merry christmas

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!

Oh night divine, the night when Christ was born;

O night, O Holy Night, O night divine!

Truly he taught us to love one another,

His law is love and his Gospel is peace.

Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother.

And in his name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

Let all within us praise his holy name.

Merry Christmas!

(images from the National Gallery, December 20, 2008)

commonplace

"Commonplaces never become tiresome. It is we who become tired when we cease to be curious and appreciative."

Norman Rockwell

Have you ever stopped and looked at a Norman Rockwell print? I hadn't until recently. I have memories of a glass cabinet at my grandma's house in Pennsylvania where my Grandpa Russell displayed plates with Rockwell prints and old Saturday Evening Post magazines. I wasn't too interested in them as a kid and don't remember ever stopping to look at them. I wish I had.

In November my dad and I went to the opening of the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the Chrysler. My expectations were low. To be quite honest I enjoy scoffing at cartoonish art and prefer the ornate style of Italian Renaissance art -- this is art that is both thought provoking in deeply spiritual ways and also breathtakingly beautiful with delicate, lacy gold details. There is this room in the Louvre, you go up the stairs towards the Winged Victory and then you turn right and go through this corridor lined with incredible Giotto pieces and frescoes and then you enter into this mesmorizing Italian Renaissance room. Each time I find myself in that room I feel small and simple, in awe of the ability of beauty to communicate true, eternal things.

So Dad and I went to see Norman Rockwell and I was taken aback by his work. So simple, yet incredibly communicative and stylized. Commonplace and yet not the least bit trite or cliche. I couldn't quite put my finger on what drew me into the exhibit. Was it his depiction of faces? The way he uses the face as a means of evocating emotion? Certainly that was something I've been thinking about often these past weeks. The paintings recalled faces from deep in my memory -- loved ones, children in need, leaders of our countries. But that didn't seem like the thing that was drawing me in. We enjoyed the exhibit for an hour or so and then decided our ability to appreciate it was saturated and we exited although we had not seen one room in the back was the exhibit.

Tonight we went back to the museum. I was feeling slightly off-kilter, loose ends left undone from work pulled for my attention. The nagging feeling that days are just flying by without acknowledgement as busyness has crept in and pauses and rest and opportunities to notice beauty have been pushed out. The weather was warm, not at all Christmas-like and I have yet to really feel settled into the holidays. These thoughts swirled in my mind as I walked into the Chrysler. The atmostphere inside is always warm and inviting, but this evening felt especially so. The most beautiful evergreen roping glowing with white twinkle lights was draped down the staircases and a tree formed from gorgeous red pointsettas was set to the side in the main room. The wonderfully simply, elegant decorations felt comforting and reorienting. Dad went to get two glasses of wine and we sat and talk and kept saying how pretty the museum looked. We finished our wine and headed into the Rockwell exhibit, into that back room that we had left unexplored during the previous visit.

The room is painted a vibrant yellow and each wall holds a portion of Rockwell's 353 magazine covers. Some of the covers are from actual magazines, mailed to subscribers. They sit in simple frames and they hold still shots of wonderfully American, wonderfully human moments. A girl holding up her prom dress looking in a mirror, a family saying grace before dinner, a young girl self-scrutinizing as a beauty magazine lay open on her lap. I started thinking about these shared moments, about the ways that the magazine images conjured memories from my own life. The anticipation of Christmas as a child, the joys of summer, long car rides torturing my little brother on our way to my grandparents house. It was such a neat experience to walk around this room, to see framed moments and memories and to see things I have not yet experienced which I look forward to. I'm learning slowly that the commonplace is not necessarily cliche, but instead that it is shared experiences and moments. And, I'm learning that a great deal of joy comes from these simple, ordinary moments.

So, may your Christmas season be filled with wonderful, ordinary moments. And may you find great joy and great awe and wonder in each of them.


Ok fine, and may it also be filled with a few beautifully ornate and grand moments as well.

(images via www.normanrockwell.com and nrm.org)

oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree!

We're kicking off our fun old fashion family Christmas by heading out into the country in the old front-wheel drive sleigh to embrace the frosty majesty of the winter landscape and select that most important of Christmas symbols.

Clark W. Griswold, A Christmas Vacation

Ryan called me indian giver scrooge the week before Thanksgiving because I refused to get a Christmas tree before Turkey Day. He asked if we could have two trees in the house and I said sure. He took my response to mean that we could go get the trees immediately. I reminded him that we would not have any trees until after Thanksgiving. I wouldn't compromise. I wouldn't hear anything of an evergreen in the house before November 27th. He thought I was just being scrooge, but the truth of the matter was that a co-worker told me that her grandfather has a Christmas tree farm in Williamsburg and I had made arrangements to go the Saturday after Thanksgiving to cut down our very first Christmas tree. So on Saturday we drove to Williamsburg to get the tree! Ryan was very excited and as soon as we arrived at the farm he hopped out of the car and started surveying the grounds...


Just like in Christmas Vacation, our tree practically had a spotlight shining on it...look at the glow!

and look at the glee on Ryan's face when he found "The One"
The only remaining question was whether it would fit into our house..."Oh yea, I'm sure it will fit...it's not even that big..."

So we notified the proprietor that we had found our tree and he handed Ryan a saw to cut it down.

Ryan and dear old Mr. Bradshaw loading the tree in the tractor:

And there it is in the big green truck ready to go home! We were nervous that our tree was too small, that it might look too scrawny or small in our home. Upon getting it inside we realized that we had chosen a tree that was just as tall as it was wide. I mean, this is a fat albert of a tree. We set the tree in the middle of the front window where Ryan's grandparents always put their tree, but it stuck halfway out into our living room. We moved it to the side of the room, in a little alcove where we usually have two chairs and a small table. It fills the space perfectly! Note Ryan's astonishment at the breadth of the tree...

We were excited to have the tree up in time for the little leftovers party that we were having the Saturday after Thanksgiving. And we were excited for Greg Sceviour to be home!

More to come on the finished product...