Making something from nothing (for 36 years)

Thirty-six years ago when we were first married we used to spend a lot of time cooking together in a tiny kitchen, bumping elbows and reaching around each other to see what we could make from whatever meager ingredients happened to be hanging around. We were both students and desperately broke, so we often had to be creative: "Let's see, two scrawny carrots, a box of macaroni, some raisins, and a can of tuna--want to make something of it?"

Today we were bumping elbows in a bigger kitchen trying to see what we could make from meager ingredients, but not because we're broke. We're trying to clear miscellaneous stuff out of the refrigerator to make room for all the holiday goodies we'll be cooking for our family next week, so we've got to finish up a the tail end of a ham and a sad-looking red bell pepper and some sorry potatoes and whatever all those mystery containers are in the freezer. My husband made the hash browns and I made scrambled eggs with ham and peppers (and cheese, of course), so that's one corner of the fridge looking a little more open. Sometimes when we put our problem-solving skills together, we can create something delicious.

Most weeks I'm busy driving home from Jackson Sunday afternoon, so it's been months since we've cooked a Sunday lunch together. I turned in m final grades late Friday and packed more than the usual amount of stuff in my car before I drove to Jackson Saturday morning, and now I'm relishing the fact that I don't have to drive anywhere all week unless I really want to. We've survived six months of living in two houses 90 minutes apart, and I'm ready to be a little more stationary. The grandkids are coming here next weekend so I have all week to spruce up, decorate, and bake before we celebrate our first Christmas in the little yellow parsonage near the corner of Grace and Daisy.We don't have a Christmas tree here but my husband twined lights around some giant potted banana trees and houseplants, which my granddaughter thought was about the funniest thing she'd ever heard of when I told her about it. 

It's a far cry from Christmas in our first apartment, where we put up a sad little tree we'd picked up for ten dollars at a tree lot but then wondered what to do for decorations. At the time I was working at a weekly newspaper that used ancient typesetting machines that spat out reels of yellow perforated tape that got thrown away after use, so I saved a bunch of it and brought it home to twist into stars and globes and garlands and miscellaneous yellow shapes. Our tree looked festive as long as you didn't look too closely, and we were proud of our resourcefulness and creativity.

I could come up with a list of things we don't have at the parsonage, from a Christmas tree to spare beds that don't have to be pumped up to the immersion blender I use to make soup, but what would be the point of that? Instead, I'm enjoying working with my husband to make the holidays festive and finding that after 36 years of marriage, we still know how to transform whatever we can find into something beautiful.