A lot of people (including myself, sometimes), lament the seasonal rushing that comes this time of year. Early in the fall, or even late summer, just as we're trying to drag on those last days of languorous sunlight, jack o' lanterns and witches and ghosts begin to appear on store shelves along with massive backs of orange and black candies. It's hard to believe there will be a time for such things when it's still warm enough to swim and you can't quite tell when to bring the cooler weather clothes down from the attic. But just as soon, just as mysteriously, those witches and ghosts disappear from the shelves (even before their counterparts have had a chance to walk the streets with ghoulish delight) and are replaced with shiny gold and red baubles, green tinsel, and images of the jolliest of men. The leaves are still falling from the trees, pumpkins still line steps, and nary a turkey has graced the table, but be damned if you do not immediately start thinking of snow and humming "Jingle Bells."
I am of two minds this time of year. First there is the thought, What on earth is the rush? If we spend two months celebrating the coming of Jesus, Santa and his elves, peace on earth and goodwill toward men, and the Elf on the Shelf, then by December 25th, aren't we going to be thoroughly sick of it all? I do believe there is an Elmo Christmas special from way back that makes this almost exact point: Elmo wishes it could be Christmas every day and, through the magic of a Muppet reindeer, is able to make that wish come true. As it turns out, spending an extended amount of time celebrating Christmas drains everyone of the excitement of the season, making it as thoroughly unspecial as a Tuesday in March.
I say all this, and I am sure many who read this will agree with my sentiments, but as I type I can just see the cover of Truth in the Tinsel PDF hiding behind this open window on my computer screen. I have already checked Amazon and Etsy to track my orders of Christmas gifts twice this morning. And I have (I say this with a hung head) already played Christmas music (Granted! My mom and I are currently writing a children's Christmas story - more on that another time - and playing a little bit of Bing Crosby gets the creative juices flowing). As much as I want to put the breaks on all things Christmas, I can't help but feel a tiny bit of glee in the bottom of my stomach as I spot Christmas stockings for sale in local stores.
With Halloween coming at the end of this week, I'm finding myself feeling slightly bereft of sprightly Halloweeny spirit. I'm afraid my hankering for red and green lights and Christmas tunes has gotten in the way of enjoying the other two holidays that come before that most wonderful time of the year. I don't want it to be like that! I want to be excited to don my spider web earring and take E. and M. trick or treating. I want to sit down and feel thoroughly enchanted by Sparkle Stories sweet and only slightly spooky stories (we just listened to the Switch Witch this weekend and loved it). I want to think beyond all the wonderful handfuls of candy I know I'm going to eat Friday night (especially if the Switch Witch does make an appearance at our house...she may have to, depending on how much my husband and I eat).
The question I end up asking myself is how in sync do I want to be with the rhythm of the seasons and with my family? Thankfully, my littles are still thoroughly engrossed with what's just ahead of them that real thoughts about Christmas haven't entered their heads. I want to be where they are, excited about what's just ahead and instead of spending all my time looking just down the road. I do that naturally, it's in my temperament (and makes me completely Pisces), but with small children, when everything moves so damn fast to begin with, it does me little good to stretch my neck out and stare down the road ahead of me in this part of my life. So, I'm taking a step back from Christmas and asking myself the same question I have silently asked others - What *is* the rush?
I know church is sort of a weird place to hear a spooky story (granted, we go to a UU - you get all sorts of good "weird" there), but that's where I heard this one.
We had a guest pastor this past Sunday (Jennifer Wixson, a Quaker minister and writer), and with Halloween just around the corner, she decided to tell us the story of the autumn she spent in a cabin on the backside of Sabbathday Lake. Lots of strange things happened that fall, she explained. A strange, yowling black cat that seemed to only come to her, many unexplained thumps and bumps, and just a general air of unease that seemed to linger around her while she was staying in the cabin.
But one night, a Halloween night, things became especially strange. Spooky, even.
Our guest pastor was driving home very late that night and there was an especially thick layer of fog settled on the road she traveling home on. As she drove painfully slow through the fog, she spotted a strange figure ahead, moving down the middle of the road. As she drove closer, she realized it was a man carrying something on his shoulders, though what, she wasn't sure.
She stopped driving when the man was just ahead of her, and though she was more than a little bit anxious, she felt it wouldn't be right to just drive on without asking if he needed a ride, so she rolled down the window and called out, "Need a lift?!"
The man turned and grinned. "I don't need one, but my dog does!" Suddenly she could see what he was carrying on his shoulders - very dead dog. She could see, because its head had lolled towards her, right through her opened window. Shrieking, she shied away and head to resist the desire to just shove the gas peddle down to car floor.
"Did he get hit by a car?" she asked. The man didn't answer, but instead tossed the dog's corpse into the back of her pickup. More than a bit shocked, our guest pastor finally did hit that gas peddle, leaving the owner of the dead dog behind her. She glanced back once as she drove away and the man had disappeared.
As soon as she got back home, she ran inside and jumped into bed, throwing the covers over her head, not moving until morning and the safety of sunlight arrived. When morning finally did come, she summoned the courage to go outside and look at the dog in the back of her truck and make a decision about what do with it.
But the dog was gone. There was absolutely no trace of the dog. Not a spot of blood, not a hair. It was as if it had never been there.
It was not long after this, our guest pastor told us, that she really started to feel unwelcome in that place, that lovely cabin by the lake. She described a feeling of being chased out, and that if she didn't leave, things far worse than a dead dog in the back of her truck appearing and then disappearing were going to happen.
So, in addition to this great story, our guest pastor also shared this really awesomely creepy poem by James Whitcomb Riley, one that you might have heard or read before, or at least the title might be something familiar to you:
Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,
An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,
An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;
An' all us other childern, when the supper things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun
A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,
An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!
Onc't they was a little boy wouldn't say his prayers,--
So when he went to bed at night, away up stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wasn't there at all!
An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press,
An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found was thist his pants an' roundabout--
An' the Gobble-uns'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!
An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin,
An' make fun of ever'one, an' all her blood an' kin;
An' onc't, when they was "company," an' ole folks was there,
She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care!
An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide,
They was two great big Black Things a-standin' by her side,
An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about!
An' the Gobble-uns'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!
An' little Orphant Annie says when the blaze is blue,
An' the lamp-wick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo!
An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray,
An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away,--
You better mind yer parents, an' yer teachers fond an' dear,
An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear,
An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15240#sthash.dNhBu4XH.dpuf
Little Orphant Annie
by James Whitcomb Riley
Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,
An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,
An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;
An' all us other childern, when the supper things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun
A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,
An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!
Onc't they was a little boy wouldn't say his prayers,--
So when he went to bed at night, away up stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wasn't there at all!
An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press,
An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found was thist his pants an' roundabout--
An' the Gobble-uns'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!
An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin,
An' make fun of ever'one, an' all her blood an' kin;
An' onc't, when they was "company," an' ole folks was there,
She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care!
An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide,
They was two great big Black Things a-standin' by her side,
An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about!
An' the Gobble-uns'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!
An' little Orphant Annie says when the blaze is blue,
An' the lamp-wick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo!
An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray,
An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away,--
You better mind yer parents, an' yer teachers fond an' dear,
An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear,
An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15240#sthash.dNhBu4XH.dpuf
We've been busy here the last couple of days. The week of Halloween festivities has finally hit and kicked off with two things: a story and an early bout of trick-or-treating.
I'm awful about remembering my camera (and when I have it in hand, my photographs aren't necessarily worth hanging on to - one might think my children are simply colorful blurs rather than actual skin and bone children), but I really do wish I had it Friday. Our town and it's down town businesses do an annual Halloween walk in the afternoon a week or so before the holiday. This was our first year participating, but having done the town Easter egg hunt in the spring, which was similarly organized, I felt it would be well done, safe, and fun (which it was).
E., after much deliberation, decided she wanted to be a farmer, and a friend luckily spotted a pea pod costume for M. in a local consignment shop (we couldn't quite decide what he was going to be, so it was lucky we found the costume!). They both looked absolutely adorable and a lot of folks got a real kick out of their get up. I think for Halloween I'll even add a nice little blue ribbon for E.'s prize winning, and pretty huge, pea pod.
And now, for a story. I really enjoyed coming up with our Michaelmas tale early last month. I don't normally consider myself a good off the cuff story teller, but lately that skill is becoming fine tuned. It's especially helpful to have little M. to test things on. So, when I wanted to come up with a bit of a Halloween-y story that also corresponded with our changing scenery this is what I told M., and then later, E.
Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a little goblin who lived under a stump. All little goblins love to play tricks, and this goblin was no exception.
One crisp, autumn morning the little goblin came out of his hidey-hole and looked up at the green, green leaves of the trees.
"I'm tired of these green leaves," he said to himself. "I should play a fun trick to change just that!"
So each night, for many nights, the little goblin went out and painted the trees leaves. Some were golden yellow, others firey orange, and still more were golden red. Very soon, all the leaves were different colors and the little goblin was very happy and so where the people who would walk in the woods and gaze up and the beautiful fall leaves.
After some weeks, as the autumn air grew cooler, the goblin began to grow restless and tired of the colorful leaves. He was ready for another trick.
He thought to himself - "Wouldn't it be fun if all those leaves feel to the ground. The would go swoosh, swoosh crunch under people's feet, and mothers and fathers would rake them up into piles and children would jump in them or hide in them and pop up and say, 'BOO!'"
So each night, for many nights, the little goblin went out and shook the trees, making their leaves flutter down to the ground. The wind helped, too, and soon all the trees leaves fell to the ground, going swoosh, swoosh, crunch under people's feet and being raked into piles from children to jump and hide in.
The little goblin was very happy with his tricks that autumn and thought perhaps it would be fun to do them every year. And from then until now, everyone has seen his handiwork in the autumn's colorful and falling leaves.
E. really loved this story and has since requested others (including one featuring a swim in "our" lake). I've told her she has to give me a couple of days to think of something, but I think I can fulfill the order.
A quick little note: This little story is my intellectual property. If for some reason you feel like you'd like to share the story online, please link back to my blog. Thanks! :-)
