First Footing and Old Year's Night

A couple of years ago I discovered some long lost relatives here in North America. All of them are originally Scottish, as was my maternal grandfather. I always called him Other Daddy, because, during the years of the Second World War when my father was away 'up north', my mother and I lived with my grandparents and my aunt. They always referred to New Year's Eve as Old Year's Night and made a big deal out of First Footing.
So I always wondered, 'What is that?'
Three Christmasses ago we were in England and I met a woman who kept the tradition. 'First Footing,' she said, 'means bringing in the New Year.' That is, someone actually came to the front door at midnight and stepped across the threshold. This had to be a tall, handsome man. In my mother's family it was always Other Daddy.
The chosen First Footer would carry in his pocket a piece of coal wrapped in a cloth. This he'd place in the hearth to bring warmth for the year ahead... soul warmth as well as physical, I imagine. And new fire for the new year!
Then he'd throw a handful of silver coins up the stairs. These would quickly 'disappear' -- maybe under the carpet. When Easter approached and the time for spring cleaning came, the woman of the house would clean the stairs, discover the money and pocket the coins. So, silver... a precious metal that reflects, maybe indicating a look back over the year, but also then, the hidden treasure that can come with the spring and be anticipated.
Other Daddy died on Old Year's Night during the war. In one of those amazing graces of fate, my father was down from up north -- the desert where his task was to ensure safe drinking water for the Allied troops. He was the linchpin not only for his own family, but for my mother's as well. So he accompanied my grandfather during the last minutes of his life and saw him over the threshold of death.
New Year's Eve in our family was always tinged with this memory. We looked back with both sadness and gratitude, but also forward, with hope.

Gift evaluation

So how did I score? I bit the dust with one gift, but hit the jackpot with another. The latter was a happy accident. I happened to see the specially-designed canvas bag with its outside pockets for scissors, yarn, or whatever, and thought 'perfect for my daughter in law'. And it was. She's a knitter, you see.
Maybe the key is to be on always on the qui vive for gifts.... but the worst is wandering the stores hoping that an item will hit you in the eye.
The other option, which I overlooked before, is the list. A wish-letter to Santa. Oh ho ho, what pitfalls lie therein, as I've been hearing from a couple of friends who are also parents. What happened when their offspring, be they six or twenty-six, didn't receive exactly what was asked for? Bubble and trouble, it seems.
I spent a few moments thinking maybe we should do away with Christmas gifts altogether, but no, I'll stick to my challenges. It's a good soul exercise to give consideration to what would please this or that person who's dear to me. For surely, the best gifts are those that are unexpected, yet appropriate. Like most things, I guess the way to go is to put in some time, effort and creativity. Luckily I've got almost a year to practice.

Midnight stars

One Christmas Eve when I was a teenager, I was invited to go to the Moon. No, really. This was a hotel on the outskirts of Johannesburg. In those days, going dining and dancing on the 24th December was what young people did.
I was expected to be home soon after midnight, which meant being out at this time and having the chance to look up at the sky. The air on the Highveld is thin and clear, and the heavens are full and bright with stars.
Later, when we enjoyed family Christmas holidays at the coast, I'd make sure to step outside at twelve o'clock and look up. On the farm, in England, and now in Canada -- so in both northern and southern hemispheres -- this is what I still love to do. Tonight at midnight, I'll step outside, gaze up at the heavens and see what I can sense.... Something, perhaps of a cosmic Christmas that can happen for us all.

Quirky events

Here are recent incidents from my life. I post them in the spirit of the season, hoping to amuse you.
A couple of days ago, I looked out my bedroom window and across the road to my neighbour. And saw Santa on their roof! Not one of thos plastic figures, but a real guy. He was busy around the chimney and it looked like he'd draped some red stuff around it. I wondered if he was making sure there'd be enough room for him to slide down on Christmas Eve.
Hold that image.
Yesterday morning, I'm at my desk and beginning a rewrite of my children's novel. The heroine's name is Grace. It struck me that there are quite a few Graces around now (yes, the lower case ones too) and I'm wondering if I should perhaps change this to Gwen. Critique partners aren't keen. Hmm.
The phone rings -- the Identicall number that only the family uses. Happy to hear from whomever, I pick up. A strange woman's voice asks, "Is that Gwen?"
"Well, it's Bren. Brenda."
"Oh no. I'm looking for Gwen."
Huh?
Late morning, I head to the kitchen. The small table where we mostly sit to eat looks crummy, and the mats need wiping. I take everything off -- candle, matches, napkins, salt and pepper -- dust and polish the wood, clean the mats. Now the table is bare. I'm thinking 'I don't really have anything for lunch.'
The phone rings. It's our dear neighbour, saying she has food left over from her daughter's class party. "Would you two like to come over for lunch?"
Yesss!
During the course of the meal, I ask about Santa on the roof. The husband looks at me for a minute, thinking. Then he says, "Oh yeah. That was Nick!!"

The Present

Today I'm thinking of the smaller gifts I still need to buy.
Sadly, I'm not a particularly inspired gift-giver. My husband, our four adult children and their spouses are all better than I am at imagining just the right present to give. Maybe they're more able to put themselves in another person's life, which is really bad when you consider I'm a writer.
I'm working on it.
However, sometimes I get lucky. Or -- as I interpret it -- fortuitous forces are at work. One time I was packing in preparation for flying out to visit my aged mother. I needed something special to take to her, but what? What?
It so happened that one of my writing critique partners had offered to give me a ride to our meeting, to pick me up where my husband had dropped me off. Having almost twenty minutes to spare, I popped into the nearby Bay, wandered towards the nightwear and checked out the sale rail.
I saw it right away; a peach-coloured, candlewick bedjacket. Only one, and in XL. Now, you may not even know what a bedjacket it, they are so rare and hard to find these days. But my mother loved them. Because she slept in thin-strapped nighties, 'Thirties-style, she always liked to have one of these garments to put on when she sat up in bed to read, or to drink her early-morning tea, or the late night cuppa my Dad would make for her.
These days she's in her late nineties (told you she was aged), and spends longer in bed, not only when she catches a cold or flu, or when she recovers from a broken hip as she did last year. Winter and summer, she drapes my gift around her shoulders. The soft, fluffy jacket cuddles and comforts her.
"This is the best present you could ever have given me, Bren," she says.

Self-dicipline: good and not-so-good

My on-line journal is not really going to be about writing. Rather I'll be musing about soul experiences, and maybe occasionally the spiritual too. But I did want to consider something that plays into all three of these, and that's discipline.
You may think 'lucky you' when I reveal that self-discipline isn't a problem for me. Having discovered -- and this is the same for many writers -- that my creative energy is best during the morning and from mid to late afternoon, that's when you'll find me seated at my desk.
I can stick to a diet if I decide to. I can do daily exercise, or choose thrice weekly, or whatever. This ability I put down to my years of ballet-training when I endured the physical torture of daily class (yes, there was exhilaration too), and learned to push my body ever further and harder.
And therein, dear reader, lies the danger. Discipline does have a negative side. I can keep going, and going, when that internal monitor is shouting 'enough already', and my angel is making windmills to signal 'Stop!'
Because I've learned there's a price to be paid for distorting my will, and that is, I get ill or simply suffer what I call a flat tire. Do you know the feeling?
So I try not to go there, and to use my self-dicipline judiciously. Occasionally I even take a couple of hours on a weekday morning to goof off. And ah, how good that feels.

Living in winter colours

How deeply the environments we live in during our first years affect us. Africa is a bright country. Sunshine is deep in my bones. Blue skies above and many-hued flowers around me formed part of my birthright. So I love to live with colour.
Here in the east of North America, after the fall the world outside looks pretty drab to me. However, this is changing. Now that I've been in Ontario for almost fourteen years, I've gradually acquired an appreciation for these more subtle shades of brown, grey, beige, greige, olive green and faded blue. Instead of the joy of Wow! that I experience in summer and autumn, there's a kind of tender effect that I feel in my soul.
I know this is the darkest time of the year. The winter solstice lies only a couple of days away. But these mornings bring their own blessing. This is, that it's easy to see and watch the dawn break. As the sky begins to lighten, and delicate hues spread in the heavens, I find a different way of breathing it all in.

Is a hairstyle a defining moment?

A little over a week ago, I had a haircut. After being smooth and sleek for a few years, I wanted a change. So I went for layers and a slightly more shaggy look.When I got home, my dear husband approved. "Hey, you haven't worn your hair like that for a long, long time." Now, he usually likes it when I'm shorn, but he seemed somewhat more enthusiastic than usual.
I began to think back, and realized the style was similar to the one I'd had when I was seventeen. That was my age in those long ago days when we met. I'd had my long hair chopped off in London and the cut was known as a 'chrysanthemum'. Hmm.
And then I remembered a conversation with an old friend. Her opinion was that the way we wear our hair when we first meet someone -- and presumably like them -- will always be the favoured style. Maybe there's something in that idea, and maybe we take a kind of mental snapshot at that first moment, and this stays with us. Not that I'm likely to stick to this style. A change of topknot usually feels good to me.