Let us recount the major holidays of the year, shall we? Certainly Christmas/Christmas Eve, which count as a pair, I think; Thanksgiving and Easter (sticking with my religious holidays since it's my blog). Then the secular ones: Memorial, Independence, and Labor Days; Mom & Pop Days; Halloween. I would say that my enthusiasm trails off for those obscure holidays in the middle designed to give students and the hard-working labor force a three-day holiday, but not Billy (our business is closed on Sundays and Mondays anyway, so he gets
I never moved very far away from my parents, so we always celebrated the big holidays (see above: the first ones mentioned) with my family. Once, in the early years of our marriage, I told my mom that Billy and I had decided to spend every other Thanksgiving with Billy's family, since his father's health was failing and we didn't know how long he'd be around. In response to that, my mom burst into tears. Billy's dad passed away that next summer, and we continued to spend all the holidays with my family. And I'm not begrudging this. I enjoyed being with my family. They celebrated well -- good champagne and wines, an attention to the food (that being the raison d'etre, often even more so than the congregation), and conversation that, as a rule, stayed away from religion, politics, anyone's rights. Unfortunately, when you knock that all off the table, people tend to veer towards describing episodes of television shows, causing my eyes to quickly turn to pinwheels (I Love Lucy, Soap, & The Golden Girls being the exception to this rule, and you can see how au courant I am on this subject). But none of this is the point of this post.
I no longer have any family left to celebrate these holidays with (see that preposition? I'm just going to leave it there). And my anticipation of that was seeded with dread. But, somehow, it hasn't been as awful as I expected. In fact, after the first year (which was truly hard), I've even enjoyed making some new traditions.
Easter is the tricky holiday. That was OUR holiday (even though we also hosted Christmas, and in some years, and all later years, Christmas Eve, and occasionally Thanksgiving). We used to scrape up all the family we could, including Billy's mom and a stray sibling and nephew, distant cousins, whoever. We were looking for numbers, honestly believing in the more, the merrier -- especially where my family is concerned. If the weather cooperated, we would do a big bash outside. Numbers determined how many tables we would set. In our earlier years at this house, before we built the swimming pool which sits in the courtyard of our U-shaped house, the men would carry the dining room table outside. I would set it with a Belgian lace tablecloth that my aunt brought me from, well, Belgium; my grandmother's china; the silver given to me by my parents; the Waterford that Billy's mom bought for me in Ireland. We would eat an afternoon dinner under the large sprawling oak tree that was one of the major reasons we bought this house. We usually listened to Bach and Mozart on Easter, and don't even ask me why. Many of those Easters felt, well, magical. But, those Easters are long-gone, and we have no tradition as of yet to replace them. I have thought about recreating them with friends, but that is still feeling too daunting. Maybe next year . . .
Meanwhile, Fourth of July has come and gone. Because of the way the holiday fell on the calendar, Billy had four days off. He's been working non-stop at our business during the week; helping to find a place for my mom, then finally moving my mom; all on the weekends. It's been a really hard year for him, and he's beat. But, instead of hanging out by the pool for four days, we decided to try to get a handle on our house. We are probably storing thirty boxes of my mom's things. And these are not organized in any way. Plus, as we were spending so much time visiting her; doing research on Board and Care, then finally moving her, a lot of our own possessions and paper disintegrated to clutter. I have this theory that there is a point in time when you either wrest control or lose it forever, and we were teetering on the brink.
So, we spent the four days working. Of course we didn't accomplish as much as we had hoped. But we made a fair dent and got momentarily inspired to continue. In the evenings, we made simple dinners, watched the Dodgers play and lose, then watched the movie 1776 on July 4th. The weather was unseasonably cool (read: low 80s, and my God, we're spoiled), and we never made it into the pool. But we have house guests coming next week, and that period of time is usually spent in and by the pool each day.
I told Billy that our work was over for the summer. We will take time out for the rest of the weekends through July and August. He needs this, and, frankly, so do I. Other holidays will come and go. We will celebrate; break bread with friends; remember the holidays that have come before - those markers of time, and makers of memories, for better or for worse. Hope you made some of your own, with good food and companionship, this Independence Day. As for us, next year, no work . . . except fireworks! Happy Birthday America! And, thank you for reading my blog.
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