This December, consider Practicality and Purpose
This December, consider Practicality and Purpose
And the story of my grandmother's bird whistle.
New this month at twolanelivin.com:
Prophesy - We celebrate the Advent of God's new era. Long ago, the gospel was shouted to the world as a general announcement. No more riddles, no more secret messages, no more hidden meanings. Good news, people, your destiny is crystal clear, and it is good.
Sanctify Your Cyber-Space - We should employ civilized means when dealing with those on social media who attempt, often successfully, to suck us into an uncivilized cyber world where feelings don’t really get hurt and common courtesy flies out the virtual window.
Living with Practical Purpose - We have to merge practicality and passion and be creative about doing so.
The Story of Zacchaeus - Jesus didn't care what the neighbors thought, and neither did Zacchaeus.
Heart Power is Horse Power - We were born knowing our purpose. That purpose is inherent in our hearts as much as the blood and oxygen circulating through our veins.
Above my grandmother’s writing desk, on the paneled wall, hung a polished and smooth, hand-made shelf that included two drawers. Inside those drawers, far beyond the reach of little hands, Grandma kept her trinkets. Tiny, unopened glass promotional bottles of Coca-Cola, buttons, tickets, and other small items deemed special by her memories and experiences.
The shelf now hangs in the office of my mother’s condo - pretty much as it was at Grandma’s house, the mantel clock on the shelf, the trinkets still inside. I do not know the stories that made the tiny treasures special to her, except for one — the story of Grandma’s bird whistle.
My grandmother, Thelma (Wheeler) McDermott was one of five sisters (who lived to adulthood) raised in Mason County. Her last remaining sister, my great-aunt Margaret, died earlier this year, six days short of her 106th birthday. Hattie, Gladys, Ethel, and Grandma have been long gone.
Grandma’s bird whistle is a reminder of a family Christmas, close to 100 years ago. That year, Christmas morning, Grandma received the white ceramic, bird-shaped whistle and an orange.
A whistle and an orange.
That must have been a tough year for the Wheelers.
I think of Grandma’s ceramic bird whistle every Christmas season, but this year, with inflation, gas prices, a pandemic-induced shift in cultural and personal values, our slow mental, physical, spiritual recovery post pandemic…
It has been a tough couple of years for all of us.
A whistle and an orange. Both simple, both special, both practical and with purpose. An orange, back then, in the midst of a West Virginia winter — was not an easy thing to come by. Shipped special from the south, the orange was a ball of sunshine, filled with Vitamins C and D. The orange was a winter rarity, and provided nutrients and nourishment. I would assume all the sisters received an orange.
And I can imagine, for a child in those days, a delicate bird-shaped whistle, shiny and fragile, was something special as well. The whistle could almost fill a child-sized hand, and I am sure Grandma blew it with pride. A whistle would be useful to a child working on the farm and playing in the forests, back in the days of jacks, marbles, and jumpropes, and hand-made swings hung from the front yard tree.
Both items were practical and purposeful gifts, small treats to celebrate the joys of Christmas. A Christmas about a bird whistle remembered two generations later. How many Christmas gifts of your lifetime do you remember? Do any of them carry stories that pass from generation to generation?
I find I am comforted by the story of the whistle and the orange, of a year when my ancestors were struggling through tough times. I am comforted, because I know they survived it, were seasoned by it, and I (and my family) have all reaped the rewards of their hard work, practicality, faith, growth, and successes overcoming that year.
There was a time in my family, years ago in the West Virginia hills, when the best you got for Christmas was a whistle and an orange.
And you were grateful for them both.
It’s likely, the next generation will not keep Grandma’s bird whistle. Keep it all their lives and pass the whistle on to their children. Grandma’s whistle will likely end up in a thrift store or a garbage bag unless someone in the family sees its value.
It’s Grandma’s bird whistle, a symbol of how far our family has come.
The older I get, the less I care about Christmas gifts. Unless they are practical and/or have a purpose, it’s just more stuff to me. I have too much stuff already. I have the sign Grandpa made and hung from his cabin in Blue, WV, a flat round cookie tin of Grandma’s buttons. I have Fenton bells and nesting hens, vintage costume jewelry, a mink stole, a crystal punch bowl with twelve crystal cups. I have two hand-made wooden fishing stools Grandpa and I sat upon four coats of paint ago.
I have stuff. Stuff with stories. Family stories. The Wheelers, the McDermotts, the Hayes family, and the Minneys. Festival posters, a clay head my father made in a college art class, a candy jar no longer kept full of Brach’s candy. Soap dishes, copper pots, cast iron skillets, antique lamps that need rewired. Our home is a museum of family hand-me down stuff and stories that may or may not pass down. My niece has told me more than once, “if you have the story, you don’t need the stuff.”
(If they don’t intend to keep Grandma’s whistle, I am quite sure they won’t want Grandpa’s bladder stone.)
Grandma’s Christmas whistle story is memorable and comemorable, not because it was the “best gift ever” or because it was a holiday filled with presents and sweets. The story is memorable because it was a time of family struggle. Because there were hard times. Of all the Christmas presents Grandma received from her collection of children and grandchildren, only the whistle was kept in her trinket drawer.
Where it remains to this day.
It has been a tough year. Not a good year for spending. Money doesn’t go very far, and supply chains are still crippled. Quality and service are suffering, and our culture still wants us to do our duty as consumers.
This year, if you gift or spend, try to stick with items that are practical or have purpose. It’s not a year for flamboyant spending, so don’t feel pressured to do so. It truly is the thought that matters, and though perhaps a whistle and an orange won’t do, a personal visit, an uninterrupted and unrushed phone call, a card with a book of stamps, a box of cookies, or a simple bookmark is enough to show you care.
Excess does not make the holiday memorable. It’s the little gestures that let our hearts be light.
Happy Holidays! Best wishes for a season of practicality and purpose that carries over into the New Year.
Lisa
I love this. I remember many times my mother telling me the stories of her most precious Christmas memories, and every one of them included receiving an apple and an orange. She said they were rare treats in that time, and I find it so interesting that to this day, our elders still gift children small bags with fresh fruit. It never meant much to me until my mom told me those stories. How spoiled does that sound, right? I love it now though, because it’s almost as if they pack those little bags with not only pieces of fruit, but pieces of their fondest childhood memories. That, to me, is so much more special.