December 2007 - Posts
New Year’s Eve has always been one of “those” holidays. You know the ones: sometimes you celebrate it with friends, sometimes you stay home, sometimes you accidentally fall asleep on the couch and miss the hype altogether.
When I was growing up it was always fun to see if we could make it to midnight to watch the ball drop on Times Square (in those days D ick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve was actually still on at midnight and we got to watch the ball drop live). My parents would always make a fun night of it: we’d do something like pizza or take-out chicken for dinner, and snack on chips and fondue throughout the night while playing cards and board games until The Magic Hour.
At both the high schools I attended – first in Missouri and then in Iowa when we moved – the big thing to do with my friends was to get together at someone’s house and rent movies and snack on popcorn, chips and other junk all night. When I’d come home for break while in college, a group of us would go out dancing or out to dinner and eventually end up, again, at someone’s house to wait for midnight.
As a parent, New Year’s Eve now is back to the kids, only this time I’m the adult planning the get-togethers. Usually each of my kids has a friend or two over and we make cheese dip, smokies and pizza rolls, either rent movies or video games and pop the “cork” on a bottle of sparkling cider (or Mt. Dew for the boys, who are “too cool” for cider). Usually I’m alone in the living room while all the kids are off doing their thing in various parts of the house and I have to call them all together at about 11:55.
No matter where we are or what we’re doing, I’ve always enjoyed bringing the new year in with friends and family, taking the time to look back at the past year and forward to the new one all at the same time.
I've been looking forward to decorating our house for Christmas since we moved in June. Before buying our 1910 dream home we were in a town home. It suited our needs. But, I'd always wanted to live in a house with original hardwood floors, crown molding, formal dining room and an open staircase. My vision of the perfect house was influenced a lot by my grandparents 1800's home in Pennsylvania. Since we usually visited them around the holidays, my vision usually included Christmas decorations.
So, more so than in year's past I was particularly anxious to get up our decorations this year. Our tradition is to get everything out the day after Thanksgiving. In part it's because by November 24 I'm sick of all my fall decorations and am ready for a change. Also, I figure getting everything out is such a production we might as well enjoy it for as long as possible. And I'm not one for leaving the tree up past New Year's so that means getting the tree up early.
Nearly everyone I talked to on Thursday at Brucemore, which was festively decorated for the holidays, said their favorite decoration was the Christmas tree. For me I think my very favorite decorations might be the ones on the outside. I just love coming home to a festively decorated house in the doldrums of December. I wanted to string lights outside this year. My husband couldn't be convinced. So I had to settle for lights on our bushes. But, I did hang a wreath on the door. And I love pulling into the driveway and seeing that sign of the season.
It’s a really tough question: If I were driving alone, how likely would I be to stop and help a stranded motorist?
I had the opportunity to make this decision just a few days ago. I was making my 25-mile commute to work and happened upon a pickup on the side of the road. About a quarter of a mile down the road was a man in a coat, gloves and stocking cap carrying a gasoline can. It was cold – it was about 8 a.m. and probably 20 degrees – and he was probably a mile from the nearest gas station.
Because I couldn’t see his face, I didn’t stop. I almost did, and I really wanted to, but then I thought, “What if?” For the next three or four miles, though, I was mentally kicking myself. “He was probably perfectly safe,” I thought. “I would have wanted someone to stop for me.”
I am, honestly, ashamed that I didn’t stop, and to the man who ran out of gas: I’m sorry. But there is some degree of uneasiness around the whole “would I stop” issue. There are so many factors involved, there is no easy answer.
First of all, I need to take note of my own situation: I’m a single woman with two children, so if something were to happen to me, my point person would then become responsible for making sure my kids got to where they needed to be in case of emergency. This is true of anything I do, but why intentionally put myself in harm’s way?
Second, I’m a woman, plain and simple. No matter how much we’d like to think we are just as tough and just as capable as anyone, the truth is we’re the more vulnerable sex. As one man I approached at the airport told me, “Women need to be more careful than men do, they can become victims much more easily.”
It seems to be a universal thought. Both at the airport and in a quick random sampling of my coworkers in The Gazette’s newsroom, I received responses from 10 men and 14 women. The women, without exception, all had caveats attached to their answers: their assistance was dependent on the time of day, gender of the person in need of help and location of the stalled vehicle (on the interstate versus in town, for instance). Eight of the 10 men, however, were quick to respond with a, “Yeah, I’d help.” Of the other two, one wanted more details – was it raining or snowing, was he running late – while the other, as you’ll see in Monday’s On the Street feature, said he wouldn’t stop to help at night.
Finally, we’re in a mobile world in which darned near everyone who is old enough to speak has a cell phone. If I couldn’t stop, or wasn’t comfortable doing so, I would make a call to law enforcement or someone to let them know of the situation, assuming the dozens of drivers who passed before me hadn’t already done so.
So this is where we are. We have gone through so much and seen so much as a society that we are now afraid to stop to help lest we be the next victim featured on the front page of the morning paper or discussed on the evening news.
As I may or may not have occasion to mention on this forum before - I did not grow up celebrating Christmas. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just a teensy bit jealous of my friends who'd come back to school after break trading tales of what they'd had under the Christmas tree. More so, though, I was always jealous of my grandmother's Christmas tree. She had the most delicate glass ornaments passed down to her from her mother. They were all balls and drops, the kind with foil indented in the middle. I could sit for hours holding them gently, trying not to knock off the few remaining grains of glitter. I loved those ornaments.
It's funny the sentimental attachment people have to the ornaments that bedeck their trees each year. Most people I spoke with Friday night at the Anamosa Christmas Tree Walk told me that they're favorites were either hand made or ones that they associated with life's precious moments, like the birth of a child. This is something I'm just starting to understand.
Not having celebrated Christmas for the first couple decades of my life, I don't have boxes of ornaments, each one triggering a childhood memory. My husband does, though. His mother painstakingly packed away every ornament he ever made. We have plaster of paris Christmas bells and popsicle stick nativities. I love watching him gingerly place them on the tree each year.
So we're starting to do the same with our family. Each year we buy one ornament for our son and another for our family. So far our collection is small. But, someday, when our children are grown, we'll be able to pass the ornaments along to them so they can start their own traditions.