blahg, blahg, blahg…

I love Christmas. I love the holiday season. I love the lights, the music (listen to some of the funniest annoying holiday music here). I love the cold weather. I hope for snow. And for 45+ years or so, I’ve gotten up very early on Christmas morning, excited to see what’s under the tree. Even as an adult, I get up before the sun rises, put on the coffee pot, turn on the stereo and the lights on the tree and settle in for a morning of opening presents.

This year though, like a lot of folks, we’re facing a budget deficit in our household and so what might usually appear under the tree and in our stockings is likely going to be on the short side. Funny though, for some reason, this isn’t bothering me nearly as much as I might have expected. Here’s why…

Driving back from Thanksgiving at my mother-in-law’s house in Connecticut, my spouse said to me that she felt we’d grown a bit distant over the past months. Truthfully, this came as a surprise to me. I didn’t feel the same way at all. But couples don’t live happily together for years without every now and then being honest with one another like this, and so I listened to what she had to say and I thought about it a lot. It’s true that we’ve sprouted and developed lots of interests over the past years. Some of these have been mutual, but many are unique, resulting in time apart to pursue the things that individually make us happy. And that’s all good.

But also like many people nowadays, the daily stress of trying to make ends meet has taken a toll. We don’t get any extended vacation time together. We can’t afford to take trips away, just for ourselves. We both work multiple jobs and balance full work schedules with weekend chores and errands and maybe an occasional movie. But not much. There’s just not much left for much more. Not much time. Not much money. It can be stressful without one even realizing the stress.

So when Lynn shared this thought with me over Thanksgiving, I brought up this line of thinking. She said, “We have to think more creatively then” and she’s right. The other day, when wondering what and/or how I was going to manage Christmas presents this year, I realized that what Lynn really wants – and surprisingly, me too – is nothing at all. No thing. What she wants for Christmas and always is for us to be close, to do things together, to make time for one another. I wish for that, too. Like those hypocritical MasterCard commercials, what we both want is priceless.

Truth be told though, I’m gonna cry if there’s not a THING I can give Lynn for Christmas. (Okay… I’m gonna cry if there’s not a THING for me on Christmas morning, too.) I keep thinking about Lynn’s comment that we need to do is be creative (something that fortunately we’re both pretty good at) and the other day I thought of just the thing – the thing that combines both noTHING and someTHING. I’d write it here, but Lynn reads this blog and there are still a couple of weeks or so ’til Christmas, so it will remain a secret.

But the real message I think I’m writing about in this muse can still be shared – it’s that somewhat hokey message that the gift is in the giving. For those who believe in the Christian part of Christmas, that message is seen in the gift of Jesus. For others who believe in Santa, he brings gifts, too. For those who believe in the hope of a season of giving and the chance for peace in the world, well it’s certainly there as well. Give what you have the most to give, and that is yourself. Give yourself to those you love, to those in need, to those who you share space with in the world. It’s nothing and it’s everything.

All I want for Christmas this year is another year of a loving relationship with my bunny, another year of warmth in my home, another year of good humor and good friends, another year to grow in myself, and a way overdue visit with my Aunt Sheran. None of these will cost anything but my time and myself, and I’ll be all the richer for them.

Plus, I did just buy that 1914 A-4 Gibson mandolin that I’ve wanted forever. Money could buy me that. 🙂

She arrived yesterday in a nondescript, brown cardboard box, 30 x 16 inches, following an overnight trip from Colorado. I was tracking her on my iPod and called my neighbors after I saw her confirmed delivery, only to find they had already retrieved her and placed her on the bench on the landing by our back door.

“Do you think it’s too cold there?”, my neighbor asked. “If so, I’ll be happy to put it inside for you.” I said that I’d appreciate such and asked if he could check on the kitty while upstairs. He agreed to both.

When we finally arrived home, around 9:30 in the evening, after the car was unloaded, the dog walked, the Thanksgiving leftovers put in the refrigerator, I changed clothes and asked if anyone wanted to join me in unwrapping the package.

“I’ve been waiting for you to do so,” replied my spouse from the other room.

With an X-acto knife and pair of scissors, I carefully worked through the layers of packing tape, cardboard, bubble wrap, more tape and a towel wrapped carefully, but tightly, around her. Finally unbound, I pulled her from the towel and at last saw the mandolin I’d coveted since I’d bought my first Martin Backpacker mandolin in 2002, when I first decided to take up this little instrument that intrigued me so. A intro-level Epiphone followed the Martin, then it was traded a year later for a nice, middle-of-the-road Eastman A model.

1914 Gibson A4 Mandolin

But it was a Gibson that I’ve longed for, specifically a pre-1930 A-4 with a black top. It’s the mandolin designed by Orville Gibson early in the last century that marked the real emergence of the instrument in the US. It’s not the classic Lloyd Loar F-5 that would follow, that by choosing it, Bill Monroe would make THE bluegrass mandolin (and of which only about 175 originals were ever made), but “the 1905 Gibson A-4 was a revolutionary instrument in its time, breaking radically away from the traditional bowl-back instruments brought to America by Italian immigrants (disparagingly referred to as ‘taterbugs’)… Though this design was subtly modified over the years, it clearly set the standard for what was to become the preferred style of mandolin used in American folk and popular music.” A Brief History of the Mandolin

When I found one on ebay last week, I hesitated for about an hour, then made an offer I couldn’t afford, but couldn’t afford not to make, either. The buyer accepted, promising that the instrument was in excellent condition after sitting in its case in a closet for the past 30+ years. When I pulled it from its mummy-like wrapping, I saw he had been completely truthful. There isn’t a scratch on her and though she’s a bit sleepy from not being played in so long, I can already hear the soft, rich, mellow voice that will in time emerge.

As I sit with her today I can’t help but wonder who has played her over the years. I wonder where she’s been. I wonder what kind of music she has made. I think there are stories to be told by her or perhaps to be made up from my imagination and attached to her. But regardless, we will tell some stories together. And I’m glad she found her way home to me.