Taking Down the Christmas Tree Blues

Posted on January 6, 2008 by moonbridgebooks

I took down the Christmas tree yesterday. It is a nostalgic event for me. I like to do it at night, with the tree lit for the last time. I admire each ornament as I put it back into its little box or in its wrappings and I think of where we got it, or who bought it for us, and when. I feel closer to my relatives, who are a little too far away for my liking, and to our pasts together and the love that binds us.

My husband threw the naked tree near the end of the driveway to await Monday’s trash pickup. Not long ago it had been a beautiful living thing thirsting for water, spilling its cedar scent, delighting us with soft branches hiding tiny glowing lights that gave shape and shimmer to precious ornaments nestled in dark enclaves. Now it joined other stripped trees dumped along the roadside, abandoned as they faded and turned brittle and became old and out-of-season. It gives me a sense of sadness to see these once glorious symbols of joy and excitement now discarded.

The magic of the holidays has left us, but hopefully we have felt renewed and restored by the happiness and the meaning behind the celebrations. Christmas is about love. “And love is not a seasonal thing.”*

Have a blessed new year!


*from Pastor Sue Mitch

Linda Austin
“Cherry Blossoms in Twilight”
http://www.moonbridgebooks.com
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Old Letters from WWII

Posted on January 4, 2008 by moonbridgebooks

During our holiday visit with my in-laws, after we had enjoyed mulling over old family photos, my mother-in-law brought out several piles of worn, yellowed envelopes tied together with string—letters written by her father to her mother after he was sent off for duty in WWII. The letters were addressed “To my wife and babies,” as the oldest child was only about five at the time. He worried about his wife left to care for the three children and the farm by herself, and so wrote every two or three days.

I only had time to read a handful of letters, but I know they are all treasures to savor. Not just for the old war-era stamps, the musty antique postcards, the “censored by U.S. Military” markings, but because they hold bits of personal history and the heartfelt handwriting of someone dear. I will be spending my next visits reading through these letters, discovering the man my husband’s grandfather was, and discovering what training and war duty was like from a very personal perspective.

Fortunately PawPaw survived his tour of duty working on a supply ship in the Mediterranean, but he refused to speak of his experiences during the War. Whatever he saw was something he chose to try to blot out of his life. I knew him as a slow-moving, gentle old man in farmers’ overalls, a good-natured man of the earth whose eyes twinkled while he told used jokes I couldn’t help but laugh at. I will be pleased to get to know him better, even though he is no longer with us.

“Make the moments matter, for the memories you give will be with them forever.”

– From 2007 holiday artwork by D. Morgan, used by Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Linda Austin
“Cherry Blossoms in Twilight”
http://www.moonbridgebooks.com
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Family Portraits and Old Photos

Posted on December 28, 2007 by moonbridgebooks

After plenty of good cooking and eating, visiting and present unwrapping, we should all hopefully have made some great holiday memories. My in-laws celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary the day after Christmas and so our family gathered in a beautifully decorated old Victorian house in Jackson, Tennessee, to have a complete family portrait done by the artistic Roger Markin of The Family Album, a private studio I highly recommend to anyone in the area. While we were there the individual families took the opportunity to have their portraits done also. In this high-tech age, we were able to see the photos immediately afterwards on a large screen and as a group chose the best of the lots. We were all quite pleased with the results, a feat considering there were eleven in the big family photo and we had to threaten a few unwilling children.

The next evening, my mother-in-law brought out boxes of old photos so I could search for ones to show at the anniversary party to be held in a few weeks. Oh, how fun to see all the old school pictures, delight at the lively-looking young girl my mother-in-law used to be and how handsome my father-in-law was as a boy. I saw relatives I’d never met but had heard of, and we laughed at how relatives we knew had changed over the years. My little daughter was amazed that her daddy had red-hair as a boy, we remarked how my teen looked a lot like her aunt, and we pointed out how every woman had a perm in the 1980’s.

In this coming new year as families gather for birthdays, reunions and other special days, think of opportunities to make those family portraits, to take pictures, to document moments. I had never thought of having a large group photo done and am very glad to have participated in that. Looking at those antique photos at my in-laws’ dining table made me appreciate all the more the importance of photography to capture the thousand words, so to speak, it would take to describe a person in a moment in an era. The joy of looking back at family photos is priceless.

Linda Austin
“Cherry Blossoms in Twilight”
http://www.moonbridgebooks.com
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