’Tis the Season

From file written October 12, 1992

Our close friends Muriel and Don Stauffer, who lived here in the Sixties, will spend Christmas with me, then the three of us will go to Mexico for our third driving tour in that country. We are looking forward to toasting the New Year in San Cristóbal de las Casas, high in the mountains of Chiapas.

With houseguests for Christmas, it is more important than ever to do things ahead of time. I am considering starting to wrap Christmas presents later today.

For my 15 years in this house, I wrapped presents on a table in the room adjoining my bedroom. There never was enough space to do the job conveniently or to store wrapped presents later. Last year, belatedly, I realized that I had a large, unused guest room with all the space in the world. I can wrap on the bureau, which is high enough to prevent my annual Christmas-wrapping backaches. One twin bed holds presents to be wrapped; the other holds wrapping materials. I put the wrapped presents, minus bows for easier storage, in an empty bureau drawer. It is simple to add bows just before putting boxes under the tree.

 

From file written November 8, 1992

I am gearing up for my Christmas guests and our Mexican trip in early January. My Christmas presents are wrapped. Christmas-card list is checked. I am in the process of drafting two or three versions of a Christmas letter that I can then customize and enclose with cards to friends. I spent my time at the hairdresser’s on Thursday mentally working out a menu for the short time that Muriel and Don will be here over Christmas.

What worries me, is me. I drift into trips over a pleasant period of time when I methodically cope with my packing. This time I will have to do all that before the Stauffers arrive. Final packing will be devastatingly difficult while I am trying to be a relaxed hostess, cater meals, and show them the town they have not seen in thirty years. I assume I will arrive in Mexico missing belts to dresses, vital medications, and heaven knows what else. I discovered in France that I had forgotten my hair brush. A last-minute boggle. Fortunately, I was able to buy a charming mid-sized gold-backed one in a nearby shop, and still am traveling with it. It will not be as easy to pick up missing bits-and-pieces in the mountains of Chiapas.

 

From file written December 12, 1992

I spent Saturday putting up the artificial Christmas tree I bought last year. The tree is taller than I am. It is easy enough to assemble and decorate. Still, it involves more moving and bending than I, my damaged legs, and back, are used to. By the time the tree was finished and the Nativity set in place, I was exhausted. I ached from stem to stern, felt ready to drop, and decided what I needed was some Tender, Loving Conversation. I called a dear friend; what kind of sympathy did I get from him?

“It’s good for you!”

I was more than a little irritated this morning to find that he was absolutely right. I tentatively tried to do my exercises, sure that my back would protest, and found that I was perfectly able to do the whole series in comfort.

It is a little ridiculous for someone living alone, but I have two trees. Years ago I bought a smaller one from friends who were leaving the country. It fits perfectly in the library between the television and the door into the hall. It isn’t as pretty as the living-room tree, but I love having it lighted when I watch TV with the dogs. Hope Muriel and Don enjoy having what amounts to their own, private tree. The library and guest room are like a suite on that side of the house.

A friend says that the dream of his life is a Christmas tree on wheels that emerges fully decorated from an unseen panel in the wall in early December and can be tucked away, still festooned, when the holidays end.

 

From file written February 13, 1993

Muriel and Don arrived on the 23rd of December. We had our Christmas dinner on the 24th, as is the Scott custom. Muriel and Don walked out to film the neighborhood with his video camera while I fluttered about on dinner preparations.

There was a slight last-minute boggle, which I thought was funny but which upset María terribly. For months I had thought María planned to bake a ham and make her wonderful sauce for it. When she and Alex arrived, she did not bring anything. I asked about her sauce. She looked mortified, and said she had not made it, but could do so quickly. She slipped into the kitchen, and seeing no ham baking, returned more confused than ever.

We had several moments of mutual verbal misunderstanding. It developed that María understood I had decided that we would have only the turkey (which I would cook), and not the ham. True, but I had forgotten it. She then decided that I had baked a ham in addition to the turkey, had asked her to make the sauce, and that she had forgotten. When she could not find a ham in the kitchen, she realized that the problem went deeper. We sorted it all out, though María continued to be mortified over something that was completely my fault, not hers.

I managed to run late. I overcooked the turkey badly and in my resulting distress, forgot to change into my red Christmas dress. No one cared. Eventually, all was served. Everyone had a relaxed, happy time and Christmas dinner was a huge success.

 

Christmas morning I had consumed my usual half-pot of coffee in solitary leisure before the rest of the family surfaced. Dressed in my traditional red caftan, the intricately-embroidered one that Carli brought me from Greece, I established myself in my recliner to preside over The Opening of Presents.

The Stauffers brought lovely gifts for everyone. Our pile of brightly wrapped presents was too large to fit completely under the Christmas tree, even before Alex arrived with several miscellaneous boxes plus one enormous one. Alex, in the red jumpsuit that Transworld Drilling gave him as a safety award back in the Seventies, took on his usual task of distributing gifts, one at a time.

The Stauffers brought back from Austria for me a lovely little crystal dish with work as delicate as a cobweb. Muriel was pleased with a small silver peacock pin I had found for her on my trip to Colorado last year. It reminded both of us of a special incident on one of our earlier Mexican trips. Don was amused at my joke gift of a minute magnet shaped like a bottle of Mexican Corona beer. The season’s most imaginative gift was Alex’s present to María of driving lessons.

Muriel had hand-carried down to Belize a large, flat package, which I knew was a painting for me (she is an increasingly successful artist). To my absolute delight, it was one she had done when we were in Guanajuato two years earlier. At that time, to my utter horror, Don drove her back up the mountain overlooking the city and left her at a wide place alongside the highway where she had spotted a group of rather charming houses on the hillside. When Don and I returned to get her a couple of hours later, she had a “gallery” of three wide-eyed, silent little boys following her every stroke with utter intensity. It was their homes she was sketching. One of them explained to me that he was learning to sketch in school, so was especially delighted to see a real artist at work. Muriel had tried to talk to them in her fractured Spanish, but they made it plain that they wanted her working, not conversing. Anyway, I was thrilled to have her give me that particular painting. It turned out handsomely. She said that it was rated highly when critiqued.

 

I planned a 12:00 noon brunch Christmas Day. María and Alex always have a lovely, informal party for their friends from about 5:00 pm on and need time for last-minute preparations. We ran so late with presents, that they begged off brunch. They still had to get to María’s parents with their presents. Muriel, Don, and I divided my casserole in two, froze half, and heated the rest of the meal for ourselves.

The Stauffers and I dressed festively and made an appearance at María and Alex’s party around 6:00, when people were beginning to arrive. Then Don suggested that the three of us go on to the nearby Fort George Hotel for a drink. We did—and with the second one, Muriel suggested our ordering a sandwich. So that was our Christmas night.

 

On Boxing Day, we decided to ignore the intermittent rain and drive up to the Belize Zoo. At about Mile 12, Don leaned over, glanced at the fuel gauge, and asked if I had enough gas. No, I didn’t. I had intended to fuel up before turning onto the Western Highway, but we all were so deep in conversation that I forgot. No option but to turn back.

By the time we reached the zoo turn-off, the rain was so hard that we decided to go to JB’s for lunch first. The rains increased until I was inching along wrapped in gray sheets of solid water, unable to see anything but a few feet of road directly ahead of us. There were no comfortable shoulders to pull off onto; I did not dare stop. Long after I was sure we must have passed JB’s, the rain abated enough for me to turn around. When we finally found our rustic restaurant, the rain still was heavy enough to keep us pinned in the car for another ten minutes.

We had a pleasant lunch of the chicken we had watched being grilled in a small open shed. The cook held an umbrella over her head with one hand and turned the chicken with a fork held in the other.

The rain storm moved past and we continued on to the zoo. We were interrupted once by a brief squall, but Muriel and I huddled together under my umbrella, and Don found a convenient tree to protect himself.

We were back home by around 2:00 pm. Emilie Bowen came for tea, her only chance for a visit with the Stauffers. Conversation bubbled for a couple of hours.

That evening Don and Muriel took Alex, María, and me to dinner at the Chateau Caribbean.

 

The Stauffers and I left for Mexico on the 27th and I returned to Belize on January 10th. I will be writing separately about the trip, so will not get into it here except to say that we had a glorious time. The Stauffers and I seem to want to do the same things at the same time, so there are few strains. We were still finding new things to discuss when we said goodbye back in Chetumal, and we were making tentative plans for a fourth Mexican excursion in another couple of years.

 

When I returned from Mexico, Alex was in Big Creek in connection with the discharge of barges bringing U.S. Army engineering equipment for various projects. As usual when either of us is holding the fort alone, it was chaos in the office. I spent the week juggling five ships—and adoring it! It was exhausting, but stimulating.

My first weekend home was spent dismantling two Christmas trees, the Nativity scene, and miscellaneous Christmas decorations. They had looked charming when we left Belize but were a bit anti-climactic by late mid-January.

 

Just days after my return to the office routine, my adored sister-in-law Becky from North Georgia arrived for a visit. We went to Chan Chich, a beautiful resort built in the ball court of a small Mayan ruin near Gallon Jug in the western jungle.

One dawn I found myself sitting in the chilly dark facing west, awaiting the sunrise and wondering why I couldn’t have listened to bird calls quite as easily from my cozy nest under piles of comforters while I watched the reddening of the eastern sky through open blinds. I found out why I had made the effort when, with the light, came a deafening flight of twenty-some wild turkeys from the tall trees behind the Mayan mound facing the veranda of our cabana. The large birds with their burnished plumage alighted on the lawn near me. They paraded past in dignified single file, pecking tidily as they breakfasted.