Mothers

I think a lot about mothers. I have one! She is 96 and still has all her faculties, lives alone in her own independent villa in an Old People's Village setting. You know, she's still so quick that my brothers gave her an i-Pad for Christmas last year and she can still beat it at Scrabble.
The other day, I was relief teaching a kindergarten. First thing in the morning, one of the mums brought her 5, going on 6, year-old daughter in. Mum was pushing a stroller that had a newborn bub in the back and a young toddler in the front. As well, there was an older toddler clinging to the side. Yet she was quite calm and controlled and was busily organising her kindy daughter's lunch order and making sure she had everything she needed for her day at school. I watched her in amazement managing her four children under 6 with such ease. She walks her kindy daughter to school every morning.
As I thought about her management skills, as I went about my morning planning, quite suddenly I realised that when I was a newborn baby, my mum was in exactly the same place. When I was a newborn, my next brother was just 2, my older brother was 3 1/2 and my sister was 5 1/2. My mum walked her to school every morning and collected her each afternoon, with the rest of us in tow! And home to school was about a kilometre down and up a very steep hill. As well, the last 10metres was up and down about 40 steps from the street to our house. I call it a street - it was more like a rough and rugged dirt track in those days. Yet she did this twice a day! Wow, it must have felt like a marathon on most days!
As well as doing this, she was an incredible housewife. Our home was always clean, although rarely tidy - it always looked lived-in. The curtains at the windows and the cushions on the couches were the ones she had created and sewn. Our clothes were mostly made my mum. She knitted, she sewed, she crocheted, she smocked and all those skills were put to good use clothing all of us.
She was also very resilient and courageous. She married my dad (that's another story!) on June 1st, 1940. Dad went to Army Training Camp ten days later, went to the Middle Eastern Conflict later that year, not to return home till June,1944, called back to the Asian conflict six weeks later, leaving mum pregnant. Just recently, when I was visiting my mum in Tasmania, she said to me,
"I never doubted that he would come home. There was never a moment when I felt he would be killed!"
She lived through those 5 1/2 years, bringing their first daughter into the world on her own. My father's family had very little to do with her during those years as they did not approve of the marriage, which made it even harder for mum. A couple of her sisters-in-law were there for her and, of course, her own family. She also worked in a local department store as a milliner during the war years too - her creations still win her First Prize at the Melbourne Cup and Easter Hat Parades at the Old People's home!
When you live with a mother like this all your life, you don't often appreciate the strength of character she possesses. She worked beside my dad when he took on a failing Returned Servicemen's Business, building it into an immensely successful proposition, rarely complaining about the hours that she and dad spent working it. About the only time I have ever heard her complain about Dad not being at home enough was actually after he retired!
It is only in later years, that I began to appreciate how much she had done for all of us, her creativity, her ability to make ends meet (especially in the early years of the business, before it actually started to 'make money').
As we grew a little older and more independent, she took on several other hobbies. She ahd always loved flowers and grew the flowers that she then used in the most amazing floral arrangements for special events of any kind in our local church. As well, She and her best friend went and learnt how to decorate cakes. From that time on, mum's fruit cake was beautifully iced for weddings, birthdays, Christmases and any other occasion where a beaut fruit cake was needed. Mum then decided to take up China painting and she managed to become very good at that too, nearly always drawing her own designs, rather than using commercial patterns. I treasure the native flower ones she has painted for me over the years.
She fitted all of these things into her life, as well as singing (with her beautiful alto voice) in a trio and the church choir, and yet she was still home for us every afternoon when we arrived from school, even high school - rarely were we latch-key kids. There was nearly always some freshly-baked goodies waiting for us too! Because, of course, she was a brilliant cook!
Growing up for mum was not easy. Her mother had a stroke when mum was quite young and mum had to assume quite a few of the household duties. As well, as a teenager, she lived through the Depression years. I think it is for these reasons, she does not demonstrate her emotions towards us easily, but we all know very much that our mother loves us and would die for us at the 'drop of a hat'! I feel very humbled by my mother's life and I consider myself very fortunate at 63 to still have my mother, with her mind and her dry, acid wit still intact! Even though I don't remember her saying it, I say it to her at the end of every 'phone conversation - "I love you Mum!"

The beginning of the Christmas Season in our house

I have been remarkably absent from my blogging for a month as life has been particularly hectic here on our Hill. It's great that we've been busy, but some days I feel as though I don't even have time to take that extra large breath to make sure I have enough oxygen in my system to keep me awake!

So, quite suddenly, December has arrived and with it, Christmas. In an earlier post, I touched on some of our family's Christmas traditions. The first tradition our family has always observed is putting up the Christmas tree. This has to happen on the first FULL weekend in December. So during this last week, I nagged Peter until he got all my boxes of decos down out of the manhole space, then I put together the skeleton of my latest tree - a black wrought iron one! I say my latest tree because I have owned quite a few different ones since the first green plastic one that I inherited from my ex m-i-l! The next one I bought was when the children and I returned to Tasmania to live and I had a bit of cash left over that we spent on various luxuries, including a 6 foot high artificial Christmas tree. Over the next few years, it was lovingly adorned with decorations that I made in cross stitch or beaded felt or crocheted plus the addition each year of the decos made by the children in Day Care then school. We had a single string of fairy lights and a bit of tinsel and it was beautiful in all our eyes! Unfortunately, we lost the lot when we had our house fire (but that's another story!) After that I didn't have the heart to re-make all those handmade beauties and the children were nearly into high school so the decos stopped on that front as well. For the next few years we had a very traditional green tree with red, gold, blue, green and silver baubles - it was a tree with very little heart actually. Then I discovered purple and silver.... much excitement the first year I had a themed Chrissie tree, all purple and silver. In those early years, it was really difficult to find decorations outside the traditional colours - not so nowadays of course.  Seven years ago, I discovered optic fibre trees and I had a white skeletonized one made of wrapped optic fibres, which received mixed reviews from the family. I loved it! After several years of service, it started to look quite tatty so it was 'back to the drawing board' to find a new tree.

So last year and this, it has been the black wrought iron tree. Last year, the purple and silver adorned the tree, but just to added a little extra spice, I've included a bit of red this year. It has certainly brightened the overall perspective. I love my tree, in fact, whatever tree I put up each year, I love my tree! There is something about having the Christmas tree up that puts me in the mood for Christmas to commence. Once I have our tree up and decorated then the festivities may start in full swing.

The last couple of years, as a family, we have decided that the 'gathering' is more important than the gifts, yet we can't give them up completely. My two children and Peter's are both at the stage in life where mortgages and such like are high on the agenda, which means we are all 'as poor as church mice'! So last year My son James and I came up 'with a plan'! At our Christmas gathering we would bring each person a gift who was going to be present. This gift was not to be worth more than $10 and it also had to fit into our Christmas stockings. It is amazing what kinds of useful items can be purchased for less than $10 and be small enough to fit in a Christmas stocking. It is almost more fun and definitely more thought goes into it than when we used to 'lash out' and 'spend up big'! Of course some smarty pants in the family have worked out that if they get together with somebody else they can spend $20 on a joint gift!

I try to complete my shopping by the end of November (my own little tradition) and this year I did and I'm very proud of my efforts! Now all I have to do is wrap them up prettily and add them to each person's stocking. I sorted out all my little Christmas bags, wrapping paper, curling ribbons and tags today as well ready for the day I get enthused enough to 'do the wrapping'!