A Weird Christmas

 by Charlotte Hinger

This Christmas went awry. Even some of the church services that keep my heart in the right place were displaced due to extreme weather. 

It was the "off" year for our family gathering. By that we mean that everyone goes to the in-laws. Next year is "Hinger' Christmas. Which means we negotiate the time and place for my daughters, their spouses and all the grandchildren to show up.

But talk about "off." My daughter, Cherie hosted Christmas for her daughters at the new/old four-story house on the coast of North Carolina. It was 20 degrees outside and a mere 40 inside. They were totally miserable. The geo-thermal heating system wasn't built to cope with the extreme cold. So it gave up the ghost. The pipes froze. Even the dog was rolled up in extra padding. 

My youngest daughter, Mary Beth, worked long hours Christmas Day. She's the administrator of an assisted living/memory care center and ended up supplementing the ones who usually work the floor. She works in Raleigh, but lives in Clayton, NC. She suffered through a complete power outage and her pipes froze too. She showered at work. 

I was snug and happy here in Colorado where we are prepared for cold weather. Even so, no one is used to 17 degrees below. All activities were cancelled. Thankfully, our power stayed on.

My daughter, Michele and her husband, Harry, prepared a wonderful Christmas dinner and their daughter, Audrey, her husband, Pete, and the new baby, Francesca, came up from Denver. Nothing makes a day more joyful than the presence of a baby. For one blessed day, it felt like Christmas. 

Nevertheless, this Christmas was weird. Presents never arrived, or were misaddressed or something. We have a historically long message chain to one another trying to straighten out little messes. We exchange a large number of books and many of us ended up with the wrong ones. 

But guess what. Christmas came anyway. Despite the weather. Despite our bumbling. 

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas was one of my husband's favorite movies. Don's laugh was contagious. We all loved to watch him watch the movie. He delighted in the central message. 

Nothing can stop this special time of year. Christmas draws us closer to our families, to memories of times past, to an awareness of the needs of others who are less fortunate. 

We open our wallets and our hearts and for a brief season join a collective circle of humanity acutely aware of those without homes and families.

The season reminds us that we can do better for our fellow man. 

No Place Like Home

                                                                  

I'm back from North Carolina. Two of my daughters live there now. Mary Beth is wrapped up in moving into a new house. I can't think of anything more stressful than moving but she has all these lovely butterflies to compensate.

 She had problems with the moving company at both ends. Nothing too hair-raising, but still. There were a lot of things that needed to be worked out. For instance, the men refused to reassemble any beds they hadn't taken down to begin with. The real work would begin after the men left. So many boxes! And because so many items had set in boxes for over a year she wanted to wash all the kitchenware and wash all the bedding. 

But the house was great. No problems there. That was not true for the other daughter and the huge four-story 100 year+ house. All kinds of work needed to be done. Fortunately they were aware of this situation before they bought it. It's gorgeous and can easily sleep fourteen. 

Can I work North Carolina into my Kansas-based Lottie Albright series?

No! At least not a book based in North Carolina. I could write from an outsider visitor's point of view. In fact, writers do that a lot and it makes for very interesting material.

I write about Kansas. I know what the birds sound like and understand the land. All sorts of details about my native state have been ingrained in my soul.

In 1881, the Kansas Legislature voted a $5000 appropriation for a Home for Friendless Women. Wasn’t that lovely? What do you suppose that was all about? I doubt it was a home for soiled doves, or even women who had gotten themselves in a family way, because society didn’t hesitate to pin brutally accurate labels on people. When I came across "Home for Friendless Women" it gave me the saddest feeling. 

Housing in Fort Collins has become out of reach for so many families now. Rent is sky high and buying is no longer a possibility. 

I'll always be a Kansas-based Dorothy at heart. Because "there's no place like home."

Gats and Cats

I'm known as a workaholic and so it was unusual to pry myself loose for a long overdue vacation. Last year, the cons I planned to attend got cancelled because of Covid and I was left with airline tickets to use or lose. A few months back, a buddy of mine I've known since the 6th grade suffered a heart attack and that prompted me to make plans and get going. Since I was traveling to the East coast, I decided to visit as many friends as I could in one trip. 

I started in Dumfries, then headed to Falls Church to visit Duane, a college chum and Ranger buddy. Being guys in America, we stopped by a gun range to bust caps, using a suppressor. Duane served in Military Intelligence, then Special Forces, and switched careers to work in the CIA. He published an excellent memoir of his last field assignment, which was about the early days of the war in Afghanistan. We didn't talk much how that mess ended.

My next stop was to see a writing buddy, Quincy Allen, who moved from Denver to Charlotte, NC. One of his cats apparently approved of me as it left a feather on my backpack. 

Then north to Rocky Mount to visit Greg, another Army buddy. He and I flew Cobra helicopters in the Air Cavalry. Again, as we were still in America, we went shooting, also with a suppressor.

My last stop was Charleston to visit Mark and Rebel, who I was lucky enough to meet years back when I first got published. Mark is local tour guide and historian with several books to his credit. He and his wife are also cat people and besides taking care of their own felines, twice a day the neighborhood alley cats stop by for chow.

If you're in Charleston, you have to say hello to the carriage horses.

Changing Locales

Daughter Cherie and Granddaughter Leah on Lake Jeannette

Last week I visited our oldest daughter who recently moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. Her lovely new home is adjacent to Lake Jeannette. What a gorgeous setting!

What a great place for a murder. There's all those trees. And a body of water. And well, you know. .. Let's face it. My mystery series is set in Western Kansas. There's something about the Great Plains that is nakedly honest. It's a chore to hide a body out here.

However, I once did a historical article set in Montana. The subject was the pits to begin with: "The Harlem Renaissance in Helena, Montana." It was for anthology about African Americans in the West.

The article took forever for me to write. Not only was gathering historical information difficult, but I discovered that I knew nothing about the state. To write well about a locale, one has to know the history of the state, the topography, the weather, the way the birds fly, the grasses that grow. The list is endless.

The only way I could write about mysterious North Carolina would be as an outsider. Some of the best books are written from a stranger's point of view, but my heart would not be in it.

The call of Kansas is well known.