Remembering a Time Past

Somehow I got to thinking about something I thought about before — couldn’t believe it was back in 2016! (Everything after 2000 seems like yesterday to me…) This was back in the day before we had a Spotify playlist and could delete things that offended…

Banning Barbra and the Urgent Need for Intervention

If you're not careful, you might just be sitting there enjoying the Christmas music playing on your TV, when all of a sudden, they'll slip in a Barbra Streisand, and before you know it, she's slithered and slunk into your den, Grinch-like, with the aim of keeping Christmas from coming... Is there anything worse than her painfully self-indulgent "My Favorite Things?" Julie Andrews and lots of others can make this delightful song into a happy listing of comforts, but Barbra slips and slides in such a way that makes you cringe. It could be that her shoes are too tight, but by the end of the song, she's screaming and you're about to lose it as well. A close second to this abomination is her frantic, frenzied "Jingle Bells." It can drive you nuts.

The other morning as we were going to church to decorate for Christmas, we stopped by Mom and Dad's to drop off some country ham biscuits, and as M ran them up to the door, VK made some snide remark about Grandmomma's "apples." Usually her comments are quippy and funny, but this one prompted some compunctions. How could my own daughter look at my mom's beautiful apple door fan and think it was some embarrassing, decorative anomaly? I look at my mom's decorations and see a sense of self, a nostalgic comfort, a transplanted Virginian at home in South Carolina. A little remorse comes, though, because it's clear that our youngest, at least, is a little clueless about our Christmases Past. Now that my grandparents are no longer with us, we haven't been back to Virginia, but Aunt Linda, it's HIGH TIME for a trip to Williamsburg and a little, deliberate "home" training...

What made me return to these thoughts was being reminded of Barbra, but I’d forgotten the part about my Aunt Linda. She died this past spring.

We miss her and still forget that she’s no longer with us on this side. But we’re thankful for her — all the laughs, all the encouragement and confidence she had in each of us, all the fun we had together.