The Quiet Days of Christmas

Romanians know how to do it right. We celebrate three days for Easter and Christmas and about 6 of them for New Year’s. If it were up to us, we would spend 364 days in parties, drinking and carousing, and maybe one day in repentance. And no work at all. If it were up to us. 

I have now lived in America for 27 years, but in my heart, I celebrate every holiday with the same spirit I grew up celebrating. So, regardless of what the American tradition calls for, Christmas is 3 days in my world. And isn’t it better to be able to say that you get not one but three days of doing nothing?! 

I have always looked back to Christmases past when I have this “down time” and in some fashion I want to recreate, even if it’s just in my mind, the old days. Call it old-age melancholy, or missing those that are not around anymore, call it facing your mortality, whatever you want to call it, I have thought more about Christmases past, especially those we grew up in, my sister and I, than ever before this year. 

And our Christmases were so randomly different during my 23 years growing up in Romania, that there is so much remembrance to draw from. We were lucky (I felt lucky when other kids might have felt cursed) to spend Christmases with different families. My mom’s parents did Christmas one way, and my parents a different way, and our relatives in the mountains celebrated in such an essentially different way than us city people that it made you wonder if we were celebrating the same holiday at all. 

When we were little-little (think about before I went to school), we lived with mom’s parents. Grandma would take us to this park close to downtown to see the huge, 20+ ft wooden Santa put together by the city and surrounded by all sorts of kiddy rides. Nothing too dangerous because those machines would not be able to be erected just ad-hoc for a week or so around the holidays. They were small carousel-y type things. We were never allowed to be in the machines, as we could God forbid catch a cold. But it was good to walk in the cold of the evening (you had to go after nightfall, to see all the pretty lights glowing), and see all the people excited about their kids riding the rides, cheeks aflame with the winter chill. Then, we would go home and sometimes, would find our presents already under the tree, if this were Christmas Eve. In Romania we open the presents (and make the tree) on Christmas Eve. 

We would then sit down to have Christmas Eve dinner - a lesser affair than the Christmas Day meal the following day, but still loaded with plenty of delicious, traditional foods. On Christmas Day, the close family members who also included my parents at that time, would get together and eat. Outside us kids, I don’t remember gift exchanges between adults being a thing in my childhood at all. It was all about the food and being together under one roof. 

Christmas was a culmination of many weeks of work back then. For weeks before Christmas, all that people would talk about was where to get the best meat for sausages, the best flour for cozonac, the Romanian traditional holiday loaf, where to find the walnut for the loaf, where to buy a new table cloth or napkins. Back in Communist times, the stores were empty, and the main food groups (meat, flour, sugar, oil, even bread) were rationed, so people started stocking up early. That fever of preparedness was all part of “the season”, part of the tradition. 

Cooking for Christmas would start about a week before Christmas Eve, with grandma kneading and raising the dough for the cozonac. This was by far the most laborious affair of the event. She would make enough loaves to give to everyone in the family which always puzzled me because everyone I knew made their own. But she was ever so proud of hers. You can look this up - anyone who has ever attempted making this beast of a loaf would tell you that it is really hard to master and have it come out right. Whenever grandma failed (by her standards, because by mine, her cozonac was always the absolute best), she blamed the flour. Grandma would clear out a whole day to cook nothing but the cozonac. She would hardly feed us on cozonac day. We had to scramble up a meal on our own with leftovers we would find in the fridge, which was not much because the fridge had to be empty for the Christmas cooking to come. 

In the following days, she’d make all the other foods - the sarmale (cabbage and grape-leaf rolls), several kinds of roasted meats, appetizers of all sorts and of course, she would fry the pork sausages in the pan. One of the days before Christmas was also dedicated to a major house cleaning. That was the one day grandpa would ever get involved, because he had to take all the rugs out to shake them and “winterize” them, as grandma said - meaning rubbing them with fresh snow and ice to clean them out and give them a fresh look. This was back in the day when Romania actually did get white Decembers. Not anymore. 

On Christmas Day - we all got together, kids, parents and mom’s parents, to eat for most of the day. It was an all-day affair, we would get together at grandma’s house (where we  kids lived) and the parents would come from out of town (where they lived) in the morning. We’d set the table up and start the feast around 12 and eat on till the evening. My grandparents only had my parents to visit and then on the second and third day of Christmas my grandma would take us kids to see her sisters. Grandpa always stayed home. 

Later on, when I was in middle school now, we moved in with my parents who also had moved back in town. The rituals were very similar: dad was in charge of buying all the food and coming up with the drinks and also the presents. Again, I don’t remember much along the lines of an adult gift-giving tradition. Kids got presents but I can’t even remember if they were wrapped. 

I remember I was the first one in my family that came up with gifts for everyone for Christmas and I was in college and making my own money. I got one thing for each person and there was no such thing as gift wrap paper, so I wrapped the presents in newspaper. And there was no tape either, so you’d have to wrap them tight without it. But that was way later. 

My favorite part of my parents’ Christmas preparation was the sausage making night. This was about a week before Christmas, because you’d need time to leave the sausages hung outside in the cold air to dry them out before cooking them on Christmas. I always helped mom and dad, usually very late at night, after everyone else was in bed. After the parents had finished that day’s chores, they’d make the sausages: dad would grind up the meats and add the seasoning, mom would clean out the intestines for the casings, and I would help dad form the sausages - he used a manual-crank  meat grinder with the blade taken out to push the meat out into this funnel-shaped contraption that fitted the grinder and through which the intestines could be filled. My job was to twist the sausages at equal intervals, to make them all the same. It was a messy business and you smelled like pork fat and garlic for a week after that. But the best hand lotion I’ve ever used, too. Mom always wanted this to be the last chore of the day because it was so messy she had to spend several hours cleaning out the kitchen for the next day’s cooking. 

In the many days after this, both my parents spent hours on end in the kitchen cooking all sorts of goodies. While grandma’s cooking stuck to a few dishes that were traditional, my parents made a lot of “modern” dishes in addition to those passed on from their parents. Dad was the chef in charge of the menu list and the drinks and mom was the sous chef with us kids mostly helping and in charge of cleaning the house. We also made the tree every Christmas Eve. 

Dad and I both started Christmas prep the same way: with a list of what's on the menu. Here is the beginning of the last list he ever got to make (right) in early November 2022, as he was thinking ahead for the season. I can tell the signs of his stroke in his hand-writing. It is shaky. By the time he was done with it, closer to Christmas, it looked more like mine (left). Never-ending. 

But after the running around, preparations, cleaning, stocking up was over and Christmas Eve would ring midnight, an eerie, peaceful, almost ominous peace would envelop everything - the house, the world around us, everything ... It was time to enjoy everything we worked so hard for and let the miracle of the holiday leave us in wonder. 

Carolers came to the door on Christmas Eve and in the city, they would get money. 

Like everyone else, my parents also celebrated all three days of Christmas which were all mirror images of each other at different homes. On Christmas Eve we would have our first “preview” meal of Christmas. Then, on Christmas Day my mom’s mom and dad’s sister would come over and we’d all be together as a family. On the second day of Christmas, we’d go to dad’s parents’ house. My dad’s sister was sometimes there again too and we’d eat the same foods only cooked by dad’s mom. On the third day we would go to one of my aunt’s homes or to a friend of my parents’ house for a repeat of the same goodies. The get-togethers were always the same: a very elaborate sit-down brunch-lunch-dinner lasting most of the day, with many courses spread out over 5-7 hours. We sat around the table and talked about the events of the year, school, new jobs, other family members, and very rarely about politics. 

Back home, in-between the many feedings, my sister and I disappeared for hours into books. They were quiet and lazy days. Back then, most of the energy was spent figuring out where the next meal will come from and what it would be (the foods were always the same but we mixed them up during the three-day feasting season). Around Christmas, we had food for days, so no more need to cook; so, instead, we turned off and were couch potatoes. 

We had no fireplace, no yard, so we spent the time in our condos, being together, listening to stories, taking in teachings from those older than us ... It was the time to put on the brakes of a(n) (always) crazy, busy, insecure year and actually enjoy each other. 

It was Christmas in another dimension when we were much older (highschool and college for me) and we were old enough to go to the mountains by ourselves and live with our relatives there. Our mountain people have always had a family farm where everything you eat you grow, harvest and kill yourself. The oldest of their children, a boy, always went up the mountain and cut his own tree which is a totally different kind of tree than the one (still a natural one) that my family would buy in the city. The two don’t compare. They almost are not the same thing. We didn’t have lots of decorations in the mountains, like we did in the city, but I remember us putting pine cones and apples on the branches. 

They also killed their own pig - an event worthy of its own book. We helped with the “cleaning of the pig”, by singing off the hairs on the pig’s skin with the flame from a candle, and cutting it off the fat back with a super sharp knife, for fresh pork rinds which they would use to flavor all the foods at Christmas and beyond.

I remember how the whole Christmas pretty much revolved around this pig killing and prepping and making foods for Christmas (mostly smoked meats) from it. We ate every single thing from the animal, even the blood, and whatever we could not consume would go into the freezer for the rest of the year. The whole family was involved. The parents, the three kids, the grandparents, and my sister and I. Everything happened outside, in the yard, except for the actual cooking, in the mountain air which was always as cold as a mountain stream on ice. 

We spent most of the time during the day outside, in our winter coats, barely moving from too many layers, with the hands red and the skin chapped and bleeding from the wind burn and the coarse salts we used to prepare and cure the meat. 

Inside, the stove always had a roaring fire, ready for the mom, the grandma, and the daughter to start cooking some of the many dishes, all of them pork based. The dad and the boys were busy making the fire outside, in the smoker, where most of the cured meats would go for a couple of days. One of the two sons would take turns during the night to go out back and ensure the fire was not out in the smoker. 

The dishes we made were simple and not as numerous for the mountain Christmas - just some cozonac, sarmale, mamaliga (which is a type of Romanian polenta) and lots and lots of smoked meats - everything was fresh and so fatty! We would eat in the late morning for a couple of hours, on Christmas Day. Although we still had sit-down meals, they were not as lengthy as the ones in the city. In the mountains, you constantly had something to do, you could not linger about - mostly, many animals to feed, or wood to split for heating up every room and heating up the food. We did take naps sometimes, and when we were older we kids would go “in the village” to a club or someone’s house for a dance. 

On the second and third day of Christmas, my friends’ parents would load us all up in their SUV and we’d go deep in the woods, bracing the cold and the unplowed dirt roads to see my friend’s father’s family. They lived completely off the grid, in the middle of nowhere. One year, we got stuck in the snow on one of these roads, and one of the sons had to walk through the deep-deep snow to the next village several miles to ask for help. It took hours for a tow truck to appear (on the second day of Christmas when everyone is off!) and pull us from the snowy ditch. As we waited, it got dark and the sky was filled with stars. There was no light around us outside the moon. We started hearing wolves howling in the distance and just about wet ourselves! We had pictures in our head of how we’re going to surely die - either from frost bite, or eaten alive by wolves on the second day of Christmas! The stories are plenty and I hope to God they will make their way into a book one day, if not for anyone, they might be helpful or amusing for my nephews. They were good and real times. 

In addition to money, the mountain carolers got colaci (Romanian braided bagel-shaped pastries), apples and walnuts. To this day, there is no holiday for me if we don’t have some kind of fresh, hearty dough in the house, although I don’t bake myself. Everything was either home-made or hand-picked by all of us. The care, the attention, the ahead-of-time-ness made it so special for some much longer than just the one day. 

I truly believe this rushed, modern world we live in nowadays abbreviated the holiday to a one-day affair. The Christmas I remember and that I am stubborn enough to still celebrate deserves to be lingered upon ... 

If you've been paying attention, the one thing all of these traditions had in common was the food. When I came to America, everyone warned me about Thanksgiving having lots of foods. But to me, it was an embarrassment to call it “a lot of food”. Our feasts were, like a daily Thanksgiving times 3. And then multiply that by 3 days, not just one puny dinner! 

Today, when we don’t travel for Christmas, even if it’s just the two of us, I cook. A lot. I cook so much in fact, that I end up throwing some away at the end because it’s impossible to consume it, even in 3 days, being that it’s just the two of us for meals. Nowadays, I make some Romanian staples: sarmale, my husband makes the cozonac because I am not a baker, sausages, some sort of a ground meat product like meatballs or meatloaf, a couple of other appetizer dishes. Without these, I cannot say it’s Christmas. I also give a nod to my new adoptive country and I do incorporate some American foods, as well - like ham, mashed potatoes, something green (like collards or green beans) ... And we stock up on drinks! At my parents’ house, the drink of choice was wine during these times. Especially the one dad made himself, first on farms he worked on, then in his own house. In the mountains, the drinks revolved around moonshine - the cold asked for something to warm you up. If they had wine, it was always hot, boiled, with some sorts of herbs and woodsy berries in it.  

Nowadays, my husband and I do sit down for our Christmas meals (as opposed to eating in the living room on the couch)  during all the three days (because yes, we do celebrate three days of Christmas in my house), but we mostly graze ... We don’t have set hours for set meals, but we eat when we wake up and when we feel nibbly during the day. We open presents on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We talk to family online, because everyone is far away. We seldom get together with friends, because everyone is busy with their own families. 

Another thing that I relive this time of the year is the quiet around these days - just sitting around with absolutely no plans, other than letting your hard-labored-over goodies digest. It feels decadent and wasteful but so delicious, too! I know lots of people probably pity us for just “being alone” but I welcome it. Life is noisy. Worries abound. Work is busy. So much of life eats at our time, that this time of the year, staring down at days with no plans is a gift in itself.

Life, and especially our Western world, needs so much more quietness and reflection - and Christmas is a great excuse for this. We all become bears during this time of the year: gorge on food, then hibernate. 

Technology did help with the writing and the publishing of this piece, but outside of this, I am so glad we inject our lives with so much more human, touchable, organically real and un-messed with things - no AI and no apps needed to be in touch with your humanity and human-ness. 

These few days when we’re forced by the calendar to think differently are still so important to me, to pause, reflect, and enjoy the simple things that are never too far away: like feeling the raw meat of an animal that sacrificed for your nurturing  in your hands when you knead it into a meatloaf, like cleaning a raw shrimp, and spending many hours cleaning mushrooms under the cold running water, wondering what kind of muck those little hats had to push through to come to being, like waiting with bated breath for the oven to be done with its things only to be able to judge whether what comes of it is edible or just passable ... 

Around Christmas, I feel like I am consciously jumping off the mouse wheel and meaningfully taking a break. And my body feels better (albeit more sore and at times uncomfortably full, but decidedly more alive), and my mind thinks more clearly, and my thoughts are clearer and able to plan for what’s ahead - as far as we can see what is ahead. 

But the here and now, the proximity of each other and the real-ness of what’s on the table, the memories that I am still lucky to hold in my head quite vividly, this is what makes up the lazy days of Christmas for me and towards which my gratitude goes. 

Whether you celebrate the birth of Jesus, or the Rededication of the Sacred Temple, or renewal and rebirth, or ancestor remembrance, or just the end of a year ... I hope you take the time to reflect, turn inwards, find yourself truely, think back before you leap ahead. If you’re lucky like me, maybe you remember your childhood memories. And if you are really lucky, maybe you get to recreate them ... 

Happy Holidays, everyone! 

The Tree

I told myself a long time ago that I would always decorate a tree for Christmas. As long as I am able and on my two feet, I will always pull out the boxes from the attic and hang the ornaments on that tree. So far, I have kept my promise. I have a whole routine, just like we did when we were little and my sister and I decorated our family's tree. Then, we had Christmas cartoons playing on the VCR. Nowadays, I switch to Pandora Christmas stations on my iPad and listen to "happy" Christmas music (none of that sad, somber classical stuff which is good, but not for tree trimming!). 

I do believe that decorating marks the actual end of the year for me - trimming the house, cleaning it, emptying out the closets of clothes I haven't worn, and ... the Christmas tree, the celebration that we made it through another trip around The Sun. It's a milestone, visible, tangible. 

Over the years, my tree has gotten a lot of personality, I think. First off, since around 2004 or so, I decided that ornaments of my tree should only be either purple or white. The lights - only white. No other color is allowed and there are very few exceptions but they must be extremely well argumented. I used to be an "all-color ornaments" type of person. But around 2004 or so, a friend from work gave me a purple ornament because she knew that was my favorite color. That started it all. I thought, "wouldn't it be nice to only have purple ornaments in my tree?!" 

Experience has taught me that purple ornaments are rare, and the tree might look too dark in "only" purple, so white and silver came to the rescue. Nowadays, I have lots of ornaments that we picked out on our many travels (remember those?!), as well as many that my friends have gifted me. They are more or less eclectic, but there are themes, too, like Nativity, or hearts, for example. 

When I trim my tree every year, it not only gives me a chance to reflect over another finished year, but by unboxing all the ornaments, it gives me a chance to remember all those who gave them to me. Our common experiences and bonds. Our friendships, or even estrangement. I remember all the places that I went to to get them and bring them home. This year, more than ever, I felt like we needed more connection (for obvious reasons), and the ornaments helped me remember that we're not alone in the world. That people that love us are out there, behind masks, waiting patiently, and one day, if we hope right ... we might find them again and make new stories. 

Here are some of the favorite highlights from our tree. 

The purple tea kettle that started it all - cca 2004

My husband is German. My mother-in-law taught us a German tradition that says you have to hide a pickle in the Christmas tree for good luck. She gave this to us for our first Christmas as a married couple (2010). This is one of the "non-purple-or-white" exceptions.

Ours friends went to Jerusalem a few years back and brought us this olive wood-carved Nativity Scene. It is one of my favorite ornaments, still. 

Just like the one above, these are an exception to the color - they are all made of wood. My husband made both of these. Although the "spinner" is truly gorgeous and so classy, I really like the whimsical snowman because the hat makes him so sassy.

AtTask 2013 - this is the company I have worked for now for close to 10 years, which has been renamed twice since this ornament was gifted to us at a Christmas party and since I started there. It's probably a collectible right about now. 

There are a lot of hearts in my tree. Those who know me understand why. My husband gave me this enormous purple one the year I had my open-heart surgery (2016). It's mouth-blown glass and so heavy. I love so much its symbolism. 

My husband and I give each other an ornament every year, much like we give each other a card. I have said the words written on this heart to him for years. And one year (I believe 2017), I walked into a store in our new city in NC and there it was. I got it because it pretty much tells our story, the way I see it. 

One of my long, long, long-time friends gave me this camera ornament. It's mostly black (another exception), but it has a fair amount of silver, so it's allowed. It's also allowed because we're both shutter bugs. 

Two of my absolute favorites: home-made ornaments by my sister, with my nephews, back when they loved each other and would sit still (mostly) for a cute picture. They are frozen in time and will always and forever be this cute and happy and perfect to me. (2012 and 2011)

One of my dear friends gave me these two ornaments  during a completely different time in my life. So different that it seems now like it was in another life. They are both hand-painted - the first one is glass and the second one is a real egg painted with the Nativity Scene. I love how fragile and unique they are. Another thing I love about my tree is how it holds the history of almost my entire life and reminds me of my journey.  

This is part of our "travel" collection: Mexico, Hawaii, Outer Banks, NC, Biltmore Estate (Asheville, NC), San Francisco, CA, Key West, FL

We bought this on our last cruise (2019) in The Bahamas. While we were on that cruise, our sweet cat, Gypsy died at home. We were not ourselves the entire trip. I could not have thought of anything more fitting to get for my tree than an angel that will forever remind me of him. Out of all our travel ornaments, this one is the most meaningful.

This is a wire ball filled with pine potpourri. My aunt gave it to me in 2008! and it still smells like pine. I have never changed its content. We bought it while she was visiting the US for her first (and only) time. 

One of my dearest friends gave me these two hearts. They are sweet reminders of her and what a kind person and steadfast friend she is. 

These are my babies. I might have other kitties at some point in my life, but they will always, no matter how small my tree will get, be in my tree. Always part of my life in some way ... Miss them all dearly, especially as I decorate, because there are no tails popping out of empty ornament boxes anymore.  

I lived in NC before but never knew you are supposed to have a cardinal in your Christmas tree for good luck. I just found that out last year. It is my favorite wild bird, so as soon as I learned this I indulged in yet another exception to the color. 

I hope that whatever your physical or metaphorical tree holds this year it reminds you of happy times and foretells of many possibilities to come. 

I wish everyone much health, first, and much hope. 

Happy Holidays, everyone! 

'The Ghosts of Christmas Past'

I have always faulted Romanians for living in the past. Their present, for as long as I have lived, has always been grim and disappointing, and they always take refuge in the past. “Yes, this government is more corrupt than any government in the history of the country, and our standard of living is below poverty for 99% of the population, BUT … Europe won the Second World War with our oil and we gave the world insulin and Nadia Comaneci!” Who cares, right?!

But as I age, I find myself looking back to the past more and more. Not sure if as much as a refuge from the present, but just as a contemplation of where this aging body has been – a long journey, full of good remembrances!

This Christmas, I have spun through my head the memories of my life, at Christmastime, like you spin an old movie reel. And they are so many and so different. I have been lucky to not only have a family who is very much into Christmas, but to have come across, over the years, families that adopted me at this time of the year and shared with me their traditions as well. I have been exposed to a smorgasbord of Christmas pastimes, so my memories are very eclectic.

When we were little kids, I remember mom and grandma taking us to the most central park in our hometown where we would watch the lighting of the tree and the temporary statue of Santa Claus. We did not have the Santa that lets you sit on his lap at the mall. We didn't have a mall. We had this giant, wooden Santa, about 30 feet tall standing by the city tree. It boggled my little mind how this huge Santa would even fit through our door to come drop off the presents – this was just the beginning of my doubting nature. There were no carols, really, because it was during communism and we were not allowed to carol churchy stuff. Our family sang carols, but it was very much hush-hush. Christmas was about winter and Santa, not about Jesus. For this reason, we never went to Church on Christmas.

We went to see the tree and Santa on Christmas Eve, not 10 weeks before Christmas started. Everything started then on Christmas Eve. We even made our own tree on The Eve, too, not weeks before. We would have the tree up till January 8^th, after celebrating John the Baptist's feast and Jesus's Baptism. We did say “Happy Holidays” in December, and we still do, back home, and that was not because of some anti-Christian agenda, but because we really did celebrate multiple holidays: Christmas, New Year's with its feasts, John the Baptist, and Jesus's baptism. I never thought that there is something wrong about saying “Happy Holidays” till later in my life, when I moved to the US.

After the Christmas tree and Santa viewing, mom and grandma would take us home which always smelt like food. Cozonac mostly (a Romanian sweet cake) but also lots of meats, mostly pork products. We ate Christmas Eve dinner in the family, always, and then the adults would distract us so they can sneak some presents under the tree and tell us Santa stopped by with presents. They were wrapped in newspaper – I still remember how I hated that ink from the paper making my white fingers black. I remember the smell of the ink, too.

I don't remember getting more than one present. When we stopped believing, we got presents from the parents, grandparents and some relatives, but again, just one from each party and not even wrapped or under the tree. They would just buy us something and they would say “this is your Christmas present”. The joy of finding things under the tree and unwrapping them as a family came much, much later in my life. I grant America with revealing that wonder to me.

In Romania, Christmas (and Easter, for that matter) lasts for 3 days. On the 25^th, 26^th, 27^th of December we took turns visiting people we knew, mostly relatives, and they took turns visiting us. With every visit, we would eat a 10 course meal, with all traditional foods: several kinds of sausages freshly made from a pig that just got killed, sarmale (cabbage and grape leaves rolls), pork meat in aspic, lots of appetizers, including meatballs and boeuf salad, which in fact almost never had any bouef in it at all. We would eat all these foods, prepared tens of different ways in our home and every home we visited for three days straight. I swear our stomachs expanded this time of the year.

In the city, we did not get carolers for Christmas much, but we would get them for New Years. They could sing about the New Year, which seemed more lay than the birth of Jesus, so this was safe. This was the Christmas at home, in the city where my parents lived.

Christmas in the mountains where I grew up was much different. There, it was all about Jesus. People in the mountains were simple and as simple people come, their lives revolved around the church. And they cared little about communism. Communists also cared little about them, too. Communists knew that mountain are remote places with stubborn people and they did not ever care to even try to brainwash them. Mountain people had the notion of private property, they killed their own pig in their own yard and did not have to give The Government any piece of that! They also believed in Jesus and they were extremely respectful of the faith. I cherished that! They did have carolers every year, and every carol was about The Birth, and Jerusalem, and Mary and Joseph. Sometimes, they would sing about making bread on Christmas with a broken oven and a broken pot, but making bread nonetheless, which tasted sweetest, because it was made in the family.

The mountains always got snow, too – so it was a magical fairy tale time to spend Christmas there.

We had a tree in the mountains that one of the older boys in the family cut themselves in the forest right behind our house. We would trim it with pine cones, mostly – not with the fancy, colored, glass ornaments we had in the city. The tree was in our room, which was the main room of the house, the living room and dining room, too. It smelled so good and piney in there. We would fall asleep with the sound of crackling fire logs in the wooden stove, every night and we were tipsy from drinking red wine. Yes, even as kids, we would drink some: it was in a way, we were told, medicinal, to drink mulled red wine; it would keep colds away. Carolers came on Christmas Eve and we would give them nuts, apples and sometimes real food too. We only gave some money to kids related to the family.

Communism was over and Christmases changed for us in the city. We had carolers there, too, and it became a lot more commercial: we got nice presents, wrapped in nice paper, or bagged in nice bags. The food and drinking and carrying on for days was still the same. The closeness of family was nice, too. We are closely-knit families back home as it is, but for some reason getting together for The Holidays (we celebrate New Year's for days, too, then the other holidays of January) was always special: we all contemplated as a family what we left behind in the old year and we made plans on what the new year is going to look like. We hoped. We dreamed. And we shared.

And then, I moved to the US. Here, every year seems different. I have had the good fortune to meet some people that welcomed me into their homes for Christmas and included me in their traditions. And now, after 19 Christmases on this side of The Pond, I have made my own traditions that are a mish-mash of what I have learned from everyone's celebrations, including my family's.

Some memories that come to mind from these past years: the years I spent Christmas with wonderful friends in Charlotte, NC – I am still, to this day, yet to see the amount of presents and bounty that they displaye at Christmas! They are some of the most generous people I have ever known, with warm hearts, too.

For a brief time in my life, I had an uncle (by marriage) and he decorated his house like a Christmas store. There was no shelf untouched, no corner, even the railings of the house were full of Christmas 'scenes' and dripping with artificial snow. He had hundreds of Santa figurines and snowmen, too. He started decorating around Halloween to be ready at Christmas. I spent just two years at his house, for Christmas, but they stick in my mind as being special, because of his joy, like a little kid, showing off his decorated house.

Then, there were Christmases that I spent alone with my cats while being on-call for work. I still cooked like my family taught me, and during my free time, binge-watched Hallmark Christmas movies and marathons of home improvement shows. Having sent off presents to family afar and meeting with other friends around town on non-Christmas days made it feel special to me, in a different sort of way.

One year, I went to a carol concert at a church on Christmas Eve, invited by a, then, coworker. She and her husband were alone that evening and would not let me go to be alone at my house: they invited me for dinner at their house instead. They had a tree and a simple dinner (I don't remember what it was, but not sure it was ham and fixings at all). It felt a little uncomfortable at first, but in the end I felt less alone.

Southern Christmases are truly the best: the weather is amazing (I don't miss snow on Christmas at all – never have!), you can walk after a big meal, and people are nicer and calmer – it really brings out the best in them. I love the Salvation Army bells in the South, too, with people dressed up like Santa ringing them.

Then, we moved to Utah, as a family. I made a promise to myself that as long as there is breath in me, I will have a Christmas tree in the house - and so far it has kept. We made a tree every year, and although our stay in Utah will not stand out as a friend-making experience, we managed to have a Christmas gathering at our house and sometimes a second or third one at someone else's every year. We shared foods, and stories, and presents and learned about what other people, some strangers to us, had planned for The Holidays. These gatherings were that much more meaningful as they were rare and we felt lucky to be invited to them and to be able to invite others to our home, too.

Also, in Utah, we have learned about “neighbor's gifts”: you're supposed to give something, anything, to all your neighbors. We got stuff from many people we didn't know – small things, like a box of tissues (really!), or more significant things from our next door neighbor who we did know (like a garden lantern).

One of the strangest Christmas memories will probably be the one from our last year in Utah: for 12 days straight we got presents from a “Secret Santa”: we got everything from chewing gum packs and beef jerky to bottles of soda and a tub of ice cream.” To this day, we will never know who that person was, but for the “12 days of Christmas” they kept giving us presents.

This year has been a hard personal year for us and even harder for our extended family. With our cross-country move, I started Christmas preparation and sending gifts to far-away family late and not with much enthusiasm. Some of the presents won't make it there in time. We do have a tree, but we downsized the present buying for ourselves this year – after all, we bought a whole new house, right?!

Every year since I started to consciously build my own traditions, I try to do something “Christmassy”, meaning something that you can only do around this time of the year: like going to a Christmas play or concert, or the Christmas market bazaar, or going to see some Christmas lights somewhere. I am not sure why this is important to me, but it is. Maybe it's my dad reminding us to take time for “special” things, because this is how memories are made – and, like I said, you don't get to these things year-round. So, I take the time to do them this time of the year.

I know it's not a popular idea to buy “stuff” for people around Christmas – which has nothing to do with the holiday itself. But if this is how you understand the holiday, I would say it's OK. I do want to see (or imagine) the eyes of people I love glisten with anticipation as they open my presents, knowing that this is my way of saying I am thinking of them. We cannot be close to all family at Christmas, as they are all so far away. But knowing I can send them a token of love and acknowledgment that they are indeed special makes my holiday brighter. This is the same reason why I still send cards to my special people. I get it that it could be consumerism, but I see it as sharing my bounty with people I love.

I don't really get all the cooking, either – but I embrace it as a custom given to me by my family and by people I love. I have a friend who always says that she cooks for people because she doesn't know how else to say “I love you”. I agree to that.

But I digress. Back to not feeling enthusiastic this Christmas.

For weeks now, I have thought about what to cook for Christmas, and I am not feeling like cooking at all. All I want is just to look at my tree, snuggle with Gypsy and close the door on the world for a few days, under a blanket with a trashy magazine.

But I did find some drive to cook and we will have our own traditions, like we normally do, because I cannot bear being a Grinch, no matter what my life is doing. It would feel like I have given up, if I were, and life still has so many beautiful reasons to celebrate. We will open presents over mimosas and breakfast casserole on Christmas Day (a tradition I stole from my Charlotte friends), we will speak with relatives, and watch Christmas movies, me, over eggnog, and Aa. over wine or a mixed drink. We might even make a fire, too. We will nap and read and walk in the crisp air, too. Because we are back in the land where we are lucky to have friends, we hope to see some of them over Christmas and New Year's as well.

Maybe my looking back through the memories is, in fact, a way to escape the present, which is challenging my patience and peace of mind right now. Maybe, I am just Romanian, after all. And yes, this is very much, tongue-in-cheek.

Whatever Christmas is to you, I hope it is warm, healthy, calm, long and lingering. I hope you find at least one reason to smile, many reasons to celebrate, and look forward to what's beyond this time, with hope and dreams anew.

Happiest of Holidays, everyone! 

Still my most favorite Christmas picture. We were young and unassuming. All four of us. 

On Christmas Eve

Ever since I can remember, my dad taught us that a successful marriage, and every other successful relationship for that matter, is based on one thing and one thing only: respect. He never said love, or understanding. But respect.

This has been a year when at times I wished I was invisible. Maybe then, I would have hurt less, and my heart would sink less in despair. I have had days when I wanted to never look at a news feed, or hear another word from NPR in my life! But one cannot live in a bubble, no matter how much the world hurts. And we have to stay aware and awake. If we can do just one thing to help humanity is to stay aware.

I thought after The Holocaust, after 50 + years of Communism, after numerous genocides and civil wars, humanity has learned. But this year has proven that theory wrong. Very wrong.

This year has also been a painful year, personally, but from so much pain I have learned that we, humans, are stronger than we can ever imagine, and that there is incredible amount of goodness and love buried inside all of us. Sometimes it's way too deep to bring it up fast enough, but it's there and it will eventually bubble to the top. Stubbornly. Eventually.

I hope all of us find the strength and the decency to find our light tonight. I hope we find the peace, the love, the grace that the world and our worlds need most. And I hope we all find the respect into one another that we somehow lost this year. Even in the last hour of 2016, I wish for all these good things and for The Light to find our hearts and open them to goodness.

And, in our despair and aloneness, we must also remember what Anne Lammot says so many times over: “Grace bats last.” But she still bats.

Merry Christmas to all!

Merry Christmas!

"Some days I hardly know what to pray for. Peace? Well, whatever." (Anne Lamott)

Life can truly be so discouraging!
I've been writing a blog post for a while. It was about hardships, human suffering and how oblivious we have all become to all that. But I stopped. It was way too negative even for me. This world is too much most days.

This Christmas, I am a conundrum of emotions - all good and bad. Grateful for my family, and my friends - few but honest. Grateful for my husband, my home, my cat, my material things. Grateful that I lived another day and wrote another blog.

I am also sad, for so much that we're missing in the world - peace, especially, love and understanding. Most of all, for respect to one another. After the Holocaust, we swore that "never again" will we allow it to happen. Yet, it's happening every day. It's happening everywhere. It's happening right now. This second.

I hope as we unwrap Christmas this year, with every happy thought, we can make room in our hearts to one less that happy one, with healing intentions. I hope we find our compassion and understanding of one another. Less criticism and more acceptance. I hope we learn how to pray to whomever we hold dear and they listen to us.

Just think about it: kindness is the only thing that doesn't cost a dime. It's all free. The intention of giving it is all that matters. Let's plan that for the new year - just to have the intention of being more kind. 

Someone was saying a couple of days ago on one of the social sites: "If you find out that you have too much money, buy  a bigger table, rather than a taller fence." I hope we all find an extra chair at ours this Christmas, literally or otherwise.

The world is big and ugly, and it will squash our dreams every chance it gets. But it all starts with a small positive light to make sense of its darkness.

As the song reminds us:

"Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me."

I hope you listen to the silence of Christmas tonight and you find your hearts.
Merry Christmas, everyone.

It's in the Smiles ...

Have your Christmas and New Year’s traditions changed over the years? Have they changed since you were a kid? Or even from when you were in college, a young adult versus now, in your ol’ ripe age – whatever that age is?

My husband asked me the other night, when I was making 30+ small little packs of presents for my co-workers and writing their cards, when did my whole gift giving for everyone around Christmas start and whether I have always done it. And it made me recall years past, and how traditions changed for me. I can’t say that they changed because I didn’t like the old ones, because all my memories, as far back as I can remember (and don’t worry: I can still remember even the night when I knew there was no Santa Claus anymore!), are amazingly beautiful and peaceful and rich. But they kind of changed because of different people that spent the Holidays with us, or because I started making my own “new” ones just out of a sense of ownership of who I was, or because I moved to a different culture and everyone around me was doing things differently, and they taught me different things.

Back in the day, when we were kids, I can’t remember that adults every gave each other gifts. I can definitely not recall when mom and dad and grandma even gave any presents to any strangers or even distant relatives. The presents were for the kids, and we would get ONE present, unwrapped, and under the tree, and it came from Santa (Mos Gerila or Mos Craciun). We always had plenty of food though – that was the main tradition, I guess: for days and even weeks everyone would cook fridge-ful of courses, savory and sweet, we made fresh sausages that we hung on laundry lines outside to dry out and then fried them for Christmas Eve dinner. We also made the tree on Christmas Eve. Never before then. And we always had a real tree, growing up. The main family meal is consumed on Christmas Eve in our family. The meals after that (we celebrate Christmas for three days back home) are with friends and distant relatives. But Christmas Eve is for family, for those living in the house.

It’s kind of unfair to say that lots of food was a Christmas tradition, because Romanians cook a lot, no matter what the occasion is, and no matter how poor they really are. Somehow, they will find someone to lend them money for food. And they cook, for birthdays, and name days and Easter, and New Year’s just about as much as they cook for Christmas!

When we celebrated with our relatives, on the farm, in the mountains, we would hang pine cones, and walnuts and apples in the tree, and very little, if any, “fake” ornaments. My friend’s older brothers would cut the tree in the forest in the back yard – the smell of that mountain pine was like nothing I have ever smelled since.

I think I was in middle school when I made the very conscious decision that I would buy a Christmas present to everyone who was going to be in the house. I would buy something small, sometimes a nice smelly soap for my mom and grandma, some socks or a notebook for my sister, pens (always pens!) and a note book for my dad – something small, that I would place under the tree, wrapped in newspaper. I still remember how my fingers would be black with newspaper ink from all the wrapping. I was the only one doing this. When we were in the mountains, with our distant relatives, on the farm, I’d have presents for them, too.

I remember when I left, right after college, my sister saying “we won’t have many presents under the tree this year, since you’re going to be gone”. But I encouraged her to keep the tradition going. Not sure where, really, this urge to “give” sprang from, for me. This was way before moving to America and really being immersed in the consumerism it very clearly displays, as a culture. Now, looking back and trying to make sense of it all, I think it was in the smiles. Romanians are a very stoic and very serious-looking (only “looking”) culture. But everyone, no matter how serious, smiles when they open a gift. Have you noticed that?! I have always loved giving presents and hated receiving them. But I think the main reason for me, is the smiles on people’s faces. The surprise, the unexpected. The unspoken gratitude.

Someone at work asked me the other day whether in Romania Christmas is about “the baby Jesus” or about Santa. Well, the carols are about baby Jesus, more than they are in the US. But the gift giving and food gorging and revolving door of your house for the next two weeks are about … friends, family, love, smiles and togetherness. Catching up, telling stories, counting your blessings, and remembering those who are gone, recalling the happy times of the year or those less than fortunate events and thanking God (I guess, ‘baby Jesus’, you could say) you made it till the end of another one. We’re all about Jesus for Easter, but Christmas, back home is an odd mix of partying, baby Jesus and heathen traditions, too. It’s mostly about the good times had by all, and that includes food, gifts, drinking - and whatever else your family perceives as a celebration.

Nowadays, Christmas is still lots of foods and lots of bounty, in the form of gifts, mainly, for me. I start buying and packing gifts for my family, far in advance, at the middle towards the end of November. By December 1, I try to have all my presents mailed to Canada and Romania – I wrap each gift (and everyone gets more than one) with a smile on my face, anticipating the smile on theirs, when they’ll open it. I do the same when I wrap them for my husband’s gifts, when it’s time to wrap those, closer to Christmas.

I make my tree the weekend after the Thanksgiving weekend. We either host a Christmas party, or we go to one that our friends host – and again, we have gifts for everyone. When we host our own, we hide a pickle ornament in our tree and have our guests find it – this is German tradition my mother in law passed on to us – it’s for good luck and good fortune in the New Year, for whoever finds the pickle.

For Christmas, we sometimes travel to see family – to Canada, more often, or maybe to Michigan, we hope, some day. When we stay home, we unwrap one gift for Christmas Eve (to keep somewhat of a Romanian tradition) and we have our family dinner on Christmas Eve, too – just like my parents do. We also have a big Christmas Day breakfast (usually a rich and warm casserole dish), and my own tradition is to make Mimosas on Christmas Day – I borrowed this from a dear friend of mine with whom I spent four Christmases back in my late 20’s and early 30’s.  Then, we open presents for the rest of the morning, and then we call family who is far, far away.

By the evening of the 25^th it all wraps up in this country. It’s funny: Americans start early, and celebrate all the month of December. Romanians fast for most of the time in December, and prep for the “big feast”. Then, only when the calendar announces The Eve, they start celebrating: for three days, first, and into the New Year, till January 6^th, the feast of John the Baptist, when the Holidays really wrap up! Romanians are nostalgic, melancholy people – they hold on to things and have trouble letting go. Americans are apprehensive, starting early, but when that clock strikes midnight, they are ready for the next challenge, next party, next “fun” stop: New Year’s and then Superbowl, Valentine’s Day, St. Patty’s Day …

No matter whose traditions you’re choosing to celebrate, or even if you make up your own, even: enjoy and remember the smiles. I do believe firmly that our brains stay younger, more flexible and more ready for what it may come if we subliminally tell them we’re happy. There is nothing better to trigger happiness to your mind, and to your core than a smile.

I dug up this old picture of me, my sister and my parents – it was taken on New Year’s Eve one year – and it always comes back to my mind when I am looking for my “happy spot” for Christmas. It says it all. 

Happy Holidays, all, and to all, a better year ahead!