“Babe” the Pig makes Christmas stick
I am going to share with you one of my favorites quotes from the movie “Babe”. It was the mean, wicked cat that shared her undadulterated take on the life of a pig with “Babe” the pig, by starting out with: “It is a cold hard fact of nature…”
Well, it is a cold hard fact of nature that nature can be cold and hard. Or soft and beautiful. Depending on where you stand in life or what lens you are looking through. Strange thing is that I always try to look at life through a nice clear lens so that I may enjoy the best perspective and yet I seem to consistently end up with a cloudy, hazy view that makes me wonder, if I will ever see the crisp, clear light of day again.
I have always been a very positive person. Except for the times when I am not. But it is not seasonal depression that I am suffering from. It is situational depression, depression as a natural consequence to depressing things happening and an environment that perpetuates the situation. So, I need to focus on something positive. Like Advent!
Remember when I told you I was German? Born and raised? Don’t remember? Well, today I am not going to give you a hard time about it. You’ve got other things to worry about. Like Christmas fast approaching and you are so broke that you are paying your grocery bills with a credit card. And you are wondering what you are going to give to your children for Christmas seeing that there seems to be nothing to give to children who are used to a very different level of lifestyle than the one you are living now (without them and after the divorce). A most depressing prospect (and a record run-on sentence)!
So, what are you to do? I know, your first incling was to just sit down and weep. And I know you followed that instinct and sat your sorry butt on the 4th step of your hallway stairway like you always do when you contemplate the woes of the world. A box of Kleenex later, swollen bags under your eyes and a most unattractive reddish palor on your face, you decide to take a shower and wash the misery and the grey right out of your hair. Well, it did do wonders for the misery, but as for the grey, you realized it is going to take a box or two of 100% grey coverage hair colorant to do the job. Oh well!
So, all clean faced, well groomed and dressed you decide you are going to take your troubles and your laptop over to Starbucks where the friendly baristas (male and female) always give you a boost by gracing you with their warm smiles and a cup of your favorite hot beverage. Am I right? Yep, you and I we are one of a kind and so let me spin this tale of woe into a tale of cheerfulness just the way you did. Oh, and by the way, I thank you for your positive example.
And right there, at Starbucks, as you start writing another blog post, it occurs to you that very few of the materials things that you and your ex-husbands had given to your kids as Christmas gifts have even survived to the present, forever replaced with newer versions of material things. And that’s when it hit you. This year, you are going to turn your seeming disadvantage into a treasure, into something that will not be replaced with an updated version, but something that will stand the test of time
You are going to share with your children the traditions of your childhood. Not that you haven’t already done that by exposing them to it over the span of their (short) lifetime but this time, you are going to make sure that you will do hands-on demonstration, tying them down in the kitchen if necessary and follow up with a collection of recipes.
Some of your traditions they have already taken on because they were involved in it all along. Like baking bread. Like making cookies.
Spitzbuben
Like making Spaetzle. With this contraption:
Spaetzlespresse
Schwaebische Spaaetzle
And just as the narrator proclaims in “Babe” that “The time comes for all creatures when childhood ends and the doorway opens to life as an adult” you realize that thinking about all those gifts you can share with your children (for them to share them with their children way down the road…) provides you with a feeling of warmth and happineness that once again requires a box of Kleenex. For your sake I hope that someone remembers to replenish your tissue supply this Christmas!
Over and Out.