Tag Archives: Christmas

December 15, 2010 · 7:49 am

River lights contentment

 

River lights by Montana Outdoors, December 13, 2010.

Montana Outdoors is a photography blog and the above photo is one of many excellent shots of nature’s grandeur in winter.  Its author wrote the following in his introduction to his blog that has been published since 2006,

I am privileged to live in western Montana, close to the wilderness and roadless areas that I love so much, and I’m thankful that I am still able to venture up into them and spend much of my time there.

Most of the photos that I post are of scenes that cannot be seen from from roads or highways. There is a very beautiful world out there in the wild country and it is my wish to make it visible, by words and photographs, to those who are interested in enjoying it.

It seems that many folks have all but forgotten that we are part of that natural world and that ultimately it sustains us in both body and spirit. My hope is that we will have the wisdom and the discipline to preserve it for future generations, for once the wilderness has vanished, mankind will soon vanish as well.

Readers, you must go to Montana Outdoors website for it is a beautiful paean to all things, big and small, in the outdoors.

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In concord with Montana and the holiday season, Sam Travers, Christmas in the Old West: A Historical Scrapbook, has a note about Christmas at the Saleesh House in Montana in 1813, from the pen of trader Ross Cox,

Our hunters killed a few mountain sheep, and I brought up a bag of flour, a bag of rice, plenty of tea and coffee, some arrowroot, and fifteen gallons of prime rum.  We spent comparatively happy Christmas and, by the side of a blazing fire in a warm room, forgot the suffering we endured in our dreary progress through the woods.

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From The San Saba News (Texas), December 15, 1883, here is a comment about Christmas and the progress of time,

Christmas is near at hand — two weeks from Tuesday — and each day between now and the great event will drag wearily away to the little folks.  What a pity it is men cannot experience on this day of peace and good-will to all the unalloyed happiness they did as boys.  But then years bring experience and ofttimes misery, and happy is he who can retain even until middle life a touch of boyhood’s pleasures.

The editor of The San Saba News wrote columns upon columns of prose each week for a frontier community far removed from trolley cars and opera houses.  In other news, the little town of San Saba celebrated Christmas by gift giving and church gatherings.  Several advertisements listed gifts men and women might enjoy, such as colognes and mustache cups.

Whether Montana or Texas, people seem to find a way to transcend their discontent by celebration and looking upon light from a river in winter.

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Notes:

The San Saba News from the nineteenth century is found on Chronicling America The Library of Congress link on the sidebar under small town newspapers in Texas.

I had pulled together the San Saba editorial and the Old West scrapbook piece for two separate posts, but when I came across River Lights by Montana Outdoors, I brought them together in one post.  I think we all find a way to get by the holidays, be it “prime rum” or family gatherings.  Since my family is scattered in Texas and Florida, I go to Santa Fe more often than not at Christmas.  This Christmas of 2010 I am not sure where my wife and I will be.  In any case, and this is my point, nature is outside my window and there I can find a measure of contentment — River Lights always beckon.  Always.

 

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December 1, 2010 · 1:47 pm

Gathering mistletoe in December

Oklahoma floral image mistletoe

In the 1940s and 1950s, I grew up in central Texas, playing and working about the counties of Brown, Mills, San Saba and Lampasas.

Although born in Brown County, my family spend a great deal of time visiting relatives during the holidays in San Saba and Lampasas Counties.  The Colorado River and San Saba River formed the backdrop of my childhood and early teen years.  During December, I often stayed a week or two with my grandmother who lived first in Bend, Texas, and then Lometa, a few miles away from Bend where she worked as a telephone switchboard operator for the communities.  The switchboard was in her living room.  Her name was Effie Morris Parks and she taught me much about living off the land, or at least using nature’s products from the original source, not a supermarket.

Grandmother Effie, as I called her, steered me in the month of December to harvest and collect two things:  mistletoe and cedar.  Cedar is still harvested, but the gathering of mistletoe with its poisonous berries to frock the door portal seems to have vanished from holiday culture.

She had a green Chevrolet pickup.  We would drive the pickup down dirt county roads and pull up next to a tree, usually mesquite, that would have clumps of deep green mistletoe with white berries.  We would knock down the mistletoe with long bamboo poles that we also used to gather pecans in the Fall.  Either that or I would climb up the tree and break off the fungus.  Then we would gather the mistletoe and place it in the bed of the pickup until the pile topped the rails.  We had to be careful to preserve the white berries because that improved the price we would receive.  We drove to San Saba or Lometa and would sell the mistletoe at the mohair and wool congregating store.  We would make upwards of twenty dollars and during the rest of the season, I often thought I saw what we had collected in small, cellophane packages sold in grocery stores in Brownwood.  I doubt that was the case, but I felt rather pleased that I had helped make holidays brighter for someone.

I chopped cedar only once or twice as a boy and it was grueling work, but during December the weather was cold and going into the cedar breaks to cut wood did not seem as brutal as it was chopping cedar in the summer.  Grandmother’s friends would take my cuttings — not very much, I’m afraid — and I would have a few dollars to spend during the holidays.  The cedar choppers I worked around were all muscled and strong and I envied their chopping expertise.  I learned how to cut staves versus good thick fence poles.

My grandmother Effie also gathered water cress, pecans, killed and plucked her own chickens, and during the late summer we would take the green Chevrolet and collect wild Mustang grapes that she would turn into jelly to consume on our breakfast table and give to friends.  The tartness of the Mustang grape is like no other.

But it is the memory of harvesting and gathering of mistletoe and cedar with Grandmother that stays with me today during the holiday stretch.  I scraped my arms and got stuck by mesquite thorns.  Despite it all, I grew up knowing nature intimately during the cold of December with my grandmother as teacher.

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October 11, 2010 · 6:20 am

Native Storytelling at Milagro at Los Luceros

Los Luceros Hacienda

Milagro at Los Luceros document, excerpt follows:

What is Milagro at Los Luceros?
In May of 2009, Governor Bill Richardson and Robert Redford announced a new, unique collaboration for New Mexico’s Native American and Hispanic filmmakers with the working title of ʺSundance in New Mexico.ʺ The collaboration has been officially renamed “Milagro at Los Luceros” in reference to The Milagro Beanfield War, the 1988 film directed by Mr. Redford, shot on location in Truchas, New Mexico, and based on the John Nichols novel of the same name.

Where is Los Luceros?
Named to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1983, Los Luceros is a hacienda (ranch complex) lying northeast of the town of Alcalde, New Mexico, just north of Española, on the Rio Grande. The New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) purchased and operates the 148‐acre Historic Los Luceros property and is preserving its historic nature and integrity for the purpose of cultural, artistic, environmental, and educational activities, events and outreach.

What is the mission of Milagro at Los Luceros?
In collaboration with the New Mexico Economic Development Department’s Film Division and Redford Enterprises, the mission of Milagro at Los Luceros is to provide immersive jobs training and education in film and the arts. The project will be dedicated to community, environmental protection, and advancing the arts as an economic driver. Programs will be designed specifically for New Mexico’s Native American and Hispanic
filmmakers.

[Excerpts closed.]

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Notes:

Los Luceros has a long history, dating back to pueblo occupation in prehistory.

Mary Cabot Wheelwright and family lived on the site for many years.  She and other scholars discoursed with Hastiin Klah at Los Luceros whose sandpainting tapestry is displayed in the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, Santa Fe.

I visited the museum several times during the 1970s and 1980s when Klah’s tapestry dominated the public display collection.  I have several postcards of his sandpaintings and his biography in my personal collection.

September 2009 SAR Field Trip to Historic Los Luceros.

April 2009 Field Trip of Chilis and Sherds to Los Luceros, Friends of Archeology.

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October 6, 2010 · 6:45 am

Ristra Thoughts

Pepper ristras adorn roadside markets in New Mexico before the Fall equinox.  Bundles of harvest, early-arriving gifts from Christmas future, ristras symbolize the product of good growth in the high desert country, the earth’s abundance with green and red eruptions.  Unlike other harvest food, the red and green pepper wreaths are hung for celebration as well as convenient spice for stew, meat and vegetables.  When I see ristras, I see New Mexico, the American Southwest and callused hands nurturing soil and weaving garlands, farmers sitting under arbors beside the highway in a hundred places.  Entering winter’s cold after equinox, I know the fruit of the ristra will warm me, warm us, into the day and night on both sides of Christmas with sight and taste for the holiday, table and heart.

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Notes:

I am not getting any kickback from this link The Real Southwest Hatch Chile Pepper Ristras, but it was too good to let pass with this post.  There are probably a number of other links and articles on the web.  I will try to list more ristra links under this post.

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