Lessons Learned from a Christmas Present

 Did you find December a little overwhelming? I sure did. Sometimes it’s tough to prioritize, especially when life hands you so many fabulous opportunities. No really it does. I know some of my readers may be skeptical of this fact, but it’s true. Life is ready to hand you countless blessings; it’s just a matter of staying open to the possibilities.

This lesson hit home Christmas Day when my three-year-old daughter was playing one of her new games. She loves butterflies, so I bought her the Milton Bradley Elefun game. Elefun is a small motorized elephant that blows air up a four foot trunk. The game comes with four butterfly nets and little paper butterflies. When you place the butterflies in the elephant and turn it on, the butterflies swirl up the trunk and burst into the air, drifting down like little dandelion seeds. The object, of course, is to catch as many as you can with your butterfly net.

My daughter loved the game, jumping, giggling and refilling the elephant over and over again. But later in the evening, when she was fatigued with the toy mania and sugar overload of the holiday, the frustration set in. What should have been a joyous round of Elefun turned into an episode of moaning and stomping. Butterflies fell just beyond her reach, and a look of desperation clouded her face as her eyes followed them to the floor.

“Look up, Gaby! Look up!” I yelled. Butterflies sailed out of the trunk into the air, “Catch ‘em! Catch ‘em!” but she was too busy looking at her empty net.

When the last butterfly fluttered to the ground I gave her a hug and said, “If you’re looking at the ones you’ve missed, you wont see the ones coming.” We filled up the Elephant and she tried again. This time she raised her net, and swung it high in the air. At the end of the game, little paper butterflies once again littered the floor. As she proudly held up her net, though, we could see that she caught some, too.

Filling the elephant back up, we counted the butterflies in her net. “Six!” She finished triumphantly. “Yes,” I smiled, “Good job.”

Those little paper butterflies are just like opportunities. If you focus on the ones you’ve missed, moaning with self-pity, you won’t see the new opportunities coming along. Life is so generous; sometimes it’s impossible to catch them all, but if you let go of the past and look to the future, your life will be full of the ones you do catch.

Book Review: Merry Navidad

Ada, Alma Flor (Author), F. Isabel Campoy (Author) and Viví Escrivá (Illustator). Rayo.  64 p. ISBN: 978-06-058434-4 $16.99

We are more than labels: Caucasian, Hispanic. I’m American. My husband is Cuban. Yet, even those descriptions are superficial. Born in New England, I grew up on a rocky terrain of changing seasons, while my husband came into this world under a tropical sun on an island subjected to fickle Caribbean winds. Yet our homelands tell only of our childhood. Who we are goes back even farther. My ancestors sailed to the new world on the Mayflower, while his family tree extends back into Moorish Spain.

As adults, sights and sounds often trigger memories from our childhood, a childhood that does not stand isolated in time. It is a childhood influenced by the memories of those before us. It’s little wonder that language and holiday traditions are so fused with emotion.

My husband and I view the unique cultural make up of our family as a blessing, but it’s also a challenge, for we are emotionally invested in our language and in our holiday traditions. Just as our daughter is growing up bilingual, she is also growing up bi-cultural. When Audra Boltion of HarperCollins sent me a copy of Merry Navidad, I was thrilled.

Merry Navidad, is a bilingual holiday book for children ages 5-10. This book based on Spanish and Latin American Christmas carols is co-written by award winning, internationally published authors Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy, with English adaptations by Rosalma Zubizarreta.

Merry Navidad is not a musical songbook. The villancicos (as they are called in Spain), read like poetry and are adorned by the beautiful color illustrations of Viví Escrivá. Six of the songs include musical notations in the back of the book, but not full arrangements.

Obviously, the focus of this book is not musical interpretation but acknowledging and synthesizing the complexity of the eclectic nationalities that fall under the generalized North American term “Hispanic.” An introduction and nine brief holiday descriptions create a rich cultural context for nineteen poetic verses.

Merry Navidad makes a thoughtful gift for families steeped in the merging Spanish/English speaking world, promoting cultural awareness and understanding in a linguistically inclusive format. Whether your child speaks Spanish, English, or learning both simultaneously, this book validates the importance of linguistic heritage and honors the emotional tie that we have both to language and holiday traditions.

Deadlines, Deadlines Everywhere and not a Drop of Ink

Thank God for electronic submissions! I’ll soon be updating my online portfolio to reflect some new publications (including book reviews in Mslexia and the Wow! Women on Writing blog, as well as an article in the new literary journal Alors et toi?). I’m proud to announce that I am now officially a member of the National Book Critics Circle, and I look forward to all I will learn from my more experienced peers. In the meantime, I’ll be publishing another book review/author interview right here at Modern Matriarch.

This time we will be joining Laura Zigman and discussing her new novel Piece of Work. Ms. Zigman spent ten years in the publishing industry before releasing her first novel, Animal Husbandry. We’ll see if we can pick her brain for a little insider information.

While doing a little background research for the interview, I came across this tongue and cheek, third person quote on her website:

Writing [freelance] pieces on the side (always makes her really nervous because the minute she accepts the assignment she becomes convinced that she won’t be able to complete it, or that even if she somehow manages to complete it the copy she turns in will be so bad and so embarrassing and so sub-par that the piece will be rejected and word will spread that she is a fraud and an imposter and a fake writer) is really fun.

What a relief to discover I’m not the only who feels that way.