matter what you choose to celebrate (if anything). I hope that you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.
Story One: I’ll Be Home for Christmas
(pssst. I do talk about Santa in this story… so if you have young kids around who are very excited for Santa’s arrival this year, you might want to wait to listen to it while you are alone!)
My family was pretty reserved when it came to the holidays… or at least the decorating part of it. We usually got our Christmas tree two weeks before Christmas day. We were not the family that started decorating for Christmas in mid-October. My mom had one box of Christmas decorations — and most of them were tree ornaments. Each year we would hang stockings, decorate a tree, and my dad would (sometimes) decorate with lights. We’ve never had a giant, 6ft tall Nutcracker statue… or blow up Santa figures on our front yard. The things that have always made me feel the Christmas spirit have… for the most part… not been things. Making cookies… driving around and looking at light displays… forcing my neighbors to participate in a choreographed holiday song and dance routine… and playing carols on my violin. Those were the moments where I felt the spirit of Christmas.
Each year, I looked forward to the Ironmaster’s Christmas celebration at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site. The historic ironmaster’s mansion was decorated with fragrant dried oranges stuffed with cloves and evergreen garland. The smell of hot mulled cider was thick in the air — and I played traditional Carols on my violin in the living room of ‘The Big House’. The park hosted tours throughout the day, and each tour would end with the visitors pouring into the Big House… where they would peer at me from the other side of a small gated partition. Surrounded by historic artifacts, I was dressed in 1830’s attire and I’d play songs like, Bring a Torch Janette Isabella and The Holly and the Ivy. I loved the Christmas celebrations at Hopewell. They always reminded me about the essence of the holiday: love, abundance, music and connection.
Over nearly 39 years of playing the violin, I’ve played at more Christmas events than I could possibly count. It never felt like Christmas unless I had the chance to play my violin somewhere to celebrate the holiday. When I moved to Washington in 2004, my park ranger academy started on December 19th, which meant that I would miss (for the first time) spending Christmas with my family. Ahead of my arrival in Washington, I found a local church and called them to see if they would be interested in having a violinist join them for their Christmas Eve music. On Christmas Eve, after accidentally dumping my entire dinner in the sink and subsequently pulling it out with my bare hands and eating it (long story)… the music director picked me up from my dorm and drove me to their church so that I could join them for music. Even though I spent that night in a barren and beige dorm room… it still felt like Christmas.
For as many times as I’ve performed holiday music, you would think that most of those performances would blend together… and for the most part they do. Well… except for one of them. My mom was working as a care coordinator at an Adult Daycare center in the early 2000s, and asked me if I might come to perform holiday tunes for the participants. Most of the folks who spent the day at the center had significant health challenges that required them to have constant supervision during the day when their family members were at work. Some of the clients lived in group health facilities, but still came during the day for extra socialization and activities. I had been many times before to play my violin — but never at the holidays, so it felt like a great opportunity for me to share my music
As I removed my violin from its case, the participants were moved into a circle around me. I started by playing a few of my favorite tunes — Silent Night, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Jingle Bells… if you can name a carol, chances are very good that I will know it. Eventually, I started encouraging singing along with my music… and I asked for requests. One participant, a man named Tom who had suffered a severe stroke, spoke quietly, “Do you know ‘I’ll be Home for Christmas’?”
“I sure do!”, I said. I lifted my violin to my shoulder and started to play. As I played… I walked in a circle through the room, looking from face to face — really trying to see and acknowledge each of the humans who was gathered there that day. I watched as a few of the participants started to dab away tears — some of them were singing, and the lyrics of the tune began to resonate through the room, “Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams, I'll be home for Christmas, If only in my dreams.”
As I finished the song, the circle of participants burst into a cheerful applause. I bowed bashfully as I asked for more requests. Another resident, who had been completely quiet until now, spoke up, ‘I’ll be Home for Christmas’, they requested. A few more voices chimed in with agreement. Again, I lifted my violin… and played the song. This time, more of the participants joined in — we were a unique harmony of lyrics and notes, but I could sense and feel something that was being created beyond our questionable pitch or intonation. Again, I finished the song to a flourish of enthusiastic applause… and again, the request came, “Play ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas!’”. I looked around the room at this most beautiful audience — humans who were all there for a variety of reasons… some of them were completely unable to move due to advanced M.S. or other health challenges. And yet, we were all sensing something that went far beyond Christmas or the holidays — it had nothing to do with the gifts, and everything to do with something much more than that: a memory of what was no longer visible or available … but what could still be felt inside.
I lifted my violin again and started to play — this time, the entire room of people that encircled me were crying — including me and all of the staff. I had never played that song so many times in a row, and I looked across the faces of the people that were there and wondered what images were surfacing from the depths of their consciousness. What people could they no longer hug? What moments did they cherish? What feeling were they looking for? And, most importantly, had I helped them find it? Seeing people cry when I played the violin happened often, and I always struggled with it. Had I done something wrong? I left that day feeling conflicted — on one hand, I loved playing music for the participants… but on the other hand, I genuinely hoped that I hadn’t made folks long for something that they could no longer have. I hoped I didn’t contribute to the sense of overwhelm and depression that can sometimes find its way into the holidays due to the complicated nature of family and life.
When I think about being home for Christmas, I don’t think about the gifts… and I couldn’t tell you what I received on any given Christmas (except for the year I received my purple Bossy brand bicycle). I think about sitting at the top of the steps with my sisters while my dad made the slowest pot of coffee in human history — us, anxious for him to give us the ‘green light’ to rush downstairs and look at our Christmas stockings. I think about the times that my dad waited until just after we were asleep to sneak outside our windows and jingle a set of bells. One year, he even climbed a ladder onto the roof to make ‘hoof’ noises. The next morning, we all excitedly reported that we were absolutely sure we had heard reindeer. I think about the massive cinnamon rolls that my mom made every single year… and the way she wrapped all of our gifts in red tissue paper and wrote ‘Love, the Big Guy… Ho Ho Ho’ on them… and I think about calling my best friend on Christmas morning — a tradition that I still do to this day, after more than 30 years of friendship.
When I was 10 years old, I started doubting the scientific feasibility of a giant man in a sleigh with a flying entourage of reindeer who could somehow deliver gifts to the billions of people in the world in one night. “It just doesn’t seem very realistic,” I had said to my dad, “And a reindeer with a glowing nose? I don’t see how that’s physiologically possible.” I was sitting in front of my younger sister at the time, and, not wanting to ruin the Santa surprise for my siblings, my dad pulled me into my bedroom. “You’re right… Santa isn’t real,” he had told me. I was… in a word… devastated. It felt like the magic had been sucked out of Christmas. My youngest sister was an infant, and that night I snuck into her bedroom and in an effort to exact some form of revenge on my parents…. I leaned over her crib and whispered, “Santa isn’t real.” Over the next few weeks, I managed to convince myself that my dad had lied to me about Santa not being real, just to get me to keep quiet in front of my sisters. I starting believing again — even though I wasn’t really sure what to believe in anymore.
Sometimes I tell people that I haven’t been ‘home’ for Christmas in almost 20 years — but that isn’t entirely true. The last Christmas that I spent at my parents’ house was in 2005 or 2006 (I can’t remember which one)…. but, really, I’ve spent every Christmas at home since then… my home, or at least some form of it. During the years that I worked for BNSF Railway, my Christmas celebration typically consisted of bringing my lunch to Aaron’s office in a Tupperware container. At some point during the day, we’d exchange a few gifts — but we rarely did anything other than that, and we’ve never travelled for the holidays. Last year, I hosted a holiday party for the first time in my life — it was the first Christmas that Aaron was home with me, having left his job with BNSF, which meant that it was the first Christmas that we were able to spend together in almost a decade. We don’t even have a Christmas tree — instead, we have … the branch. When a cell phone tower was being built near my home, I befriended the crew that was building it by giving them weekly cookies… and as a thank you gift, they gave me a leftover branch from the cell tower. My husband and I prop up our 6ft tall ‘flat’ cell tower branch every year in our living room and decorate it with ornaments that were made by Kula artists. I think that I love it most because it isn’t trying to be anything else — it’s our unique tree and tradition. On Christmas morning last year, we didn’t do anything at all… we slept in, exchanged gifts, and rode our motorcycles up and down the hill behind our house. It was perfect.
And even still… even without the magical festivities and excitement… I’ll Be Home For Christmas is still my favorite carol. Every time I hear it, I think about standing in the center of that room and hearing those voices rising up around me. I don’t think about the 20 years where I haven’t celebrated the holidays at home… I think about the ones that I did. I remember the good moments — when complication and conflict within my family was over who got to hang the beloved (and fragile) glass cowboy ornament on the tree. I never think about what was … I think about those moments as if they are here right now — because, maybe… in a way… they still are. When I reflect back on that moment at the adult daycare center, it feels different now — and I see it more clearly. I look around the room, and I notice something that I hadn’t seen before — the smiling. There were tears, yes, but below the tears were smiles. Smiles that shone brightly as tears dripped down faces with eyes that reflected not a loss of something that they once had — but a deep joy for what they did. Maybe that’s the love light that the song talks about. It’s not a longing for something we can’t have anymore — it’s the joy that we had it at all.
My husband and I recorded this in front of our ‘cell phone branch’ Christmas tree last week… and it features a cameo from our cat, Cinder. I hope you enjoy it!
Story Two: The Plastic Pinstripe Wallet
I didn’t have an allowance as a kid, but my parents did give me $20 each year to buy Christmas presents for my family from, ‘Santa’s Secret Workshop’. Each year, my Catholic school would bring in an organization that would sell, for lack of a better word, cheap junk that kids could purchase as gifts for their family members. Each year, I would excitedly look forward to spending my allotted $20 at the workshop. The items for sale were laid out on holiday-themed table cloths with a price tag on them. One by one, I’d wander past each table and look at the wares — trying to determine which items would be the best ones for each of my family members. One year, I bought my sister a fake plastic cell phone. The gifts were cheaply made and, typically, throw away items… but at the time, I didn’t realize that. I spent at least an hour browsing before finally making my decision. Then, I’d take the items home — hidden in my backpack. I’d sequester myself in my bedroom so that I could wrap them and put them under our tree for my family members. The most exciting part of Christmas day was never opening my gifts … it was always the moment when people opened the gifts that I had selected for them.
My dad and I have always had a challenging relationship. He wasn’t home a lot, but I sought his approval constantly. As the oldest daughter of three girls, I was also living up to the ‘oldest child syndrome’ stereotypes — needing to be perfect at almost everything. No matter how hard I tried… no matter how much I practiced at my violin or how many goals I scored in my soccer game… or how many A’s I got on my homework… I still felt like I was falling short. And so, you might understand that it was particularly important for me to find the perfect gift for my father. Maybe, I had thought, if I bought him something really great… he won’t think I’m such a flop.
That year, I had spent extra time perusing Santa’s Secret Workshop. I had inspected every single item that was for sale, and narrowed it down to two: a wooden shoe horn or a gold-plated can opener. Both of these items seemed both practical and classy — particularly for a man who, when you asked him what he wanted for Christmas, would only ever reply, “Get me a pair of socks.” As I was making the final decision… a hint of grey caught my eye. I reached across the merchandise table and discovered that I hadn’t seen one item… a wallet. And this was not just any wallet… this was a grey, plastic, pin striped wallet. The wallet was small and, I thought, very elegant. I imagined my dad going into his office building and pulling out the wallet as he offered his business card to a colleague. The colleague would look at him in awe and admiration, “Wow, Bill — nice wallet.” My dad’s boss, who would have naturally overhead the conversation would poke his head into the hall, “Is that your wallet, Bill?”, he’d ask, “Oh, and by the way… swing by later this afternoon… I want to talk to you about a promotion.” My dad would come home that night and tell our family the good news about his promotion... and that it was all because of the wallet. I snatched the wallet off the table and brought it up to the counter. It was $11, which was more than half of my total budget for Christmas gifts that year, but I knew that it was perfect.
Every year on Christmas Eve for my entire childhood (and until I moved away permanently in 2004), my dad read the same stories to us before we went to bed. We’d sit by the Christmas tree, and he’d do a dramatic reading of, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ …and then, he’d read one chapter from a book called Act One, by Moss Hart. The first few times that I recall him reading that chapter, I remember looking over at him and seeing tears in his eyes … he would catch his breath and stop as the chapter progressed… Was my dad crying? I could never tell, but I thought he might be. The story is part of playwright Moss Hart’s autobiography — it tells the story of his childhood living in poverty, and how his father took him to New York City one year to go Christmas shopping. One by one, they perused gift carts together — Moss Hart, hoping that his dad would buy him a chemistry set. Toward the end of the row of gift carts, with no gift having been purchased, he hears his dad jingling his pocket and realizes that his dad only had a few coins — not enough to purchase any of the gifts they had seen. The story is about a shared moment of understanding between child and father — and a subsequent slipping away of their relationship through the years — until healing could take place as adults.
I’m including a voiceover recording of me reading the aforementioned section of Moss Hart’s book here, if you would like to hear it for context (it’s really amazing!):
To say that my dad had a difficult relationship with his father is the understatement of the century. Without getting into anything too personal, I will simply say that while I did not understand the choked back tears of my father as I watched him read that chapter a child… I do now. And yet, as my dad read that story year after year… while I was somewhat oblivious of the troubles he had in his own paternal relationship… I couldn’t help but see myself in that story — except that in my version of the story, I was the one trying to buy a present for my dad… a present that could make him proud enough that he knew how much I appreciated him.
The year that I bought the grey, pin-striped wallet, I thought I had done just that. I wrapped it up carefully in tissue paper and placed it under the tree along with a small envelope addressed to both of my parents. The next morning, my parents opened the envelope first: in it, I had placed $2.76 — the remainder of the money that I hadn’t spent at Santa’s Secret Workshop… with a note that said, ‘TO HELP WITH BILLS’. And then, excitedly, I handed my dad the wallet. I still remember seeing his face as he opened it — his eyes widening with that feigned surprise that only a parent can produce when their child has given them a plastic pinstriped wallet that they will absolutely never use. “Oh wow. Nice. Very Nice. Thank you.”, he said. I beamed with pride at my gift — I felt so grown up.
Over the next few weeks, I watched my dad closely and was surprised when he didn’t immediately transfer all of his credit cards into the new wallet. “My old wallet needs to wear out first,” he had said, “I want to save the one you gave me for a really special occasion.” I accepted that — it was, after all, a very special wallet and it made sense that he wouldn’t want to get it dirty or wear it out quickly. As time passed… I eventually forgot about the wallet. I’m sure my dad went through dozens of wallets in the years that followed… and as I grew older, I realized with the awareness of a young woman that a plastic wallet was not really that ideal. I thought of the gift with a bit of humor — I couldn’t believe that I had given him a plastic wallet, and I could hardly blame him for never using it.
As the years passed, my relationship with my father experienced the inevitable strain that happens when a child is becoming an adult — an awkward phase of still needing some parental guidance, but also wanting to discover independence and freedom. I idolized my father as a child — most likely because his validation was hard to get. Getting affection or positive attention from my father was like getting attention from a cat — it just didn’t happen all that much, and if it did, you knew it was a conscious choice. I did everything in my power to make my dad proud — because I wrongly believed that I needed to look for a sense of meaning in a place outside of myself. There were many years of hanging up phone calls on my dad… being angry at him… feeling frustrated at him… because I knew, deep down, that I could never be good enough to meet his standards… and for some reason, I had thought I needed to be. Many years ago, I came to the full and beautiful realization that I could release myself from that self-imposed requirement. I let go of needing to impress anybody else — and I started following my heart.
Ironically enough, it was when I stopped trying to get validation from my father that our relationship experienced some healing. As I let go of the need to get approval from him… I started doing the things that I was really excited about. He didn’t always agree with them, but it didn’t really matter to me anymore. I was able to look at him from a distance and see that his intentions were good — he was trying, in the only way he knew how, to protect me from the things that were frightening to him. Instead of getting mad at him for not agreeing with me… I learned how to let him not agree with me. I decided that it wasn’t worth it to try and argue, because it wasn’t going to do anything except wedge a greater distance between us. I began to find things that we could connect about — fly fishing, Moby Dick, and talking about nuclear power related things (he spent his career working for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission).
A few years ago, I went back to Maryland to visit my parents and I was walking through their bedroom and one of the top drawers of my dad’s dresser was open. Almost immediately, something very unexpected caught my eye… a hint of pinstriped grey. I don’t make a habit of digging through people’s personal belongings, but I couldn’t help myself. I pulled the drawer opened and was shocked to discover that nestled in a small bowl that contained my dad’s military medals from his service in the Navy was something else… the plastic, pin-striped wallet.
When I purchased that wallet for $11 at the age of 8, I knew that it was special — I just didn’t realize how it would end up being special. As a kid, I had imagined a world in which my dad would be so proud of the wallet, but as an adult, I knew that my dad hadn’t kept that wallet because of its remarkable craftsmanship and exceptional quality. He had kept it because I had given it to him. The wallet itself is tacky and cheap — in fact, if I’m being honest, it’s probably one of the ugliest wallets that I’ve ever seen. And yet, out of every wallet he ever owned, my dad kept that one for over 30 years — right beside his cherished mementos. The wallet was nothing that I thought it would ever be — ultimately, my dad never even used it as a wallet. It would never hold credit cards or business cards or cash, but it would hold something else. Invisibly tucked in its cheap plastic sleeves it held something far more valuable — a connection between a father and daughter who might not always see eye-to eye, but could still find love between the ever-changing pinstripes of life.
Friends — thank you so much for being here… and for giving me the chance to share such special Christmas stories with all of you. I hope that you are able to find peace in this holiday season in whatever way feels best for you. I’ll end with a quick poem… and a heartfelt thank you to YOU for being here. It really means a lot.
This season can bring So many things Cookies and presents And carols to sing And sometimes it comes with Some things we don't want Memories of the past Expectations that haunt The days that should Be full of cheer Sometimes seem lonely And filled with fear My wish for you Is to somehow find The peace in your heart And not in your mind The ornaments you hang Each one with care The presents you wrap They are simply there As little reminders To be here now You're not in the past You don't need to know how So whatever this holiday Looks like for you I do know that This much is true If there is anything to celebrate In this world we trod It's that you are here Against the odds Each day a chance To live and breathe Each day a chance To discover peace So celebrate life Find a way to uplift In this whole vast cosmos You are the gift.
Beautiful. Thank you.
Happiest of holidays to all!