Aunt Ella

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love
of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having,
in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.
—Laura Ingalls Wilder

I’ve been thinking about my Great-Aunt Ella this week. Ella Viola Erickson Yeates Thompson. A really long name for a five-foot-nothing, petite woman. Aunt Ella is my grandma’s only sister, and she was like a second grandma to me and my cousins.

I believe my thinking started with a trip to the temple, where I did the work for a sister named Ella. And it’s Christmas. Aunt Ella always gave the best Christmas presents.

Well that’s not quite right. Truth be told, I can’t remember a single specific gift, but she was an expert at exciting packaging. Hers were always the best gifts to shake and handle, full of odd shapes, unique textures and interesting sounds. My siblings and I would bring Aunt Ella’s presents home after the family Christmas party and put them under the tree, but they wouldn’t stay there for long; it was too much fun to try to figure out what was inside. And her packaging was always designed to thwart our investigation—with a random jingle bell or something similar tucked inside—so the actual contents were always a surprise on Christmas morning!

I always felt a special connection to Aunt Ella (though I'm willing to bet I wasn’t the only one of my cousins who did). In a family full of farmers and engineers, accountants and amateur astronomers, she was the one adult in my extended family who seemed as excited about literature as I was. She often asked me about what I was reading in school, and when I was studying Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in high school, she spoke excitedly with me about how she loved that poem.

I also remember her high heels, her tiny feet, her tailored jackets and one particularly soft velvet skirt. To my young eyes, she always looked so put together and even elegant. I wonder if she'd laugh to hear me say that!

I was not quite grown up when she died, and as I think about her, I’m sad that I didn’t get to know her well in my adult life. She never had children, though she did mother many children who were not her own. She was married, and widowed, and married again, and widowed again. I would love to know how these experiences impacted her, and what they taught her. I would love to have shared more literature with her as I continued to study English at BYU and USU. And it would have been great fun to learn her Christmas packaging secrets now that I have young nieces and a nephew to gift-wrap for.

Though, as much as I wish that I had the chance to know her better as an adult, I know I will see her again and will get that chance at some point. And I won’t be a bit surprised to learn that our association began well before either of us was born, and so I already know her very well, after all. 

Aunt Ella's headstone in Heber City, Utah

Little Tree

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty.
—Edgar Allan Poe

I wanted to share another favorite Christmas poem -- and one that's a sight more cheery than Eliot's Journey of the Magi. My friend (and fellow English nerd) Brooke introduced me to it a Christmas or two ago, and since I happened to adore e.e. cummings already, it became a fast favorite. So here it is, in all its lowercase and puncuation-less beauty!

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[little tree]

e.e.cummings

little tree

little silent Christmas tree

you are so little

you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest

and were you very sorry to come away?

see          i will comfort you

because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark

and hug you safe and tight

just as your mother would,

only don't be afraid

look          the spangles

that sleep all the year in a dark box

dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,

the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms

and i'll give them all to you to hold

every finger shall have its ring

and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy

then when you're quite dressed

you'll stand in the window for everyone to see

and how they'll stare!

oh but you'll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands

and looking up at our beautiful tree

we'll dance and sing

"Noel Noel" 

The One Where I Pick on The Sound of Music

I go to the hills when my heart is lonely;
I know I will hear what I've heard before.
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll sing once more.
—The Sound of Music

I watched The Sound of Music this weekend for the first time in a very long time. It was great to watch it in a theater with a group of very funny friends. I truly enjoyed myself, and it’s a fine movie. I just have to make that clear because I’m about to pick on a movie that I know people adore. But I had some thoughts during the movie that, for some reason, I just have to share—all in fun, of course. Just  chalk it up to the English-major analyzer in me.

First of all, who knew it was so feminism-UNfreindly? I know, I know—it’s a product of its time (and in part of its genre). But really, Rogers and Hammerstein? Really??

For instance, when Maria tells Liesl how it will be when she falls in love and marries, the lyric is (I kid you not), “Lo and behold you’re someone’s wife, and you belong to him.”  Belong to? Really? Sigh. Honestly, there was an all-but-audible sigh in the theater, too. I promise. I heard it.

And while we’re on the subject, how is it that Maria can counsel Liesl about young heartache? Supposedly she’s wanted to be a nun her whole life; when she was young, she would climb a tree to look into the abbey and long to be there. She tells the Reverend Mother that she left the Von Trapps, in part, because she felt something for Captain Von Trapp that she’d never felt before. Maria’s story seems to be this—grow up, try the nunnery, fall in love with the first man you meet, marry into an instant family, and then act like an expert on all things romantic. I don’t buy it, Maria.

And Rolfe. Oh, Rolfe. I understand the gazebo scene is a lot of teenage flirting and grandstanding. But I’m left to wonder, Rolfe, how it is you feel you are “older and wiser,” one who can “take care” of Liesl as she navigates the "world of men"? What do you know of it, Rolfe? Have you been offering food and wine to other young women? Just what DO you do when you’re not delivering telegrams?

And finally, this thought: How do you solve a problem like Maria? Apparently you marry her off to the local widower, threaten the family with Nazis and convince them to flee over the border. Problem solved.

Ok, that last one might have been a bit harsh.

Again, apologies to all you Sound of Music lovers. And it fact, there really is a lot to like here. I love the reprise of "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria" at the wedding. Remembering the girl who ran though the abbey makes the image of the woman she’s become even more striking. And the parallels between the Reverend Mother, who cares for and protects the sisters in her care, and Maria, who is now called “mother” by the children she loves, are a nice touch. Plus, the lyrics to the title song are just beautiful.

Please no hate mail (though if you must, I understand). I do like the movie. There were just a few things that simply had to be said. And now I’m done.

Journey of the Magi

Mild he lays his glory by,

Born that man no more may die;

Born to raise the sons of earth,

Born to give them second birth.
—Charles Wesley

If you know me and my penchant for depressing turn-of-the-century(ish) literature, it should come as no surprise that Journey of the Magi is one of my favorite Christmas poems. First, it's T.S. Eliot—and who doesn't love T.S. Eliot, right? And second, it's just wonderfully written. I love the sound of it, the tone, and the ambiguity at the end—not to mention the exquisite details, the marvelous rhythm and alliteration, and the fabulous line breaks. Brilliant, Mr. Eliot. Just brilliant.

Here it is (and you can listen to Eliot read it here):
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Journey of the Magi

 T.S. Eliot

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
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Just lovely, no? We could talk about the symbols, or the state of these Kings (glimpsing the birth of a new kingdom and then having to return to their former places where they are "no longer at ease"), or the ways in which the poem's imagery mirrors Christ's life and mission.

But aside from all that literary stuff, THIS is why I love this poem at Christmas: "Were we led all that way for Birth or Death?" What an amazing line! The birth is significant, for sure, but it's significant as the beginning of a life and a mission and yes, a death, that would be so very important.

As we celebrate the birth of the Savior, I am ever grateful for his death, and all that accompanied that event. For his atonement and for his resurrection. For the reality that because he was willing to descend below all things, I can rise above my trials and imperfections and sins; because he took on the pains and sorrows of the world, he understands mine; because of his sacrifice, my own offering—however paltry in comparison—is acceptable. I'm am beyond humbled to know that because of him, I am saved.

And that is what is beautiful about celebrating the miraculous birth of a baby in Bethlehem so long ago.