Christmas

In Lieu of presents as I am faraway and relatively penniless, or kwatchaless, I have written a blog entry devoted entirely to my family. Enjoy, and I know not everyone has my blog address and I don’t have everyone’s e-mail, so please pass it on to other family members and many happy holidays to all whether family or friend. Happy Holidays and Rock that New Year with passionate justice and graceful soul 

Much Love,

Jo

Christmas would start before Thanksgiving. Though I was a stickler for it starting after, Christmas is mostly about feeling it, and that happened, rules or not, before Thanksgiving. When I was younger, Thanksgiving started with my Dad’s side of the family. We headed to New York where ham awaited to prep us for the turkey to be had at my Mom’s side of the family’s. My grandmother’s house was one of those houses that would gently suck you in and enclose you with carpet, wallpaper flowers, and delicate glass figurines that would precariously rattle if you happen to walk quickly by. We didn’t go to my Dad’s mothers’ house all that often, so we loved sleeping in the attic rooms where my Dad’s old belongings stayed. We would play epic games of “Mother May I” with our cousins Erin and Una, threatening the glass figurines as we shuffled on the carpet and accidentally flirted with the tall paneled cabinets. Running carpet games with Erin and Una with their Irish/Italian mixture that left me jealous. A heritage that tied us together, to green hills with cloud cover, but that left my sisters and I out when it came to enabling us to tan on any beach without resembling the lobsters of the North Eastern waters.

My Dad’s side of the family has an excellent array of laughs. My aunt Eileen and Aunt Erin both have laughs that bounce off each other and dance across any table. Their husbands compliment their laughs with a hearty chuckle from Jon and a more musical, though roaring laugh from Peter. Nana, my grandmother, who passed away, also contributed a musical laugh, but hers floated more and could bind other laughs together, like a grandmother’s laugh should. And then there is my Dad’s out of control rhythmic laugh that binds mine with my cousin Una’s who has a laugh that usually spans a variety of tones and noises and helps to balance mine as we both occasionally throw in a snort that bounce with my Dad’s rhythmic beat laughs. And then my Mom’s laugh melds with cousin Erin’s who both have melodic but deep laughs. Then my sister’s laughs bond with each other as they have bonded and grown together just as gently musical as their laughs.

Amongst ham and expertly mashed potatoes we all sit tossing around food compliments and pieces of life updates. I wait for Nana’s pie, with a top of crust that expertly moves in browned flaky waves protecting its warm insides. Pies come on matching delicate plates whose porcelain partners hold tea or coffee. Life pieces are expanded on as cousins make separate moves to leave their seats. Dancing arms of Irish women sweep plates off the table and into kitchen sinks ending the evening with soft dish clanks. In the morning after we eat steel cut oatmeal and pack leftovers and ourselves sister-to-sister to watch New York landscape turn to Massachusetts.

A more packed Thanksgiving awaits us in MA and we crowd around cinnamon buns and parker house rolls that sit in baskets. They sneak steam out of the seams of napkins, listening to the crashes of folding chairs as dishes bustle from kitchen to table. Mimi, my grandmother on my Mom’s side, whirs around family and friends, who grab beer, chips, and each other. With casseroles, turkey, and stuffing, the homemade and canned cranberry sauces compete for table spaces as boys compete and collide onto and over chairs. In my Dad’s family because they are small in number, on can hear the laughs meld together. With the Belings there is often a mass laugh. With the Belings often you have to watch the melding of motion, instead of listening for the laugh. Aunt Chrissy swoops in for a Henry pick-up with a solid grace that her husband Johnny catches with a shoulder pat, and he moves on with solid, planted motion that joins the thick wall stances of Kevin, Michael, and Jacob. Hands bat air as the noise grows louder and Paul avoids the hands of the wall-men to snag Henry before he hits real wall. Donna stands delicately watching her daughter in solid stance that couples nicely with her airy laugh and gentle motions. She watches the motion of her mother’s grace overtaken by a lanky son who just swished through the wall not disrupting, just swishing swiftly passing to his Dad who stands with a stance of pride at his family and his caught-upness in a laugh that causes him to lean back arms up stepping on Caitlin who giggles tosses him a “no problem,” and steadies herself and her mother as they both steady each other with a gentle tenderness that grounds them to the heated linoleum floor. My Mom avoids arm waves to duck in for a bottle of water not sure what her motions will be while my Dad picks up on Stevie’s laugh and more arms go into the air. A water is grabbed while sisters and cousins ground the frantic with loveliness, calm, and style.

Camille my sister waits on the outside faintly striding across the room providing a continuity to the walls and arm waves that upset and ground the turkey stuffed air. She doesn’t let her pace slacken as she passes the JacobMichaelKevinJohnny clump. She gets to Eliza who has picked up on Chrissy’s motion of a gentle head tossing back and everyone watches a swift and loving Mimi bustle. Craig moves solidly towards a perceived nucleus of family that shift, breaks, moves, and slides, but usually can hold a center even if he is not headed towards it.

Dishes slide into sink and Thanksgiving slides into Christmas Eve structured with candlelit services, take-out boxes, presents, and Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. The next day leaves another piling in and out of cars to get to New York where Christmas Day has already started. And among many different Christmas trees, between churches, candles, and almost burnt Murphy curls, with noises of children, yells, and carols, there is a Aunt Eileen with a boisterous, caring passion, who dances up to you or to Aunt Erin, who with her own boisterous-ness is also grounded with a presence that she speak from with well-thought out intelligence. She speaks to Erin her niece who possesses a bright, fun, and calm way of being that compliments her sister’s spunky freshness that can often coat things in sarcasm with grace. Uncle Peter with a keen Kojack look evens it all out with an easy-goingness and sense of humor. Uncle Jon jumps back in with a sarcastic outlook, but smarts as well. My grandmother used to balance them out delicately walking or dancing, holding herself, house, and family together with nimble dance steps, refined stories, and a polished though loving way of being.

And then on to other grandmothers and another John who sits with different Christmas trees with a burliness that goes well with his imaginative and lively outlook that he shares with his strong-willed sons who are also inventive, with a quiet caringness from Paul, a burst of energy from Henry, and a skeptical, but informed view of the world from Jacob. Held together with help from their mother who is always poised though she thinks otherwise with a strong-will and firm way of being.

At the Chinese restaurant Uncle Stevie waits for the order while his wife sits at church with the rest of us. Stevie carries himself with a gentle, though dynamic way of being that rests on his kindness that he expresses to anyone who needs it and that goes nicely with his vibrant and lively daughter who is sharing an elegance with her mother who with a soft exquisiteness brings together the fluid smarts of her daughter and the animated smarts of her son.

Foot tapping in a church pew wedged next to his brother, Kevin, with a lively outlook and a vivid intenseness smiles at his brother holding a laugh waiting till church ends. And it ends and he shares a laugh and his sense of humor with his brother who carries the same intensity in a different way funneling it into jazz rather than into the open where they both combat the world with careful and not so careful strikes. Their sister holds back, with generosity and beauty, glowing she steps out of the church. And Nancy their mother also steps out trusting all of us and carrying with her an energetic vivaciousness she brings to her family. Their Dad not with them carries himself proud presenting a rowdy front, sometimes disrupting, but still loving the pride he has for his family.

Mimi looks out from church, organizing the next event in her mind and smiling lovingly at her family, missing her husband with a full body hurt and knowing that he tied this family together so well with strings of big-heartedness and a giant roar of a chuckle that expressed love for us all, but a funneled a huge portion just for her. She smiles at this and bustles us all out transferring that love she felt to us with an organized togetherness that we take appreciatively and thankfully.

My Dad dynamic and displaying a vibrant liveliness for Christmas chuckles and places his arm on the shoulder of his daughter Camille who always carries herself so well consistently giving off her glowing beauty that is so rarely contained and therefore taken in by many. She links arms with Eliza whose fervor catches onto beauty with a brightness that latches hold. Together they walk from the church, my mom with an artistic dazzle that makes her smile softly in her kind and self-aware way, watching her daughters who carry themselves with such beauty, generosity, compassion, and gentleness, one would be foolish not to walk with them and to share what they have and what my family has.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.