Chapter Fourteen: In which I make a Christmas wreath, hear the bells on Christmas day, and ring in the new year

The month of December was particularly difficult for me. As you can see by my extreme tardiness in posting this chapter of our experience in Boston, I have had no spare minute with which to write. Needless to say, I am back and I have lived to tell you the tale.

December began in a whirlwind way. The first week of December was the last few days of class. So the beginning of the Christmas season was accompanied by the beginning of my two week reading and finals period. Even so, I did my best to still feel a little Christmas spirit now and again.

On December 1st, we started the Christmas season with my ritual decorating. We began by putting up our first New England handmade wreath. It is a tradition in our ward  (along with another ward)  to make Christmas wreaths each year. Volunteers pre-tie the bows and collect evergreen branches. At the wreath-making activity, we all received the circular frame and set to work with shears and wire. I was a bit befuddled by the whole process when a wonderful woman offered to assist me.  She said that she had been doing this for decades (this tradition has been going on for fourty years +). Anyway, she taught me a brilliant technique for wrapping pine boughs and helped me for about ten minutes until my wreath was well underway. This was especially kind since I had arrived late. (I attended HDS' s Seasons of Light, which was a beautiful evening of music and readings from each tradition. The room was lit by candle light, each candle grouping relating to different traditions, like the menorah for example.) Anyway, Seasons of Light was why I was late. But with the guidance of that wonderful woman and the help of my friend Zoe, I left with a beautiful wreath that I had made. I felt awesome. My craftiness knows no bounds!

Back to decorating. Hanging our Christmas wreath and smelling the scent of pine, we dug out the Christmas decorations. We put up our one string of lights around the door frame and couch, and we placed our tiny tree on the piano. Pulling out the Christmas ornaments, we reminisced about lovely past adventures we had experienced and other lovely things as we put each one on the tree. (We try to buy or make a Christmas ornament for every place we've been.) We played a bit of Christmas music,  Spencer quietly tolerating my tastes in Christmas music until it was time to turn on Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Looking around the room, I felt that New England was a wonderful place to celebrate Christmas.

After this lovely introduction to the Christmas season, Spencer and I helped plan the ward Christmas party. We went to meetings and helped determine the theme of "Light the World through Service," which, interestingly, was determined shortly before the LDS church came out with this same theme. Funny how things happen to correlate. Spencer and I were specifically in charge of the "service chain." Every Sunday in December we would pass out slips of Christmas-themed paper which the members would then write on and give back and then we would staple them into a chain. The chain grew of course, and at the Christmas party we displayed it around a large Christmas tree. It was a lovely show of the service in which our ward had engaged. 

Early in the month Spencer and I also attended a special Christmas event at the National Park Historical Site, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's home. For the Christmas season,  the site opened its doors for a special out-of-season event. The tours and open house didn't cover every room in the house or the grounds as the in-season tour does. Instead, each room that was open to guests was themed around a different holiday that the Longfellow family celebrated. The dining room was thanksgiving, the sitting room was Christmas, the study was New Year's, and the living room was Twelfth Night. A harpist was playing. Next to the home there were crafts and refreshments.

The rooms were beautiful (I've honestly never seen such a beautiful, intricate, hodgepodge home. The home, known as Craigie House, was gifted to Henry and Fannie by Fannie's parents, the Appletons, for their wedding. (Quite the present I dare say.)

There was a bust of George Washington in the entry way because Longfellow was proud that Washington has occupied the home for a brief time during the Revolutionary War. There were also a lot of busts in the study specifically. There were honestly like ten small busts of people like Cicero, Dante, Shakespeare, Aristotle, and others. Seriously, he has so many perhaps they were muses for Longfellow. The study also had a lot of paintings of his friends like Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorn, and others, and one painting was one done by his wife, Fanny, who was rather talented of him while sitting in his chair. The architecture was interesting because it was so ornate and generally mid-Georgian. But the study had bamboo trimmings and much of the furniture and display objects were from Japan. Charles was quite a traveler when he became an adult. He even lived in Japan for two years and sent things back. He got a tattoo there and had companions, one of which was Ohanna. (So edgy.) Here are a few fun facts from the open house:

• Twelfth night parties were an excuse really to hold a party 12 days after Christmas, so not everyone celebrated Twelfth night. Even the Longfellow's didn't celebrate it annually. One year the Longfellow's had over all of the Harvard freshman among others and danced and partied. (Hard partiers in the Longfellow home.) The event of the night was when a massive cake (a variation on fruit cake) was brought out. The cake had a coin or something similar mixed in, so everyone got a slice and then someone found the coin in their slice. This person became the queen or king of Twelfth Night; they would sit in the special chair and everything.
• In one room we saw letters to and from Santa. One letter from the oldest son, Charley, when he a a little boy asked for a soldier hat or some other item that soldiers use, and Santa wrote back. He said that he would give Charley a few toy soldiers because "he doesn't mind if a boy plays with toy soldiers, but he does not approve of playing at being a soldier." (Interesting in the future light of Charles running away to the Union Army.) The second son, Ernest, was told to be better about brushing their teeth by Santa. There were also letter from his three daughters, Annie, Edith, and Alice. All I could think of was, "well played Santa, well played." :)
• Thanksgiving was a relatively new holiday as well. I know, it is truly shocking that it was not always celebrated by Americans. But it took even longer for it to be associated with pilgrims and Native Americans. It was originally just a sporadic day, not necessarily yearly, that was dedicated to people giving thanks. Church-goers would usually fast the service and then prepare a grand meal. If I'm not mistaken, Thanksgiving didn't even become a national holiday until President Lincoln declared it so, and it wasn't super integrated or consistent even then. And once again if I'm not mistaken (it's been a while since the tour), the Longfellows were the first family in Cambridge, Massachusetts to celebrate a formal Thanksgiving holiday.
• Finally, I'll share something about Christmas. Christmas trees were a relatively new thing as well. Taken from the Germans, the Longfellows kind of liked the idea and started integrating it into their Christmases. Another fun fact, one year Charles Dickens came to Christmas. It was his first public reading tour of "A Christmas Carol" in the United States, which started shortly after this Dickens/Longfellow Christmas. How lovely. (p.s. "A Christmas Carol" is a Christmas classic, so it's time you made "The Chimes" a New Year's classic. Dickens knows where it's at . . . at least with his novellas. Here's a insider secret: Richard Armitage, The Chimes, Audible, go find it now.) Back to Longfellow. Perhaps the most poignant thing I know about Christmases and the Longfellows is a tragedy on Christmas that is detailed in this short clip recorded from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert with Brian Stokes Mitchell a few years back. 

Herrmann hints at it, but while trying to put out the flames and save his wife, Fanny, he sustained horrible burns on his hands and face. Everyone knows Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's iconic beard, but few people realize that he has such a beard because he could no longer shave due to his facial burns. So in a very real sense he carried the tragedy of his wife's death on his face and hands, which at least on his face, were hidden beneath his beard. This tragedy and the horror of the civil war birthed the poem that eventually became the Christmas song, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.

Here is one more relevant additional fact: there are a few more verses in the poem, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," that address the Civil War specifically. But those have generally been left out of Christmas songs because they are so time-period specific. They are, of course, quite moving though, so I suggest everyone go read the poem in its entirety. And remember that fact about Christmas letters to Santa? Remember how Charles asked for soldier garb and was denied by a Santa who said that he was fine with boys playing with toy soldiers but not with play-acting as soldiers? Well, this young Santa to Charley interaction becomes increasingly poignant because Charles snuck away from home and enlisted in the union army as a young man, feeling that it was his duty to aid his country in the conflict. Henry did not want him to go and did not give him his permission/blessing. Charles only barely survived, receiving an injury and being brought home by his father. As a final note, upon reading Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poetry, you will notice that many of them are simply observations of his home and life like "The Old Clock on the Stairs," or "Twelfth Night," or, obviously, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." Needless to say, I am very excited to go back in the on season to get a full tour. 

Anyway, the rest of December for the most part, seemed to fly by as much as things can while wading through a pile of sludge. I'll be short about it, but I survived finals. It was 15 days in the end, and I had to write five essays. So I mapped out a schedule of writing and generally stayed to it. I wrote two five-page essays and three twenty-page essays in the end. I think I used something around 10 books to do research and tons of articles. How did I do it? Spencer. He fed me and edited every single paper: every single one! Also, I didn't really didn't go outside, but I did it. Also, I think the Lord gave me a much needed boost and clear mind. I prayed for it nightly as I basically collapsed

anyway. Needless to say, Harvard finals put the capital H and the dropped R is Harvard. 

Because we were flying to Texas to attend the baby blessing of Spencer's brother JJ, we opened presents on the 20th after I finished my final essay at 10:30 pm an hour and a half before the cut off. Then we packed and went to the airport at 4:45 am. We didn't sleep. Then we were in Galveston, Texas. We were in Galveston for a little less than a week. It was warm and nice to have family time together. For me it was a bit hard because I was rather dazed from finals, dealing with some health issues, and feeling a bit emotionally tired. We all did our best to make it feel like Christmas, a few small gifts on Christmas day, a nice Christmas Eve meal, gingerbread houses Christmas night, a small decorated tree, and the Doctor Who Christmas Special. I, with the help of Hannah's mother (Hannah being JJ's wife) was able to find Tillamook 3-year vintage sharp white cheddar cheese for Spencer's stocking. Seriously guys, so difficult. It's only sold in a few places in the country and shipping is like $25 dollars, so I'm so glad I found it in a Houston HEB. I crocheted my sister's baby blessing blanket, booties, and headband set, and I defiantly wore my Doctor Who Christmas Sweatshirt despite the weather. We went bike riding on the beach, flew kites, spent a day in Houston, where we visited a museum and a Japanese garden and saw huge old oak trees. Anyway, there are too many pictures to post here, so you can find the album 2016 Texas Christmas on my Facebook page if you would like to browse our adventures.

So there you have it. That was December. Well, mostly. When we got home from Galveston, we spent a lovely week doing basically nothing. It was so great. We had dinner with our friends, Kim and Mike. We had lamb and salad and potatoes (quite excellent), finished with chocolate chip cookies, and talked into the night. We rang in the new year with a kiss and some Final Fantasy VII. 

The new year brought work, Sherlock, and renewed goals. What are my goals? (Thanks for asking although you didn't.)

• Exercise six times a week like I did from January to June last year (till epilepsy, moving, and graduate school struck).
• Eat three meals a day (yep, this is a real goal. I often forget to eat due to business and a freakish talent to focus on something for like 10 hours at a time), so yeah, eat.
• Plan weekly dates and hold weekly Family Home Evening. (Don't give in to homework!)
• Keep up with family and friends by phone or skype every other week to once a month.
• Seek out ways to help Spencer in the home with domestic chores and other things despite school. And work on a few communication things with conflict resolution.
• Daily scripture study and prayer.
• And finally, actively complain less.

Thanks for your patience and for slogging through this post. And much love my friends, family, peers, and whoever else reads this blog. I hope you had wonderful holidays and feel invigorated albeit slightly disoriented at the start of a new year. (2017 just isn't as lovely written. Too bad.)