My Ornamental Journey

Christmas tree ornaments are a reminder of the lives we’ve led.

Each year we pull out the big plastic box in our basement that serves as our Museum of Family History. Within its many cardboard galleries are Christmas tree ornaments that serve as four-inch tour guides, speaking warmly, knowledgeably and nostalgically about our past. Each is an essay about moments in our history, years that were good and not so good, people who’ve come and gone.

I’ve never understood why people wanted a tree with matching ornaments. I remember being at relatives’ homes each Christmas and seeing their tinseled trees filled with ornaments that all looked the same. I looked in wonder because they were dazzling and showy – especially the all-aluminum trees with lights that kept changing color – but as cold as an icycle. I remember being at my Aunt Betty and Uncle John’s house, where our cousins would join us in stealing tinsel from the tree to lay across the tracks on the model train set, making delicious sparks whenever the train ran over them.

Whatever happened to tinsel, anyhow? Is it even sold anymore?

When we were little my parents wouldn’t decorate the tree until we all were in bed. It was something they did with Santa. The ancient, brittle blown-glass ornaments came out of boxes, dusty from their year in the basement, with the brand name “Coby” on it. As years went by we added our own homemade ornaments to my parents’ collection. At 16, I made a swan from white felt; I think it’s still around here somewhere, more than 40 years later.

Don’t know what ever happened to those early ornaments, but my Mom gave up having a tree many years ago. Now she pulls a fully decorated tabletop tree out of a box and sets it on her dining room table. I can’t see myself ever doing that, but you never know.

My first tree as an adult was at age 26. I was newly engaged and we bought it at a hardware store near Spruce Street in Philadelphia. The apartment-sized fake tree had no ornaments, so I made some, clothespins decorated as members of my first husband’s family. When we divorced I kept some of them because I still loved his family. I got to keep my mother-in-law and sister-in-law; he took his Dad and himself.

When I was a single mom and then a remarried woman with a blended family, decorating our own tree was something that the family did together, sometimes accompanied by our kids’ boyfriends and girlfriends. But over the past few years our grown children have had busy lives in far-flung cities. So this weekend Bob and John and I will place the ornaments on our tree, and we will enjoy a journey through Christmases past.

It’s funny how each of these mute baubles can bring forth enough memories to fill a long essay. For that reason I seldom throw an ornament away, even after it’s broken. Instead, it goes in the back of the tree, away from public view and the need to explain, tucked away like a hidden, private chapel. The bottom of one of my Christmas storage boxes still has shards of spray-painted ziti, broken off from a cardboard tree that one of my children made decades ago.

Here is a timeline of just a few special ornaments. I hope that when you decorate your own tree – or if you’ve already done so – you will take a moment to meditate on these markers from your past, and to remember the people who’ve shared your life. Please upload photos and share memories of your own!

1978, self-portrait as clothespin. I was editing the employee newspaper at The Evening Bulletin at the time. My “dress” here was from a real evening gown I had sewn for myself.

1980 – My in-laws, Susan and Ita Flynn.

1985 — My daughter Rachel’s first Christmas. Ornament from brother Dan and wife Elena.

1987: Business trip to Park City, Utah. Pregnant with Ryan.

1986 — First Christmas in our new home in Broomall, PA.

1987 — Conrail ornament, from when I worked in their Public Affairs Department. Another version showed a steam engine, which some people felt was bad for the company’s image.

1988 — Bell by Jesse Buday, age 6.

1990 — Gift from my Aunt Chick, a woman of great faith and one of the kindest and bravest people I know.

1990 (Approx.) — handmade ornaments by Rachel and Ben Buday

1992 — Wreath by Rachel Flynn

1994 (approx) — From my husband’s former girlfriend, Jan.

Mid 1990s — Ornament by son Ryan, my worldly guy now living in London.

2006 — Ornament by John Buday. Very fragile and hard to hang but we find a way.

2007 — From my wonderful husband, Bob

2011 — Our newest ornament, a gift from my dear Aunt Marilyn. Bought at Martha Clara Vineyards in Long Island, owned by the Entenmann’s pastry family, where we spent a pleasantly buzzed afternoon.

Getting up the Hill With Mom

My mom, Gloria, has been visiting with us for a few weeks and we luckily have been blessed with great weather that is just perfect for going outside.

So Mom and I have made it a mission to get outside for a nice “walk and bitch” as often as we can. (Bitch is a verb here; not a noun ☺). That means we gossip and vent as we get our exercise, clearing our brains of whatever is annoying us. That daily constitution burns off calories and evaporates resentments, grudges and slights that might have been pooling in our heads. We also indulge in a delicious helping of our favorite mental junk food: gossip about other people. The talking brings us closer and helps us feel wonderful afterwards, and the walking helps us justify the glasses of wine we have been enjoying nightly.

Until yesterday we had been driving to a relatively flat neighborhood at the end of a steep hill in front of our house to make things easier for Mom. But yesterday we decided to leave the car in the garage and try to tackle that hill. After a few hundred feet of hill, Mom turned to me and told me she wanted to turn around and go back home…that the hill was way too much for her. But we decided to keep going and try to make it to the top, to the flatter neighborhood where the walking would be easier. We agreed that we’d take little baby steps to do it, and we’d stop to rest along the way if needed.

Well, a few minutes later we were at the top of this steep hill, looking down at what we conquered. We continued through the rest of the walking route and ended up doing about 1 ½ miles. We saw a lot of youthful runners out there, sweating and pushing themselves, but we just went at our own pace. It felt really great and now we can’t wait to do it again.

I bring this up because all of us, regardless of age, sometimes deprive ourselves of challenges because of our perceived limitations. I see it in our 13-year-old son John, who didn’t want to tackle an optional, extra-credit math paper because he struggles with that subject. He took his time, saved some of the harder problems for the morning when he’s more alert, and got it done.

I see it in myself as well, when I look at my past mistakes and my weaknesses and think I’m not as strong or as capable as others. Maybe I just need more time to think things through and to take a baby step at a time.

Nearly anything is possible if we just have faith in ourselves and take our time. We may bitch and moan along the way, but once we get there the view from the hill is great.

Confessions of a turkey underachiever

Why does this ideal elude me?

Next Thursday, four of us will enjoy Thanksgiving dinner at a local country inn. I can’t tell you how relieved I am.

Despite a general confidence in the kitchen, roasted turkey has been my stumbling block, year after overcooked year. I’ve tried everything: buying $70 organic turkeys, pickling it beforehand in brine, slathering it in butter and cheesecloth, draping it in tinfoil, cooking it at high temperatures a la Alton Brown, cooking it low and slow, cooking it upside down, cooking it sideways, asphyxiating it in a plastic bag, praying over it.

The result is the same: dry breast meat and rubbery, red-tinged thigh meat.

Is it my oven? Is it the fact that I only roast a turkey once a year and never get the chance to really hone my skills – like some people have to re-learn to ski every year because they go only once? Or is it because deep down inside I can take or leave turkey and have no desire to become accomplished at cooking it?

I’ve stopped torturing myself and just faced the truth: I’m bad at turkeys. And it’s very freeing to punt when called upon to produce one.

As I did a few weeks ago, when we had a wonderful, traditional Thanksgiving dinner for Bob’s folks, our kids and their guests, Bob’s brother Tom, cousin Joe and nephew Harper. It was a great family feast, complete with stuffing, mashed potatoes, roasted squash, two cranberry dishes, green beans amandine, sautéed greens, fresh apple crisp…and a juicy turkey that somebody else made.

About 10 minutes from our house, in Holliston, Mass., is a wonderful turkey farm called Out Post. For a very handsome fee they’ll slaughter one of their turkeys and stuff and roast it for you just in time for your event. Bob, Joe and I picked up the bird, still steaming hot, beautifully golden and fully stuffed, about 45 minutes before dinner. Best money we ever spent. Unfortunately the only day they won’t cook your turkey is Thanksgiving. So in the days beforehand people wait in line at Out Post, freezing their butts off as they wait to pick up their pre-ordered fresh turkeys to cook at home.

The Boston Globe did a great story last year in which they asked local chefs – who cook for the restaurant crowds on Thanksgiving – for their secrets of getting a moist, flavorful bird. Their answer was pretty grisly. Forget that Norman Rockwell ideal of a big honkin’ whole turkey in the middle of a table full of beaming relatives. Instead, hack up the turkey’s torso and limbs, sauté in a huge pan, then put them in the roasting pan with some wine and aromatics and cook gently til fork tender. Keep some broth handy to pour over the slices if they dry out.

Does anybody else have a hard time with this? Don’t we need that iconic whole turkey as the centerpiece of our Thanksgiving table? This seems almost sacrilegious, almost as bad as not having stuffing.

I asked my mom, who is visiting us, about whether she’d mind going out instead of doing the traditional thing. She was thrilled…and she confessed that she might order fish or prime rib instead of the turkey.

Finding Dad in Cyberspace

My dad, Guy Cipolla, died from cancer in March of 1998. All of us who were fortunate enough to know him and love him will never forget him.

Around my home and on my computer desktop are many photos of him, doing the things he loved the most: holding his grandchildren, picking peaches, fishing, and mostly just enjoying himself with his family.

I thought I had seen every photo of Dad until I got a message from my brother Dan last night. Dan, who is passionate about family history, has been looking online for information about the Cipollas. Last night he sent this message to my mom, my sisters Julie and Maria, and me:

“In commemoration of Veteran’s Day, I always look on line for information on Dad’s unit in the service. He was part of the 47th Bombardment Group, 84th Bombardment Squadron. I happened to stumble on some old pictures from a guy in his unit, and I starting looking. I found this—Does the guy with rolled-up sleeves look familiar? The hairline looks right, and the ears and eyebrows. It came under the title of ‘payday.’”

While much of his face isn’t visible, we instantly knew the handsome soldier second from the left in the photo was Dad. We instantly recognized his jawline and his habit of standing with his shoulders slightly forward and his hands in his pocket. It would be Dad’s official stance for the rest of his life.

While we had seen photos of him as a young man before, seeing this one felt different. It felt strange to pluck the photo from cyberspace rather than a family collection, and to realize it was a random photo taken by a stranger rather than somebody he knew. If his comrade had not decided to post his pictures online, and if Dan had not looked in the right place, we would have totally missed this photo, taken when Dad was about the same age as our sons are now.

It also felt strange to peer in from the future on this moment when we were not yet part of Dad’s life. Where was he in this photo? What was he talking about with the guy on the left? Who was he thinking about right then? Did he have any idea that within the next two decades he would have four children; within five decades he’d have a dozen grandchildren; and that 67 years later we would be looking wistfully at this photo on a computer screen?

Could he have known back then, as he bantered with his fellow squadron member, how much greatness was in store for him?

The man in the photo eventually became the father who loved us; showed us the primacy of family and loyalty; taught us to fish, to choose a ripe peach and to build things; and who was there for us always, at our greatest celebrations and lowest moments. He became the husband who fiercely protected his wife and his children (even from themselves); the coworker who was universally respected over more than three decades with the same company; the grandfather, uncle, brother, brother-in-law, neighbor and friend who inspired both respect and affection; and, more than 13 years after his death, the dad we miss every single day.

It’s Halloween, and it sure gets lonely here

People like us — who live along a country road with no sidewalks or streetlights — on Halloween are like whaling widows from the 1700s, who keep the candle burning in the window night after night, waiting for their husbands who years ago were lost at sea.

Despite the fact that we live on Elm Street – an iconic name in horror movies — Halloween is a dud. No parent wants their child trick-or-treating on a winding road with no lights and plenty of blind turns; the type of road that Freddie Krueger would have relished.

Still, year after year we carve the pumpkins, buy bags of Reese’s peanut butter cups that end up in the freezer, and put on the lights, hoping that we will enjoy a classic Halloween, haunted by princesses, jedis, ninjas and ghouls. This year, as we gaze out the window at the chrysanthemums and corn stalks smothered by an early snow, does not look promising.

We can usually count on the three small children from the next house visiting early in the evening, before their parents drive them off to more pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods. And our son and his friends will load up on our candy before they too decamp for happier Halloween hunting grounds — where the homes are close together and a pillowcase can be filled in the time it takes to watch two episodes of Sponge Bob.

A few years ago was a banner year. We had a total of 12 trick-or-treaters: the three children from next door, then John and his pals. The doorbell did not ring for at least an hour, then lo! A half dozen teens appeared on our doorstep, all dressed as slashers. It was our friends’ son and his friends, They made pleasant conversation and helped themselves to some candy before getting down to business: inquiring politely if they could use our bathroom.

I guess we could just keep the lights off and not open up for Halloween. But I am still haunted by the memories of the Oldhams, the one household in my childhood neighborhood that did not open up. Their house and front path was spattered with burst eggs, which they’d hose off every Nov. 1. And old Eddie, may he rest in peace, would complain bitterly to my parents about “those G-D kids” and how “it’s a terrible world out there.”

Halloween is the only time I miss my former home in Pennsylvania, in a new development where everyone had small children. Back then I would make at least 80 candy bags and they would be gone within an hour. Neighborhood children would visit, and as they grew older they brought posses from other neighborhoods. We also had a spread for the adults accompanying the little ones: pumpkin bread, cheese and crackers and (most importantly) cider spiked with Laird’s Applejack. One of the dads, a school principal who always dressed in drag for Halloween, would down two glasses while the kids loaded up on candy; then took one for the road. Each year our home became more and more of a draw; I wonder why? 😉

But this year on Elm Street, where on any other day we’d savor the peace and the privacy, Halloween will be a lonely time. Still, we go through the motions and hope for the best.

Tonight we’ll carve the pumpkin like we always do. Tomorrow night we’ll find a used but still substantial candle and place it inside; then set the illuminated pumpkin on a rock by our driveway…in plain view of anyone who passes by. We’ll put on all the lights in front of the house, to make it look welcoming. And we’ll wait.

Farewell to the Mom-Mobile

After 13 years of driving my practical van, there’s a new vehicle in my life. It’s a sleek sedan with a racy profile and metallic gray paint. A protrusion on the back of the roof looks like a small shark fin. The Michelin tires flash more chrome than rubber. Its technology system, which has a two-inch-thick manual that is too daunting to read, is so sophisticated that the car can practically drive itself. Its rear seats are heated. Despite a few nods to practicality – including a very roomy trunk — it is a sexy car.

Bob and I kept the 1999 Toyota van that once served as the “mom-mobile,” for trips to Lowe’s and in case one of our grown children needs it to move to a new apartment. But the old black warhorse, with numerous scratches and 186,000 miles under its belt, no longer has the pampered spot in our garage. The sexy car is parked in that spot now, and the unglamorous van is parked outside the house, next to the garage window, peering in like a jilted accountant spying forlornly on his ex and her personal trainer.

I don’t drive the van much any more – just enough to keep its battery turning over – but every so often I look through its windows, or sit in it and breathe in the old-car scent and the memories. When we brought home the van I was 44, newly remarried and newly relocated, with a blending family and a bonus baby. We brought John, now 13, to the apple orchard in the van when he was just a year old, running around the orchard with a half-eaten apple in each hand. The van brought our son Ben on his paper route during icy afternoons. Its front seat served as a psychologist’s couch during the years before the kids could drive themselves, when they’d (very) occasionally share their worries and ask our advice.

That car survived a rear-ender on a cold January night, when I had picked up my daughter Rachel and her friend from basketball practice and I foolishly changed lanes without signaling. Its rubber bumper still shows the bash from a parking lot hit-and-run in State College, PA. Our grown sons took the van to the Outer Banks six years ago, stopping at numerous souvenir shops selling hams and Confederate flags along the way, while we drove ahead in the sedan. Beach sand from Cape Cod to North Carolina still dwells deep in its battered car mats. Crumbs from a cookie baked in 2005; sliding doors sticky from spilled Juicy-Juice; stains on the gray velour seats from a preteen with motion sickness…they are all still there; badges of valor on a vehicle that did its job, year in and year out.

When I drive the van now my hand goes to the wrong place when I shift from park to reverse to drive. I feel a twinge of impatience when the van doesn’t accelerate as fast as I expect. The new car is fast becoming the regular car.

Old cars always make me feel wistful and a little melancholy. Every unloved car in the junkyard once made someone’s heart quicken. After a year or two new cars stop exciting us, and after a decade they become a problem, until we need to do the math to decide whether the cost of maintaining them is worth it.

But for now, the old van is our retired hero…no longer in active duty, but still venerated and appreciated. Its 186,000 miles are a symbol of how far we’ve come.

The Mom-Mobile's replacement.

The good cook’s curse

I admit first of all that I come from a family of culinary Olympians. My earliest memories entered my temporal lobes via the nose: my mom’s fragrant Sunday gravy cooking over the stove for hours; the fragrance of garlic sautéing in olive oil on meatless Fridays; the anise-scented biscotti that my Aunt Rita made, Aunt Chickie’s stuffed cabbages; Aunt Anna’s ricotta cheesecakes; Aunt Theresa’s pizza. All were crafted from scratch, sometimes requiring a day of effort, often with the help of a cheerful coterie of aproned aunts.

Thanksgiving dinner at my grandmom’s house was like an Olympic opening ceremony, with wave after wave of outstanding specimens. The salad, pasta with meatballs, the turkey itself with all the trimmings, the desserts that my aunts brought in. Even the simplest food was prepared with great brio and great love, and served in lavish amounts, one gold medal winner after another.

Bad cooking — involving something that came out of dented Ragu cans, an envelope of Spatini or a box with that awful Kraft logo — was something that non-Italians did. We Italians did things the right way, the way we learned from our mothers, with no shortcuts. Any event where the food was stingy or halfhearted was a flop, something to be whispered about afterwards. We avoided most dinners at Protestant churches for this reason.

As I grew older, and learned the basics of mixing meatballs and cooking pizzelli from my mom, I learned that cooking well is not only a way to show love; it also attracts admiration and attention, and puts people in your debt: neighbors, coworkers, boyfriends. This sounds very screwed up but it’s the truth. Anyone who is the least bit insecure can relate.

Yet, while I crave the attention that comes from the results, cooking for me has always been a solitary sport. While the meal is the performance, the actual process of cooking is both grueling and all-consuming, like practicing for hours at the barre before a ballet. I can be in the kitchen for most of the day and lose total track of the time. It is a way for me to lose myself, to tune out the world by disappearing into something all-consuming. That’s why I never answer yes when an anxious guest asks if I need any help, even though we’d probably all enjoy one another more if the meal were a group effort.

So even during my busiest times as a working woman, I always considered skillful cooking as a duty and a pleasure that could not be sacrificed. For my daughter Rachel’s third birthday, when I was heavily pregnant with son Ryan, we spent the day in Philadelphia visiting the old Please Touch Museum, but I still found time to make her a homemade cake in the shape of a train, replete with Oreo wheels, pretzel logs for the flatcar’s cargo, and a boxcar filled with M & Ms. When I coordinated one office Christmas party, I had it catered but still cooked for eight hours. When anybody visits us, whether it’s family or strangers, I feel like it’s a command performance in the kitchen. The command doesn’t come from my family and friends – who probably wish I would just relax — but internally.

But lately I have found myself envying people who’ve let it all go; who can spend the morning before a dinner party cross-country skiing, hiking with their families or reading a good book, or can just transfer some salad from a bag to a bowl and hand their spouse the hamburgers to barbecue for guests. Who can share the same kitchen with a box that has “Kraft” on it. Or who can – as one acquaintance, a well-heeled mother of eight – tell a hungry child at dinner to “just microwave a baked potato.”

Good cooking can be both pleasure and compulsion. It’s a hobby that borders on extreme sport. It’s so absorbing that I not only forget myself, but I also tune out everybody else.

A beautifully cooked meal from scratch is a gift, but nowadays it’s an impractical one. Many times Bob has suggested that we “just have a salad” for dinner but I never act on it. My in-laws, when they visit, beg me “not to fuss too much” but I can’t.

Lately, as I move through middle age and with only Bob and John and I left at home, I am trying to be more relaxed in the kitchen. I’ve given myself permission to top Price Chopper pasta with a jar of Barilla vodka sauce (with some fresh basil sprinkled over it all.) We’ve been making Kraft macaroni and cheese more often; Stouffers if people under 13 from outside the family are dining with us. We’ve discovered the wonders of frozen corn dogs and meals from a Trader Joe’s sack tossed into a hot skillet. Sometimes we even have sandwiches for dinner.

Somewhere in heaven my grandmother is thinking about staging an intervention.