The Gift(s) of the Magi- A Cass Christmas Story

You’re probably familiar with the holiday classic movie in which a woman cuts her hair to buy a chain for her partner’s pocket watch, which he sells to buy a brush for her hair. Did you know that’s based on a short story by O.Henry, the famed Austin author? I had my own Gift of the Maji experience this year.

Since studying environmental issues in college, I have always taken a critical and conscious approach to Christmas gift-buying. It seems each year had a different theme based on what I had been reading, how much money I had, and how much I prepared for holiday shopping. There was the year that I was home from college for several weeks before Christmas, and slowly churned out homemade gifts for all. Then the year I worked right up to the holiday, and spent my extra earnings on gift cards and donations for everyone on Christmas eve. Regardless of the gift, I am always intentional about wrapping paper- reusing paper from previous years when wrapping, and compulsively stashing the gift bags, wrapping and bows as I unwrap new presents.

Last year was the hardest Christmas on record, for most of us, I imagine. We were nine months into a pandemic changing our routines and habits, for better and for worse, only to be met with the reality that the Christmas present we all dreamed of- a vaccine- was months away from becoming a reality. For me, there was the added challenge of deciding that the week of Christmas was the time to draw the line on my relationship. I spent Christmas alone with my dog in Los Alamos. Most of the presents I managed to wrap and send were from the clearance rack at walmart. Last Christmas served as a stark reminder of the blessings I have- in my health and my supportive family, which I am so grateful to spend this Christmas with.

In preparation for this Christmas, with the pandemic threatening supply of crap I wouldn’t buy anyway, I decided to use Christmas as an opportunity to invest in my community. A friend from aerials class runs a local tea shop, so I was putting in some hours there. The pay isn’t great but the community is uplifting, and the owner is generous with her gratitude for my hours in other ways. During hours of sliding tea bags into packages, I decided that tea would make a great Christmas gift, and I could show support for the tea shop. But when the owner saw my cart of goodies, she insisted that I take them all gratis in exchange for my work there! (If you like what you got and want more, you can order online at tea-o-graphy.com )

I also spent many months this year learning the amazing craft of pottery from a new friend. I had made coiled pots and gazed them in elementary school, but never before understood the intense calculations that went into designing a vessel, crafting it with hands, mixing the glaze from scratch, and watching it go through several stages from wet clay, to dry clay to bisqued clay to glazed and fired, only to see it crack or break and be useless. I knew a hand-made mug would pair well with some craft tea, and decided to support his patience with my learning his craft, by purchasing several mugs from him. Here, the charitable Christmas spirit struck again. He insisted I pay just 25% his asking price, as a friendly discount, which wouldn't offer him much financial reward for his craft. Once again, my intent to support local artists’ income was thwarted with their personal generosity, perhaps with an acknowledgement that this had not been the most financially stable year for me. I ended up paying him 75% cost, with the agreement that I could take a larger hand-made piece—Merry Christmas to me.

I share that story with these simple gifts to express how these hand-made, deeply intentioned gifts are imbued with love and generosity, and with one final hope that as you enjoy these gifts, that energy gets transferred onto you. I have learned in the last few years that many people do not have the blessing of a large family, easily accessed in one area, that offers support, acceptance, love and laughter. There is no greater gift than getting to spend this year in the company of such delightful people, to share in joys and giggles and make new memories. And to gift them each a piece of the community that helped bring me back home. 

Nuts about the Holidays

In my last post, I waxed on all my feelings about giving this Christmas, but now that the special day has just passed, I want to admit and show-off the gift that most of my family received.
It's local, it's practical, it's handmade, and it's taken me about 30 hours to put together.

Pecans. (Pronounced Puh-kahns).
Pecan trees are the state tree of Texas New Mexico..so as a symbol of my growing love for this state, my everlasting appreciation for you in my life, and my evolving fascination with local fresh foods, I give you...Pecans.
As you enjoy these pecans, my hope is that you keep some things in mind.
1) These grew right out my window

in an orchard of about 20 pecan trees, that was planted sometime around 1950. We believe that this is the northernmost pecan orchard in the state, and perhaps the country (at least the highest elevation!) which (along with the year they were planted) may account for the small size of the nut.

 

These pecans are not only a delicious, nutritious snack for humans, but their long-standing presence has attracted a large following of crows that hang out and get their fill for a few weeks surrounding Thanksgiving. We imagine that they've been doing this for decades.

Pecans are also treats for families of all shapes and sizes that come out with containers of equally varying measurements to collect their nut needs for the winter. How wonderful to share such a nutritious resource with so many people, but what's in it for the tree?

 

Nuts are seeds. So the tree produces them hoping they will be delicious enough to be carried away and eaten by animals, or buried for the winter. The tree is banking on some of these seeds to be forgotten. In the case of an orchard, that rarely happens. I've combed through these fields pretty good, and anything that was left was likely caught by the crows.

 

(While writing this, I discovered that Pecans are not technically nuts but drupes, like other members of the Hickory family, which have a stone or pit surrounded by a husk).

In addition to being sweet and buttery, Pecans are a good source of manganese, protein and unsaturated fats.

So, what does it take to make pecans? Lots of water. The field these pecan trees sit in is slightly lowered, and was flooded several times throughout the year with water from the acequia on our property (a series of connecting canals that carry river water and snow run off from the mountains through distant fields and then back to the Rio Grande). In addition to water, they need ample sunlight, which they get plenty of in Albuquerque, and nutrients--which are returned to the soil through the dense Canada goose poop that so frequently covers the ground.

Once the nuts fall, which aligned with the first frost in mid-November, I started collecting. At first it was slim pickins...but eventually I couldn't walk a straight line without filling my pockets with every pecan I saw. I started noticing bigger ones, especially from the trees nearest the acequia. As soon as I had a good collection, I set up my workshop.

 

2. Shelling pecans takes a lot of time! After sending the first batch to a couple of families, I started filling my containers all over again. In the course of about two weeks, I came awfully close to my goal of 1,000 pecans, spending a total of almost 24 hours shelling. And the result was a little depressing. What I hoped would fill the tummies of many family members, turned into just a taste for the half dozen of you that get the gift.

 

Watching people unwrap my meager bag of nuts next to a monsterous box of  store-bought goods made them seem a bit unfit for a Christmas gift...but my hope is that when the holiday crazy subsides, each of my relatives will have a moment to savor the flavor, the protein, and the richly packed nutrients within this nut... In this time of absolute abundance, I hope that we can take time to appreciate the energy and amazement provided around us.

Christmas with a 'Capital' C

I officially reached that point of Christmas scroogy-ness about 3 days ago. I had thought I'd take a nice solo trip around the very local, very New Mexico "Old Town" shopping center, and just browse the hand-made gifts. By the 20th store I went into, still having bought nothing but $2.00 worth of gimmicky candy and piece of chocolate to round the price up to credit limit, I began to feel bleak.
I compared this feeling of being compelled to partake in Christmas commerce with that nauseous feeling that comes after trying to devour too large a piece of homemade chocolate ganache cake. It looks so delicious at first, and it's homemade, so you can TASTE the love in it, which practically justifies the large slice sitting in front of you. But after the first 15 bites, your teeth start to curl, your stomach churns and you try to remember the last time you at this much sugar, butter, cream, and flour in one sitting. You force down the last 7 bites, trying to savor it but silently promising yourself to never, ever eat another piece of cake, even if it is homemade. (Really though, does this happen to anyone else?)

Showing off our Christmas goodies

In other words, I started feeling really overwhelmed by all the crap around me. Yes all the pottery is beautiful and someone in my family would probably enjoy a pack of local spices, or a hand-painted mirror (at least the moment they opened it). But I found myself regretting the whole shopping experience.
Wasn't I the one just a few weeks ago touting* the entire Christmas experience. "I don't really celebrate Christmas" I explained to a friend at the beginning of the month. Winter Solstice is the holiday I truly align with. I don't even get my family presents. Though I appreciate the ones they get me."
While this is mostly true, I have in the past, made simple gifts for friends and family, and when I had to purchase something, made sure it was practical, like a planner, or a bag or tea. The whole idea of buying something just because the holiday tradition compels you to was completely beyond me, and yet here I was looking at my list and brainstorming what to get those last few people.

Clearly, at some point between the beginning of the month and this middle month period, I was attacked by the Holiday Spirit. Part of it probably came as we decorated our tumbleweed tree, or put up lights around the house (we kept intending to move them outside for others to enjoy, but we loved them so much that they've stayed indoors, draped from the rafters around the living room). Another part came as I discovered Christmas stations on Spotify (which itself is a new toy for me), and then again as I found the long lost Christmas CD's my mother has made me for the last 2 years (because I seem to lose them every year).

Proud of our NM/X-masy thrift store clothes

But now I sit here, Christmas filling me like that homemade cake, making plans for how to savor the actual holiday which in my mind begins on my flight home on Monday. Part of my over-saturation is likely because I haven't had much work to do. This is my slow season, and the more I force myself to sit back and enjoy the recooperation time, the more I look forward to those family-surrounded moments in the state I grew up in.
Despite all my personal opinions and situations, I think there's something deeper that distracts us from the Christmas message. This isn't the icing on the cake, it's the highly refined white flour that makes up the cakes interior, which is disguised by fancily decorated icing. That flour is the very thing America is abundant of...capitalism. (An interesting article on Holidays and capitalism can be found here).
This year, even more than in the past, I have seen spikes of optimism followed by checks of reality. Living in this new city has propelled that. I talk to teachers, landscape managers and active citizens walking or running through the park, and I am inspired by a clear up-and-coming paradigm shift toward communities (not communism...) and away from the downward spiral that our nation is based upon.
But then I travel downtown, or I get pulled into a whole Foods or a Michaels, and I'm dumbfounded by the shelves of identical crap that is exactly the same as the crap on shelves on the other side of town, the other side of the state, and across the country. It quickly become clear that a paradigm shift is going to take a long time, as people's habits are fixated on want, on acquiring and buying...all thanks to our capitalism.
I think I have safely let the cake pass through my system...and am ready for another dose... the usual pre-new year promise that this will be my last. As I approach Christmas I plan to make the most of each moment, appreciating the family surrounding me, and trying to over look the mark that our unsustainable system leaves on everything around us (especially in my increasingly growing hometown). Even as I try this, the truth inside me will be begging for one Christmas wish to come true.
I spend my days trying to educate people about the world they live in. Whether I'm reading a book to help me explain the atmosphere, or designing a program for a group of pre-k students to get their hands in dirt, I am devoting my life to teaching people to make conscious decisions. Whether they are "good" decisions or "bad" decisions, whatever the repercussion...if only people could be educated about the decisions they make, I would live fulfilled.
So my Christmas wish is this; that everyone in this amazing America can make informed decisions in 2015...or at the least be educated about the consequences of their actions.
Since Santa isn't going to grant this, I guess I'll have to do it myself. More on those plans in 2015.
[For another inspring and interesting take on gift giving, check out Amy Reading's Anti-Capitalist guide to Holidays]

Holidays MY way

I think I mentioned in my last post that I've been doing Holidays a little different this year.
This year has created a lot of firsts for me. It's the first time I've lived in one place for 10 months since I lived at home in high school...It's the first time I've lived alone with my fiancé in a stand-alone house, without members of our community right next door. The other first's I'll save until my new years reflection post, but those two are important when it comes to holiday planning.
For the first time in my life, I have my own house, my own living room to decorate. As I saw photos of friends on Facebook, some as early as mid-November putting up Christmas trees and decking their halls, I started to wonder what I should do to celebrate.
Certainly there is a cause to celebrate. I don't feel a connection to the modern Christmas traditions, but December 21st is a very important day for me. The winter season, also being my slow work season, is a wonderful time to reflect, slow down, and sit with friends and sip hot beverages. Or explore the world around us while it moves toward dormancy.

I thought for days about how to create my own winter holiday traditions...one that had a touch of my favorite traditions growing up, but were more meaningful to me and in line with my environmental and ethical goals. As I passed trees I longed for the piney scent to be staged in my living room... but assured myself that I'd gather some branches the next time I make it to the forest nearby, and make a wreath. Eventually, as I was dragging a 5 foot tumbleweed out of the pecan orchard... I had an idea.

Long story short:

 

 

A tumbleweed Christmas tree. Aside from my paranoia of it being a fire hazard (so far so good), this completely sustainable 'tree' has been decorated with recycled materials that we've crafted over about a dozen combined hours, and potted with some local golden gravel. The best part to me is that at the end of the Holiday season...we can save the ornaments we want to keep, and toss the rest in the compost. I guarantee it will be broken down by Spring... AND nothing was killed to add some shimmer to our holiday season.

 

Mandatory popcorn garland- created from nightshade berries, rose hips, some type of black nut that grows outside our house, and popcorn.

 

Crafting crazy! But we got to try out our brand new exacto knives... an exciting day in the Landrum/Werr house. Cleaning up was half the battle.

 

I finally gave in to looking at pinterest... and the results were...fun.

Some planet cut-outs I made ages ago with a brand new angel...watching over them all.

Holidays shouldn't be about stress and holiday shopping. They should be about spending time doing what you love with the people you love. We're only 5 days into December, and I have spent hours with Amil crafting and creating. I'm looking forward to what the rest of the season will bring.