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 sounds dreadful, but statistically the holidays see more heart attacks than any other time of the year.  Beginning with Thanksgiving, rising at Christmas and peaking around New Year’s Day, heart attacks and the holidays sadly go hand in hand.

Courtesy: freefoto.com

Doctors say there are many reasons for this.  First, many people ignore their symptoms which they chalk up to overeating and drinking; and second, they don’t want to interrupt the festivities with a trip to the emergency room.  Stressful family situations, the pressure to spend on gifts and travel, even the particulate from wood burning in the fireplace are all seasonal triggers for heart attack and stroke.  Cardiologists refer to this as the Merry Christmas Coronary.

The New York Times reports on a stunningly simple yet effective exercise that can predict the risk of heart attack in a person and even reverse the course.  It’s the ability to touch your toes.  You sit on the floor with your legs straight ahead of you, point your toes upward, bend from the hips and without bending your knees, touch your toes.  Apparently, a flexible body correlates to flexible arteries and the ease with which blood moves through them.  Rigid arteries require the heart to work harder.  Some older hearts can’t handle that strain.

The researchers did their work in Texas and in Japan and they found a direct link between flexible bodies and flexible arteries in men and women older than 40.  No such link was drawn from younger individuals.

It’s true that flexibility decreases with age, but some older folks maintain flexibility better than others.  The good news is we can all become more bendable with simple stretching.

The doctors don’t say that anyone unable to touch their toes is at sudden risk for a heart attack, but they do want anyone with chest discomfort, especially the next two weeks, to take their symptoms seriously and not postpone getting help.

In the meantime, sit down and see if you can touch your toes.  If you can’t, spend some time each day working on it.  Let’s avoid the Merry Christmas Coronary if we can.

I was distracted all day in the very best of ways.  Christian was traveling to San Diego to stay the weekend with Natalie who lives there, and to attend Spike TV’s Video Game Awards show tomorrow night in Los Angeles.

Early pics from San Diego from Natalie's I-phone

I believe this is the dream of every parent.  Not that their child will attend the VGA’s, but that their children will eventually arrive at a place where it is a joy to give to a sibling rather than to take; the complete opposite of what brothers and sisters seem hardwired to do growing up in the same house.  All that lobbying for the love of parents, space in a house and food on the table is a daily cockfight-in-residence; survival of the fittest, the fittest usually being the oldest until there’s enough growth so that the fittest is sometimes the most sly.

Growing up as the only girl among three brothers, Natalie used to hoard food in her room; basic stuff like boxes of cheddar goldfish and Lucky Charms cereal or whatever groceries she unpacked from the car that she didn’t want the boys to eat first.  When Natalie did leave the cereal in the kitchen she would raid the box of all the charms, leaving the boys with the rest of it that tasted no better than ordinary cheerios.  I fielded complaints all the time back then.

Post script, 12/16:  Natalie telephoned, howling with laughter that I called her out publicly for eating all the charms.  She had forgotten she used to do that and now finds it the funniest thing.

Family life should always be loving, but children make it competitive and there’s little you can do to stop it, especially in large families.  There is only so much time, space and cash to go around.  That’s why I think the key to helping siblings get along is to give them responsibility instead of  stuff.  I’ve noticed the confidence they get from self-reliance and accomplishment is far more beneficial than providing private rooms and pricey wardrobes and the expectation I’ll jump at every need.   Strip kids of this distraction and they focus on what’s left; themselves and each other.

Thank you Natalie for bringing us along for the fun.

Natalie has spent the past year carving out a life within her means in sunny San Diego. With a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Seton Hall University, she went west with no job prospect or apartment but with the company of her oldest friend Lauren whom she met in kindergarten and who decided to move to California too.

Their only plan was the cross country drive where they would make tracks all day and then set their GPS on the next college town where they would find a chain motel, get all dressed up and head to the campus bars for the evening.  Heads always turned as the room of regulars wondered who were these beautiful strangers who just walked in.  Natalie said it was a week of fabulous fun and I wonder why I didn’t do that when I was 22.

Natalie’s winning ways secure many new friends and one of them is an awards show producer whose job it is to fill the seats in those big auditoriums for the televised performances.  They’re aptly called “seat fillers”.  Ever notice when they pan the crowd at the Academy Awards or other shows and you never see an empty seat, even when many of the stars are getting escorted back stage to present awards?  Elegantly dressed seat fillers take a celebrity’s chair until he or she returns.

The other shows like the MTV Video Awards, bring in hip young people to occupy the first several rows of seats in the wings along the stage.  A few months ago Natalie and Lauren were tanned and lovely right up front.  Since cell phones and cameras are banned from the auditorium, the girls reported a dozen messages on their phones when they returned to their car from friends around the country who asked “was that you I saw on MTV just now”?  Why didn’t I do that when I was 22 too?  Oh wait, they didn’t have MTV when I was 22.

When Natalie’s promoter friend offered up a place at the Video Game Awards she promptly called me to hatch a plan to bring Christian out there.  Christian has never been to San Diego and it is his dream to attend a college for graphic arts and to design video games someday.  It’s like bringing a member of the Sherman Park Bulldogs football team to the Super Bowl, or a young figure skater from Radisson to the Olympics or a golfer from Burnet Park to watch Tiger Woods, er, or maybe not him right now.  Anyway, Natalie used her own money to get Christian a plane ticket; it was that important to her to give her youngest brother this opportunity.

Last night Christian and I did what everyone at these awards shows does prior to the presentation, we shopped for a killer outfit worthy of a national television audience.  Versace?  Armani?  Nope, Marshalls.  Christian looks spectacular and grown up in his $16.99 jeans and $19.99 shirt.

Christmas is pretty great when you’re a kid who believes in Santa, but for me it’s been even greater introducing Santa to my own.  That’s what I see in Natalie right now.  I don’t know who was more excited planning for this weekend, Christian or her.  Natalie has a consistent appreciation of giving to a sibling.  It could not be forced on her, she had to sample the feeling in smaller ways with a little something for her brothers on Christmas or birthdays.  But once you get a taste of giving to a sibling after all those years of struggle and competition, it’s a particular brand of joy.

It’s not to say everything is roses over here.  Two siblings who were very close growing up are now in need of a little “space”, but this will evolve too.  The greater the bond, the higher the expectation and the deeper the hurt.  It’s all practice for future relationships which come by choice.  Families are forever and they can weather a little experimentation as they learn how to honor the position of others with plenty of mirrors around for self-reflection.

Here’s to my little babies, child number one and child number four, enjoying a memorable weekend in San Diego, born of opportunity and sacrifice and love.  The Video Game Awards air on Spike TV at 8:00 tomorrow, December 12th.  Look for the pretty blonde and handsome young man near the very front.   I made them from scratch.

Today was so beautiful outside that I didn’t know whether to go to Jamesville Beach where Christian was running for the Nottingham High School cross country team, or to have my morning coffee staring out the window of the breakfast room.

Should I start tidying up the flower beds, cutting the wilted perennials within a few inches of the ground and cultivating the soil?

Perhaps I should refill the bird feeders which are so popular now, I may have to sell a kidney to keep up the need for black oil sunflower seed and suet cakes.

I may want to sit outdoors and catch up with friends by phone.

The bird bath needs cleaning.  I could let the dogs play with the hose after I’m done cleaning for the birds.

I might prune the shrubby dogwood under the kitchen window.  Today would be a good day to do it.  I wouldn’t get too hot dragging the branches into the woods.

I probably should clean out the left side of the garage which the cat is messing up now that it’s getting too cold at night to leave the window open for him to come and go.

I think I should do some ghost writing for a blogger in the Philippines who assigned me three articles.

Christian wants more groceries.  Maybe we should take a quick trip to P and C right around the corner.

A glass of wine would be wonderful at 5:00 in my lounge chairs overlooking the back yard, back lit by the setting sun.

Unable to chose, today on this most lovely of September days, I did all of it.

As the Age of Abundance comes to a close, one thing people need not reduce is the number of their friends, though they might want to consider it anyway.  On social networking sites people have 300, 400 friends.   I congratulate them and I don’t doubt at all the ability to manage all those friends.   Me?  I list them differently.  I count them on one hand.

My aunt Marion used to say if, by the end of your life, you can count your good friends on one hand, you are truly blessed.  And she should know.  As a young woman, Marion was a novice in the Convent of the Roman Catholic Church.  She’s closest to God of anyone I know and if she says five friends are enough it’s probably because He told her.  That’s good enough for me.

Friends are different from acquaintances and colleagues and buddies.  You run into acquaintances in restaurants, at large parties; you usually don’t invite them to the wedding.   Colleagues are great alliances for office gossip.  You agree the boss is definitely wrecking the place and you share a fiendish laugh about it, but once you’re home you switch right to family and don’t think of your fellow worker until the next day.   And buddies, they’re wonderful for a game of golf or a bike ride.  After you’re done sweating, you grab a bite to eat and you go your separate ways until the next play date comes up.

Friends carry you through your own life.  They celebrate your successes, they absorb your sadness, they strategize so you can have the deepest, most meaningful life you deserve.   They see things clearly that you can’t see at all because you’re too close to your own existence.  And their greatest gift may be in wisely knowing it is not their job to judge and push, but to witness and encourage.

I am fortunate to have tremendous people in my life and they number more than the fingers on my hand, but the very closest five are there by one measure.  If I asked any one of them to fly immediately to Alaska, no questions asked,  I am confident they would do it.  And I would do it for them.  Even in January.

For now, I try to ask for a little less.  That they are always available for me to selfishly grab too much of their time with my issues and interests, I am one of the lucky ones who can count my good friends on only one hand.