The Ghost of Christmases Past by Julia Buckley

Julia Buckley grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago with her parents and four siblings. She now lives closer to the city with her husband, two sons, four cats and a dog. She is the author of THE DARK BACKWARD (2006) and the MADELINE MANN mysteries (now on Kindle). Her other titles include THE GHOSTS OF LOVELY WOMEN and GINEVRA BOND (A young adult suspense novel). She will soon debut her romantic suspense novel, COUNTERPLAY.

 

Check out Julia on her website: www.juliabuckley.com or her blog www.juliabuckley.blogspot.com

The Ghost of Christmases Past

by Julia Buckley

I’m sure everyone feels nostalgic at Christmastime; after all, it’s a festive holiday, but it’s also a way to mark the passing of the years.  So I remember bits and pieces of many Christmases past—Christmases spent with my boys when they were little and yearning for gifts with innocent desire.  A Christmas spent with my first child, just two days old.  The Christmas my husband proposed to me.  Christmases spent with my parents and siblings, sitting in a circle in our living room and reading A Christmas Carol aloud to each other before Midnight Mass.

 

A few distinct memories jumped into my head as I contemplated writing this little essay, so it is those memories, those tenuous windows into the past, that I will share now, as a way, I hope, of making your holidays more merry.

Once, when I was tiny and it was Christmas Eve, we went out somewhere and, as usual, my parents dressed my sister and me in pajamas at whatever place we visited (probably my grandmother’s house) because we usually fell asleep in the car on the way home.  When we arrived, though, I woke up, and as my father carried me toward the house I expressed disappointment that there were no signs of Santa.  “No sign?” he asked me.  “Look up there!”  He spotted the red light of an airplane in the sky and pointed at it.  “Do you think—well I’ll be—I think that’s Rudolph!”  Yes, my father said that, and yes, I believed him.  I was so excited I almost couldn’t fall back asleep.  Later I heard the distant jingling of bells outside and felt that special combination of joy and terror that is a child’s anticipation of Santa Claus.  It warms my heart now to think of my father going out in the dark with one of my mother’s bell-covered decorations and shaking it under his daughters’ window.  

In another Christmas season, when all five of us children still lived at home (or perhaps my oldest brother was home for college), my parents were gone somewhere, and the Christmas decorations had not yet been put up.  My brother suggested that we children should put them up as a surprise—an idea we all liked.  So we got the boxes out of the attic and started decorating in the way that tradition dictated: Santa statue here, nativity scene there, German elves on the bookshelves.  My brother and oldest sister had the window lights laid on the floor, deeply involved in the untangling.  These were the big ol’ industrial Christmas lights that you saw everywhere in the 1970s (and again now, as nostalgic touches).  In order to make the job easier, we plugged the lights in so that we could see which needed replacing and where they might still be tangled.  It was a lovely scene—siblings working together, not fighting, sharing the joy of holiday anticipation.

 

Then my brother lifted the strand of lights and we saw, horrified, what we had done.  The hot lights had melted our carpet.  Black, waxy spots burned into the green fuzz showed the pattern of where the lights had been.  We all looked at each other with the recognizable  “We’re in trouble” faces.  How could we possibly explain this?

As it turned out, my parents weren’t angry.  My parents, to their credit, were rarely angry.  My mother must have been broken-hearted when she looked at her living room, but she and my father commended us for doing such a good decorating job and for taking the initiative.  I’m sure they felt relieved we hadn’t burned the house down. 

Carpeting is expensive, and we didn’t replace the damaged one right away.  So several seasons passed during which we saw the black imprints of Christmas lights as we walked back and forth in our busy living room. 

Oh, and a last beautiful memory: my mother’s Christmas table.  My mother slaved over Christmas for weeks beforehand, making and freezing cookies and cakes so that everything would be ready for her three-day spread.  There were spritz cookies and homemade fudge (my nemesis, which I could not stop eating and which gave me a stomach ache); there were German cakes like Bienenstich and Dobos Torte (which is also Hungarian).  There was chocolate marzipan sent from relatives in Paderborn.  And oh, there were cookies: Russian tea cakes and sugar cut-outs, pinwheels and angel-wings, chocolate snowballs and strawberry kiflis.  There was wassail and eggnog.  My mother wore a beautiful apron, hand-embroidered, that was never covered in food.  We would sit around her table full of treats, eating and singing.  There was always singing in our house: in German, in English, in Hungarian.  Christmas happens in every language, and joy knows every tongue.

 

I hope you have a wonderful holiday, wrapped in your own happy Christmas memories!


 

A Tribute to my Father by Julia Buckley

Julia Buckley is a Chicago area writer. Her first mystery, The Dark Backward, was released in June of 2006 and earned high praise from Crimespree and others; her next book, Madeline Mann, was lauded by Kirkus and The Library Journal.  It is now available for the first time on Kindle, as is as its sequel, Lovely, Dark and Deep. 

Her short story, “Motherly Instinct,” will appear in Anne Frasier’s Halloween Anthology Deadly Treats this fall.

Julia is a member of Sisters in Crime, MWA, and RWA.  She keeps a writer’s blog at www.juliabuckley.blogspot.com on which she interviews fellow mystery writers; her website is www.juliabuckley.com.  She is one of Poe’s Deadly Daughters, and posts weekly on their blog: www.poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com.

She is about to launch a new mystery series featuring an amateur sleuth and English teacher. 

 

A TRIBUTE TO MY FATHER
by Julia Buckley

On August 11 my father will turn eighty. Once I would have thought that sounded ancient, like the age of a Biblical prophet.  My father has redefined the number for me, since he is youthful, energetic, and always on the run.  He has five adult children in their forties and fifties who still go to him with just about every question of household, garden, finance, philosophy, trivia, family lore.  He is a true patriarch, and I would like to use the blog space that Kaye has kindly given me to pay tribute to a remarkable man.

Anne Sexton once wrote "It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was."  That's true to an extent, I suppose, since we all filter the truth through our own reality.  But I also think it matters very much who my father is, since he is a truly good person, and more than that--he is a noble person, in a world where we don't find a reason to use that word very often. 

My father is the son of Hungarian immigrants who was never given an easy way, and yet he never lost his good humor.  He grew up on a farm in Michigan that did not have running water, indoor plumbing, or electricity.  For many years he also did without television, radio, or an automobile.  He lost an older brother to scarlet fever when he was only a little boy, and then was cast into a lonely existence while his mother shrouded herself in grief and his father labored on the railroad. 

From the time he was eleven or twelve he always had jobs. He learned to work hard, and he learned to save (if only the gift of budgeting were hereditary!).

He went to Leo High School in Chicago and U of I when the campus was still at Navy Pier.  He was drafted into the army during the Korean War, but because he was one of few soldiers in his unit who spoke a foreign language he was sent to Europe on a troop ship.  Serendipitously he was stationed in Germany, where his pen-pal happened to live.  He arranged to meet her one day while he was on leave.  They almost passed each other when he got off the streetcar, but it's a good thing they both turned around and took a second look--she would eventually become his wife, and my mother.

My father has been a good and devoted husband for fifty years.  I have never known him to put himself before his wife or his five children.  He has always made the hard task of parenting seem effortless and natural, and I never wanted for anything as his child. 

The older I get, the more I love and appreciate my father for his history, his kindness, his wealth of knowledge, and his unswerving faith.  It matters who he is, both to me and to everyone he meets.

We are throwing him a giant party, but that’s the least of what we owe him for all that he has given to us.

Please celebrate my father (along with all wonderful fathers) with me this week!

Understanding your Teenager by Julia Buckley

Julia Buckley is a Chicago area writer.  Her first mystery, The Dark Backward, was released in June of 2006 and earned high praise from Crimespree and others; her next book, Madeline Mann, received glowing reviews from Kirkus and Library Journal.  (She sold two books in the Madeline series, which was never released by the publisher).  


 

Julia is a member of Sisters in Crime, MWA, and RWA.  She keeps a writer’s blog at www.juliabuckley.blogspot.com on which she interviews fellow mystery writers; her website is www.juliabuckley.com.  She is currently at work on a new mystery series featuring an amateur sleuth and English teacher. She also blogs at INKSPOT (www.midnightwriters.blogspot.com) and POE’S DEADLY DAUGHTERS (www.poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com).


 

Understanding your Teenager

by Julia Buckley

 
For two years now I’ve lived under the same roof as a teenaged boy.  Needless to say, this is both a joy and a constant challenge.  I’ve developed some minimal understanding of my teen as time has passed (this does not, however, make me a teen expert).  However, I am happy to

share what little I’ve learned so that parents on the verge of the teen years might have a sense of what they’re facing.

 

Here are some tips and truisms:

 

1.  Your teen will rarely agree with you; this is almost a requirement .  It is somehow related to his honor.  However, if you assert an opinion and your teen mocks it as ridiculous, do not be surprised if the next day he states that it is HIS opinion, and he has no memory of you ever sharing it.

 

2.  The teen needs to feel superior, both to you and to her siblings and to the world in general.  There are few sentences that being with “I like” or “I am impressed by” and a whole lot of sentences that start with “I hate” and “You know what’s stupid?”

 

3.  Your teen sees you as the following things: meal provider, car driver, person who is “lame,” chore doer, nagger (when you want HIM to do chores), money giver, and general person who makes the house run.   Your teen will not be grateful for any of these roles that you play, but he will recognize that you play them.

 

4. Your teen does not particularly want to be seen with you in public.  You are, to be honest, shameful.  Your teen may tell you (as mine does) to go the far-away movie theatre so that no one in the audience might potentially recognize you as a family.  Teens like to be seen as independent organisms.

 

5. Your teen wants your love but won’t admit it.

 

6.  Your teen needs you to keep her in line, but really hates any criticism.  She will continually accuse you of showing favoritism to other siblings rather than admit to any wrongdoing.  Teens are masters of obfuscation.

 

7.  The average teen, like the average cat, would sleep for much of the day if you let him.

 

8.  Teens like junk food; it’s your job to get vitamins and minerals into their bodies.

 

9.  Until you make him or her get a job, your teen really will believe that money grows on trees. :)

 

10.  Your teen will be off at college before you know it, and then you’ll miss all of the things that drive you absolutely crazy now.

 

I know the strange contradictions of my son at this particular age.  In many ways, he’s more fun and more hilarious than he’s ever been.  In many other ways, he drives me to the brink of crazy town.

 

I guess the ultimate litmus test is to ask if you think your child knows that you love him and if in fact he loves you back.  If the answer is yes, then it makes all of the above a lot easier to bear.  

Julia Buckley - Best Friends: The Comrade Conundrum

Julia Buckley is a mystery writer who lives in the Chicago area. Her first mystery, THE DARK BACKWARD, was released in June of 2006; her next book, MADELINE MANN, received glowing reviews from Kirkus and Library Journal. Julia is a member of Sisters in Crime, MWA, and RWA. She keeps a writer’s blog at www.juliabuckley.blogspot.com on which she interviews fellow mystery writers; her website is www.juliabuckley.com She is currently at work on a new mystery series featuring an amateur sleuth and English teacher.

Best Friends: The Comrade Conundrum
by Julia Buckley

My ten-year-old son is overly laden with best friends. The other day he was speaking of his friend J.T., whose name I hadn’t heard in a while. “Oh, you’re still friends with JT?” I asked (these things are subject to change rapidly in kid world).

“Oh, sure! He’s my best friend,” Graham said.

But a couple weeks later, Graham was speaking of his friend Christian, whom he also described as his “best friend.” In each case, he spoke with total earnestness, and I’m sure that in a way both boys fit the criteria.

I’m rather envious of the best friend concept–both of people who bestow the title with such ease and also of those who receive the honor. To be honest I don’t know if anyone refers to me that way, but I have never called someone the “best” of my friends. I don’t know whether it’s a natural reticence, or a desire to not offend other friends by singling out one as special.

The other problem, though, is that every friend is distinctive for a reason. Perhaps I’ve been deprived for a lifetime, but I never noticed the lack of a best friend. I only really think about it when other people introduce theirs. I think, “Huh–I wonder why I never had a best friend?”

As a kid I found plenty of friendships within my family, among my four siblings. My sister and I were two years apart and did most things together until we went to high school–at which point we developed our own circles. I had three friends named Kathy, ironically, who as a trio were my best pals, but I didn’t really call them that. Nor am I one of those wives who refers to my husband as my best friend, though by some people’s definitions I’m sure he is.

I guess “best friend” is just never a term I grew up with, so I never bothered to assign it to anyone.

I took a little poll of my family members.

My husband said that the last best friend he had was a childhood soulmate named Kevin whom he lost track of after high school and has never been able to find again. A long-lost friend . ..

My older son said that he has “lots of best friends,” but cannot really narrow it down–which means, to me, that he doesn’t have a best friend.

And of course my little son has a best friend, but the owner of that title is subject to change according to Graham’s largesse.

I’ve met people, though, who make best-friendhood sound so glamorous, so warm and wonderful, that I wonder at my own failure to pursue it. They’ll say, “Oh, this weekend I’m going to the movies with my best friend Jane,” or “I’m so excited about spring break–I’m going to Las Vegas with my best friend in all the world, Mary Kay.” They toss the title around with the casual ease of someone who is confident in the permanence of that friendship, the wondrous bond of it.

So I’m curious to know, those who read Kaye’s blog: are you best-frienders? Or are you not? And what distinguishes one group from another?