Christmas

One day a few weeks ago, I was chatting with Ivana when her son sent me messages when his mother stepped away from the computer. At first he typed a few coy greetings in English and in Czech. Then he typed "jezisek". He typed it twice more. It was a like child's whispered excitement about Christmas, and it made me smile. A whispered "Jezisek" is now the code around our house for "something wonderful is coming." For most children in America, well for those whose parents allow their celebrations to include the secular, it is Santa Claus who is eagerly awaited. As Fanda says, "Santa Claus v Americe."
Santa Claus comes on Christmas Eve, after the children have gone to bed, and we all open our presents on Christmas Day. Our family tradition for Christmas is a combination of traditions from mine and Thomas's childhoods and begins a whole month before Christmas Day, with the appearance of the Elf Calendar, a blank, homemade calendar (made by elves, wink, wink) for Santa's elf spies to grade the children in the house every day until Christmas. On the days when Bram is good, foil wrapped chocolate coins magically appear as immediate reward for good behavior. We hang stockings by the fireplace, wreaths outside on the doors and windows, solve the Christmas tree questions (live or artificial, lights or not, 1 or 2 or 3 trees), and decide if we will send Christmas cards (we didn't). This year, we had two artificial trees because we were gone for a week. We decorated one with candy and one with all natural things--berries and cones and such from the woods. We'll put all of the natural decorations back outside for the birds. One of my favorite things to have is a live tree decorated entirely with things that the birds can use: seeds, berries, cones, bits of string and foil and fabric for nests, and which we simply move to the yard to be used for habitat and supplies for birds and other wild creatures.

On Christmas Eve, we went to Georgia for Christmas with Thomas's mother. When I was a child, we always went to my grandmother's house on Christmas Eve to open some presents and to have a big dinner there. My grandmother absolutely loved Christmas, it seemed, especially giving gifts. Of course, what child wouldn't adore a grandma who was generous in her giving of gifts, and who was often funny about it, too? On her always-too-huge and oddly shaped tree, she sometimes hung little unwrapped gifts which could only be found by lying under the tree and looking up into it. One year it was wildly colored socks, and now my mother-in-law usually gives me a pair of silly socks on Christmas Eve. I guess I am a little big now to be crawling under the tree.
On Christmas morning, Bram woke us up before sunrise to see what Santa had brought him. He was very deliberate in opening his presents, as always, unwrapping, opening, and giving each gift a fair amount of attention before moving to the next one.This takes an especially long time with the books he gets. The entire process took him three hours! And then he played with his toys and read in his new books while Thomas and I read ours, though I haven't yet started on the best one: the finished typescript of Thomas's next novel, dedicated to me. I think it is my favorite present this year.
In a day or so, we will go to Georgia to have the rest of our Christmas with my family. On New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, we will eat black-eyed peas (for luck) and collard greens (for money), and cornbread (because it is good and it goes well with peas and greens and it is as Southern as knedliky is Czech).