When my kitchen looks like this, it only means one thing.  It was a great time. You too?

I”m still hand-washing the heirloom bone china I received this year from my aunt Marion, and the silver flatware I bought on Ebay over the summer.  The Christmas tablecloth remains stained on the dining room table along with a water glass and a single unused cloth napkin that one of my young “gentlemen” must have neglected to place on their lap and use during the meal.

We had the usual high-expectation holiday highs and lows.  On their way home from their dad’s house I asked my three boys to pick up bread at Columbus Bakery on the north side.  Well they called a few times to say they were having trouble finding the place and when I asked them to keep trying you would think I demanded they make the loaves themselves from scratch.  While standing on their heads.  In a prison yard.  Really now.  For all the work I was putting into the rest of the meal…

My forever friend Valerie Navarre whose house Christian and I went to in Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving came for three days of non-stop conversation and cooking.   Valerie used to own a small chain of pastry shops and offered to bake my favorite dessert of all time, her buche de noel which means “Christmas log”; a light, thin rectangular sponge cake soaked in sugar, water and champagne, then topped with chocolate cream, rolled and topped with more chocolate spread.  It is way too delicious and I’ve prepared my taste buds since Valerie made one last year,  but there was a hitch.  My pantry is stocked with great basics for cooking but not for baking, and I lacked the chocolate Valerie needed.

Without a single grocery store open Christmas Day, Valerie went to the gas station and purchased ordinary chocolate bars near the cash register and as the French say, “Voila!”, a buche de noel worthy of the finest Parisian restaurant only for all our laughs I’m certain we will call it a Sunoco buche de noel from now on.

The only other curve was a squirrel that entered the top of one of the bird feeders outdoors and got stuck.  Charlie noticed it first and all activity stopped so I could rescue the darned thing and give him many more years of eating me out of all my bird seed.  I sometimes take an air horn to the backyard when the squirrels get out of hand, but the thought of one of them dying, trapped upside down in the clear plastic cylinder bird feeder right outside my sun room window was more than I could bear.

It was quite an operation as I brought it in through the window and out the kitchen door for extraction.  With fellow animal-lover Valerie watching from the door, and Charlie inquiring about the progress from his comfy spot on the sofa in front of the TV,  I kept shaking the feeder until the squirrel eventually slid out and took off like lightning.  Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a little drama.

What I used to offer up in gifts to little children I now put into the meal for growing boys; braised short ribs, soup, salad, the Columbus bread.  The boys were appreciative and at the table for maybe 30 minutes which is 20 minutes more than an ordinary day.  That was a gift for me and it left the remainder of the evening for Valerie and I to do more talking.  I remember glancing at my watch at 9:15 and the next time I looked at it, it was 12:15. We had not moved from our sun room chairs.

No sooner was the mess cleaned up this morning when the cooking started again.  I made a light breakfast of French toast from the day-old bread and coffee from my French press.  Are you seeing a theme here?

Not all family members were able to be here, but thank goodness our group was happy and healthy and filled with humor, some of it occasionally rising to what is appropriate for the dinner table.  It warms my heart to see my children sacrifice and buy a little something for each other, and even for me which I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to.  There’s something about the way Christmas works in me that senses gifts go from the top down and not the bottom up like a river that shouldn’t flow backward but I am touched more than you know to have my battery-operated massager, my scented candle and my note cards.  I always say my children aren’t perfect but they are perfectly suited to me. I’m one lucky girl.

How was your Christmas?  Please share.

It took awhile, but it’s dressed up and done; my annual riot of color and sparkle that is my Christmas tree.  The yarn angel tree topper that Natalie and I made as a mother-daughter craft project when Natalie was a Girl Scout in second grade survives another year.

I’m not a good photographer so the pictures don’t do it justice, but I tried.

I hope your decorating/shopping/cards/baking are going smoothly and you are not too frazzled.  Our first snowstorm of the season tomorrow will really add to the spirit and mood, won’t it?

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Post script 12/10:  Regular reader Don submitted the following comment.

Maureen-
What a beautiful sight…a mixture of color and chaos, and lots of it….the perfect Christmas tree! And the one of a kind topper…that’s the best. My tree top is a 50 cent red plastic star (no lights please) held together with 3 rolls of scotch tape. Oh yeah, it’s old and plain .. and tradition. Sure beats those “theme” trees.
Two questions: who is the distinguished gent on the wall? Ancestor of yours or some famous figure? Almost looks familiar.
And the “Charlie Brown” tree in front of the mirror…what is its story?
Don

Don, thank you for sharing details of your charming tree topper.   You are not the first person to question the identity of the person in the portrait in my living room. My pal, the WSTM news anchor Matt Mulcahy, questioned the same thing on Twitter.  He’s the 19th century British Statesman Sir Walter Scott.  I like his face, and as I told Matt, he adds some class to the joint.

The Charlie Brown Christmas tree sits on my dining room sideboard.  I bought it at the old Kaufman’s Department Store a few years ago and for its austere structure, it’s a little different for me.  I found the snowmen lights at Ace Hardware at Nottingham Plaza and think the two go well together.  Anyway, it adds a certain glow to the room that shouts “It’s Christmas again!”   Thanks for writing Don. M.

My son Christian and I were in a unique situation a couple of weeks ago.  We appeared for different reasons in the Sunday Syracuse Post-Standard newspaper.

I was aware that the Sleeping Porch in my historic 1926 tudor revival would be profiled in the Sunday Home and Real estate section.  The article by editor Pam Lundborg described why the secluded room was a favorite of mine.  I was quoted as saying “my children have to scream to find me”.

I went to the local Rite Aid and bought three extra copies to send to my older children who live on their own.   After removing the CNY Home section, and giving the paper a light read, I placed all the other sections in the recycling bin.

The Green Kids

Later that week, Christian informed me that teachers and students at Nottingham High School were congratulating him for his Honorable Mention in the Scholastic Art Achievement Awards.  Christian’s name was in the Sunday paper in the Stars section which I had not read.  And by the time I learned he was in the paper on the same day I was, it was too late.  The trash had been picked up.

Of course, I went out and bought more of that Sunday paper so I could see Christian’s name in print, and I’m certain I held the record that week for the number of Sunday papers purchased by one person.

My friends had a laugh about me so consumed with my own article, that I couldn’t be bothered reading who else was in the paper, even if that someone else was my son.  Mother of the Year, me.

Thankfully Christian is happy and balanced in spite of his batty mom.  He may have to scream, but he  eventually finds me, and he’s accustomed to the fuss made of my little successes.   But it sure is satisfying to see the tide turning.  In the car other day, I said I’ll have to start introducing myself as Christian Green’s mom.  He smiled and said “Yeah, I used to be Maureen Green’s son”.

And then we got out of the car and I took a picture of Christian in front of the sign outside the school that read “Congratulations Christian Green, 2009 Honorable Mention Scholastic Art Awards”.  At that proud moment it was finally all about him.

Some of my best parenting took place in the car.  I had four children strapped into their seats and when they weren’t listening to Raffi  on CD, they were listening to me.   There was a bonus in the ride as I was listening to them too.

Even though I had my children in rapid succession, the conversations with the oldest child were usually lost on the youngest.  Little Christian often sat in the back of the SUV.  His constant rocking back and forth meant that none of the other kids would sit next to him, so Christian was the cute and happy one alone in the “way back” as we used to describe the third seat.

We were all together in the car one summer on an excursion to Provincetown, Massachusetts from our vacation home on Cape Cod.  If you’ve never been to Provincetown you should be clear about this:  It is simultaneously gay friendly and family friendly, if your family is open to gay couples of all description making their affections known in public.

After a day spent walking around in this unique environment, the subject of who “gets” gay came up on the ride home.  My oldest child posed the question and was therefore ready for the answer,  the middle two boys less so, and Christian wouldn’t have a clue about what we were saying.

I told the kids that statistics vary on the prevalence of homosexuality.  Some scientists believe it’s one in ten, but others have suggested it’s one in four who is gay.  Immediately, the kids scanned the car to calculate their odds.
Natalie was first to declare emphatically “I’m not gay”.  The next oldest jumped in “I’m not gay.  At least I don’t think I’m gay”.  Charlie mimicked what the others said as he saw no advantage to having an independent mind at a time like this.  So that left Christian, too young and too slow on the uptake to realize he should have spoken up sooner.

All eyes  turned to Christian who suddenly had the attention of everyone in the car, which judging from the broad smile on his face, must have been a good thing.   Simultaneously the older three declared “Now Christian, he’s definitely gay”.

We all laughed, including Christian who said he had no recollection of the story when I told him about it recently.  As a 15 year old Christian now has an appreciation of that moment.  But what I love even more is the word “gay” is no more an insult to my children today than it was when they first learned about the concept as really little kids.  I was aware at the time not many parents would be so nonchalant about this emotionally charged topic.  I’m happy to have been the exception.

I still don’t know which, if any of my children will be the statistical fourth person to be gay.  But I do know that amusing little lesson in the car that summer day many years ago had the intended effect.  In addition to gay meaning homosexual, in our family gay still means happy too.

For more than a century anxious parents smeared Vicks VapoRub under the stuffy noses of their children.  The pungent blend of menthol, camphor and eucalyptus was considered a breakthrough during the 1918 influenza pandemic and it’s been selling ever since.

Now it turns out Vicks Vapo Rub may do more harm than good.  A recent study of the ointment on ferrets showed respiratory irritation, which may apply to humans too.  More work is needed to determine if Vick’s VapoRub should be pulled from the market, but for now, look for no changes in the marketing or sale of the product.
It’s just the latest of many items proven questionable or useless, but still selling.  I think the companies hope consumers aren’t watching the news.

Chondroiton and glucosamine are sold in supplement form to relieve the pain of osteoarthritis.  But now, evidence that this combination of cow cartilage and shellfish shells offers no more pain relief than placebo is mounting.  The pricey product Osteo-Biflex used to advertise chondroiton and glucosamine as it’s pain fighters.  Now you see 5-Loxin, whatever that is.  What happened to the chondroiton and glucosamine? You may not see it on the label of Osteo Biflex anymore, but you’ll have no problem finding it in many other vitamin products in the drug store.

Then there’s cough syrup.   Researchers at Pennsylvannia State University learned in a 2004 study that over-the-counter cough syrup is no more effective than placebo, and less effective than regular honey out of a jar.  Yet products with dextromethorphan and diphenhydramine are still selling, and worried parents who grew up with these products keep buying them for their kids. Nowhere in the store is there any information revealing the cough syrup does nothing to stop a cough.

The Food and Drug administration recalls products that are truly harmful to the public and Vicks may someday be on that list, but at this point there is nothing to protect the consumer from products that do nothing.