Archive for the ‘Christmas in Oysterville’ Category

Please help spread the good word!

Monday, December 11th, 2023

 

Next Sunday (the 17th) there will be a Christmas Vesper program at the Oysterville Church from 2:00 to 3:00.  Among the participants will be Steve Kovach, Vespers Spiritual Leader; Tucker Wachsmuth with an “Oysterville Moment” —   a holiday remembrance from old Oysterville; Dobby Wiegardt reading the Christmas Story from the Book of Mark; and the Oyster Crackers, presenting a program of familiar seasonal music and leading the congregation in singing Christmas carols from the old hymnals.  Come as you are to celebrate with us!  And please forward this message to your friends and loved ones.  All are invited!

Christmas Vespers Coming To Oysterville!

Friday, December 8th, 2023

F
For as long as any of us can remember, and for as long as holiday remembrances have been recounted, there has been a Christmas program at the Oysterville church.  When there were still children attending the Oysterville School. teachers and students put on a program for the entire town to enjoy.  In more recent years, the Christmas gatherings have been less formal — sometimes almost spontaneous.  But few years have gone by without candles and a bit of greenery and carols sung by the community.

This year the tradition continues bringing with it a bit of the annual Music Vespers programs with a “home-grown” musical group — The Oyster Crackers; a spiritual “master of ceremonies” — Steve Kovach;  Christmas carols from the old hymnals sung by all in attendance;  a reading of the Christmas story from the gospel of Mark by a revered elder of the community, Dobby Wiegardt; and a favorite local Christmas story as told by Tucker Wachsmuth.

All of this will be happening on Sunday, December 17. at 2:00 in the afternoon.  As we say for summer vespers, “Come as you are!”  Enjoy the amazing acoustics of the Historic Oysterville Church as our voices ring in the season.  See you there!

;

That Old Woman Inside Me

Monday, December 12th, 2022

Fred at Nyel’s Bon Voyage Party

A few years ago when Nyel was having an especially tough time, Fred Carter traveled all the way to his hospital room in Portland to sing Toby Keith’s “Don’t Let The Old Man In.”  Never mind that we all cried.  And never mind that we cried every time Fred played it from then on.  It was hands down the thought that kept Nyel going for those final years.  And, yes, when Fred played it at Nyel’s Bon Voyage Party in July, there wasn’t a dry eye.

As I struggle with this first Christmas without Nyel, it occurs to me that there is an old woman inside me who would like to just take the easy way this year.  No decorating and celebrating “as usual.”  No shopping or wrapping.  No cooking those traditional foods.  No hurrying and scurrying to celebrate in the usual ways.

Sydney – A Christmas Or So Ago

And then I think, “Don’t let that old woman out!”  Just as Nyel faced every day with as much vigor as he could command and wouldn’t let the old man in, I don’t really want to give credence to that old woman within me.

Hey, Fred!  Maybe I need a song!

Doncha just hate that?

Sunday, December 11th, 2022

I even looked online to see today’s hours for the establishment I was planning to visit..  After all. it’s Sunday and some folks still consider it a day of rest.  Or semi- rest.

Today’s hours:  Eleven to four.   Perfect!  I wanted to see what the Christmas tree situation might be.  It was raining a bit as I left Oysterville… then a bit more… until I got to my destination which required a left-hand turn across the oncoming traffic.

And then dimly, oh so dimly, I saw the gray wire barricade stretching across the drive way.  Gray wire fading into the misty-moisty gray weather. To say I slammed on my brakes was the understatement of the year.  Was my rear end sticking out into the oncoming traffic?  Not quite.  But how to get back on the road? Those ditches on either side of the drive looked ominous and and didn’t leave much room for maneuvering.  And why don’t people turn on their flippin’ lights when the visibility is so sucky?

There were words and the air inside the car was blue.  To my left I could see a few (very few) Christmas trees — and did they have sold signs on them?  But wait!  Here’s an opening!  And I was outta there,

So scary.  So disappointing.  So NOT worth a Christmas tree… But I promised my son and a promise is a promise.  Maybe they’ll be open tomorrow.  Or update their website.

A century ago and more in this very house…

Friday, December 9th, 2022

Willard and Dale, 1914

Every once in a while, when I am all about getting organized for the here and now, I wonder what was going on in these very rooms a hundred years or so ago.  How lucky I am that I can sometimes find out.

A few days ago, I looked up “December 7” in Dear Medora and found a short letter written on that date in 1911 from eleven-year-old Medora to her mother:

Thursday 8:10 P.M. December 7, 1911
Dearest Mama,
Papa went to Olympia this morning so I guess you will get more news from him than me…
          Willard will be a year old Monday, the eleventh, and Dale a month old the 13th, that’s Wednesday.
          We are all well but oh so lonesome,  Medora

Helen Richardson Espy, Medora Espy, Ruth Richardson, 1907

“Mama” was in Olympia recuperating after the birth of her seventh child, Helen-Dale (my mother) and Medora, the oldest of her children, was in Oysterville with the rest of the family.  Mama’s younger sister, Ruth, was  overseeing the household and Medora was the primary correspondent, keeping Mama informed about her “flock” at home.  Papa was dividing his time between his dairy farm here and his attendance at Mama’s side.

 Mama wrote back to Medora a few days later:
Saturday, December 9, 1911
Medora dear,
          I am so happy to have Papa.  Am feeling better.  Will surely be home Xmas unless something new happens.
                                                            Hastily,  Mama

Willard, Edwin, Dale – 1916

My infant mother (and her parents) did make it back to Oysterville in time for her first Christmas — 111 years ago in this very house!  Though I have no letters to attest to that, I have the memories of the many family stories that were shared over the years about that and dozens of other Christmases in this old house.  Yes!  How lucky I am!

Oysterville Christmas Turns Exotic!

Wednesday, December 7th, 2022

Christmas Cheer in Oysterville!

Oh my goodness!  An orchid in my living room at Christmas!  In my mind (and experience), it doesn’t get much more exotic than that!  Not here in Oysterville, anyway!  And certainly not in this old house.  I am gobsmacked!

For several years now, my neighbor Linda — who lives some of the time in far off Oregon (and wrongly in my opinion) — has stopped on her way to the beach at her favorite Trader Joe’s and picked up a couple of those waxed amaryllis plants at this time of year — one for her and one for me and probably others, as well.  Care free, fast growing, with bright red blossoms in time for Christmas.  Yesterday she called as she came through Long Beach.  “Are you home?  I’m dropping off our annual Christmas flower but they didn’t have any amaryllis this year.  So we are each having a white Christmas!”

Memories of Vanda Orchid Corsages…

Orchids!!  A gorgeous white spray of orchids — on the hoof!  The only orchids I’ve ever really experienced (besides seeing them in the wild in Hawaii) are those small, purple orchids (Vandas?) that were so popular for corsages in the 1950s.  If you got one of those (instead of baby roses or carnations) it was almost a declaration of true love!  But, although I do remember keeping those corsages in the refrigerator long after the prom — why? I wonder now.  Sentiment, I guess. They weren’t alive and I didn’t really have to worry about them… but I oohed and aahed over them for a long, long time.

An Exotic White Christmas!

Yesterday, after this gorgeous spray’s arrival, I went straight to my computer and looked up how to care for it.  Wow!  Misting and spraying and soaking the roots and feeding it special orchid food!  I right away spoke to it up-close-and-personal and told it I would do my best but not to have very high expectations — especially not beyond Christmas.

Meanwhile, though…  I feel that little glow of high school prom love!  And for the first time in all my years, a walk through my Oysterville living room feels like a vacation in the tropics!  Wow!

Sure as Santa… the season has begun!

Saturday, December 3rd, 2022

2019 Christmas Tree

“The Nutcracker” is on in Astoria.  The Bayside Singers are booked at both the north and south ends of the Peninsula.  Tuba Christmas is coming back to the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum.  And there are bazaars and craft fairs all over the place.

But that’s not how I know “the season” has begun.  No.  Nothing quite so festive has alerted me.  It was my overwhelming desire (unconquered, though I tried) to clean house, polish silver, sparkled up the crystal and glassware and think about transforming the house one more time.

2021 Christmas Tree

I’d sort of planned on a break this year.  You know — just a low-key get-together with friends and family to count our blessings, sing a carol or two, and maybe raise our glasses to sweet memories and  tomorrows of hope.  Maybe just a little tree and some greenery on the mantel…

But, somehow, that wasn’t the family consensus.  “Oh, Mom, let’s have a big tree — just one last ten-footer,” said Charlie.  And why was it that Marta was in perfect agreement, anyway?  She isn’t even going to be here this year.  (When you make your living as a pet-sitter, holidays are seldom your own.)  And since when is Christmas still all about “kids” even though they are approaching 70?

2012 Christmas Tree

I thought about those things as I fluffed up the dining room today, all the while singing along with Joan Baez and Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra…  Tomorrow, the living room and the next day the library.  And by next week, I hope all will be ready for that ten-foot tree — not only the house but the crew of helper elves who have offered their holiday assistance!  And then… let the toasting begin!

 

And another thing we take for granted…

Monday, January 3rd, 2022

Willard and Sydney – 1938 in Oysterville

Laps.  Not the kind you do on the track or in the swimming pool.  The laps I’m talking about here are the kind you took for granted when you sat on the one belonging to your grandma.  It wasn’t until Christmas dinner just past that I had occasion to carefully consider laps and how most of us assume that people with two legs also have a perfectly useful lap.  It took a twenty-pound turkey to disabuse me of that thought.

As our friends and relatives all know, Nyel is the chef at our house.  Plus, he’s one of those chefs who isn’t one bit happy or grateful for offers of help in his kitchen — and that was true even in the days before he became wheelchair-bound.  Therefore, for Christmas dinner it was agreed that our guests would supply dessert (pies!  one pumpkin, one Marionberry!) and Nyel would do the rest.  So it was that he spent the day preparing a twenty-pound “young Tom” turkey, dressing, garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, roasted asparagus, green salad with Roquefort crumbles and pears, and the usual accompaniments of crudités and cranberry sauces.  He did allow a couple if us to carry the heaping serving dishes to the table but his plan went a bit awry when it came to getting the bird onto the platter.

Two Ovens!

It dawned on both of us that he might be in a little trouble when we realized he couldn’t lift that twenty-pound- bird (plus its ten-pound stainless steel roasting pan) from the lower (and largest) oven and and up to the counter.  I think he was planning on his lap as an intermediary stage… but wait!  Though Nyel has two legs, his left one is shorter by four inches — and not from the knee down.  The bone he lost was from his upper thigh to his pelvis, so his lap isn’t exactly level.  Not as in holding a twenty-pound panful of turkey (even if it hadn’t been hot! hot! hot!).

I don’t know when the penny dropped, but fortunately I was right there and managed to get that roaster up to the counter.  Nyel got Tom onto the platter and I schlepped him to the table.  That bird was absolutely gorgeous and tasted perfect.  I doubt that he even missed sitting  on Nyel’s lap!

But sometimes I do…

 

Waking Up To Two Worlds

Thursday, December 30th, 2021

2nd Grade Snowman Painting c. 1990

If I stand in just the right spot, I can have one foot (the east one) in five inches of snowdrift and the other one in very wet, very green grass.  The warming trend or the wind or the winter blahs (let’s hope not) must be moving in from the west.  But it seems to be taking its time to completely change the color of our Christmastime Oysterville Snowscape.

My feelings are as conflicted as the landscape.  I loved looking out at the world of white.  I didn’t even mind that it wasn’t the sort of snow that we could turn into a snowman or clump together for a righteous snowball fight.  At least that’s what our guest Randal said…  Of course, it would have been his boys at the center of the action and maybe they just didn’t want to go there.

On the other hand, it was truly slippy-slidey walking out to the chickens, especially by days four and five when former footprints had compacted to ice and had been covered over with a layer of innocent looking snow.  I worried about Charlie heading home on Monday and I just let the mail sit at the Post Office until yesterday.  I had no desire to drive, even though I was told “the roads are pretty good.”  Pretty good but not great I found when I finally ventured out.  The corner at Territory and Ocean Beach Roads was a slushy, icy mess.  I could almost hear the ditches on either side say, “Come on in!  The icy water’s fine!”

All in all, though, it was a picture-perfect Christmas!  Even though I held my breath until Charlie’s “I’m home!” call last night, I’m glad the snow came when it did and stayed around to make the holiday season even more magical than usual.  And now… we are girding up our loins (as they say) for 2022 with firm resolve: “We can do it!”

In the best of regulated families…

Thursday, December 23rd, 2021

Charlie has arrived!

Lots of flurrying at our house these past few days.  Not the kind of flurries that bring snow with them.  More the kind that bring visitors and Christmas elves and, day before yesterday… Charlie!  There’s been laughing and talking and going out to dinner.  And, of course with all the extra fun comes hurrying and scurrying to get presents wrapped and food prepared and everything in readiness for the big day ahead.

Actually for us, Christmas is very much a two-day affair — our traditional baked oysters according a my great-grandmother Julia Espy’s recipe followed by opening the gifts that have miraculously appeared under our tree.  And then on Christmas Day, turkey and all the trimmings in late afternoon followed by dessert in front of the library fire and, if we are not completely undone by then, snacks in the kitchen in the pitch of the night.

Baked Oysters a la Great Grandma Julia

This year, our wonderful friends, Susan Waters and Randal Bays and their boys Owen and Willie will join us for Christmas dinner — first time we’ve been all  together in more than two years I think.  (And we were so sure, when they moved to Olympia that we’d absolutely be in one another’s pockets because of the proximity!)

I hope that every single friend and acquaintance and everyone reading this Eve-of-Christmas-Eve blog is experiencing similar flurries and scurries and excitements of the season.  As my mother would have said, “It’s simply what should be happening in the best of regulated households!”  Which was usually a pronouncement made after a major incident or disaster along the way.  Like the time Aunt Dora dropped the roast and one of the little boys in the household happened through the kitchen about then and…  but that’s another story.  Maybe for tomorrow.