Kropewnicki Christmas – 2013
I read an article in the paper about a lady who had collected 1,500 creches. Really, does it take that many to get the job done?
I reflected on the ones that we have had over the years starting with a three inch small Christmas ornament where you could barely see Mary, Joseph and the baby. When I married Stan, he came with a creche – a big one with hand painted paper Mache figures ten inches tall and a stable that barely fit on living room side table. It is charming in a European way as if Stan’s mom had found it over there instead of a shop in New York. Over the years this nativity scene moved around the room from table to underneath the tree and showed a little wear and tear from forty years of use.
My recent favorite is one I bought in Poland at a woodcarver’s shop. The delicate pieces are perched on a music box. I was happy that is was packed carefully and the intricate carvings made it back safely to Colorado.
One of our apartment tenants left a creche that was a simple outline made of walnut with only three figures. I occasionally put it on a table by a picture window. When the light shines through in the dark of the night, a long shadow of the figures is reflected in the room. There is a church at Wadsworth and 26th that has a similar outline of the nativity scene. When lighted at night, tall shadows appear on their brick wall.
When John married Rachel I gave them a small porcelain nativity scene that my friend Kris’ daughter was selling for a school project. I figured John and Rachel needed one and the little girl needed some money for her project. Now Rachel has a creche from the Willow Tree collection. It is quite stunning on the mantel.
Christmas is bombarded with symbols of all types. I have a collection of tall, round, short and skinny Santas. Little houses are always fun to put out, and then light up as if there were a miniature Christmas village in our living room. I remember my Grandmother, Anna Swanson, would have snow made of cotton on one of her end tables filled with little characters including a hand blown glass reindeer. Right in the middle was a plastic church with lighted windows. I still put out that same church with our little houses. Snowmen are an easy theme – kind of non-committal and wintery with cute smiles and colorful scarves. I see mice depicted on Christmas cards. Cute that they are, they remind me of that pesky fellow that lived indoors with us this year evading every attempt on our part to capture him. After I meticulously cleaned and scrubbed every corner and drawer throughout the house, he finally met his demise. I imagined he was sent as a gift to me as I know I needed to clean up the entire house from the corners on out. This year I took on a pink Hello Kitty theme for Anya, our 5 year old granddaughter’s advent pouches filled with fun small gifts and candy. Pretty soon she will be too old and think that this a silly idea – so I do it while it works and is fun for her.
I don’t think that I need to collect oodles of crechees for the impact of the symbol to carry through. The meaning is still the same with Jesus front and center.
I call on Jesus from time to time, but don’t want to make a pest of myself as I try to work through things on my own. This was a tough year that required a little more help.
September we had those devastating floods from Boulder / Estes Park down through Longmont, Ft. Collins and Greeley. I grew up around Greeley and remember that trickle of the South Platte River flowing gently under the highway bridges. It swelled to eighteen feet above flood stage and took houses, people and animals in it’s path. In Lakewood, we had a bad hail storm right before the big floods that left water seeping into our basement window wells. We dried it out and then decided to replace the carpet. We have lived here 37 years and stored way too many things in the basement. Even though our damage was nothing like the folks suffered up north, it was still one month of sorting one’s treasures and moving along without them. Now I have a nice tidy place to sew and space to practice saxophone and accordion with Stan.
I had the opportunity to be with my cousin Don Wayman through his last days as cancer claimed his life. He was a cheerful soul over the last couple years when assigned to a hospice. He told me the first week he was there that he could carry anger over the whole situation or embrace it and make the best of it. He choose the latter and touched so many lives at the nursing home by offering conversation and assistance to both the infirmed and professional caregivers. I was amazed at all who came to pay their final respects over those last few days.
Strength was needed when we had to make the right decision when our 12 year old cattle dog, Sydney broke her back leg. That decision was one of the hardest we had to make as she was a key part of our family. We subsequently found a rescue dog at the shelter that gives us all kinds of opportunities to learn patience and teach some discipline. She is a one year old beagle / fox hound mix named Lily with more energy than both Stan and I combined. She won’t replace Sydney, but definitely has found a way to lick us into liking her a lot.
I went to too many funerals this year. I had seen people I had lost touch with since my childhood. I found a quick prayer with childhood girlfriends bought touching moments to connect the many years that had slipped away. My nephew, Jim’s wife Cathy died in late fall. At her memorial service I met with his children and grandchildren along with family from Nebraska that I had not seen for ages. It is amazing to see similar values and personal traits carry through the generations.
Time to go to the attic to bring out the nativity scene – front and center.
Merry Christmas
Stan and Joyce