Christmas 2020

How was your Covid Christmas? 

It was difficult to not feel a little different this year during the Christmas season.  Though Zoom replaced some of my usual holiday gatherings with friends and I was able to celebrate Jesus’ big day with my family this season sure felt different.  None more than Nochebuena, our first Christmas Eve (since my reversion) that we haven’t gone to midnight service.  Our parishes weren’t offering it because Mass is back to being held outside again.  It was depressing not being able to go kiss and adore baby Jesus in the manger after Nochebuena service like we have done for so many years now.  

Christmas Day proved equally different because I attended Mass with only my siblings.  My parents are both retired and at the age that the virus seems to hit most severely so we have been trying to keep them safe.  In addition, they are avid news viewers and I think this has made them a little more anxious about going out. It didn’t help, that aunt called and informed us that all her kids are infected.  Yet, what hit my mom worse is that a childhood friend of hers is battling for her life with the virus in the hospital.  We have been praying for her as a family and hope that she can recover even though it seems unlikely.

We are the lucky ones thus far because other than quarantine we have been doing well. The consequences of the virus have been felt in ways that is probably sinful to complain because as I celebrated this Christmas surrounded once more by my parents and those who I love most our hearts are full.  Not being able to go to Midnight or Christmas Day service with my parents made me realize how much I take for granted.  It felt incomplete to be able to attend without mi familia; yet, when I helped mom with our annual tamale batch, or when we gathered together to pray and eat dinner or when we opened gifts this year those moments felt so much more special.  Not being able to worship together during Mass only amplified the moments where we could be one family and I had to thank  Jesus for giving me so much this troublesome year.

Penny's Bakeoff Challenge

This week was such an emotionally good week.  While the pandemic left us no choice, but to try are best with virtual I still felt connected to my kids and coworkers.  Yesterday, our region provided a cooking lesson type virtual party for staff.  They hired the local cooking school that we bring in to teach our students culinary skills, but this time for the staff.  As an avid “British Bake Off” and “Nailed It” viewer I felt like my dream of being a contestant on said shows were brought to life.  During the three-hour lesson I scrambled around my kitchen, thinking I need to buy sharper knives, and a scraper and a better mixer- I guess I just couldn’t face the reality that perhaps the cook was the one with the deficiencies (wink).   

It was my first time working with real pasta dough and my goodness I just got a new appreciation for Italian chefs! How in the world can anyone cut the pasta in perfect lines and keep it from becoming mush!  I also got experience cooking with a timer- most of the time I was rushing trying to keep up with the instructions coming from my computer.  I think the chef, thought that teachers are great students, but we kept asking her why our dishes weren’t looking like hers, what to do when we messed up and to please slow down!  At a time, I thought the chef looked annoyed by our inadequacy.  In the end my pasta turned out like a pile of mush that even Francis didn’t want to try it.  I was thinking, “I am cooking dinner for my family,” but if I was competing on “Nailed It” I would have been in last place.  That’s how disastrous my linguine carbonara looked and tasked to match.

In the end I learned, that I am a baker and while I love to eat, as a cook I am still a work in process.  My dessert, pistachio biscotti, turned out yummy and looked much like the chefs.  Francis wouldn’t try it either, but my dad and nephew had a slice and that made all the mess and dishes that I had to do after worth the stress of being in my schools cooking competition. 

My Lady of Guadalupe Altar

I had a milestone birthday recently and I felt all this pressure to make it special after all I am the girl that still has themed annual celebrations.  Maybe the lockdown due to the pandemic gave me too much time to think and I kept the hope that by November I would be able to travel.  As the day grew closer and I realized that things weren’t changing, rather the upcoming holidays meant more restrictions- out went the last hope that I would celebrate around the world.  My last hope was that I would be able to take a weekend trip to visit la Morenita en el D.F.  Yet, when I shared with my parents they jokingly said, “make sure you book a hotel to stay at for two weeks afterwards to quarantine.”  Then a friend further sealed my plan when she told me that her husband was stuck in Mexico after contracting the virus in an emergency visit he had to make.

Though, I ended up having a simple, quite-enjoyable celebration at home, I felt like every time I plan on visiting the Virgencita something keeps me from going.  I was moping around thinking about my unfulfilled plan, when I read something that made me smile Grande!  Our Lady comes to all of us, she’s not in quarantine in her Templo, she is with us. When we call to her she comes to our assistance. 

This year has been quite difficult. I know that to complain about not being able to travel is quite petty when people are struggling with real troubles.  Yet, I miss the freedom to do those things that nurtured my being.  These past few months, I have struggled with my mental health.  Initially not being able to go to Mass or attend faith groups really messed with my head because the things that kept me sane were taken away.  I am a person who finds the greatest fulfillment in spending quality time with others and no matter how great Zoom is, it just doesn’t replace the intimacy of being together under one roof. This week I was put on a fourteen-day quarantine from work, after a student tested positive for Covid and though I am able to work from home, I miss leaving the house.

As I prepared for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I realized that she is with me.  I don’t need to go to a specific location to be with her, she comes to me!  So, for the first time I built an altar for her and it made me so happy to pray the final novena day in front of it. 

My Love for Christmas Ornaments

When I was a little girl my elementary hosted the book fair every year before Christmas break.  They always sold little figurines or ornaments in addition to books and I would always save a few bucks to do my Christmas shopping.  Every year I had enough for two gifts and every year I bought two gifts one for my parents and the other for my sister.  Even then, I knew that my sister’s love language was receiving gifts.  Every year I would study the figurines and ornaments before picking the two I would spurge on and then I would go home and wrap them satisfactorily putting them under our tree.  In my child’s heart I imagined the joy that my recipients would express when opening my gifts… The first year my sister opened the gift I saw the disappointment in her face, but I thought I had just chosen the wrong figurine.  However, the years that followed she would open my gifts while saying, “I don’t know why, I even open these when I know how lame they are.”  Sometimes, I would have her open both thinking that perhaps she would like one of the two ornaments I was gifting, but every year I never got it right. 

Now when I go thrifting and I find ornaments I think about who gifted the wrong figurine in hopes of brightening another person’s day.  What little child went to her book fair and instead of buying something for herself spent all she had on another?  I think of the millions of gifts that were wrong and end up in a pile of rescue me from the landfill.  I have learned that I cannot take all of them home, but every Christmas season I end up with a couple more saved ornaments that make the little girl in me exceedingly happy!  This has turned into a collection- a religious ornament collection. Some are worth a pretty penny because they are glass-blown, hand-painted by renowned artists and others are probably still found in book fairs across the country. 

Every year when I take out my ornaments, I study each one and it sends all sorts of happy into my body.  Each one is special to me and each one for the most part has been rescued from the landfill.  I have pieces from some of the top ornament designers that survived not being wanted and have found a home in my tree.  This year as I put up my tree I was afraid that Francis would knock it down confusing my ornaments for toys, but so far, he has shown little interest in my little pleasures.  This year while I put them up my sister said, “Wow, we have so many really nice ornaments…”  And that put the biggest smile on my face!