by Eric Mayer, reprinted with permission: The Orphan Scrivener: THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER – ISSUE # THIRTY-SIX — l5 DECEMBER 2005
Although we’re not yet officially in bleak midwinter, frosty winds have certainly make moans across our first significant fall of snow. Yes, the landscape here and in wide swathes of the country now features much frolic architecture, as Ralph Waldo Emerson characterized the effect of those frozen flakes. We have a good example right outside the front door, where our buggy sits snugly encased, the white mound on its roof topped with a wind-driven twig of spruce, putting us in mind of an enormous (if misshapen) Christmas pudding.
We’re all familiar with that eerie hush snow carries in the fold of its bleached-out mantle. Today, however, will be less quiet, for a chorus of dismay will soon begin to arise hither and yon as this issue of Orphan Scrivener hits the aether and—akin to unsuspecting pedestrians slipping on those patches of pathway certain gamins assiduously doused with water in the winters of our misspent youth—slides in its unbalanced way willy-nilly into your email box.
ERIC’S BIT or BETWEEN A TURKEY AND A HARD PLACE
We’re right smack in the middle of the holidays, halfway between the turkey platter descending to the table and that big ball crashing down on Times Square, fortunately a long way from us.
Once upon a time I’d choke down the last turkey-salad sandwich while wrapping the first Christmas presents. Yes, I was lucky I didn’t die of “waste not, want not,” otherwise known, in the case of three-week old chopped fowl and mayo, as ptomaine poisoning. At least it belatedly gave me things to feel thankful about. Not only my survival, but the last sight of gobbler for another year.
These days Mary and I are vegetarians and say whatever else you want about them, wheat gluten and soy protein “chicken” slices don’t fill up the fridge with life threatening leftovers.
Admittedly, I have a jaundiced view of the whole Christmas season. The tasteful lights my Dad used to string around the house matched my perception. Not that they were yellow. The lights were blue. But you get my drift. I only wish you could’ve come and got the snow drifts those blue lights illuminated.
That’s right. I’m not a big fan of snow either.
Isn’t there anything I like about the holidays, you might ask, unless you’ve already thrown this essay across the room in disgust? Or should I say turned off the monitor. Surely you wouldn’t throw the monitor? Of course. Lots of things. Well, some things.
For example, at a young age I was enthralled by an Advent calendar. I could hardly wait for each day’s installment. There I found something mysterious about a story hidden behind doors. I admit, part of the thrill was all that stuff about shepherds watching their flocks and wise men and mangers ended up with Santa arriving.
Not that that ever worked out exactly the way I imagined. One year the grocery store sold toys for some reason. Way up above the meats, where you couldn’t examine it closely, they had a Cape Canaveral set. From my vantage point south of the pork chops, it was a wonder—moveable gantries and launch pads and rockets of all varieties, trucks for hauling liquid oxygen, with moveable hoses and probably the tanks actually held water, a control tower, and I’ll bet it had batteries and lights and went *LIFTOFF!*, technicians and astronauts, seagulls to scatter as the rockets thundered into the sky. Well, I think there were seagulls.
My young heart’s desire—a space program in a box.
Unfortunately, the Santa who serviced my house cut the NASA budget that year.
That’s what I hate most about Christmas. No Santa. I don’t like holidays that lie to me. It makes me angry.
And that reminds me of the fruitcakes everyone mocks. You know the jokes, how they’re best used for doorstops, and no one eats them, and they put them away to give to someone else next year? What I hate is hearing those jokes.
Fruitcakes are one of the few things I like about Christmas!
The husband-and-wife team of Mary Reed and Eric Mayer have published twelve mysteries featuring John, Lord Chamberlain to sixth-century Byzantine Emperor Justinian, and two novels featuring Grace Baxter, set in the UK during WWII. Their blog started in 2000 and averages six posts a year. They say, “We started this email newsletter because we were advised that authors should have a newsletter. However, we don’t really enjoy promotion, so although we sometimes talk about writing or Roman history, mostly we just do personal essays. A quick calculation offers the surprising result Orphan Scrivener will celebrate its silver anniversary in February next year. We feel we ought to do something to mark the occasion but have no idea what it could be. Ideas welcome!” They do them well, and the essays are still relevant.
