Fight the Red and Green Blues with Brown Bananas

If the alleged “most wonderful time of the year” causes you stress and anxiety, consider my antidote for the Red and Green Blues: Brown bananas. Yep, four bananas going bad in the fridge unexpectedly offered me some comfort that may yet morph into joy.

For perspective, here’s the timeline: In October every year, I am semi-jazzed about The Holidays. I’ve already bought and tucked away some presents, I’ve replenished my supply of gift bags for half price and I’m thinking perhaps I will approach Christmas more gracefully than in past years. By Thanksgiving, I’m turning suspicious.

What’s not to like about Christmas?

The incessant commercialization, which often starts the day after Halloween. Also, some people resent that the “true” meaning of Christmas gets lost in the rush to celebrate Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. (On that topic, why is Giving Tuesday scheduled last?) Other people resent that religious institutions insist that their beliefs are more true and more meaningful than anyone else’s beliefs – or even than their lack of them.

Tips on How to Avoid Heightened Expectations

Also, the pressure to HAVE A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS gives rise to unrealistic expectations of all sorts, including in the realm of politics and in regard to the future of the planet. Then we have Santa Claus – to believe or not to believe? My grandson worries that because I don’t have a chimney, the man in the red suit won’t be able to bring me gifts. I worry how Santa will reach children locked in cages at the border or those living in war-torn countries. Ho. Ho. Ho. 

By the beginning of December, the Red and Green Blues have settled in and I start hiding from Christmas. I’m not the only one. The Mayo Clinic offers coping tips (www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-20047544) for anyone experiencing stress and depression, especially the kind that is self-induced. “The holidays present a dizzying array of demands — parties, shopping, baking, cleaning and entertaining, to name just a few,” the site counsels. “But with some practical tips, you can minimize the stress.”

Lots of lovely people are part of my holidays, and I am grateful for that. But no “practical tip” quite fends off feelings of loss for those we miss. “One thing I don’t like about Christmas is all the dead people,” I blurted to a man my age at a dinner party last Saturday. I barely know him, but he knew right away what I meant: People who were so important to us in Christmases past and that are now gone.

How Losses Photobomb the Christmas Picture

Speaking of dead people at Christmas, have you noticed that they still sing dreary holiday songs from decades ago? Listening to streaming Christmas music at my neighborhood nail salon, I realized that not only are the songs ancient – the recording artists all are dead. Well, except for Brenda Lee, who presumably is still rockin’ around the Christmas tree even though she is now 75. She recorded that song in 1958. Why are we still listening to it?

For several reasons, my idea of excellent Christmas music is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker,” which premiered in 1892 as a ballet loosely based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story about a kitchen tool and a mouse king. The story goes that audiences hated the ballet and even the composer described it as “rather boring” and “infinitely worse than ‘Sleeping Beauty.’”

Another of my How to Survive the Holidays traditions is to read “A Christmas Memory” by Truman Capote. Plus, I invite three kids over to decorate my tiny artificial tree and eat pizza – my idea of a fine holiday party. Because I downsized when I moved across the country a decade ago, “Christmas” fits into three small boxes. The years of festooning every surface are long over, and even now, I unpack only half of the stuff, to avoid doing the same thing year after year. 

Back to the brown bananas. I decided to turn the abandoned bananas into small loaves of festive bread to give to the letter carrier, the trash removal guys and the construction workers who tore up my street 18 months ago and are still at it out front.

Old Recipes Bolster Confidence to Survive Christmas

In search of a favorite recipe, I opened a bulging folder of same, clipped from newspapers and magazines and even full pages torn directly out of cookbooks that I’ve since donated to book fairs. The folder is a secondary source to my file box of recipe cards, which also serves as a time capsule. It holds red dirt that came home 36 years ago in my jeans cuff after a trip to Ayers Rock in the heart of Australia, a photo of my son at age 7 (he’s 45 now) and my ticket stub from a Beatles concert on Aug. 21, 1966. (Well, where do you keep yours?)

The folder holds recipes from my ribollita phase (that’s Tuscan bread soup), six ways to prepare chicken pozole and a plethora of options for making boeuf bourguignon. (Julia Child’s version wins every time.) I also have a fabulous recipe for sangria from a bar owner and treasured directions for gazpacho that once doubled as a shopping list and so includes “40-watt light bulbs.” And I’ve collected information on many a dish that calls for cannellini beans.

I also found several recipes in my mother’s handwriting (she died at 58, when I was 24), including one for a cake my paternal grandmother liked to make. So the dead who so often come to mind on holidays and on the anniversaries of their passing also lurk in my recipe folder. I sat at the table for a while, just enjoying looking at my mother’s handwriting.

Some of her Christmases were fabulous and some were filled with pain. My brother died at 10, in 1963. Another year, my parents celebrated sending me off to college, the first in my family to have that privilege. Almost a decade later, my widowed dad was exceedingly proud to hold his first grandchild. Eight years later, Daddy was gone, but I hope his generous sprit lives on through me all year 'round.

All this reminded me I can beat the Red and Green Blues, get through Christmas and look forward to waking up December 26, glad it’s all finally over once again. But first, I need to find an excellent recipe for banana bread.

Changes in Altitude, Changes in Gratitude

Sea level. That’s where I thrive, where I can be my best self. This is a new revelation, inspired by a series of events experienced at an elevation of 6,000 feet. Along with baked yams, stuffed squash and fresh green beans sprinkled with toasted almonds, my family’s Thanksgiving at Lake Tahoe this year came with a side of anxiety.

We’re all fine now, but the holiday vacation did not play out as expected. On Nov. 27, Grandma Sue and I took a train -- the iconic California Zephyr -- from Emeryville to Truckee, our family’s gathering place in the Sierra Nevada mountains. We settled in there with half the family, and the next day, joined by friends from San Francisco, we all enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner.

On Friday, the parents of the kiddo with the lingering cough and low fever made an appointment with a pediatrician at home, and left -- two days earlier than planned. Still, Grandma Sue and I looked forward to welcoming another branch of the family, scheduled to arrive in Truckee about suppertime on Friday.

Outside was a true winter wonderland, with snow, icy roads and frigid temperatures. (Can you tell that’s not my favorite climate?) Inside, we had two comfy couches, warm blankets galore and a fridge full of leftovers. While we waited, we read the books we’d brought and also, as grandmas do, we ran the dishwasher, did laundry, made beds and cleaned out the pantry.

Our family members never made it. They left San Francisco at noon but treacherous road conditions impeded their progress once they reached the higher elevations. They called to say they were sitting in stalled traffic, hoping for the best. Then they called to say they were retreating to a nearby town for a meal. After dinner, they learned the highway to Truckee was still closed. Frustrated and exhausted, they called to say they were headed back home.

Problem-Solving Under the Influence of Tryptophan

Now we grandmas had a dilemma. We were scheduled to return home on the train, departing at 9:38 Saturday morning. Family members were not available to drive us to the station, we knew none of the neighbors and we had no car of our own. Staying wasn’t an attractive option, as the weather service had posted a new winter storm warning for Saturday afternoon, with the promise of two feet or more of fresh snow and whiteout conditions.

Grandma Sue and I are resourceful women. We’ve both traveled around the world, and coped with the many interruptions and delays that every traveler experiences. I got out my notebook, my pen and my phone and we started working on a plan.

Uber operates in Truckee, but as everywhere, only when individual drivers choose to work. That frigid Friday night, the Uber app reported “No Cars Available” and wouldn't let me book in advance. So much for Plan A. Plan B was to contact taxi companies. Plan C (I like lots of options) was to call  the local hardware store, remind them our family members are good customers and flat-out beg someone to deliver us to the train station. As a last resort, I was willing to rent a car, should any still be available, and drive us home through whatever ice and snow we had to confront.

Momentary Disappointment, Followed by Joy 

The answering machine at the first taxi company I called said to leave a message -- but the mailbox was full. Not a good sign. The recording for the second taxi company said it was no longer in business. We left a message with the third company, but never heard back.  I called a fourth, and was instructed to try a different number, one we had already called.

When I called a number for a car service, a man answered. He said he was having dinner with friends next door, but was kind enough to return to his home office to make the booking for pick up at 8 a.m. the next day. He was in a chatty mood, and when we responded in kind, he offered to lower his usual rate for driving on icy roads to $50.

Each. That price startled us, but we wanted to go home, and decided it was worth it.

That evening, we consulted the list of chores to complete before closing up the house. Most of them were easy, but we were concerned about taking out the trash. The bear box – a locked trash cabinet that keeps bears out -- is near the bottom of the steep, ice-coated driveway. As we both are Too Old to Fall, Grandma Sue and I got permission from the family to leave the four bulging trash bags in the kitchen for pickup Monday by a cleaning service.

That night, I couldn’t get to sleep. I lay awake fretting about whether the driver would actually appear, whether we could safely walk on the slick driveway and whether the train would get over Donner Pass, which Amtrak’s website publicly admits is the trickiest mountain pass in the country. I also wondered just what I would wear if we got stuck in town for the next storm, because we’d sent our suitcases home the day before, rather than wrestle with them on the train.

A Weird Whale Tale on a Surreal Morning

The next morning, sitting in the kitchen sipping orange juice, I read this news summary from CNN on my phone: “After a man killed two people in London, bystanders attacked him with a fire extinguisher and a narwhal tusk before police arrived.”

What???

Is this fake news? I thought I had misread it, or maybe, in my fatigue, I’d slipped into an alternate reality, just west of the Twilight Zone. (Can't you just hear Rod Serling reading that summary?) Besides, I know that the sale and possession of whales’ body parts are highly regulated, and a narwhal tusk can’t be easy to come by in London. I read the story, and learned that a quick-thinking man had grabbed one of two tusks displayed at the entrance door of a business and went after the terrorist with it.

At the appointed hour, our driver arrived. He helped us into his road-worthy vehicle, navigated the slippery streets and got us to the train station at 8:30 a.m., in plenty of time for our departure. It’s cute, this train station. It looks like the miniature stations in the Lionel train sets we had as kids. But cute only gets you so far.

Though Amtrak asks passengers to arrive 45 minutes ahead of time – earlier on holidays – the station at Truckee doesn’t open until 9 a.m. The few benches outside were covered in snow or all wet. Did I mention it was 13 degrees? Carefully, Grandma Sue and I crossed the slushy street to a café, where we wrapped our freezing hands around cups of hot chocolate.

The train arrived 30 minutes late, but at last we boarded and were headed home. Seven and a half hours later, we arrived at the train station in Emeryville -- back at sea level at last. Thank goodness! Outside, I noticed three trees full of crows. Though they may have been ravens.

And what do ravens say? “Nevermore.”