I just started writing a letter to Meg and dated it “Tuesday.” OOPS! Is it really a week since the last time I blogged? It’s been a nice Christmas for Barry and me. My dinner turned out almost exactly as it was supposed to! All dishes I’d never made before, but the recipes in Bon Appetit sounded wonderful, and I always make new things for our Christmas dinner. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they…well, don’t quite work as planned. But this year – wow! I impressed myself, and Barry loved every bite! A mustard coated beef tenderloin roast, shingled potatos (they’re really easy and look great – and very tasty), green beans with cranberries, citrus and parsley salad, cranberry bread, and my cookies for dessert. The beef was amazing, and Bessie’s enjoying bits of the leftover with her regular kibble!
Broke the news of the upcoming television debut of “That’s What SHE Said” to several relatives and acquaintances and received a wide variety of reactions. Most were very positive – I mean really great – a few were more like “Oh, another of Martha’s hairbrained projects” – so I”m choosing to ignore the latter and bask in the excited congratulations from others. I think we’re doing a really great thing! Bravo for us – Ellen! Sheila! Christina, and Jane! I hope I’m never too old to try something new! And Jamie – what a brave and wondeful thing you’ve done to take this idea and really breathe life into it. Thank you! Thank you!
The last of Martha’s Blogs for 2011! A new year is about to overtake our lives. Tto everyone reading this- best wishes for a happy, safe, healthy 2012 – and peace!

My grades are completed. I’ll deliver them to the registrar’s office this morning. Hooray! Now I can put away my school bookbag until after the holidays. The next semester begins January 23, and although I’m enjoying the freedom of more time to myself, in a month I’ll be eager to return to campus to meet the new groups of students I’ll be teaching. Some I will have taught before, and I will enjoy meeting with them weekly to hear all about their student teaching experiences. Others I will meet for the first time, some in a course I’ve taught for six years, others in a course that will be new for me. I think I’m addicted to teaching. Or maybe it’s just that I very much enjoy being around young adults. They energize me! The ones I teach are planning to become teachers. What profession could be more important? There is NONE, and by the end of the semester I’ll have convinced my students of that – or they may, perhaps, decide they should look for something else to pursue. It’s one time around, so one should spend as much time doing what one enjoys. Teaching is hard work. It’s a never-ending learning experience! It’s NEVER boring! Just sitting here writing this makes my anticipation of meeting new students in one month and two days even greater! Happy Holidays to all!

During the four Christmasses we spent in Bologna, Italy, we had the pleasure of visiting many churches during Advent to view their Nativity displays. Most scenes were very old, and some were as large as a room with many moving parts, lights, and special effects that had been added through the centuries. (The Naivity in the church of San Petronio has an marble angel carved my Michaelangelo.) The scenes contained many anachronistic pieces – Italian bagpipers from the hills (who still come into the towns to play in the streets over the Christmas season), figures representing characters from the Commedia del’Arte like Harlequin, all sorts of animals not found in Bethlehem…in short, they were a delight to visit each year. My children were very young, and I decided to start collecting pieces for our own Nativity scene. The individual pieces were very inexpensive, and during the four yearrs in Bologna I managed to assemble quite an impressive collection. Each year I set it up on our mantle, and each year I hid the Christ Child until Christmas morning, when he would appear in the manger. Then disaster struck! One Christmas we discovered that we had inadvertently thrown out the well worn box that contained our Nativity scene during a rare but intense binge of cleaning the cellar! I was quite upset, but we decided to begin assembling a Nativity scene all over again. And so, during the past twenty five years our Nativity has grown to something amazing! It fills our mantle and spills onto several levels. Barry made the most wonderful stable, and we have collected all the “traditional” participants – camels, wisemen, shepherd, Mary, Joseph, angels, donkey, etc. BUT we have also added a variety of other pieces, all given lovingly as gifts by friends and family. Among them are a blue hippopotamus from the New York MOMA, a Mexican boatman, several giraffes, Italian bagpipers, a Labarador retriever, American Revolutionary soldiers, and a handcarved English nanny that was mafde by a dear friend who from Wales who believed every baby should have an English nanny. She now stands proudly beside Mary. There is a tiny turtle and several cats, a llama, Clydesdale, and a black sheep carved in China. I have knitted a small bunting for Jesus, who always looks so cold. And He doesn’t appear until Christmas morning. Where does He stay until then? In our liquor cabinet! Also a tradition of many years. The first time I placed him there next to my favorite bottle of Scotch, it was because the liquor cabinet was very close to the fireplace. THen it became a tradition. Now every year my son calls to ask if I’ve put Jesus in the liquor cabinet. That’s an indication to him, I think, that all’s well with the world. I assure you there is no disrespect intended by that little hiding place. On Christmas morning Jesus is lifted into his manger, and from then until the Epiphany on 6 January the wise men get closer and closer to the stable. All is calm. All is well. Blessings abound!