Late yesterday morning, i took Maureen on my walk around my sister’s neighborhood on Signal Mountain.

Although we don’t have the snow my brother has in Vermont, there is an extremely slight chance we will have a dusting before Christmas, some semblance of a white Christmas. Still, it feels like Christmas here. It is damp, cloudy, turning toward cold. On our walk, i not only took the above photo, i felt something strong and wrote about it:

Mist on the Mountain

it was a walk on Signal Mountain several days before Christmas.
foggy, as it quite frequently is this time of year
and
in a moment
away from the nice homes
not on the brow overlooking the magical world of Chattanooga
down, down, way down below
but
in the woods
the walk was in the mist
no, not just mist,
clouds settling upon the top of the mountain,
a delicate fabric covering the world of high;
then, i felt them.
they didn’t talk to me, no instruction, no guidance;
it may have been inside of me
but it felt as if they were in the mist,
the mist on the mountain;
this was a favorite time for them:
the trip down the state and east a bit,
and
Christmas with the family;
laughter, perhaps i heard laughter;
i can’t be sure
but
i felt them
just as sure as i will feel the warmth of the fire
sitting on the hearth tonight
while the outside will be shrouded
in the magical mist of the mountain.

i have long railed about holidays being extended and becoming more and more commercial.

Well, Christmas doesn’t count.

As noted earlier, we got into the spirit shortly after the turn into December with our decorations.  Although i have made negative comments about yard blow up decorations, our neighborhood is aglow with every kind of decoration possible, i think. i like it.

Before leaving for our annual Christmas on Signal Mountain, we had the Boggs’ Christmas. Sister Patsy came over with her son Bill Boase and his wife Laura. We had Maureen’s haute cuisine version of gumbo, not a Christmas turkey, but boy oh boy, was it good. As we were getting it all going, i walked outside on an errand. This is not yet sunset. It is  not the superb photography of Brian Lippe’s sunsets. It just struck as just right for a Christmas celebration.

Quite a few were missing, but those of us who were there fit just about right. It is nice to have a Christmas celebration at home. It felt good.

And nothing pleases Maureen more than to do the house up right for a dinner party. She outdid herself this time with the table decorations. Winter roses (Southwest corner, remember) added to the splendor.  Sarah and Maureen, as they usually do,  made a great team.

Then we left. It was, as nearly all flights are, not as much fun as they used to be. With Maureen’s penchant for being prompt — i was concerned since our flight was scheduled for a 6:30 a.m. departure, she might want to spend the night in the airport — we were up at 3:30. For some reason, neither of us had slept well. Being “pre-TSA” helped but boarding — i remember one or two times in the distant past making a flight by going from curbside to boarding in less than five minutes, arriving at the gate to slide in the plane as the doors were closing — is still irksome at best, infuriating most of the time.

But i was coming home, or at least to a Tennessee Christmas with my sister’s family, which is as close as i can get to 127 Castle Heights Avenue of a half-century ago. We flew American, no longer the pleasant experience i remember from years past. Gouging travelers appears to be the new mission. We flew to Charlotte and caught the next thing smoking to Chattanooga (Sorry, Jamie Jacobs, but the time between flights kept us from a rendezvous with the Uncle Jesse clan; when i have a stop there, i always promise myself someday, someday, i’m going to make it a week layover and actually spend time with my cousins).

But all of my concerns melted on the hop to Chattanooga. There are no photos. i was too entranced, and American Eagle’s Bombardier CRJ-700 aircraft has small portholes, especially when sitting in an aisle seat. Yet, nearly all of the trip was just simply enchanting, carrying me back to many memories. The flight heads west, west, southwest and flies on the eastern side of the Smoky Mountains. It was sunset or twilight for all but the last several minutes of the trip.

The setting sun, the clouds, the folds of the mountains, and the mist cast a magic spell on me. i was back on a countless number of hops around this part of the world a half century ago, peering anxiously out the window to find a familiar landmark or simply to marvel at the beauty of the countryside, the green, green country country side with farmland dimpling the woods below while the mountain sky scape took my breath away. i was taken to those mountains and the cabin across the walking bridge over the waterfall where we stayed time after time in the wonder of those hills.

i even went back to my first read of Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage as the sky scape mirrored my memory of  Lassiter and his Utah mountains. Magical i tell you, just like Christmas.

Then we landed. Martha met us at the airport. When we arrived at her Signal Mountain home, there was Christmas before us, in the pandemonium only available with a four-year old grand niece and identical twin, two-year old grand nephews:

Allie, Culley, and Max in one of their quietest moments.

This is the second calmest of about twenty “stair” photos.

And then there were Happy, as her grandchildren have named her most appropriately (Todd has been nicknamed “Grumpy” which tickles him to no end).

i’m telling you, it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas:

Yup, Christmas. And you would have to be an unreformed Scrooge not to feel it.

My parents loved Christmas.

As they aged, they didn’t decorate as much. They were practical folks, bred in tougher times. Going silly on decorations was not their style. They liked it simple. Having grown up when money was tough to come by (but living simply and well was still possible), they were frugal.

In the latter years when Mother’s ailments dictated Christmas in Lebanon rather on Signal Mountain with my sister’s family, we had to insist we get a tree and decorate it. They thought the small, fake, frosted tree with red bulbs was enough, that and the old wreath Daddy would pull out from storage and hang on the front door. Oh yes, they would put their wooden angels on the mantel. And hang the stockings she had made back in the early 1950’s for Joe, Martha, and their goofy son.

They never lacked in the true spirit of Christmas. It was always one of the best things about  my years to watch their happiness and love at Christmas time.

With all of the hate and blame and things they would have deemed un-Christian going on right now, i think his photo from about five years ago displays how they both would have felt:

But i remember both of them looking more like this:

And i know with all certainty, they are hoping and praying that all of their wide expanse of family and friends beyond counting will have a peaceful, wonderful, loving, and joyful Christmas.

Me too.

This old irascible curmudgeon was rolling into his “Bah, humbug” phase of Christmas. It happens about this time of year every year.

For reasons beyond his control, he has had this phase for about oh, say for about a half a century. It occurs when he realizes he yet again won’t be spending Christmas with someone whom he holds very dear.

Up until he left his hometown to wander (and wander he has, although nearly all of it was not planned; it just turned out that way), he spent Christmas with his family: his parents, his brother and sister, family in Lebanon and Chattanooga (Joe, Martha, Nancy, all of the Prichard’s, did they ever go to Florida for Christmas? He can’t recall although their is some vague memory of a warm Christmas in Daytona, perhaps another one of his illusions).

Then life and the world outside of our hamlet smack dab in the middle of Tennessee began to take him away. Several Christmases were spent away, far away completely out of his control: Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam; Hong Kong; Diego Garcia to name a few. The military can do that to you. Then there was this marriage thing and Christmases inevitably was divided between families. Then there were three families geographically separated (divorces and remarrying can do that, you know).

And that’s where it really started. When the world and life takes one away from the perfect Christmas. That was 1979. It was the first Christmas of not being with his daughter Blythe. Christmas has never been the same since then. That old humbug phase has been there ever since.

The closest he has ever gotten to that perfect Christmas began in 1992 when Maureen, three-year old Sarah and he went back to Tennessee, Signal Mountain most of the time, to be with his parents and his sister’s family. The Duffs have become his Christmas, and even though he is missing a daughter, a grandson, his brother and his family, and his wife’s family, it has been a beautiful Christmas every year.

Still that sadness is there as he has had to make choices about with whom he  spent Christmas, or rather who he misses at Christmas.

When they first started going to Tennessee again in 1992, he had family and friends housekeep for him and there was an abbreviated version of Christmas with Maureen’s family before they left. Even though the Southwest corner family still gets together for an early, abbreviated Christmas, the housesitting has evolved into someone looking after the pets on a daily basis. In those early years, they continued to decorate to the fullest although the tree was dry and crumbly by the time they returned. When the housekeeping stopped, they stopped the decorating. This was about when he created the legendary “NOEL” sign.

About four Christmases ago after Sarah moved to Texas, Maureen and he missed their house being Christmasy and bought a fake tree, something he vowed he would never do. So they decorated the tree, put up a minimal number of other decorations and of course, the “NOEL” sign.

But this year, Sarah is back home for a brief period. You get two sentimental and caring women together and you are going to have Christmas decorations, full-blown.

This year, they do.

No, he still won’t have that perfect Christmas. He will not be with his other daughter Blythe and his grandson Sam (and yeh, you too, Jason). It’s been a decision he has made every Christmas except one, trying to do what was best for everyone of his family he loves. Sometimes, you just have to bite the bullet and do the right thing. He has bitten quite a few bullets in his day.

But this year, it’s a bit different, this curmudgeon humbug thing. The women decorated.He put Christmas music on the iPod and plays it frequently. It not only is beginning to look a lot Christmas, it’s beginning to sound that way as well.

The old curmudgeon humbug sort of got into the spirit. You know, the reason for Christmas, for joy to the world, for hope, for caring and giving., for children, and birth, and that star.

Yep, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas:

It is the season and the menorah is something Sarah made in elementary school. A Jewish family came to our Christmas party. The girl was a friend of Sarah’s. The wife was very thankful for us having that menorah card in our decoration. The reindeer was also made by Sarah a long time ago.

Then there are the music boxes Sarah has received from her aunt almost every Christmas. These are on the table in the alcove between the family room and the dining room.

These music boxes and the nutcracker are on the living room mantel.

These poinsettias in the entry are ones Maureen couldn’t resist. She had made me throw away the fake ones i got from Home Depot several years ago for five dollars. Oh okay, mine were quite a bit worn and they did look fake, but other than that they were fine.

That’s Santa and a bit undersized reindeer with a sled for Santa who won’t fit, but it holds Christmas cards nicely on our “daughter” table.

Then we have our stockings, acquired as a gift several years ago.

This has removed my stocking, which my mother made me about seventy years ago, from the in-house decorations. So i moved it to my work (hah, hah) space in my garage. i actually really like it here. i know Martha’s is in her home on Signal Mountain, and i wonder where Joe’s is in Vermont.

A cross-stitch is in the guest bath so we can relate the legendary Jewell-Hall story about why it is so…well, legendary.

Almost finally, there is the tree. With the fake one, we have options. i turn on the colored lights in the morning to welcome the wakers with a good feeling. In the evening, we turn on the white lights to add to the family room’s Christmasy atmosphere, also abetted by the fire…which is not fake.

The coup de gras is the “NOEL” sign, which after countless hours of wire cutting, splicing, soldering, and hair pulling (if i had hair). After completing then hanging of the sign, i hung it up and turned it on. The two light strings illuminating the letters are, we discovered two different whites. The “warm” whites are whiter than the clear whites. But i ain’t changing it out again this year. Maybe next. Meanwhile, the legend grows.

And all of this is really to say very few people have a “perfect” Christmas. Sadly, some people have dark ones because they are alone. But everyone, if they try, can get into the spirit, the real meaning of Christmas, and rejoice. Even this old curmudgeon humbug can have a merry Christmas.

May yours be especially wonderful this year.

My younger daughter turns twenty-eight today.

As with many twenty-eight year olds, she is struggling with finding herself, trying to determine if she needs to continue the way she’s been going or change course. i think…no, actually, i hope it will turn out alright for her. I know i have little control over what happens next.

When i was twenty-eight, i was making monumental decisions about my course for life. i was a sports editor in a great mid-size daily in upstate New York, The Watertown Daily Times, on my way up. But it was tough financially. As with most careers, there wasn’t a lot of money in the beginning, and my life, our lives were going to be changed drastically in six months when Blythe was due. i wanted to remain the sports editor as i discovered it really was a passion of mine, but to make the income for a family of three, i was either going to have to go to a big city daily and work the night desk, etc. for a while, take the national news or state news editor jobs at The Times or do something else entirely.

My wife, feeling the economic crunch as well i was, wisely asked what about going back to the Navy. i had thought about it but not mentioned that possibility because she was an “Army brat,” and i believed she had enough of being a military dependent. To provide the needed security for my wife and child-to-be, i decided i would apply for reinstatement to active duty. i did and was selected by the skin of someone’s teeth. i was one of six returned that year.

My course was set, at least temporarily (as it is in all things called life). And having Blythe as my daughter and going back to sea were two of the best things that have ever happened to me. The sea was my passion. i think i was a pretty good officer, a leader, but i thrilled deep inside every time i took the watch on the  bridge and taking the “con,” driving a steam ship through the seas in most conceivable situations and damn near every kind of weather. i retired as quickly as i could when i knew my ship driving time in the Navy was over.

My new course was set, as Sarah was born the day i retired, actually just over six hours after my retirement ceremony concluded. My course, as it is in all lives, keeps changing.

The course for life will keep changing for Sarah as well. i hope she has as wonderful of an adventure as i have since changing my course at twenty-eight.

She has had a good start:

Happy Twenty-Eighth Birthday, Sarah. May your course in life be through calm waters except when you need a thrill.