Dueling Saints

Today is the Feast of St. Joseph so my husband Joe  is celebrating his feast day. Since he had Sicilian parents and their heritage included a tremendous devotion to St. Joseph,  the observance involved emptying the furniture out of a main room,  constructing a huge altar with 3 tiers, draping it with the colors for that year (kind of like a prom theme) and then loading it up with all kinds of lamps, candles, flowers, statuary, etc. Once the novena began the house would fill up nightly with Italian ladies who would sit in the rented folding chairs before the altar, pray the rosary and singing feast day songs at the top of their lungs, all in a  pre-WWII Sicilian dialect. At the end of the hour they moved to the kitchen and had coffee and pastries and chatted. It was a thing of beauty.

Small but Sincere!

The feast itself was a consummate tribute to Sicilian culture and cuisine.  Maria’s version of Pasta di San Giuseppe was a marvel of cauliflower, fava  beans, chick peas, and other ingredients that made a chunky, creamy white sauce served over  homemade pasta.  It was not for the faint of heart – you either loved it or hated it. (I loved it.) The rest of the dishes were largely seafood based (it being Lent and living in a fishing community) and side dishes included battered artichoke hearts and stuffed, sun-dried tomatoes – long before those became “popular” here in the U.S.  It was no wonder my Irish heritage was largely ignored as St. Patrick’s Day got lost in the shuffle.  As the years passed, and Maria did likewise, the festivities moved to other houses.  St. Patrick’s got back on the map, but not in ways I ever anticipated.

I love my Irish heritage and I’m a bit of a purist.  My grandma, Margaret Carroll McGill,  was born and raised in County Kerry and she told me I never had to wear green on St. Patrick’s day because I had true Irish blood. (Somehow I got it in my head that my blood turned green on St. Patrick’s Day and I always wanted to prick my finger to see it bleed – and see if it was green.)  My mother never made corned beef and cabbage because 1) she probably didn’t like it and 2) it really isn’t an Irish dish.  Irish bacon and colcannon are more proper, and I”m not a big fan of any variation of colcannon I’ve ever made.   My observance of St. Patrick’s Day centers around using my Belleek china or having a pint of Guinness (no proper Irishman would be caught dead drinking green beer).  My husband? The Sicilian prince?  Loves corned beef and cabbage. When I say “loves” corned beef & cabbage, I mean “would marry it“. He has a serious problem.  This really happened:

Joe:  I went to the store and picked up some groceries.

Me: Good, we were getting low.  What did you get?

Joe: Well, I bought a nice slab of corned beef!

Me: Really?  (Jokingly) Just one?

Joe:  Well, actually I bought two and thought I would freeze one….

Me:  Seriously?  Two?

Joe: Well (pointing to the refrigerator) …. there might be three in there.

Me: THREE?  There MIGHT be three?  Are you serious?

Joe: Well, we never have leftovers to make corned beef hash and I know you like that.

Oh yes, I’m sure he bought it for me.  He does that a lot. He will come home with a ham and say, “Look what I got you!” (Ham = oxygen to him.) In Sicilian culture, food is love. He shows his love for me by bringing home food he loves. Whatever. He cooks it (I refuse to) and enjoys it with as much relish as he does his feast day pasta.  March is his favorite month.

These days our altar is small but very sincere. We used to have a little silver tray to hold the mass cards of people we had lost, but as years passed we graduated to a lovely crystal bowl. After this round, I think we need to find a bigger bowl.  In twenty-five years we have collected a lot of those little cards. It is with great love and many tears we go through and review  them, but we always try to remember how lucky we were – and still are – to have loved so many wonderful souls. We pray for them, for families and friends, and this year for the new Pope Francis on whom the future of the church hangs in precarious balance. He will need all the help he can get.  I have set aside many of the beliefs taught to me in my youth, but I have hope in him. Besides, who better than the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi to guide us going forward?

To Tree or Not to Tree – Update

This past January I reflected on not having put up a Christmas tree for the past 10 years,  ( To Tree or Not to Tree ) so I thought I should begin the holiday season with a happy update.

We have a tree!

It’s a small one, but it’s lovely and full and vintage and smells sooooo good!  It takes up gallons of water and sheds needles and tinsel every time I come near it so it’s perfect. Wait – TINSEL?  Oh yes, I did the tinsel thing. I bought it as a joke – the packages were $1 – but when I finished trimming the tree in those lovely vintage 40′s and 50′s ornaments I thought, “What the hell – try a little!”  Well, a little became a little more and while it does not look like the tinsel fairy threw up on the tree, it is tinseled and it looks wonderful.   Normally I loathe the stuff but for some unknown reason this year it just seemed… right.

When I come downstairs in the morning and saunter into the family room with my coffee and my iPad,  I smell the tree’s fragrance and I smile. I sip coffee and unlock the Angry Birds Seasons episode of the day and look at my tree and feel peaceful. Evenings are good, too, with the teeny blue tree lights that make the silver tinsel look blueish. It soothes me to see that icy blue in winter because it brings back a favorite childhood memory.

While driving home from a visit to Grandpa and Grandma Major, the sub-zero cold of a Nebraska night made for a spectacular, star filled sky. The clear, dark sky made the white snowy fields turn a kind of blueish tint.  It was like a fairyland, and to a young girl at Christmas it was magical. Everyone else would fall asleep, Dad would be driving at breakneck speed (it was legal then) and I would ask him to keep making the headlights change from dim to bright – and he could do it with no hands!  I though he was a genius – little did I know the button to toggle  the bright headlights was on the floor by the brake. I thought he was magic. The night landscape was enchanting. Such a simple thing, but I have remembered it – vividly – my entire life.

Many, many years later I was driving around Gloucester looking at Christmas lights, feeling homesick and miserable. Then I saw it – a big house with a massive front lawn lit entirely by….blue lights.  The snowy front lawn had that same blueish tint. I pulled over, got out of my car and snuck around the hedge and just stared at the whole scene. (It was very late, no one was up.)  I got a little weepy.  Happy weepy. I felt better.  I got back in my car and went home. *

I’m one of the fortunate few who aren’t driven to distraction by the holiday shopping  and the stress of holiday cooking.  I love to cook – so does my husband – and we really have limited resources so gift buying is at a bare minimum.  It’s very liberating to take such control over the holiday madness. It is a gift unto itself. Light those Advent candles and enjoy every ritual of the season.  I truly am, for the first time in many years.

*Happy Update #2 – I later met the owner of that house and he has since become one of my dearest friends. He still puts up the blue lights but now I enjoy them with a cocktail in my hand beside a roaring fire – he is also a kindred, pyromaniac soul.  Every year, every time – it’s magical.

The Advent of Advent

Even thought I still have to cope with idiots who do not know the meaning of Advent - I like Advent.  It begins on Sunday and is a familiar ritual involving  lit candles and a winter cleaning of the soul. I find myself taking inventory of the past year, what went down (vs. what did not -  like my weight) and thinking about what I want to do with the time I have left. Face it, at my age I know I have less time ahead of me than I do behind me and I’m good with that.  I’m tired, for Pete’s sake, but I still want to make sure I use that time wisely and well.

I’m also busy making Christmas gifts because 1) I like to, and 2) all funds are delegated to paying bills and utilities.  I have a place  in the family room all cleared out for a Christmas tree – we can pick up a small one for very little and I have a need to get back to trimming a real tree that smells good, sheds needles – the works.  I like the long observance of Advent and slower Christmas.   I’ve never been one for the  Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales frenzy even when I did have money to shop.  I just don’t particularly like shopping.  It seems a waste of time to me and is often very frustrating.  I like simple things, good lines, fine fabric and appreciate a nice seam finish. Try finding that these days.

Maybe that is why I can spend hours embroidering wool felt and watching Christmas movies.  Every ornament is unique, every movie gets better with another viewing.  Right now I’m watching ELF on an endless loop.  There are more good one-liners in that movie than in almost any other Christmas movie.  This past Sunday was the Downtown Santa Parade and while Santa looked pretty authentic sitting on top of the fire department’s ladder truck, I knew it wasn’t the REAL Santa and it was all I could do to not yell out, “YOU SIT ON A THRONE OF LIES!”

Slow down and enjoy the season. Life outside of the usual frantic holiday circus is pretty sweet and makes for better memories.