What's Under Your Tree?

Merry Christmas to All!

It's a Family Tradition: He Scares Us All

This is me, pointing out the mother who needs to come and get me. Now. 

A couple of years later, I am still reaching for my parents.

Here is little Billy, who (much later) became my husband. 

I can't imagine why Sinister Santa is poking him in the stomach. Neither can he. 

  Ah, Uncle Ronny.  You just know he is about to shriek.

Uncle Ronny again, with brother Billy along for courage. 

He wants the gift, but the terror! The terror!

 Billy and Ronny, older yet. Billy gets the game, Ronny still knows the fear. 

Another generation: Dee loves Santa, you can tell

Third generation: Grandson Mason is pretty sure that Santa is there to steal his ears. 

Even our dogs know that Santa is a scary guy. 

Petey screams; Leny just begs with her eyes. Take me home! 

A Night Filled With Light

Looking into a candlebaggio

December may be my favorite time in New Mexico. It seems as though the month isn't long enough for all the festivities. This year we started the pre-Christmas celebrations by going to Noche de Luminarias at the New Mexico State University with a group of good friends. 

To give you a little background: In northern New Mexico, a luminaria is a little bonfire, lit to welcome and guide the spirit of the Christ Child during the nights leading up to Christmas. Up there around Santa Fe, farolito is the name given to a little paper bag holding sand and a candle; down here in the southern part of the state we call the candle-in-a-bag a luminaria. Our friend, Lou, has simplified the matter by calling them candlebaggios, and many of our friends have adopted the term (see Those Little Whatcha-Call 'Ems). 

The local high school band members lit 6500 luminarias all over the NMSU campus, and a back-breaking business it must have been. By the time we arrived, the sun was just going down and we watched and strolled as the sky darkened and the luminarias began to glow.

Inside the student center, there was music and dancing and food. Outside, it was quiet and quite warm for early December. We walked and chatted and took pictures, and eventually made our way along the paths to the duck pond, where the early evening sky and reflecting waters made for some great photo opportunities.

For some really lovely shots, check out our friend Patrick's post on the evening, Noche de Luminarias.

Those Little Whatcha-Call 'Ems

This is our house during our recent big snowstorm. We had hours of fine snowfall, a pretty brisk wind throughout, and temps down in the single digits. The snow started in the afternoon and continued most of the night. Sustained precipitation of any sort is rare, but very welcome, here in the desert. When we woke, we found that the highways in every single direction going out of town were shut down.

In this part of New Mexico we get a bit of snow every winter, but people like to say that it is gone by 10 AM the next day, and that is usually the case. This storm encased our plow-less roads in ice until at least 11:30 AM, but after that, all was well, the sun was out as usual, and the roads were clear and dry. In the meantime, we just put some fragrant piñon logs in the kiva fireplace and had a lovely day.

A fire in the kiva, a glass of wine, and some bread dough rising--what more do we need?

See those little outdoor lights in the first photo? They are the electric equivalent of the holiday lights traditionally made with candles set in sand inside paper bags. Around New Mexico there is a very geographically-based disagreement over what they are called. Up north around Santa Fe they are farolitos; down here in the south they are luminarias. [I'm telling you, I'm struggling with that automatic spellcheck thing, which tried to change the words in that previous sentence to frailties and luminaries!]. Folks in the northern part of the state use the word luminaria to describe the small vigil fires made along the road side during the nine nights of the celebration of Las Posadas, which culminates on Christmas Eve.

We have a very witty friend who believes he has solved the whole controversy by renaming them candle-baggios. We love it, and candle-baggios is what we plan to call them from now on, making a nice new New Mexico Christmas tradition for our friends and family.

Advent Calendars

An advent calendar is a card or poster with twenty-four small doors, one to be opened each day from December 1 until Christmas Eve. Each door conceals a picture. This popular tradition arose in Germany in the late 1800s and soon spread throughout Europe and North America. Originally, the images in Advent calendars were derived from the Hebrew Bible.

Considered a fun way of counting down the days until Christmas, many Advent calendars today have no religious content.

Read more: Advent: Dates, Traditions, and History — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/spot/advent1.html#ixzz1fUt2iEkQ

* * * * *

My Advent calendar is a little cupboard full of drawers. I know you are probably getting tired of hearing this after all my recycled furniture stories that I have been telling you, but this little cupboard also came from the much-loved Swap Shop in our old New Hampshire town. It has brought delight to many, many children, as I used to take it to school with me every year so the kids could take out one ornament a day and place them on our little library tree. There were always plenty of helpers available to take the tree down, carefully wrap each tiny ornament in bubble wrap, and find the right drawer to place it in. 

The cupboard with the doors closed

With the cupboard doors open, the 24 little drawers are revealed.
Here are the ornaments for the first three days of December, ready to hang on a little tree

Detail of the drawers

The Advent tradition continues each year at our adobe house here in southern New Mexico. I've always wished that I could thank the person who left this little cupboard at the Swap Shop (where the sign over the door says "Take It or Leave It") with all the ornaments wrapped so carefully. It has brought joy to many.


If you would like to see a very different sort of Advent calendar, you can bookmark the site for the 2011 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar, which features beautiful (beyond beautiful, actually) photo stories of Hubble images of the wonders of our universe; one for each day of December. 


For a traditional religious Advent calendar, with daily "reading, meditation and prayers based around Mary's journey to Bethlehem, from her meeting with the Angel to the first Christmas in Bethlehem," see Advent 2011, with an introduction to the calendar here.

Christmas Eve: Mind Tricks and a First Edition

As we strolled around the old Mesilla Plaza on Christmas Eve, we recalled that a friend had told us about a book store on one of the side streets, and so we made our way to the Cultural Center of Mesilla, which houses The Border Book Foundation and hosts the annual Border Book Festival. 


We were welcomed into the charming old adobe building, once a garrison and then a store (the faded sign on the side of the building remains, stating simply "Store"). The shop consists of a series of small rooms with an uneven brick floor leading from one room to another. The owners were serving a delicious kind of Mexican coffee flavored with cinnamon, chocolate, and vanilla; they had cakes and cookies, as well, in honor of their special Christmas open house. 

I borrowed this photo from the Viva Mesilla website 

As you can see from the photo, this is just the kind of bookstore that is perfect for browsing--there were books everywhere, in stacks and on shelves and tables. They were also selling records (remember them?) as well as all kinds of art work. 

I was pretty amazed to find that the co-owner chatting with us was none other than Denise Chavez, who I've been hearing about ever since we started visiting New Mexico. She "is widely regarded as one of the leading Chicana playwrights and novelists of the U.S. Southwest" and her book, A Taco Testimony, is on my list of books to be read. 

Ms. Chavez was an extremely intense person, to say the least. She performed a kind of Jedi mind trick (remember when Obi Wan said "These aren't the droids you're looking for") on Beez, who was gently handling a copy of Pueblos, Gods, & Spaniards, by John Upton Terrell. 

Denise: This book is a first edition, and it's only fifty dollars!

I watched, expecting Beez to put the book right down like a hot potato. Fifty dollars! Good grief!

Beez, in a dreamy voice: This book is a first edition

Denise: You really need that book

Beez: I really need this book    

I was, nevertheless, surprised when I met him at the register to purchase my bookmark (it was December and we were on a budget, after all!), to find that the total came to almost fifty-five dollars. There was Denise, slipping the fifty-dollar book into a bag, and there was Beez, muttering in a quiet, but amazed and kind of proud tone to himself: I have a first edition. I collect first editions now, I think. 

Christmas Eve in Mesilla

Here we are, well into January, and I haven't told you about our Christmas experiences yet.  I will spend a bit of time looking back during the coming week.


We finally got to visit the Mesilla Plaza on Christmas Eve, something I have always wanted to do. It was magical in every way. The night was cold and fragrant with the smell of luminarias and fireplace fires. If you have never smelled a Southwest fireplace fire, you have a treat ahead of you, because there is absolutely nothing like the fragrance of burning juniper and piñon on a frosty night.


Let's see, we have covered one sense--that of smell, which is always important in the desert Southwest. For sounds, we had the tolling bells of San Albino, the laughter of children, singing carolers, and a brass band. For sights, there were strolling families, lights strung about, Christmas decorations, and, of course, the thousands of authentic luminarias--each made of a candle inserted in sand inside a brown paper bag (assembled by the high school band for an annual fund raiser).


Here is what it looked like, with the church of San Albino lit up in the background.

We followed a little side trail of luminarias and found that it led into a tiny alleyway between old adobe walls. Turning a corner, we saw this lovely sight in the darkness--a little outside altar in honor of la Virgen de Guadalupe, whose procession we had seen just a couple of weeks before. I took the first shot without a flash, so you could see it just as we did.

To show you the scene in greater detail, I tried a shot with the flash. Just bear in mind that the little grotto was much darker, and was actually lit only by the flickering candles and luminarias.

We had another unexpected meeting before we left Mesilla to go home, but I will tell you about that tomorrow.  In the meantime, I leave you with this image of one of the stained glass windows of San Albino. If you have a moment, you can go to the parish history page and click on the tab entitled "Crowd leaving 1908 dedication of the new San Albino Church" to see a lovely historical photograph of the church, its parishioners, and the plaza over a hundred years ago. 

Happy New Year! But First...

Here is just one more thing that I would like to share with you about Christmas as we experienced it in New Mexico this year. We have a wonderful blend of cultures and traditions, and I think that this video expresses the diversity and experience quite beautifully. The Hispanic Las Posadas, the indigenous Matachines dances, and the procession of the Virgen de Guadalupe are all shown and explained here. Take a few moments to learn a bit about the unique holiday decorations, foods, and songs found here in New Mexico.

Adobe Christmas

Merry Christmas to All!

Santa and Me, Part 3

This post first appeared on my family history blog, Remember.

*****

Well, you've seen Santa terrorizing my tiny little brother-in-law-to-be (see Santa and Me, Part 1 and Part 2). Now it's my turn. Here I am, in one of my mom's spectacular home-sewn coat and hat sets. I might not have been screaming my head off but, believe me, the fear is there under the surface. I am pointing out my parents, in the hope that they will remember to come and get me off. this. man's. lap.

A year or two later, I am still calling out to my parents, with hope and fear and thoughts of abandonment. 

However, I continued to believe in Santa, as this corny staged photo shows. My dad got me to explain to my dog, Pete, how Santa was going to bring the presents to our house--right down the chimney, of course!

Generation after generation, we continue the Santa tradition, and I'll bet you do, too. Here are grandchildren Isabella, Mason, and little Chris. Mason does what all frightened children do--he grabs onto his ears, just in case Santa has thoughts of stealing them away.

Santa terrorizing Mason

Santa and Me, Part 2

This post first appeared on my family history blog, Remember. 

*****

In the previous post [on the Remember blog], we last saw poor baby Ronnie looking at the bearded guy in fear and disbelief. This first photo shows his older brother, Billy (who became my husband much later), looking as though he is willing to give this business a try. He's not sure how the whole thing will work out, though. 

Here we are, the following year. Although Santa is really trying--note the present little Ronnie is holding and the bells the Santa is jingling--the youngest brother is still showing the good sense to be very afraid of the red-suited guy. 

Billy, who discovered that the presents he listed for Santa actually showed up under his tree the previous Christmas, is anxiously waiting to get a word in edgewise. 

The same attitudes prevail a year or two later. Billy is starry-eyed, possibly thinking of a Red Ryder BB gun; while Ronnie looks like he is hoping that he doesn't get another darned bow tie in his stocking this time!

Santa and Me, Part 1

Note: This post is from my family history blog, Remember.

It's a firmly established tradition, the photo of the kids with Santa. It's also a given that the children in the photos will be scared to death, having been passed from loving arms into the lap of a stranger who looks like no one ever seen in a little kid's life.

I've been gathering up our family Santa photos from the 1940s and 1950s. Some are of Bill and his little brother, Ron; and some are of me. I'll show them here over the next couple of weeks.

The photo covers from Bill and Ron's Santa experiences were very retro. One was even done by Leonard Weisgard, who became familiar to me as a children's book illustrator when, much later, I became a children's librarian. Here are three of those covers:

And here is the first in a series of photos of the frightened children in our family, learning about this most peculiar of Christmas traditions. We start with poor little baby Ronnie, who can't believe his eyes:

More old photos to come...

Biker Santas

Merry Christmas, dudes!

Yo!

And to all a good-night!

Christmas Scenes from Old Mesilla

The village of Mesilla, New Mexico was incorporated in 1848 and has a population of just over 2100. It is located just south of Las Cruces and is a popular spot for visitors and Las Crucens alike. Sitting out on the plaza surrounded by the old buildings takes you back to another time and place. It is especially beautiful at Christmas time, when the walks are lined with luminarias, the little bags containing candles that are called farolitos in the northern part of the state.

Christmas palms

The plaza with San Albino Basilica in the background

I guess the yellow flag has something to do with the power pole wire (?)

Piñon, Turquoise and Green Chile

Gate in Old Mesilla

Here's a nice article in this morning's Las Cruces Sun-News about Christmas celebrations in our part of the world: Don't Miss the Christmas Miracle in Our Own Backyard.

Merry Christmas from the Family

I've been listening to a great selection of Christmas music mixed by National Public Radio. It's called Jingle Jams, and consists of 100 holiday songs, familiar and not-so. You can see the playlist here, and join the streaming continuous loop of music by clicking on the link on that page.

One song was new to me and I found it a little offensive at first. I'm a traditionalist, more or less, and have a picture in my mind of what a family Christmas should look like. Of course, that sort of thinking often leads to disappointment. This song, "Merry Christmas from the Family," gives a far more realistic representation of some of the characters we may actually have in our families, and of some of the quirky events we may experience during our holiday celebrations.

Just for you, I found a video of Jill Sobule's rendition of the song. It's a riot and I'm getting fonder of it all the time. One of my favorite parts is of the jellied cranberry sauce being dumped from the can onto a paper plate. Watch for it!

A Simpler Christmas

Last year's Christmas lights

You might have noticed a little theme happening on the Zees lately--looking back, way back. Memories of Christmases past, old family houses, how we used to dress, road trips of the past. I started wondering why I was doing all this looking back into the past. I guess it is because when times get tough, we love to get nostalgic and look back at simpler times. We pretend that the old days had fewer problems and that we didn't have to worry about anything way back then.

It's probably no mistake that all this nostalgia started happening at about the time when our national financial meltdown occurred. The net worth of the average American family has been going down, down, down as many homes are worth less, while mortgage payments stay the same; life savings are shrinking while the need for retirement income comes closer and closer.

I guess we are lucky, out here on the prairie. We're in a small town that has a growing need for additional housing, so our home values are pretty stable. Mortgages are held by small community banks that have always made loans on conservative terms so we have avoided the problems in many places where foreclosures are growing.

At the same time, we dare glance at the shrinking 401K only when we are feeling exceptionally strong. I was listening to an NPR interview with bankruptcy and commercial law expert Elizabeth Warren (What Does $700 Billion Buy Taxpayers?) and her report on the future for credit card debt and home bankruptcies over the next few years was so grim, so appalling, that I suddenly realized that I shouldn't be listening alone--I couldn't deal with this awful outlook by myself.

As we prepare here for the holidays, we have cut back where we can, as if doing so can make any difference in our shrinking life savings. Last year we set up for the first time a modest outdoor light display--even those few lights made a big increase in our electric bill. This year, we have only two little electric candles, one in each of our front windows. While simple and plain, the Christmas symbolism is still there, and we feel that we are doing a tiny bit toward simplifying our lives.

However, we never stop being grateful to have our home, our family, and our lives. For a look at those who are not so lucky, see June's post from Australia called Homeless at Christmas.

Christmas Lights in Clovis

I've been experimenting with nighttime photography without a tripod. The pictures of our house and neighborhood so far are very out of focus, so I'll have to try again. However, these shots taken down at Jimenez Custom Harvesting came out much better. Apparently, the guys down at Jimenez spend several days setting up this display and have done an incredible job. You can enjoy the animation if you drive by 1000 W. Brady Ave..


Merry Christmas!