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I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
12.20.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
Had a fun time working with Guinevere on this one. Thought I would take a process approach to things here and show our first attempt at singing the song, our second take, and finally the fifth take which we ended up keeping. She catches on really fast and is so much fun to collaborate with.
I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus 1
I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus 2
I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus 3
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River
12.19.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on River
When Tamara and I got together we spent a lot of time just talking and listening to records. Records as in vinyl. The other day we saw some beautiful re-issued suitcase record players. The kind that littered schools and kids’ bedrooms and were discounted as garbage rather than appreciated for their clever designs and post-industrial use of materials. They made us both miss vinyl, even though I don’t want to get up and flip the record every twenty minutes, it was just a nice nostalgia to share.
But our copy of Blue by Joni Mitchell was epic. When I hear the album streamed through the house digitally my ears sense that something is amiss. My ears are searching for the pops and noise of the vinyl and the cool young familiarity of it all. But it isn’t there. From first track to the last, Blue was such an experience. The song River has always been a favorite. It still weirds me out that the song is cast as a Christmas song because of the lines, “It’s coming on Christmas, They’re cutting down trees, putting up holly and singing songs of joy and peace. Oh I wish I had a River I could skate away on”. Sure, the trappings of the holiday are there to set a stage but the song is about a failure to uphold love. It is a mournful, romantic song. But I love this song and so I am willing to play along if it gets to count as one more feather in my Christmas cap this season.
If life had a pause button I would totally rebuild this song and work it out in a key better suited to my voice. There are some cringe-worthy bits and pieces of pitch, timing, and sloppy recording skills, but it was a lot of fun to make. I actually recorded it at the beginning of the month but I have finally had to dip into my stash of extra recordings since I haven’t had time to sit around and yodel about lately.
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Gift
12.18.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Gift
We were finishing the bedroom at the Bellingham house when we heard this song… taping drywall, sanding the walls, painting, all in preparation for a Christmas spent in our new bedroom. Our home had been under construction for several months, the back had, literally, been taken off our house to extend it a bit, leaving gaping holes in our bathroom, bedroom and kitchen. We were coming off of miscarrying our first baby and hoping that babies were in our future. It was a bittersweet time in our lives, a time that was slowly transitioning from the bitter to the sweet. I remember standing on the ladder with a naked bulb hanging nearby. I was applying spackle to a seam in the ceiling and we were listening to the Canadian All Christmas station when this song came on. At first we worked through it, paying attention halfway, but slowly Bradley and I both stopped and just listened as this ten year old girl, Aeslin Debinson, sing this lovely song about how showing tenderness and kindness can produce the greatest gifts of all. By the end of the song, Bradley and I both had wet eyes and tears streaming down our faces.
Soon thereafter, Guinevere was conceived. While I realized that this song was for Christmas, the message of kindness and giving within it were powerful, and I sang it to her all throughout the pregnancy and through her babyhood. It’s a song that moves me, moves my husband and moves my family. It is a song rich in meaning both personally and lyrically. This song is a gift.
I’m on words, Bradley is on guitar.
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Unconditional
12.18.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on UnconditionalMy parents came home! They came home about two weeks ago and ever since we have been Velcroed to them! We spent last Saturday out at their place, the kids rolling out and baking cookies to decorate on Christmas Day, and the adults got some really wonderful conversations, hugs and kisses in.
My mom had a grandmother who she was really attached to. Her Grandma Meadows was a large, soft, German woman who taught my mom about life. She taught her about unconditional love, sewing, really great hugs, cooking, mothering, and she taught my mom about what it means to be a good grandma. She opened her door and her arms to my mom whenever she needed it. I know that there are different kinds of good grandmas out there. My mom is trying to be the stable grandma, the one with open arms and open ears. She wants to be the grandma who starts and continues traditions, like baking cookies or yearly camping trips. My mom craves her grandchildren and drinks them up, making them the center of her world while they are around. No mess is too big, no project is too far out there. My mom wants to teach her grandkids knitting or how to make the best hobo picnic all wrapped in a hankie on the end of the stick, but most of all she wants to teach her grandkids what it is like to feel loved, unconditionally. I think that is a pretty great gift.
When I was taking these pictures, I noticed my mom doing those same things she did with me when I was three and eight. She let my kids choose their cookie cutters, let them place it on the dough. She let them punch out the cookie and put it on the sheet, all twisted and weirdly shaped by the time it was ready to bake. I see these things and think of how lucky my kids are that they have this. My grandparents all lived out of the state; I would see them annually, almost like a doctor, and I am in awe of the relationship that my lucky kids get to have with four grandparents who all live close by and who all adore them, crave their hugs and love them whole heartedly. My kids don’t have any choice but to feel loved and accepted. What a great gift.
I hope that someday, much much further down the road, Bradley and I will get to try our chops at grandparenting (the prognosis is not great right now as Gigi has conceded to possibly adopting one child – just MAYBE – while Jude thinks he is going to marry his sister and that Bradley and I will shrink down and become their children, his own concocted version of ‘Where Did I Come From). Until then, we will leave it to the experts: our kid’s grandparents.
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Elf Update
12.17.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Elf UpdateThis week was terribly busy. So busy was I that in the midst of working through the the last week before Christmas vacation that I posted nary an elf antic! Fear not, friends of Snowflake and Snowman! I was there to capture them each morning with my camera. Here they are, caught in a variety of antics over the week:
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