Christmas after cancer

Those of you who've followed my blog for a while might remember that I love Christmas. I really do. And since I had cancer, I love it even more. Each one that comes round, I think to myself "This might not have been". This is the seventh Christmas since I had cancer, and I've felt it every year, but I don't think I've ever been brave enough to write it - at least not quite so plainly.

The odd thing is, you would imagine that such feelings would tow along anxiety, fears for the future, panic. And yes, those moments come too. I know I sometimes place an unhealthy load onto events, because the desire to create memories gets out of balance with the ability to live in the present. But mostly, "This might not have been" brings in its wake a warmth, a stillness, and a sense of depth.

Last Sunday, for example, we headed off to get our Christmas tree. We go to same farm, where there's an excruciatingly delicious farm shop and cafe. We've got our tree from there three years running now, so I think that counts as a family tradition. We headed out of the city (only a 15 minute drive, though - I can't tell you how much I love living in a small city...). Desert Island Discs was on the radio, and Kylie Minogue was the castaway. She talked a little about her experience of breast cancer, and one of her discs was a recording of her boyfriend reading a poem full of emotion, so I suppose I was primed. As we turned off the main road towards the farm, the view of the valley emerged before us, and was a picture of absolute beauty. Mist lay in the valley, but you could see dark shapes poking up through it - treetops, hedges, farm buildings. If you'd painted the scene, it would have been all greys and whites, and probably impossible to capture.  It was winter at its most imaginative, and I think I gasped out loud. We'd left a dirty, damp, grey city, but when we got out of the car here in the countryside, the ground was frosty hard underfoot, and the air was crisp. A perfect Christmas moment. A moment that might not have been.

I tread carefully as I write this. Christmas is a time of painful memories, and thoughts of loss, for so many. There are plenty of blog posts out there to remind me of that. I've had my poignant Christmases too - my first as a mother, stuffing a stocking for a 7-month old baby who had no clue what we were doing, was also my first without my father, and there will no doubt be more to come. But in this chapter of life, each Christmas brings joy and peace and thanksgiving for all that is for me, that might not have been.

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You will be really surprised that I'm posting about this

You don't have me down as the kind of blogger who posts about Christmas ads, do you? You're right. I'm not. I don't like promoting big corporations, I don't like the commercialism of Christmas, and I don't watch much tv. What's more, I don't like receiving emails that call themselves an "exclusive preview", when I know that I'm one of several hundred thousand people receiving the email. But I liked this video, and I'm meant to be posting once a week and already failing at that, so I'm going to share it with you. Lazy blogging. Sorry.

What I like about it is this:

• it's short (one minute - well done, M&S, less is more)
• it's fun
• it's not smaltzchy (is that a word?) and doesn't romanticise Christmas, but realistically suggests that things like having 40 winks on the sofa are a nice part of the day ("if only"... I hear you all sigh)
• yes, it's full of glamourous women and smiley children, and the parents don't look tired enough and don't show even a flicker of annoyance when their daughter jumps on them and interrupts their post-dinner 40 winks, but they all seem to be having a bit of a lark, rather than being the perfect Christmas family, and the scenes are random and a tad weird
• yes, it's only 6 November and we haven't had Bonfire Night yet, so too early, too early for Christmas stuff, but well, you can't blame a big retailer for being like all the rest of them
• it's made me realise why I always dislike other Christmas ads that get hyped (John Lewis, I'm looking at you here). At some level, they do all send out that "you too could have the perfect Christmas" message, even if it's cunningly disguised as penguins and pyjamas. I like this M&S one because I don't quite understand it, but it's a romp that throws itself full pelt at Christmas, and it stirred up something jolly. Jolly and not too perfect. 

I have not been paid, reimbursed or acknowledged in any way for this post. Just cleverly manipulated by an unseen creative advertising agency.

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Now, that WOULD make for an interesting Christmas

9-yo (looking at a flyer in the pile of junk mail): It says you can adopt a snow leopard. How does that work, exactly?

Me: Well, you send a donation to the charity, and they use the money to look after snow leopards. Maintain their habitat. That kind of thing.

9-yo: Oh... I thought you got an actual snow leopard to look after.

Photo credit: National Geographic

Chocolate Mingles and Jingles

This post is a review post.

When I was living in America, one of my frustrations was the lack of websites from which you could order gifts for family and friends living back in the UK. Most companies have worked out that the delivery address isn't always the credit card billing address, but lots of them hadn't worked out that the two addresses might be in different countries. Hello? Is that complicated?

So when I discovered that the Hotel Chocolat website could cope with this, it became my go-to place for presents. After all, who doesn't like receiving chocolate? And it's such high-class chocolate. Tasty, imaginative, a feast for the eyes as well as the taste buds. One thing I love about the website, is that there's a good range of prices. You can give someone a treat without it being ridiculously expensive. I find it the ideal present for a family.

Hotel Chocolat sent me this lovely bag of delights.

A 'Mingles and Jingles Bag' it's called. See? What did I say about "imaginative"? Would you have dreamt up that catchy title? White chocolate bells, dark chocolate penguins, and milk caramel angels, 2 inches tall, individually wrapped, in a pretty sack-ette, plain yet sparkly, that any aspiring Santa would be pleased to be ho-ho-ho-ing down the chimney with. Lovely  presentation, and well-packaged, so no worries about boxes arriving through the post bashed and mis-shapen. These people really understand the concept of a luxury gift - but I was also interested to read about their social conscience.

There's a promotion on at the moment on their website. If you spend £60 on chocolates (I know, I know, but if you were buying for several people, perhaps?), you get a free gift sent to your home address.  

Yes, Hotel Chocolat definitely gets the Iota seal of approval. This year, a bag of chocolates. Next year, I'm hoping they might want me to review their hotel on the isle of St Lucia.  

This was a review post. I received a 'Mingles and Jingles Bag' from Hotel Chocolat, valued £21. The opinions and writing in the review are my own.

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Now I'm going to ruin it totally

One of the aspects of blogging that I have long enjoyed is how accepting the blogosphere is. You can hear the taboos tumbling, as bloggers admit to behaviours and attitudes they've previously considered outrageous. Confessions are usually met with variations on the following responses:

Aw, Hon, don't worry. We love you anyway! And in answer to your question, yes, you're totally normal.

I'm SO glad you wrote this post. I'm not alone! I've felt the same for years, but I've never been brave enough to say so out loud. Thank you!

Bloggers are commended for their honesty, sympathy is offered, and the blogosphere absorbs the revelation of this drossy bit of human life, and moves on.

But there must be a limit. There must be things which bloggers confess to, that other people can't condone. There must be moments when lines are crossed, sensibilities offended beyond forgiveness. Moments when bloggers turn their faces... Bloggy Friends, I fear this may be one such.

I don't like the film It's a Wonderful Life. There. I've said it. And there's worse. Not only do I not like it, I really hate it. I've only seen it all the way through once, and then tedious snippets on various other unavoidable occasions. When I did sit all the way through it, I found it boring, pointless, and downright irritating. I thought the central character was dull, and at points a bit creepy. I thought his self-assessment was right, actually. He should have left that insipid and dreary town, and found himself a more interesting life. At the crucial point, he needed Barbie, in one of her many cinematic incarnations, to appear and warble on about following his dreams, believing in himself, trusting his heart. That might have got him moving. As for the angel, he annoyed me immensely. Angels should not be bland. I believe the word "mawkish" was invented for films like this one. It's 130 minutes long, which is approximately 129 minutes too much.

I've heard TWO discussions in the past 24 hours, one on Radio 4 and one on Radio Scotland, about the remake, or sequel, that is imminent. Those radio people were loving it. Lapping it up, they were. "I go every year, with my family, to see it on the big screen, and we're all weeping by the end." "Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without it." "'Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings' - that line gets me every time!" I must have heard the word "heart-warming" as many times as is physically possible in the course of a radio segment. The only good thing was the aging actress from Vancouver, who played the daughter in the original film, and is playing an auntie in the sequel, who managed to give away huge chunks of the plot, before the interviewer could intervene. Ha! I enjoyed that bit, thinking of all you It's a Wonderful Life devotees speedily clamping your hands over your ears, but not speedily enough, and howling with distress at having caught a half-sentence too much of what she was saying. Ruined it for you, did she? Ha! (See, I have a dark side...)

Please don't judge me. I can't help it. It's a genetic condition. It's in my DNA. My sister hates the film too. We only have to sing "Buffalo Girls, won't you come out tonight?" to each other, in the knowledge that we are the only two people on the planet who feel this way about the film, to experience a Christmas bonding moment so magical, that I have only one word to describe it. Yes, you guessed it - "heart-warming".

Can you forgive me for my aberrance?

"Darling, you were right first time. Your life has been pointless and meaningless, and no amount of my smiling at you in black and white can make it better.

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The hidden nativity character

We know them all so well, don't we? The angels, the shepherds, the wise men. But this year, I became aware of a hidden person, someone who must have been there, I think, but who was never written into the story.

A woman. I sense a woman at the scene. An older woman, a help-meet for Mary in her hour of need. I'm guessing that in the culture of that time, it would be a woman who would be the birth partner. I don't think Joseph could have managed on his own, though I'm sure he'd have tried to prepare himself, quietly seeking out the local midwife in Nazareth, swallowing his embarrassment, and asking her what he would need to do, far from home, in a city of strangers.

No. I don't think it was Joseph cutting the cord. Was it the Inn-keeper's wife? "You put them where? In the stable? She's about to give birth, for heaven's sake." Or another traveler? A woman staying at the inn who would willingly have given up her room, but only found out about Mary when she was a long way past being able to move from her bed of straw. Could it possibly have been Elizabeth, Mary's cousin? Did she meet Mary in Bethlehem, taking her own infant son with her? Or perhaps another member of Mary's family, who traveled the road from Nazareth to Bethlehem alongside Mary and Joseph?

I don't know. I'm guessing it was simply a local Nazareth woman. An older woman. A mother. She knew enough about childbirth to understand that Mary needed someone with her. She was there to hold her, to encourage her, to promise that the pains would pass. She helped ease the baby's head out, delivered his slippery body, cleared his mouth and nose of mucus, held her breath until he had taken his first. Then she wrapped him in the swaddling cloths which she had thought to go and fetch, before hunkering down in the stable at Mary's side. She took care of delivering the placenta, of cleaning up as best she could. She made sure Mary was warm, and as comfortable as possible, before leaving to go and tend to her own family.

I think she came back the next morning. Perhaps she came back several times. I think she helped Mary learn the skill of breast-feeding. I think she shared wise words about how to look after a newborn baby. I imagine they told her about the shepherds, and then later about the wise men, showing her the gifts, and enjoying her amazement. She was a trusted friend, by now, in that way that people become who meet us in the crisis points of our lives.

Did Mary and Joseph manage to get a message to her, when they slipped away urgently to Egypt, no time to linger, no chance to say good-bye? Did she wonder through the years what had happened to them, to the baby?

She has no mention in the Christmas story, but I'm sure she was there. Don't you agree? The Nativity Midwife.

A Christmas Miracle

That last post was a little grumpy, wasn't it? Oh go on, you don't have to be nice. It was. But I'm feeling better, enjoying Christmas CDs, eating mince pies (bought loads for an event Husband was organising, and then fewer people turned up than he'd guessed, so yay, spare mince pies for us!) and generally getting in the swing of it. If all else fails, I turn on my IKEA stars and think how lovely they look. Yes, I really am that easy to please.

In fact, I'm so full of the Christmas spirit, that I thought I'd share my own little Christmas miracle story with you. It has all the right ingredients: a family visit, a child, a special day, a mistake that turns out ok but teaches the main character a useful life lesson along the way, a three-legged opossum, and laundry.

Followers of my blog (sad, sad people) will know how much I hate my washer-dryer. I am taking steps to remedy the situation, but for reasons that I can't go into on a public blog (living in a house that belongs to an institution which employs Husband and is therefore not entirely my own to manage), for the time-being, I am stuck with it. I have a personal rule, which is that I never use the dryer function of the washer-dryer combo. Never. Never ever. The dial now has a red nail polish mark on it, to make it easy to see whether it is on or off (applied after I ruined a load of washing). As I say, I never use it. Never. I vowed I wouldn't ever again. Except just sometimes I do have to, for example when my brother and sister-in-law came to stay this week-end and I needed to dry some towels for them (see 1, family visit).

They left on Sunday night, and I turned my thoughts to Monday morning and getting ready for school. 12-yo (see 2, child) said he had to go to school in formal wear, which I thought couldn't be right, but I read the weekly bulletin and spotted a bit I'd missed. Yes, indeed, he did need to be in formal wear because it's the last day of school, with an assembly and a carol service (3, special day). Think kilt, sporran, knee-length socks, sock flashes... (love it, love it, love it, love having my children at a school in Scotland which makes them wear kilts from time to time). Only slight problem, the knee-length socks, of which he has only one pair because he only wears formal dress on rare occasions, were at the bottom of the laundry basket. So into the washing machine they went.

I had forgotten to turn the knob back to the "dryer off" position (4, mistake). When I went into the kitchen at 10.30pm, expecting to find a small pile of clean, wet laundry in the drum (pa-ra-pa-pum-pum) and the machine off, instead I found the machine humming away happily in dryer mode. Although it was on "wool" setting, it was very hot (no, there's nothing wrong with it, I've phoned customer services and asked, it's just that washer-dryers dry very hot). I decided then and there that the red nail polish mark wasn't enough. No. I would have to do more. I would have to selotape the knob, to remind myself never, ever, ever, never, ever to use the dryer (4, mistake that teaches the main character a useful life lesson).

But here's the amazing denouement. The socks were fine. They were almost dry, and they hadn't shrunk at all. They are wool, should be hand-washed, definitely shouldn't be tumble-dried, but when subjected to the foundry-like temperatures of the Hotpoint washer-dryer, had survived unscathed (4, mistake that turns out ok). It was a miracle. I'm naming those socks "Daniel", for they lived through the fiery furnace. (Know that story?) And verily there was much rejoicing, for if the socks had been ruined, indeed the stress therein would have been mighty. For it remaineth to be seen whether a mother can buy a pair of long dress socks for a 12 year old before eight o'clock on a Monday morning.

I lied about the three-legged opossum.

So if "It's a Wonderful Life", or "Miracle on 34th Street" fail to touch your spirit this Christmas, please hold the story of "Iota's Laundry Miracle" in your heart.

If that fails, eat mince pies.

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Iota's Six Top Festive Tips

Long-term followers of my blog (you poor sad people, don't you have anything better to do?) will know that I really love Christmas. So as the season starts to roll, I thought I would drip my distilled drops of wisdom, accumulated from experiences old and new, as to how to make this Christmas the most wonderful of all.

1. Don't get a spaniel puppy. They poo and wee a lot on the floor. They humiliate you at puppy training classes. They bark when they are excited, which is a lot of the time. When you discuss this, outside, with the puppy trainer, she will talk about rewarding good behaviour, as if you need to become an expert in canine CBT. You will be nodding and smiling, while all the while you will be thinking "or we could just buy a kennel and he could live outside". Shouting at your puppy does not help.
2. Don't have sons. They are incapable of distinguishing dirty clothes from clean. If you have to have sons, wait a few decades until Lasik have invented a corrective procedure, that will be offered to parents of boys at their birth. Shouting at your sons does not help.
3. Don't have daughters. They are like whirlwinds of chaos. They have 'art projects' everywhere. They insist on growing their hair long, and then they don't want to wash it because they are too busy when it comes to bedtime. Shouting at your daughters does not help.
4. Don't get married. Husbands are always right about everything, and it's very annoying. They put on a sad face with sad eyes (see "spaniel puppy" above) when you shout at them. 
5. Don't buy Christmas stocking fillers. You will hide them and then not remember where you have put them. Don't even bother with the shouting on this one. Those pesky stocking fillers will not hear you, and even if they do, they will not answer.
6. Don't buy Christmas decorations. Don't buy fancy cardboard stars from IKEA, and wait till Sunday night to put them up. You will have mislaid the light bulbs, and it will be too late to go and buy some more (even if you could be bothered), because this is Britain where shops shut at a stupidly early hour. You won't be able to make the stars hang straight, because electric flex is so deliberately wayward, and because, quite frankly, the world is against you. Surprisingly, shouting at the IKEA stars DOES help.

If you follow these six tips, I guarantee you'll be full of festive cheer, and the season will envelop you in a flurry of goodwill and jollity, as if you were in a blizzard and every snowflake was a warm wish of happiness.

This post is part of the BritMums Christmas Blog Hop.

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Derek and Joyce

One of my all time BEST Christmas moments was the year that I and my siblings sent my parents a Christmas card from a fictitious couple, Derek and Joyce.

The card was intimate enough that it was clearly intended for my parents and not just wrongly addressed. It greeted them by name, and it cheerily exclaimed "We really must meet up in 1989!" It had one sentence of hand-written news about the children, Faye, Michael and Anne: "All doing well" or some such generality.

We then sat back and watched over breakfast, as my parents struggled to remember who Derek and Joyce were, and - crucially - how they could reciprocate and get a card in the post to them before Christmas. My mother thought that Derek, a friend of my father's living in South Africa, must have remarried in the course of the year, moved to England, and acquired three step-children. My father thought that Joyce was an old friend of my mother's from her nursing days, who'd decided to get in touch again on a whim. This all played out in front of our delighted, conspiratorial eyes.

We left it a day or two, and then confessed. Derek and Joyce passed into family lore, and the next year my parents received another card from them, this time complete with newsletter all about the lives of Faye, Michael and Anne, their grown-up children.

I'd like to say that Derek and Joyce are still sending Christmas cards within my family, but actually, they petered out after two or three. Best to leave a joke at its height than flog it to annual death. They did make a guest appearance, more than a decade later, when they left a card at the wedding of a friend of mine, signing it "With fondest love, and we're just sorry we can't be at the wedding ourselves. Hope you like the present, and if not, we've included the receipt so you can exchange it" - but of course there was no present or receipt. A few months later, Derek and Joyce sent my newly-wed friends a Christmas card. "So sorry not to have been with you for your special day, but we've heard all about it and seen lots of wonderful photos. It looked like a magical occasion, and what sweet little bridesmaids! We do hope you enjoyed the present." The amazing thing was that I got a card back from them. "Thanks for your card. Have a super Christmas. Love from Derek and Joyce". In spite of the anonymous postmark and the disguised handwriting, my friend had guessed who Derek and Joyce's creator was.

I think of Derek and Joyce at Christmas time, obviously, and particularly when I hear God Rest You Merry Gentlemen, when the chorus comes round:

O-oh, tidings of Derek and Joyce,

Derek and Joyce!

O-oh, tidings of De-e-rek and Joyce!

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Christmas 2011, the Christmas of the Towels

Christmas Eve, and Mr Claus and I were in the basement wrapping the final presents, and watching old episodes of Men Behaving Badly (yay, Netflix). I asked Husband to pass me a box of tissue, from the other side of the room, and as he pottered over in his socked feet, he paused and asked "why is the carpet wet here?". Yay for the box of tissues, which led us to discover that we have a leak in something (since it hasn't rained for a few days), and that water has been seeping into a corner of the basement, for probably several days (or weeks - who knows). This accounts for the slightly odd smell, which Husband had mentioned the other day, and I'd ignored. Our basement often smells slightly odd. It's usually to do with the dirty socks strewn around.

So the carpet is peeled back, the underlay discarded, and a pretty semi-circle of towels is keeping the water at bay. Towels which every few hours need to be wrung out, bunged in the washing machine and then the dryer (yay, driers.)

We had a lovely Christmas Day. We really did. Then last night, three of the five of us (Husband, me, 7-yo) went down with a bug. Or got up with a bug, I should say. Was it the turkey? Anyway, in these situations, I become a bit obsessive about washing everything: bedding, towels, pyjamas. I also put down a lot of spare towels, a habit which dates back to the days when our children weren't old enough to make it to the bucket, or good enough at aiming even if the bucket was right next to the bed. Thus it was that Husband, seeing me with another load on my way to the washing machine (yay, washing machines) wryly observed "This has been the Christmas of the Towels".

Right. Off to check that our house insurance is up to date.

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The Music of Christmas: Part ll

There's been a post doing the rounds where bloggers have been sharing their favourite Christmas songs. I've already mentioned a couple of mine, and told you how much I love and revel in Christmas music.

But even I have my least favourites. They are (in ascending order of awfulness):

1) Anything recorded sung by children. I don't mind hearing children sing. It's sweet. Lots of them have lovely voices. So why, when they make recordings of popular Christmas songs for the mass market, why on EARTH, do they recruit children who can't sing in tune? There is nothing cute about children singing flat. Or sharp. And putting a quasi-adorable picture on the front of the box, of several smiling children of different races is not going to persuade me otherwise.

2) The Little Drummer Boy carol. It's boring, tedious, gloomy, and factually ridiculous (little drummer boy goes to play drum for sleeping newborn baby - I hope Mary gave him what for). I grant an exemption from my loathing of this carol to David Bowie and Bing Crosby, who do a nice job of making it into a duet. It is the only exemption I will allow.

3) Frosty the Snowman. I don't know what it is about this song (I'm not going to elevate it to 'carol' status), but I really hate and detest it. I don't even know the lyrics. I looked them up for the purposes of this blog post, and frankly, I was happier when I didn't know them. Anyone else share my detestation?

If you don't share mine, what are your LEAST favourite Christmas songs?

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The Music of Christmas: Part l

I love Christmas. I always have. I think I've mentioned that before (and since a quick check reveals that I've written 18 posts to date with the label Christmas, I expect I have mentioned it more than once). And one of the best things about Christmas is the music. I love Christmas music. I love it all.

I love the familiar favourites about Santa and snowmen and reindeer and children, rehashed in scores of ways, played over wobbly sound systems in shops, abused as the background music to adverts on tv, warbled by children in school concerts.

I love the jolly ancient songs about wassailing. They make me think of our medieval forbears cheering themselves in the dark, dank, muddy, winter days, with a wassail bowl and a hog roast and a roaring fire. (Oh, thank heavens for central heating, fast food and shopping malls.)

I love carols, careful carriers of theological truths down the ages before most people could read and write. I used to love my 12" black vinyl record of carols, with a picture of snow-laden Christmas trees on the front. (I wonder if I still have it somewhere?) I love all those David Willcocks arrangements from Carols for Choirs. What a genius that man was. My favourite Christmas hymn is Of the Father's Love Begotten, which we had at our wedding (in January, not quite Christmas, but still Epiphany and therefore seasonal). It's based on a hymn written in the 4th century. It's old.

I love the Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, Cambridge on Christmas Eve. I sat and listened to it with my grandmother in the last month of her life in 1983. I had just got a fancy radio/cassette player which I was rather pleased with - it had two built-in speakers, taking me to the lofty heights of stereo sophistication. She needed an oxygen mask on during parts of the service. It's one of my loveliest memories.

I love modern classics, All I want for Christmas is You, Santa Baby, Let it Snow, War is Over, Slade's So Here It Is - all of them. My favourite in this category is Paul McCartney's Wonderful Christmastime. There's something about that song that just gets me between the ribs.

I love mystic-sounding madrigals on CDs which have the word Celtic in the title, with pictures on the front of people in hooded garb, gazing mysteriously across misty landscapes. (Incidentally, don't you think the current iPod generation misses out, with downloadable music which has no need of album covers?)

I even love the offensively vacuous Kidz Compilationz CDs we have. I'm going to have to use the word 'festive' at this point. You know the kind. Lots of jingles and jangles and a good strong beat, where Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer morphs into Ding Dong Merrily on High which segues into We Wish You a Merry Christmas which blends into Away in a Manger which transmutes into Deck the Halls. We have one version in which they sing 'bows' of holly instead of 'boughs'. Falala-lala to that.

Ah yes. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without the music. I love it all. Well... Almost all...



NB I've sent this post to Notes from Home for her Christmas Carnival. If you're writing about Christmas, why don't you join in too?

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12 Days of Blogging

Everybody is at it. Hot Cross Mum, The Potty Diaries, Nappy Valley in New York and Expat Mum. They've all come up with versions of the 12 Days of Christmas. I wanted to join their club, so I've done one of my own, about blogging.

Incidentally I have, actually, already done a truncated version of the well-loved carol, counting down the body parts I've lost, but that was a long time ago: (all my hair, 4 wisdom teeth, 3 moles, 2 boobs, and a lymph node, I believe it went.)

Anyhoo, here is one about blogging. I'm going to cut to the chase, and start at the 12th day.

On the 12th day of Christmas, my bloggy friend sent to me:

12 Tumblrs Tumblring
11 DiggIts Digging
10 Blogger Updates
9 Wordpress Downloads
8 RSS feeds
7 Pics a-Flickr
6 Tweets re-tweeted
5 BritMums Live!
4 Angry Birds
3 Facebook Friends
2 Gurgle Loves
And a Rise in my Site Meteree!

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Therapy in the toy store: Part l

You don’t just get a toy, when you come to the toy shop. You get therapy, and like the gift wrap service, it’s free.

Family therapy is our main business. We know that daughters-in-law can make buying a present for a grandchild well nigh impossible. “I think he’d like this, but I’m not sure his mother would approve” you say, tentatively. We sympathise, and then we help you find an alternative which you’ll be just as happy to give.

We know that mothers-in-law can make life with a new baby difficult. We understand when you explain how the musical mobile she insisted on giving you isn’t nearly as nice as the one you wanted. We do exchanges without judgement.

We tactfully don’t watch as your small child has a tantrum, and refuses to leave the shop without the toy he’s holding. Or we might say “don't worry, we’ve all been there”. If we sense you need our help, we address your child “oh, it’s SO hard to leave the toy store, isn’t it? But you can come again another day. You have to leave the toys here, though. Everyone has to.”

We declare “It’s cute baby day in the toy store today!”, and make you feel that your infant is the most beautiful one who has ever crossed our threshold. We let your toddlers play with the train track, and the doll’s house, and the sandbox, bounce around on the hop ball, ride round on the bike, jump on the trampoline, and it doesn’t matter at all if they make a mess, or make a noise. “It’s a toy store!” we exclaim.

We offer a 10% discount to therapists, teachers, and staff from the local center for disabled children, and we never ask if they’re buying the toy for the classroom or their own home.

Some therapy pulls the heartstrings. I tried to help someone find some dot-to-dot books with pictures that weren’t too babyish for an 18-year-old with an educational age of 10 (“and he still thinks he’s going to college like all the other 18 year olds”). I spent some time recently with two older women who came in looking for activities to keep occupied their Alzheimer-suffering husbands. It really must be like having a small child to look after. No small pieces to put in their mouths, no magnets, nothing which demands too long an attention span.

I personally have developed two particular therapies. The first is the “no more mummy guilt” therapy. If a customer ever makes reference to being a bad mum (or dad for that matter), for whatever reason, I look them straight in the eye, and say “that doesn’t make you a bad mother”. It’s amazing what people worry about, thinking it makes them a bad parent. Buying party favours only the day before the party. Buying not enough presents for their child’s birthday. Buying too many presents for their child’s birthday. Not buying exactly what their child wants. Not knowing exactly what their child wants. It’s time we dropped all this parent guilt. I’m doing my bit in the toy shop.

The second is a seasonal therapy, to the grandparents who came to the shop early in December, wanting to buy presents to send to far away grandchildren. “I think she’d like this... Yes, I think she would... But I haven’t seen her for a long while, and they change so fast.” I reply “I’m sure she’ll love it. I’m sure she will”. I understand that you don’t want to make a quick decision. I understand that you need to spend an hour looking round, picking all the different items off the shelves, holding them, feeling them, choosing the right one to imbue with your love before letting us wrap it and ship it off. I understand if you say you’ll wrap it yourself. You want to take it home and have it in your hands a little longer. You want the gift tag to be in your own writing. You want to add ‘with so much love from…' and underline ‘so much’. I hear what it is you’re really saying, when you tell me you have to get the choice right, because they live so far away, they can’t come in to do an exchange. I like listening to you as you talk about your grandkids. I ask questions about them. I smile a lot when I’m talking to you. I want you to enjoy your morning, choosing Christmas presents for the grandkids so far away. I like helping you look around, and giving you ideas, but I know too that you need some time on your own, so I leave you in peace. I am, by proxy, the sales assistant who is scanning the bar codes on the purchases my mother is making, an ocean and half a continent away.

Random things to end to the year with

Here are some random things.

A Christmas thing I really don't like: That carol about the drummer boy parum-papum-pum. It's really dumb-darum-dum. Drumming for a baby is stupid. Mary would have got really cross. It would have woken the baby up.

British English words that I miss: Stupid instead of dumb. Cross instead of mad/angry.

Fruit I miss: Bramley apples!

Christmas food: mince pies.

Fact about living in Scotland: they call mince pies, mincemeat tarts (which could be great inspiration for a fancy dress costume).

Christmas food that I miss, though I don't like the taste: Christmas pudding and Christmas cake.

Christmas food that is marvellous beyond words: cold turkey and cold stuffing.

A phrase in American English that I really like and use a lot: "Good luck with that". It means "that sounds truly dreadful, I don't envy you".

Something that made me laugh yesterday: my boss called me Eunice Fairbanks all day. It was an in-joke. It was funny at the time, though I can see it loses something in the telling.

Something I am grateful for: oh lots. I'm in that kind of a mood.

Something I bought half price, in the sale at Williams Sonoma yesterday: a mix for making sticky toffee pudding. It says that they researched the recipe in the Lake District, from where the pudding hails. I didn't even know puddings could hail. I don't want to make the pudding. I just want to read the side of the tin over and over, and luxuriate in the fact that I've bought a mix from Williams Sonoma, which is what I do in my dreams sometimes.

Something I saved $100 on, in the sale at Williams Sonoma yesterday: a Le Creuset oval pot, cast iron, enamelled. Only a couple of days ago, I said to Husband "the trouble with my two Le Creuset pots is that one is too big, and the other is too small; I really need the one in between." It would have been criminal not to have saved $100 buying the very perfect one. It's like the baby bear's Le Creuset in Goldilocks. It's orange. Hot orange. I know I'm a better cook already.

Something that happened while I was writing this post that was very nice: my brother phoned from Paris to say Happy New Year. It is, of course, already 2011 in Paris. I'm just so darn international.

Something nice I'm doing tonight: going out. We have been invited out as a family. And - get this - this is the second year running that we have had a New Year's Eve invitation. This could almost be a reason to stay in America. We never used to get invited out on New Year's Eve.

A true fact: I will be late if I don't go and get ready right now.

Greeting: Happy New Year, Bloggy Peeps!

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A favourite Christmas moment

We have been watching a lot of The Waltons recently. It’s hard to find a movie or tv programme that keeps everyone happy, given the age range of our children, from 6 to 13. The Waltons seems to fit nicely. And it’s so darn wholesome too. Husband and I can sit back and feel smug about the lessons that our children are learning of the values of family life, the common sense morality, the homespun wisdom… Many of the episodes are familiar, so they must have had a big effect on me when I watched them over 30 years ago. I loved The Waltons, as a child. Now I see my own children equally caught up, with 6-yo deciding she wants to be called Elizabeth, and the boys arguing over whether Ben should or shouldn’t have told the family that he had failed to shoot a turkey for Thanksgiving, and had ended up buying it instead.

It’s not all easy watching. In the depression in rural Virginia, the family and their community struggle to make ends meet. The children go to school in bare feet. The programmes don’t shy away from traumatic events. Mary Ellen’s husband was killed at Pearl Harbor in a recent episode we saw. But they are rich stories, and though things don’t always end well, there is good at the core. And there's a great theme tune to boot.

I have to confess that my inner teenager has a bit of a girlie crush on Johnboy. My inner teenager is fickle, because when I watched The Waltons decades ago as a real teenager, it was the dreamy Jason or the impetuous Ben who held my interest. But now it’s Johnboy. It’s the struggling writer thing that I’ve fallen for. There he is, lynchpin of the family, wavering between boyhood and manhood, more parent than older brother to the younger brood, and then each evening, he seeks the solitude of his own room, and writes feverishly, capturing the ordinary and the extraordinary in his stories of everyday life on Walton’s Mountain. Each episode begins with his mature reflection on the events that will unfold. He is in the story, but he is detached from it: a participant but also an observer. Johnboy Walton was a most excellent blogger, before blogging was invented.

Oh alas, Johnboy. How much easier you’d have found it these days. With broadband arriving at Walton’s Mountain, a whole world would have opened up for you. No more mailing off stories to hard-faced publishers, and waiting for disappointment after disappointment as the manuscripts are returned to you with rejection letters. No, you’d definitely be a top blogger, with your winsome tales of your siblings, and your nuggets of insight into the complexities of family life. What would your blog be called, I wonder? Perhaps one of the following: A Modern Mountain, Johnography, Mountain Tips, Bringing Up JimBob, Virginia Scribble, John Boyfoix, More than Just a Walton. Or how about The Johnota Quota? I’m glad you made it in the end, Johnboy, even with no blog to foster your nascent writing skills.

Here is one of my favourite Walton moments. It’s a blooper with an appropriate Christmas theme, which made me laugh decades ago, back in the days when you had to catch bloopers once a year on a Dennis Norden seasonal special, and savour them enough to last a Youtube-less year.

Crismis

So this is Crismis. Or that’s what it says on the calendar on my kitchen wall. Written by 6-yo way back last January, when she was a mere Kindergartener, and she went through the calendar painstakingly writing in birthdays and holidays in letters larger than the space allowed. Of course now she is a First Grader, she would know how to write Crismis properly. That’s what a year does for you. And when we went swimming yesterday, she insisted that I use the Winnie the Pooh towel, which is too babyish for her now, though it was a favourite in the summer. Time passes and things change.

If I were feeling in a philosophical mood, I would reflect that this has been a year of two halves for me. It started badly, with that trip, when Husband was head-hunted and it all came to naught. Then I don’t really remember much about the spring, except I couldn’t really get back in the groove, and I was truly fed up with people telling me to be gentle with myself and not expect too much of myself, and that getting over a major trauma like cancer would take time. Don’t you just hate it when you know the answers, and people keep telling you them, and it doesn’t make the darnedest bit of difference?

The year’s half time was our trip to the UK, which was lovely. I remember day after day in the sunshine in my mother’s garden, trips to beaches, a very hot visit to Paris, walks on the North York Moors, resting and recuperating. There were tears in the gardens of Grosvenor Square, sprung out of the sheer frustration and anguish involved in getting through the US visa system. I remember that.

Then the second half began with the arrival of my green card, and a job in a toy shop. Morale improved. I was busy. It’s easier to make good use of time at home, when you’re not at home all the time. All three children made happy starts to the school year. I joined the church choir, remembered how very much I love choral singing, and wondered why I’ve done so little of it over the past ten years. We celebrated Thanksgiving in Colorado, which has become something of an annual tradition. I spent a week-end in Chicago with five other British bloggers living in the US, leaving Husband to look after the children and pass a kidney stone (or not pass a kidney stone, as it turned out – it had to be blasted apart a week later). That man is a saint.

In terms of blogging, well, I was a finalist in the MADs awards, in the category ‘Best Writer’, and now it seems I’m a finalist in the BMB Brilliance in Blogging list, in the category ‘Inspirational’. Ooh, get me. The blogging highlight of the year for me was reading out a blog post at Cyber Mummy. I loved doing that. I was really nervous, truth be told. Given that it was an emotional topic, my youngest child’s first day at school, I wasn’t sure I would make it through without tears, so I’d given a copy to a friend in the front who could take over if necessary. Be prepared, as they say in the boy scouts (although I’ve never actually been a boy scout, so I don’t know for sure that that’s what they say). Reading that post reflected how I like to think my blog plays out in the blogosphere. Some members of the audience had never read my blog, so for them, the post would have been an interesting commentary on school life in America through an English woman’s eyes. All the audience at Cyber Mummy were mums (or dads), so the post would have tapped into some of the feelings that all mothers experience from time to time, when our children move on and grow up. The specific interest and the general appeal - a good balance in a post. But there were some people, who have followed my blog through thick and thin, and for them, the post was loaded with significance. They would remember that my daughter started school in the middle of my 12 weeks of chemotherapy, and that it was only by the fortunate chance of where the date fell in the 3-week cycle, that I was well enough to take her. They knew how important that was to me. They knew that at the back of my mind were thoughts not only of her first day at school, but where I would be for her last day of school. I spotted tears at the front table. I love that about blogging – the way we all connect in different ways, and on different levels. It’s a rich web of interactions.

Enough about blogging. Another year has gone by. The tree is decorated. The wicker reindeer is on the front lawn, bedecked in lights. The organic turkey will be collected tomorrow. The egg nog is in the fridge. So this is Crismis.

Christmas picks

This is the time of year when many mummy bloggers do reviews of toys, and give their hot picks for Christmas presents. Well, I’m going to do the opposite. I’m going to give you my cold picks.

The vast, vast majority of the toys in the toy shop where I work are brilliant. They’re high quality, well made, educational, imaginative; some are old favourites, some are different and unusual. I just want to point that out. I need to cover my back in case, just in case, the toy shop owner somehow is reading this and has worked out who Iota is, because I really don’t want to be dooced. And if you are reading this, oh please, please don’t dooce me. I love my job. Please, please don’t give me the sack. I love your shop. I love working in it. I’ll work for you for free.

With that disclaimer, of the thousands (actually, I think it might be tens of thousands) of toys in the shop, there are a very few that I really dislike. So here are my cold picks for 2010.

Hexbugs - I’m sorry, but I just don’t get Hexbugs. We’ve got a couple at home, from 10-yo’s birthday last year. They do two things. They either stay absolutely stationary, or they scuttle in a straight line. Neither is remotely interesting after the first 5 seconds. They are expensive, and as far as I can see, you might as well put your dollar bill or your credit card on the floor. That will stay absolutely stationary, which is 50% of what the Hexbug does. Then you can pick it up again and put it back in your wallet, and have it to spend on a different item. In my opinion, that will have been a much better use of your money. You will miss out on the scuttling, but trust me, you’re not missing out on much. I’m guessing that people buy Hexbugs because some in the series have the title “nano”, and “nano” sounds intelligent and impressive. Even the ones that aren’t “nano” somehow bask in the reflected glory of the ones that are. Also, some boys reach an age where they are almost impossible to buy presents for, and Hexbugs are the straws at which desperate friends and relations clutch.

Ugly Dolls - I don’t see the point of Ugly Dolls. They are ugly. They are overpriced. They do nothing. They don’t even scuttle. If your children ask for an Ugly Doll, it means they’ve got too many toys.

Chew by Numbers kits – I had my first introduction to this concept when 6-yo was in Kindergarten. I used to help out in the classroom each week, and once, I couldn’t believe it when the activity to help the kids learn the letter ‘G’, was to chew gum to make it soft, take it out of their mouths, and then stretch it into a string and stick it onto a sheet of paper in the shape of a ‘G’. Very suitable letter, given the huge number of Germs that were being happily spread around the place. Well, the idea must be flavour of the month with educators and toy designers, because someone has produced these kits containing different coloured gum, which you chew and then stick on to pictures. It’s painting by numbers, but with gum. Yet no-one has had the wit to call it “painting by gum-bers” which would at least add a bit of wry humour to the activity. Answer me one question. Why would anyone buy this kit, when there is a huge range of really good, creative, sensible art kits on the market, which don’t involve chewing and spitting out? Answer me another question. What are you meant to do with these chewing gum pictures when you’ve finished them? Hang them on your wall? Used gum, in colourful blobby shapes, masquerading as art, on your wall? Or put them in a drawer? Yuk. I rest my case.

Anything that says “Everyone loves” on the box - It’s like reading a recipe that says “Children will love this tasty and nutritious snack”. You just know it’s going to have spinach and chick peas in it, and that your children are not going to love it; they’re not even going to try it unless you deploy a big bribe. We sell a craft kit for making wind chimes that says “Everyone loves wind chimes” on the box. Well, I have news for the manufacturer. I don’t love wind chimes. I don’t mind them. I don’t object to them. But I don’t love them. So that’s a fib, right there, before the description goes any further. I am one person. So if I don’t love wind chimes, you can’t say “Everyone loves wind chimes”. Who wants to buy a toy from a company that fibs? We’re all ethical consumers these days.

Snap circuits - I have no idea what these are, in all honesty. I just know that the description on the box makes no sense: “Have fun learning all about electronics”. That is a sentence made up of two entirely discrete concepts – “have fun”, and “learning all about electronics”. That sentence is like vinaigrette. You can shake it vigorously, and it’ll be tasty for a short while, but then the oil and the vinegar will separate out again. You just can’t force two things to combine that don’t belong together. I think the word I’m looking for is immiscible. (Oh, how very, very gratifying. That is indeed the word, but it’s not in Microsoft’s thesaurus. I’m more literate than Microsoft! Ha!) I do have to tell you, though, that we sell a lot of snap circuits, and that people love them and come back for more. There are things called "snap circuit extension kits". I really have no idea at all what those four words mean (though I will happily sell you a box).

So those are my cold picks. I do have one more. It’s not so much a cold pick, as a frozen pick. It’s an item I hate with exquisite loathing. I’ll tell you about it in the next post.

The Christmas story

Christmas is coming, in case you hadn’t noticed, and here at The Iota Quota I’ve been thinking about Herod. Just to get into a festive mood.

Now Herod was not a nice man. Oooh no, not a nice man at all. If you’d been around at the time of the Nativity (and please, Americans, do we have to pronounce it Nay-tivity? Can’t we just stick to N’tivity? Please?)… If you’d been around at that time, you’d have heard very little about the shepherds and the angels, I’m guessing, because life would have been completely dominated by the horrific events instigated by Herod. Do you remember? He didn’t like the idea of anyone challenging his rule, so when the Magi pitched up, with their stories of the special star and the special baby, he came up with a plan, and ordered all the infants under the age of 2 to be slaughtered, in front of their parents. I’m told that fourteen thousand babies died. Fourteen thousand. Herod was not a nice man.

Mary and Joseph slipped away to Egypt, and somehow, down the ages, those other babies and their weeping, scared, scarred parents have been relegated to second place in the story. Well, I’m remembering them here.

Thinking about this story, I’ve noticed something this time round that I’ve never noticed before. The Magi. They’re meant to be the good guys. Wise, rich, exotic, generous, journeying patiently, seeking diligently, wearing fancy crowns. But they did a bad thing. They went to see Herod on their way to Jerusalem. They were warned in a dream not to go and see him on their way home, but it was too late by then. The damage had been done. Why did they do that? Why did they go to Jerusalem? Couldn’t they just have steered their camels to Bethlehem? They must have known that Herod was bad news.

I think they went to see Herod, because that’s what powerful people do. They like to hang out with other powerful people. No doubt they were well-received, and treated royally, and who doesn’t like to be treated royally? And listen to what they said: “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.” Yes. Because we all like people to know when we’re about our religious business. If you’ve made a big effort to go on a spiritual journey, it’s a shame if other people don’t know about it. Especially if it has involved a bit of hardship and a few trials. But Magi, my friends, your desire to be kingly and to have your mission weightily appreciated may well have cost the lives of fourteen thousand babies.

I’m disappointed in the Magi, frankly. It’s disconcerting when you see the flaws in the good guys. I’ve always preferred them to the shepherds, actually. I mean, they had to trek across nations following a mysterious moving target, while the shepherds were conveniently right there just by Bethlehem, and had the benefit of a skyful of angels telling them what was what. All they had to do was straighten up the tea towels on their heads, and walk down the hillside. They're always depicted with a lamb or two, but let's think about that for a minute. They would either have taken the whole flock with them (bit cosy in the stable), or they'd have left someone in charge on the hillside, in which case they wouldn't have needed to take any with them at all. Maybe one of the heavenly host tipped them the wink. "Psst. Take a lamb with you. You know... A lamb...? For the symbolism...?"

My favourite character in the story, though, is Mary. And I’ve seen something new about her this time round too. When she and Joseph escaped to Egypt, how horrible that must have been for them. They must have felt such awful, dreadful relief at having protected their precious baby, their firstborn, from Herod’s henchmen with their instruments of death. But I’m sure they felt horrible guilt too. Can you imagine? Escaping when fourteen thousand didn’t? The news of the slaughter must have reached them, and they must have been sick at heart. How did they cope with it? When they returned from Egypt and went to Nazareth, did they avoid Bethlehem? I bet they did. To have a living child among such bereavement would have been a most terrible burden. The lesser burden, but a terrible burden nonetheless. Terrible, and so lonely.

We’re not told very much about Mary at this point, but we are told that she “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart”. I love that. If there’s one thing that I’ve learnt from all the mummy blogs I read, it’s that there is quiet pondering a-plenty that goes on in a mother’s heart. I suppose Mary had more to ponder than most of us, what with the visitation from the Angel Gabriel, and the donkey ride, and the shepherds, and the Magi. And just think of the pressure you’d be under to look your best after the birth, if you knew that your picture was going to be on Christmas cards for several millennia?

Yes, I think Mary must have had very many lonely and difficult days. I'm glad she had Joseph. Obviously a great bloke, choosing to stick with her and look after her, though she was carrying a child who wasn't his own. We're thinking the Dad from Little House on the Prairie meets Atticus from To Kill a Mocking Bird.

Whatever you think of the historical reality of the Nay-tivity, you’ve got to admit, it’s a great story. Tell me, who’s your favourite character?

Christmas tips

To tip or not to tip? Who do you tip at Christmas?

This year, we tipped the mailman. He made it kind of obvious, by leaving us a card explaining that routes were being rearranged, so that he would no longer be our mailman in 2010, and saying how much he’d enjoyed working our patch over the past however many years. I felt a bit obliged, but I didn’t mind, as he’s always been a fantastic mailman. He’s gone out of his way to make life easy – arranging to stop mail if we’re away (you usually have to go to the post office and fill in a form), and doing his best to deliver parcels that need signatures at convenient times.

I remember when I was a child, our paper boy adopted a similar strategy. He left a Christmas card wishing his customers a merry Christmas, and detailing the number of hours he spent on the round, the amount he was paid, and the amount he estimated it cost him to do the job (mostly wear and tear on his bike). The newsagent made the poor lad go round to each house and apologise in person. I suppose England in the 1970’s had less stomach for blatant tip solicitation than America in the 2000’s.

My worst Christmas tipping moment happened in Scotland a few years ago. The window cleaners had come round, and I was doing that thing of lurking around the house trying to avoid the rooms they were working on, but also trying to make it look as if I was totally relaxed and not doing that at all, just getting on with my normal business, which - as usual - was taking me from room to room every few minutes. On this occasion, not only was I lurking and roaming, but I was also cogitating the appropriateness of a tip.

I decided I would give them a Christmas extra. I imagined that being a window cleaner in Scotland in December didn’t have much warmth and cosiness about it, and that a Christmas tip might just provide a rare warm and cosy moment. So I went out the back door in search of the head window man. As I rounded the corner of the house, there he was, with his back to me, standing close to the house, doing up his flies.

Now, if this scenario took place today, a bit of American assertiveness having rubbed off on me in the 3 years we’ve been here, I think I’d say,

“Excuse me. I’d prefer it if you didn’t urinate against the wall of my house. You are very welcome to come inside at any time and use the bathroom. If you don’t want to do that, I’d appreciate it if you urinated at the far end of the garden, and not right next to the window of our guest bedroom, spotless though that window is – on the outside at any rate.”

But this was a few years ago, and I was far too British for that kind of approach. What I did was to fix my eyes on a spot somewhere to the north west of his face, and certainly far north of his fingers fumbling with the zip, and say,

“Um... er... um... this is for you” (thrusting the wad of notes towards him, the usual amount and the tip),

“and... um... er... um... Happy Christmas. Yes, um... Happy Christmas!”

He in turn looked at a point significantly to one side of me, and replied,

“Oh... er... um... thank you very much.”

It’s great being British, isn’t it?

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