Home for Christmas

 

 

Our Christmas Tree.

We got our Christmas tree on Monday evening. It’s a nice eight foot tall Fraser fir. After getting it home, we spent the rest of the evening decorating it. Now it feels like our house is ready to celebrate the season.

Our tree with the house lights off.

Lately, I’ve had time at home that I hadn’t planned on. Our School was closed and doing remote learning two weeks ago and last week, after they reopened, I was only called in for two days. Of course, I have plenty of things to do at home to occupy my time. I had sign orders I was working on that I needed to finish and ship in time for Christmas. I spent time working on family history, my favorite thing to do with any time I can spare. I also spent part of two days processing squashes. I had several pumpkins and a big Hubbard squash stored on the back porch, but it was getting too cold to keep them there, so I steamed them, pureed them, and froze them. I ended up with 16 pints of puree.

Processing squash.

And I worked on garden plans. I took an inventory of my seeds. I am a seed hoarder. I cannot throw away seeds. Even if there’s just one or two left in the packet, I save them. I have lots of half-used and nearly empty seed packets, maybe over a hundred. But I don’t need an intervention. Last week, I sorted all the seed packets into a box that I divided into compartments according to their planting times. In that box, I have new seeds that I bought for the current or coming garden year, and old seeds from previous years. Seeds don’t last forever. As they get older, their germination rate drops. Some seeds are only good for a year. Others can last for many years if stored properly. In doing my inventory, I found that I have some seeds dating back to 2013. But they might grow.

My sorted seeds.

The garden of 2020, like most things this year, didn’t go quite as planned. After years of cutting back on my garden, I expanded it, planting crops I’d stopped growing in ground I hadn’t used in years. Some things turned out okay, others were total failures. The garden of 2021 will be bigger still. I plan to use up all of my old seeds in order to rotate in my new seeds. That means I’ll be attempting to grow two dozen different kinds of tomatoes. I have lots of packets containing a seed or two of different varieties that I’ve tried over the years. I have the varieties that I always grow – Amish Paste, Brandywine, and Heinz Classic. I have other standard varieties that I’ve tried at various times – Beefmaster, Fourth of July, Roma, and Rutgers. And I have some rather exotic varieties – Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, German Pink, Italian Heirloom, Indigo Rose, Indigo Apple, Stupice, Black Beauty, Costoluto Genovese, Hungarian Heart, Kellog’s Breakfast, and Pomodoro Red Pear. I love their names and I love to grow them, but I don’t love to eat them. I leave that to the tomato lovers.

I also have multiple varieties of peppers, basil, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce, beets, and beans. If I plant them all and they grow to maturity, we will harvest tons of vegetables next year. Of course, a lot them, being old seed, won’t even sprout, but I’ll try. To make room for all of that, I’ll need to construct more raised beds. I plan to cultivate parts of the Blake yard to make a huge pumpkin and squash patch and a huge tomato bed. And then there’s the flower garden! Oh, the plans, the charts, the maps, the dreams of garden glory! It’s fun to sit on a cold December day and ponder on it all.

It’s cold enough now most days that the rain barrel down at the barn freezes past usefulness, so on Tuesday I dumped it and put it in storage. From now until sometime next spring, I’ll have to carry water down from the house every day. I suppose I should think of it as good exercise, but I mostly consider it an annoyance. We’ve always planned to run a water line and an electrical line down to the barn one day. Maybe next year. I’ll add it to the long, long list of things to do.

Midweek it was cold enough that the beaver pond froze completely over for the first time. The beaver pond here in Gold is on the headwaters stream that forms the Middle Branch of the Genesee River. I noticed several weeks ago that the beavers have been stockpiling branches around their lodge. I’ve never seen them do that before. I wonder if they know something about the severity of the winter that lies ahead. So far, our weather has been pretty mild – but then, it isn’t even officially winter yet. On Tuesday evening we saw three beavers sitting on their stockpile feeding. We love to watch them. We are concerned that a boy at school informed Miriam a few weeks ago that he is going to set traps at the pond. I checked with the pond owner and he told me he has given permission to the boy to trap there this year. Trapping season runs from the day after Christmas to the end of March. We will fret during that entire time. The beaver pond is a big part of our daily life here. We would be heartbroken if the beavers were killed. A beaver pelt only brings about $13, so we even thought of bribing the boy to not trap there.

Beavers (if you look closely) on their stockpiles.

The past two days we’ve had a December heat wave. The temperature rose into the 50's and melted almost all of our snow. Only the most persistent patches remain. It will turn cold again tonight when we drop into the 20's again, but I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll have a white Christmas. I just looked at the long range forecast and there is a little snow predicted between now and then, but not much. We’ll see.

December sunrise.

Yesterday was December 12th, a day that I commemorate every year with a personal observance. For the last forty-one years I always sing I’ll Be Home for Christmas at some time during the day on the 12th even though I’ve been at home in one home or another for all of those years. The reason for that goes back to the time I was on my mission in 1978 and 1979.

Christmas 1978 was hard for me. I was in Japan, ten months into my mission. It was the first time I’d ever been away from home for Christmas and I was very homesick. The Japanese don’t really observe Christmas – at least not in the way I was used to. Most of the Japanese are not Christian so, although there were decorated trees in some store windows and Christmas music playing in the shopping streets, it all felt empty to me. At that time I was serving in the city of Minoo in the hills above Osaka with my companion Elder Pew, who was a very kind and humble missionary, and Elders Wadman and Morris. A few days before Christmas I received a box from home with cookies and a few wrapped presents in it. I shared the cookies with the other elders right away, but I arranged the wrapped gifts on my desk and waited. On Christmas morning when I opened them, I found a cassette tape of Mormon Tabernacle Choir music, a book, new socks (a blessing since my old ones were worn out and it was impossible to find socks sturdy and big enough for my feet in Japan), and some long underwear (also a blessing because it was very cold and damp). After we all opened our gifts, we took the train into Kobe to the Mission Home to attend a Mission Conference. All the missionaries in our mission were gathered there for a turkey dinner. It was a great treat. The turkeys (shichimencho in Japanese, which means “seven faced bird” – don’t ask me why) had been specially shipped in from America because the Japanese don’t eat whole roasted turkeys. After dinner, we got to watch a movie – Mary Poppins. This was back in the days when watching a movie meant a big projector and reels of film. Despite all of that, I went back to my area that evening feeling pretty low. I missed my family. I missed all the traditions I love so much. But Christmas passed and New Years came. New Years is a big holiday in Japan and my spirits quickly recovered. I kept on trying and doing my best and the months rolled on.

The genkan (entry) to our apartment in Minoo (note the beat up shoes).

Elder Morris (left) and Elder Pew (right).

Me in December 1978.

A year passed and it was December of 1979. Now I was serving in the city of Okamachi, a crowded area of Osaka next to the big airport at Itami. I was almost at the end of my mission. I was sick with a bad case of bronchitis and had a terrible cough. In spite of being sick, my companion and I tried to keep to the schedule and work hard. Wednesday, December 12th, was our weekly Preparation Day, the day in the week when we did our laundry, shopping, and wrote letters home. That morning we had the little kerosene heater on full blast in the main room of our small apartment. It was our only source of warmth, but even with it burning, our apartment was still very cold. The four of us – Elder Tingey and Elder Shirley (the Zone Leaders), Elder Tanaka (my companion, who was Japanese), and I were all dressed, lying in our futon beds, wrapped in blankets trying to keep warm while we wrote our weekly letters home. As we wrote, we were taking turns singing Christmas songs. When my turn came, I sang I’ll Be Home for Christmas. I had a nice voice back then and I didn’t cough once while I sang.

I'll be home for Christmas.
You can count on me.
Please have snow
And mistletoe
And presents under the tree.

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams.
I'll be home for Christmas,
If only in my dreams.

When I finished, there was silence except for a few stifled sniffles. Everyone had stopped writing. Then Elder Tingey asked me to sing it again. Just as I started, the telephone rang. Elder Tingey got up and answered it. It was the mission president, President Stout, and he asked to speak to me. As Elder Tingey handed me the phone, my heart was pounding and my mind was racing. Telephone calls like this usually meant a special transfer was happening. I’d had phone calls like that before. I hated being transferred. And here it was just thirteen days before Christmas and I was so sick and I had so little time left on my mission and I wanted to spend it there in Okamachi. The President chatted with me for a moment. He asked me how things were going, how my companion was doing, then he paused and asked, “Elder Howe, is Christmas an important holiday for you and your family?” I said, yes. He then said that, although I still had a month left on my mission, he needed someone to accompany an elder who was going home before Christmas and would I like to be that person? I hesitated a second before answering, yes. I didn’t know it then, but the Zone Leaders had called the President earlier that week and told him they were concerned about my health. This was the President’s way of giving me a graceful way to go home a month early. That was Wednesday morning and on Saturday morning I was home. Because of time zones and crossing the International Date Line (Japan is 17 hours ahead of Los Angeles), I took off from Osaka at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday and landed in Los Angeles at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, so I got to live part of that day twice. I actually came home to a new home I’d never seen before because my family had moved from Naperville, Illinois, to Sylmar, California, while I was in Japan. When I got home I slept for two days and it took several weeks for me to recover from my cough. That turned out to be a very merry Christmas for me. I was so happy to be home. That’s why I sing I’ll Be Home for Christmas, on December 12th every year. It makes me remember how good it is to be home with my family.

Arriving home for Christmas, 1979.

Home from my mission, 1979.

This year, because of restrictions due to the COVID virus, many people will be unable to travel home for Christmas or will be at home, but not with all their family gathered around them. I feel lucky and blessed that at our house at least there will be five of us – me, Stacey, Miriam, Hannah, and Josiah, who arrives home from school on the 19th. I love Christmas. I love the music, the decorations, the food, the presents, but it doesn’t really mean much without my family around me.

We have been concerned about my parents. Last week they both came down with COVID. They were not seriously sick, and were recovering, but then my dad developed other problems unrelated to the virus. He was taken to the hospital on Friday with pneumonia and severe pain in his legs. Because of COVID, he is there alone with no family allowed to visit him. Your prayers for him, my mom, and my sister Hollie and her family, who are caring for them, would be greatly appreciated. My dad is 90 and my mom will be 92 on the 30th of this month.

We’re back from church now. I was going to say that we got to sing Christmas carols today, but we really just hummed along to a recording. We aren’t allowed to sing in church and it makes me sad not to sing carols. We sang them in the car on the way home instead. Stacey is in the other room teaching a Sunday School lesson on Zoom. I’m listening, but probably not paying as close attention as I should since I am typing this. Our Sabbaths are so strange now. It’s gloomy outside, cold and gray with a cold drizzle falling. I wish it was snow. That would make things look more Christmassy. As soon as Sunday School is over, we’ll eat lunch. Then I’ll do the chores and take a little nap. Our evening plans involve Christmas movies and maybe a little treat. And the week will roll on toward Christmas.