"The Door Watcher" from the January 8, 1970 Door County Advocate
BY CAPISTRANA
The Door Watcher
BY CAPISTRANA
Happy New Year! If Miss Emma Toft is seeing robins, why shouldn't a swallow send a message to the Door? Half-way south, we have plenty of snow too, and have had it since Christmas, which is the unusual thing for us. Only today a newspaper, lost a week earlier in a night snowfall, rises now in our front yard like cream to the top. No time to read it. On this day after Epiphany I am busy taking down the tree. It's not fair for that feast to be changed in the general moving around that is going on. Out the window go Twelfth Night and the Twelve Days of Christmas and goodness knows what other leisurely post-Christmas celebrations. I'll bet the European countries will continue to mark the 6th of January instead of the Sunday after New Year's as the Feast of the Three Kings. The reason for the change was to give it more prominence so that more people would be aware of it. The magi expended effort, hunted, got lost before they arrived, and the same goes for us. The hidden conjectured thing is what becomes a revelation for individuals in all ages.
How, many birds there are on this tree full of ornaments collected by four generations! There are tinsel birds with frisky nylon tails. There are some from Cabin Craft in Ephraim of spiraled metal and sequins with a glass marble for a head. There are a couple of realistic Japanese ones. The newest is the little brown and white ceramic nestled in the sheaf of fodder, (Scandinavian Village—1969). And the big beautiful dove Ida Massey gave us this year for the tree top. I wish I could find more star shaped tin or aluminum reflectors for the lights. They make each one seem a great gleaming blossom. Like tinsel balls they should never go out of style. Those were beautiful trees in photographs in the Advocate. Natural looking without all that scraggydrippy tinsel that cluttered trees for so many years. Here's something to throw away—the cookie ornament nibbled by dog or child or both until there is only a small ring of crust around the hole. I wonder what is inside these five big balls which are so heavy. They are beginning to craze like old mirrors after all these years.
Well, that about does it. I'll put the lights in boxes after we have lunched on the last crumbs of the cherry cake from the Advocate. Wonderful to be counted in on that! And then for some more Christmas reading. I'll start Eisele's "Unexpected Universe" next. Liked Rummer Godden's "This House of Brede?" very much. Was sadly disappointed over MacKinley Kantor's "Missouri Bittersweet." Spring Hill Nurseries catalogue came this morning. That makes it time practically to say "Happy Ground Hog Day."
Courtesy of the Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
["The hidden conjectured thing is what becomes a revelation for individuals in all ages." is possibly related to the first part of Deuteronomy 29:29 "The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever". It could be Chomeau's reflection on this passage, a sermon, or devotional text.]
Articles by Mary Chomeau
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/mary-chomeau
Christmas-related articles