On Christmas day, we are a family.

Iris row-row-rows the boat of Uncle Dan and Akiva in the big black chair

up and down, up and down.

Gramma (my mother, formerly known as Mom but now moved upward to a twice-exalted status)

cooks in what once was and what some day will be a lovely the kitchen.

This Christmas, again, it is an in-between kitchen, where one can admire the sub-floor,

the patterns of glue of plywood, the angles of dangling wires,

and the texture of scraped plaster.

Whatever state the kitchen, Christmas dinner tastes the same: delicious.

Papa (known as Martin by his peers) interviews his 100-year-old grandmother-in-law.

His charm is measureless and beyond words.

Gramps (once known as Dad, but now increased in rank)

washes Christmas dinner dishes at the exact same kitchen sink,

still located in the exact same place (note that!)

for the 39th year in a row.

In attendance but not pictured:

Mama (a.k.a. Jess(si[ca]) : photographer

Dinner: consumed with glee and without pause

My children are little birds. Little birds, and sometimes I keep them in a cage.

A cage: a house, a school, a plug.

I sometimes take them to the woods.

Here are the woods. This is our earth. This is where we are.

Here we are connected.

Here we are. Trees and roots and sky.

Here we are falling things. Here we are buried things.

 
Here we are the wind. Here we fly.

In the dark of winter, color disappears. All is grey and brown and white and dim with hints of blue. I go out to see the sun. My camera and I go to the river to search for color, but we find little. There is my children’s clothing: bright of blues, stark black, crazy patterns out of place in the deep-sleep time of winter. Their clothing should be brown: the color of the sleeping earth. Sleep is good. Let us not wake it.

Apologies: I failed to take any photos of the celebration.

Fortunately, I captured a couple crucial photos of the preparation.

1.

Akiva (left, in alligator suit) and Iris (right, in her heaviest winter sundress) chopped nuts for the stuffing without eating too many.

2.

Dan did most of the pie work, Ari did most of the turkey work.

Akiva tried to reduce the stress incurred when a 6’6″+ (with shoes) person works for hours at a counter built to be ergonomically suitable for a 5’5″ person.

Dan & Ari came to visit for Thanksgiving weekend.

Ari has been working in a lab for a long time now without much time to be around animals.

She spends some time reading “Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm.”

She checks a few animal facts on her computer & deems the book accurate.

Iris gives Uncle Dan a drawing lesson.

For my birthday, I kept my children home from school.

We went for a walk in the woods together.

It was quite nice.

Rapunzel stopped by. She was passing through, on her way from one home to another. I sewed her a couple years ago. She was wanting a spa retreat to spruce up her hair and wash off some spots. Iris took her out adventuring in the Waterville woods.

Rapunzel lies on her belly to watch the ice freezing below the little bridge.

A doll is quite nice, but a little brother is even nicer.

Iris finds Rapunzel a tower.

When the mud freezes, it squirts up strange little icicles.

They lift rocks and soil, twigs and leaves, as they twist and twine themselves into horned spires.