Christmas Afterthoughts

Fancy this: Two days of Miller Family gatherings and time to write about them the day after--if I can think of something to write about.

The Soapberries
Lowell and Judy hosted the family on Christmas Day. The creative and nature-loving members of the family did what I love to see in decorating for Christmas. They used ubiquitous Redcedar greenery, but chose carefully to feature the small branches loaded with blue berries . Among the green cedar, they positioned clusters of textured gold Soapberries harvested from a fencerow several miles from their house. Candles and festive tablecloths created a celebratory ambiance.

Not many people seem to know about soapberries. They grow on small, very tough trees that grow in the wild here. The leaves are compound, like a miniature Walnut tree. The berries grow in clusters of marble-shaped inedible fruit. Each fruit has a black seed in the center. Around the seed is a firm transparent layer of clear gold, at this time of year shrunken just enough to create a glossy bubbled-paint surface.

I'm pleased to say that more than a decade ago I had the foresight to dig out some soapberry seedlings from a fencerow about a half mile south of our place. I replanted them at the Trail West house after reading in literature from the state extension service that the tree was well-suited for Kansas landscapes but was not readily available in the trade. They're thriving and multiplying in that location.

Within only a few years, the landowner in the field adjacent to the soapberry fencerow did the mega-farmer number on the Soapberries--dozing them out, as he did the trees growing in the grassy waterway through the field. The place was just beginning to be ideal wildlife habitat, and now the often-dry waterway has reverted to a comparatively unproductive, erosion-prone "ditch" in an otherwise featureless flat field. From my perspective, this was a shameful waste of perfectly good resources, but--what do I know?

Long ago, people used to use Soapberries to work up a lather when they did laundry. I don't know how it worked.

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The Plan to Be More Organized

I suspect that this does not happen in every family, but in ours we do a great deal of unproductive talking and wondering aloud and asking each other about the holiday plans. This usually happens well in advance of an event, but the actual planning happens in a narrow window of time just before the event transpires, in a flurry of emails, phone calls, duplication of efforts, and miscommunications. We're at least vaguely aware of turns, but mainly thinking hard (and frantically?) about what we can contribute to the gathering. I think we're finally catching on that Mom is not able to be the "Spear-header of Family Events." Since this is the case, in the absence of a natural and universally acclaimed event-planning leader in the family, we sort of bumble along, and in the nick of time, someone invites the crew to their house, and we all go there and eat lots of good food while we're together, with everyone having contributed a share.

Linda reports that once when Mom still did most of this work, she urged Mom to do something simple the next time. Mom captured what we all know now when she said: "Nothing is simple when you're planning for 40 people." Our clan is bigger than that, but that's how many were together this Christmas.

We have resolved to be more organized. It's probably not a hopeful sign that we left the last late night Christmas gathering without a firm plan in place for how to do this. Maybe Linda will be in charge of the next event and we'll all contact her for marching orders and then hasten to do her bidding (like that has ever happened before, without comment, in this opinionated family). We'll go down the line in order of age, and every time, everyone will know who to ask about the plans. It's a good thing we're blessed with some in-laws with stellar organizing/coordinating skills.

I wonder how other families do these things.

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Birthday

Besides the Christ-child's birthday we all celebrate at this time of year, our family celebrates Bryant's birthday. He turns 12 today, on the 26th.

Rhoda tells us that Marvin and Lois, who were in Kansas to visit over Christmas, went to see the new baby Bryant in the hospital when he was newborn. Lois was using the teachable moment to explain some things to her very young children, and mentioned a "small door" as the means of entrance from tummy to terra firma. Someone took a video of the visit, and after/during the explanation, Myron (the slightly stressed new father) was heard to mutter in the background "a very small door."

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Confessions

One of my younger sisters confessed over the time we were together that she always thought all her older sisters were good at something, but she wasn't really good at anything. The older girls could cook, or clean, or they were smart, but she wasn't above average in anything. Then an in-law confessed that she felt below average when she joined the family.

Sigh. A knowledgeable onlooker would not for a minute consider any in-laws below average, or any family members devoid of some outstanding ability. Not nearly everything, however, transpires in the realm of average-to above-average. We have visible warts, and the longer we live together, the more obvious some of them become. But we love each other and wish each other complete freedom from any toxic complexes that entered the psyche in the past.

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