December 2022

Got my holiday FOMO in high gear again this year, feeling sad and torn over all the lovely holiday events and activities going on that we won’t attend. Too busy, too behind, too stressed, and too much dealing with the “extra-curricular” of life to enjoy the season. Facebook feeds it, of course, and of course I’m supposed to be wiser and more well-poised to prioritize and enjoy the deeper meaning, but I find that right about this point I’m feeling blue. Even my ugly sweater fits in.

But then I look again and see that, why, we have attended a right many things over the years. We’ve done the “School concerts with an open headwound—Twice! Love that one. We’ve done “Christmas Open House sans house siding,” when the front of our house was half hung and half falling off. Deck the halls with rolls of Tyvek. Christmas Eve dinners with no oven or kitchen floor? Check. O Little Town of Bedlam. Hard to get tickets to that one, but so worth it. If you can’t score tix to front-row disaster, just plan all your house repairs and major appliance purchases after December 1st. Easy peasy. Or take last-minute out-of-town trips. For many years we did the “Polar Express” high speed edition, screaming home from North Carolina on the 24^th straight into our angel and shepherd costumes. (Huh. Is this a pageant or a pitstop?)

I think by now everybody has seen “Sickness, disease, and despair,” a Christmas classic. Really enjoyed the blockbuster of 2020. Sold-out performance. Sure ‘nough, my notes from last year show the very first gift of Christmas morning—6:30 a.m., no one else awake—was an email containing our negative Covid tests. We’ve done broken bones and snapped tendons (yes, middle finger). The ER is always so nicely decorated this time of year, I think if only they would serve cookies and cider we could call that a holiday outing. And I hear people pay good money for online “scavenger hunts.” Sheeeesh. You can look for stuff all durn day around here and not spend a dime. At the Burk house we do “tacky,” and we’ve certainly done “light shows.” But I should probably leave that one alone for now.

So, you know the sadness they talk about this time of year? I’m there. Three of our four kitty cats have departed life during this season, one just weeks ago the day of the UVA shooting. We’ve also lost two beloved family members while the Christmas trees were still up. So as for all those lovely posts about Christmas markets, holiday open houses, historic tours of beautifully decorated homes, concerts, cookie swaps, plays and parties, I’ll be hiding in an upstairs bathroom. I got nothing funny enough still fit to print. Maybe you can relate. Do you feel it? Got some sadness too big for the stocking? Because who really wants a Christmas letter stuffed with the news headlines—mass shootings, political strife, and global warming?

And it’s a mixed bag from Santa this year, to be sure. William will be singing “All I want for Christmas is my wisdom teeth,” as he gets a big box o’ nitrous oxide on the 21^st so as not to miss any (more) school. Sophie “where-the-wind-blows” Burk will get a flat gift that goes the furthest in the form of a plane ticket to California. I hope she and new beau will stay a few nights here when I retrieve them at the airport in January. Probably the guy with the most gifts this year will be our beloved Father Bill. Yep. We let him unwrap one early, a torn rotator cuff to go with his bum knees. Then we got him a broken 60-year-old boiler at church two weeks before a brand-new bishop visits our parish–an annual event postposed by—you guessed it, the Corona. But wait, there is only one Crown in this story. Read my Christmas Poem from 2020.

I must keep in mind the blessings that have showered us with wonder and joy all year. We missed the February showing of “Inclement weather dashes all hope of much anticipated event,” when I drove Ellie to Dulles in an ice storm and maybe six minutes after her required PCR popped negative, to put her on a plane to Florence for the semester. Get behind me, pandemic. You are no match for this mamma, or this travellin’ girl, although it did get her on the last days of her study abroad, as it got Bill and me the very last days of public school. He had a miserable time but still managed to help Sophie outfit her new (to her) car that she proudly bought and baptized by driving it across the country. Both of them fully masked in a little side yard dance improv called “social distancing with power tools.” Then she starred in a play in four acts called “Backcountry Camping with Covid.” I wouldn’t recommend it. Goes on forever. And you get lousy reception while four beautiful college women girls throw Life 360 to the wind and go all Thelma & Louise under the Arizona sky. Another highlight this year was our whole family’s “Escape to Italy” at spring break, what with the preflight Covid testing feeling every bit like an Escape Room, and the re-entry guaranteeing a thrill for all.

This year we’re going to have a meltdown—I mean mellow Christmas, no travel. Entertaining friends and family the highlight, along with some unexpected repeats. There isn’t anything bluer than what Will is out of, so about a month ago he literally thunked down the stairs and said, “Think ima-gunna join the swim team.” So he did. And there we are, “Timing on Lane 3” at a 20-team swim invitational the coach throws down 48 hours before Christmas (thanks, coach), when I have so much stuff un-done I want to jump in the pool. Let’s just say it’s hard to spend the entire day around water when you already feel like you’re drowning, as the mother of all deadlines draws near.

Turns out we have a double feature this week, with a two-day college graduation/celebration thrown in for Ellie “I’m-changing-my-major Burk.” This world-traveling student of being alive has 162 credits from taking six classes a semester for nine semesters and is, yes, leaving her double major and her minor to go to grad school for archaeology. Because, why not?! Digging has a long history at the Burk house, where in the first cold days of March 2020 boy went out and began digging a hole in the back woods. Every day he dug. When we got home from Italy he dug sideways, tunneling through the Virginia clay inspired, I guess, by all those cool underground crypts and necropoleis we had explored. Plus, well, you always want to leave an escape route. It’s easily 10 or 12 feet deep and as wide. Though it no longer involves a shovel, he is digging still.

Yes, the season can make me sad. And it is not, Facebook friends, because my family isn’t out throwing axes or posing in holiday wear on pick-up trucks. No, I get it. The manger was gross. Muddy, cold, and smelly. And one of His first gifts was embalming oil, so that’s not too hard to figure out. If this manner of living has been hallowed, as it has, then frankly I’m all set. Death, in life. Darkness, and light. And the darkness cannot overcome. We’re practically tripping over cornerstones around here. Still, the struggle is real. Matching pajamas? I’m lucky if I can get the five of us together in a moving vehicle three times in a calendar year, never mind a photo. And that elf dares to darken our door I will escort him to the hole.

This year you just have to read between the lines. I won’t be the only mother in history to pray her son back to the straight and narrow path, but right now in the land sans prefrontal cortex, I feel like the most desperate. William “wanna-see-the-video?” Burk is hoping for bike parts under the tree. I watched him conclude his bike racing season by (deliberately) sailing off the side of a cliff for a 12-foot drop and 30-foot slide on his bike. He survived. The bike did not. Like I say, the extra-curricular is killin’ us. Let us suspend the belief that school is the only, or even the best place to learn. And let us certainly dispel the pressure to be in the right place at the right time wearing the right outfit and—er, saying the right thing. I tell you what. The same hand that punishes is the hand that pulls you out of the smoking rubble and pushes you forward. We’ve had Mercy herself knock on the front door and come to stay. And I ain’t kickin’ her out or making her pay rent.

So, Christmas is a busy time at the Burk Motel. Maybe it always has been, if not in the ways we may expect or wish for. This is what I know. The word “trial” and the word “trail,” a frequent typo, share the same letters. It’s just a matter of where you put your feet. And who you walk with.

Wishing you front row seats to the best show in town – Silent Night   

Merry Christmas and God Bless, from the Burks