Growing up in the Metropolitan Museum: Part II

The view from the balcony

As I mentioned in my last post, every Friday and Saturday night, a group of chamber musicians play on the balcony of the Metropolitan Museum lobby. Museum-goers can sit at little round tables along the balcony and enjoy an apertif while listening to the music.

When Bob and I first listened to the music, we would just sit across the balcony for a few minutes during our weekend evening trips to the museum. We didn't expect a four-year-old to be patient or quiet enough for us to sit down and order anything. But soon we started to wander timidly through the area, child in tow. (I've seen many, many parents doing this since.) Then one weekend Bob and I went there by ourselves and tried out the bar itself.

Eventually we ventured to take CZ in to sit with us. To keep her entertained Bob had her play "guess the century" with the music. CZ, age five, barely knew what a century was. But her friend from the Chinese Scholars' Court played violin, and it turned out CZ liked the music. It may have also helped that the first violinist was a woman. For the next year, CZ begged me for lessons until I decided she was serious.

CZ, age six, watching the pianist at the balcony bar

The balcony bar became a part of our Upper East Side weekend routine. You could tell the musicians had seen everything: One night someone's napkin caught fire right next to the musicians. At the same table, soon afterwards, a man fell flat on his back as he started to leave. Another time, still at the same table, a tipsy group of women clapped loudly, not only between movements, but every time the musicians played a whole note. The most reaction any of this got were some politely raised eyebrows for the applause--the first couple of times, at least. Bob's mother remains the only person I ever heard actually get shushed by the musicians. She was right up next to the velvet rope explaining something to CZ, because our table was rather far back that night, and she had insisted that they go closer. Her voice does carry.

Once by the end of the first year or so, the cellist leaned over to the violinist as we sat down and muttered, "Here comes your fan club," indicating CZ.

There were other regular listeners, too, including a man we called "the cormorant," because he always sat listening to the music with his head cocked up in the air. There was a disheveled man who always carried a bag of papers that looked like a long-awaited dissertation. And there were people we saw only once, but were memorable, like a little boy who'd busked with his fiddle for a train fare to the city; a Mennonite woman and her daughter; a Mary McFadden look-alike wearing a long, wrapped crepe dress; and a man in a long linen caftan with a mandarin collar whom we dubbed "The Future," because he looked like a character from a science fiction movie. But these are just a cross section of the typical crowd.

We learned a lot about chamber music while listening to the balcony bar musicians over the years. During this time, CZ's skill on the violin was growing, as was our collection of CDs. "Name the century" grew into "Name the composer," and then "analyze the music." I discovered Dvorak's kinship to Brahms, and that I liked Brahms' chamber pieces even better than Dvorak's.

At least for me, the experience of listening to the balcony bar musicians was always somewhat synesthetic. I was coming at this experience from many years of enjoying drawing and painting, so my understanding of the music was colored by what I had just seen in the galleries. And after we'd make our escape before the final flourish (the group had a habit of ending with a waltz, which we never liked as much as the previous piece), the colors in the galleries (especially the Degas pastels in their darkened rooms) seemed more vibrant from the music.

The Singer in Green, ca. 1884

Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917)

Pastel on light blue laid paper

23 3/4 x 18 1/4 in. (60.3 x 46.4 cm)

Once we moved to Morningside Heights, though, the museum was too far away to visit every weekend. And once CZ started music school on Saturdays, our museum experience was almost eclipsed altogether. We'd mostly go once or twice during the summer. CZ was also becoming a teenager, and once while we were looking at Chinese ceramics, she confided, "This gallery reminds me of wanting to go home." It seemed we were moving on.

But this weekend, knowing that we'd be literally moving on soon, I asked to go back to the museum for one last Saturday evening. When we got there, CZ wanted to wander through the galleries by herself with a camera. Bob thought it might mean she didn't like us, but I understood that it meant she wanted one experience of the museum that was entirely her own. We agreed to meet at the balcony bar at 7:15.

When Bob and I got there, it was almost as though the musicians were waiting for us. We got a table very close to the group (minus the first violinist, who was on vacation), and they were just playing the first notes of my favorite Brahms piano quartet (No. 2). There were no noticeable patron antics that evening, and we simply sat and listened to the whole quartet while CZ took some photos.

As we left, I wanted CZ to go up and thank the musicians for introducing her to chamber music. "Otherwise we'll just disappear, and they'll never know why," I said. I didn't think it was my place to tell them for her, as I've spoken for CZ too long already and I think it's time for her to speak for herself. But she didn't want to, so we left without saying goodbye.

Maybe we'll go back one more time before we move to Italy. Maybe we'll move back here one day. Maybe CZ will move back by herself. Or maybe the years will roll by, everything in the museum will be remodeled, the balcony bar will be discontinued, and our ghosts will be exorcised altogether. But in my mind, the Metropolitan Museum will always be an important part of our family memories, one that spanned three apartments and may have, in the long run, been the place our daughter grew up.

Growing up in the Metropolitan Museum: Part I

CZ, age four, in the Venetian Rococo Bedroom at the Metropolitan Museum

If I had to pick my favorite place in New York City, I'd have to choose the Metropolitan Museum. The reason is partly that it's one of the best art museums in the world, but it's also because of personal history. When we first moved to the city, we lived on the Upper East Side, only a few blocks from the museum. I was a portrait artist who had never been in regular contact with master oil paintings, and besides, we lived in a one-bedroom apartment with a three-year-old. Almost immediately I bought a membership to the museum so that I could take CZ for a short visit whenever we wanted to see a bigger, grander space.

So that CZ wouldn't get bored, I used to let her take me by the hand and lead me where she wanted to go. I liked the whole museum, so it didn't matter to me where we went. Little CZ, on the other hand, had a clear favorite: The Venetian Rococo Bedroom. It featured a brocade bed that would have been the envy of any princess. Gentle afternoon light shone eternally through false windows, lending an appropriate sense of luxurious ennui. But the best part was the ceiling: It was supported by about a dozen painted wooden putti, holding up something that looked like an inverted soap dish over the bed, a painting over the antechamber, and some sort of shield that looked like a bit of insubstantial rococo exuberance in between. We called the room "Flying Babies." Naturally, CZ wanted one. We even found some in an antique shop once.

"They're $15,000, dear," said the gently smiling employee, to CZ's inquiry.

Bedroom from Sagredo Palace, Venice, 18th century (ca. 1718)

H. 25 ft. 2 in. (767.1 cm), W. 18 ft. 2 in. (553.7 cm), D. 13 ft. 2 in. (401.3 cm) Rogers Fund, 1906 (06.1335.1a-d)

Of course I had my favorite works, too, much appreciated after my own museum-free childhood: The five Vermeers, the Sargents, the Degas pastels of dancers and women bathers, the flat Manets, the Van Dycks, the Rubens painting of The Holy Family with Saints. All the Byzantine jewlery. The medieval manuscripts and a certain bejeweled gospel cover on loan from the Morgan Library. And a tender statuette of a Madonna and Child from 13th century Paris.

During this time I also discovered that I liked Asian ceramics and calligraphy. Sometimes we'd go to the Asian wing with a friend of CZ's who was adopted from China and the two girls would play in the Chinese Scholars' court. The friend was fond of playing "office," so they would use the railing to print out pretend documents under the skylights. They also liked to try to coax the oversized koi in the back of the fish pond out of hiding. Once a group of tourists came in and the girls scowled at them. They were willing to share the city playgrounds, apparently, but not the Chinese Scholars' Court.

After about two years of museum-wandering, one day CZ led me up a flight of stairs to a part of the museum I'd never seen before, a collection of Early Americana with a beamed Puritan meeting house ceiling in the main room. It was surrounded by a suite of period rooms, several of which no longer exist. By the time we started reading about American history, CZ was intimately acquainted with open hearths and iron spiders, crewel work, rugs on tables, and the old habit of carving one's name with a ring or penknife into the bedroom window. Not that she had any particular interest in history. She breathed it unnoticed, like 70 degree air.

And of course no Christmas season was complete without a visit to the Angel Tree.

But at some point within the first two years, CZ's focus at the museum began to shift to the balcony over the entrance lobby. There, every Friday and Saturday night, a group of chamber musicians would play from 5 until 8. Museum-goers could sit at little round tables along the balcony and enjoy an apertif while listening to the music. I remember having been mildly annoyed the first time I noticed the musicians because they were right in front of some of the best cases of Chinese ceramics. Little did I know how symbolic that displacement would become.

The balcony and lobby at the Metropolitan Museum from the grand staircase.

NY Times drawing series

This morning I ran across--who would have thought?--an excellent series in the NY Times on basic drawing skills. This series will come out each Friday for twelve weeks. Oh, I am so excited to see this, for my own sake! If you want to brush up on your own skills, have children who are interested in drawing, or just want a good curriculum for an art class (for any age, because few people practice these skills anymore), this series looks extremely promising. I majored in drawing and painting, yet I never got this level of basic instruction. (Honestly, I think I majored in irony and kitsch, which can be valuable in its own way, but that's another story.)

I'm also going to drop the links (two so far) in my shared items on the sidebar. Happy drawing!

Metropolitan Museum today

Johannes Vermeer (Dutch, 1632–1675)

The Milkmaid, about 1657–58

Oil on canvas; 17 7/8 x 16 1/8 in. (45.5 x 41 cm)

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Purchase, 1908, with aid from the Rembrandt Society

This morning we made our annual pilgrimage to see the Angel Tree at the Metropolitan Museum. Again, we took no photos. But we still noted the variations in the figures. CZ never seems to get too old for the Angel Tree or the Nutcracker, which we'll go see tomorrow night. They are her childhood Advent memories.

We were also there because Bob wanted a chance to see Vermeer's The Milkmaid, on loan from the Rijksmuseum. CZ and I had been to the exhibit before, but you can never go too many times, because it's always crowded and you only get a glimpse of the small, intimate painting. I am always struck by how clear and vibrant the color is in the painting compared to its reproductions, so I look mainly at the color and luminosity when I go. Everyone else, it seems, is looking for the tile with Cupid on it, which I guess explains why someone's head is always six inches from the painting. I think the next time they create an audio guide, they ought to talk about some esoteric effect that can only be seen from ten feet back.

;-)

After Vermeer and the Angel Tree, we wandered around way upstairs in the Early American section, to escape the crowds. I hadn't thought about it beforehand, but when CZ and I were standing in the Wentworth Room, I noticed some similarities between the furnishings in the room and those in the Vermeer paintings downstairs. "Hey, do you notice anything in particular about these furnishings?" I commented to CZ. (I was trying not to be too obvious, because sometimes she thinks I am.)

"No," she responded.

"The furnishings are like those in the Vermeer paintings," I pointed out, again trying not to be too didactic. "Like the rug on the table. And the tankard on the mantlepiece..."

"And the Splenda packet on the floor," she added.

I looked down, and there was indeed an used Splenda packet just on the other side of the railing. I remember reading somewhere that this was where E.L. Konigsburg got the idea to write The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. She and her sons were in one of the rococo rooms on the first floor and saw a piece of popcorn in a chair...

Ideas for sketching

Do you like nature journaling? The image at left is by NYC artist Tommy Kane. (I hope he won't mind my reproducing it here as a bit of free publicity.) It's from a website called Urban Sketchers, which I only just discovered yesterday.

Another interesting artist on the site is John Wooley. Wooley just happens to be ten years old, but that's not the point. I am utterly impressed with his free sense of line, composition, and sheer inventiveness. I could draw realistically when I was ten, but I couldn't invent like he does. I wonder if I could even do it now, with an extensive art background and many years' worth of images in my head. Looking at these drawings makes me want to try.

Most of these sketchers seem to make their living in the advertising world. And Kane is unfortunately the same man who did those Steve Madden ads a few years ago that looked like Bratz dolls. Makes me wonder how we can open up better opportunities for artists to make a living.

Meanwhile, I think this website makes great inspiration for nature journaling! I know it's urban journaling, but I posted it even so for two reasons: 1) The drawing styles are more creative than on most nature journaling sites I've seen, and 2) urban journaling looks like fun, too! Enjoy!

Sketch by John Wooley, from Urban Sketchers

***

I haven't had a whole lot of time lately to sketch medieval manuscripts, but I have done a three or four. I hope to do more sketching as time permits, perhaps even post a few eventually. For that, though, I'll need a scanner.

Medieval Manuscripts at the Metropolitan Museum

We've been twice now to see the exhibition Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages at the Metropolitan Museum or Art. Medieval drawings have been one of my favorite art forms ever since I discovered the Ebbo gospels in a college art history class.

Last night, when we went back to see the drawings for a second time (it ends today), I started to buy the exhibition catalog, but noticed that most of the images were very small and of poor quality, which is surprising for a book put out by a museum. I fretted (not too much, but a little) over this while we listened to the museum's chamber music, because I really wanted to study the drawings some more, and on the way home I had the idea to look at the museum's website.

And oh, boy, am I glad I did! The website has an exhibition blog, with lots of images, in better quality than the book, and you can enlarge them greatly. There's also lots of commentary by the museum's curators. If you like this kind of thing anywhere near as much as I do (which admittedly not everyone does), you'll really enjoy looking through this.

Sadly, one image that I really liked, of four noble persons on horseback, is not on the blog. It reminded me of the four Pevensie children hunting the white stage at the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Nor are the wonderful astronomical drawings of Orion and one of the Canis constellations. But there's so much to enjoy already, including the drawing above of the Ascension with apostles looking up at Jesus' feet (not the ones in the photo, but at the top of the page, in half a mandorla), shown above. I think I'll go buy a tiny fountain pen and get started sketching...

Greetings from the newly refurbished American Past...

This friendly shepherdess is one of several examples of framed embroidery in the newly refurbished American wing. She's actually waving at a shepherd.  

Yesterday was shaping up to be a very noisy day in our neighborhood, and Bob had to work all morning, so C.Z. and I decided to escape to the newly refurbished American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum, which re-opened this week.  The part that opened this week was the sculpture courtyard, with its new pottery mezzanine, and the period rooms.  The paintings, for now, remain either in the 19th Century European Paintings section on the other side of the museum, or in storage.

Above are some of the ceramics on display in the new glass mezzanine.  Even the stairs are glass! I'm fond of these minimalist-looking vases and have one in celadon green that I bought from the museum shop.  (It's a copy, of course, and the neck is not so graceful, but I still like it.)

The main entrance to the period rooms downstairs an old bank facade, but inside, it looks like an old Georgian dining room. Many Southerners still decorate their homes this way, so it reminds me of the small town in Virginia where my parents lived until a few years ago. (I was born there, but then we moved to Georgia and they moved back when I was in college.) When I'd take walks at dusk, the large entrances with fan lights would be lit up, often revealing chandeliers and Chinese-inspired wallpaper.  

One of the relocated Georgian period rooms in this section of the museum includes a window from the original house with names scratched into the glass.  For some reason, I think I've heard that girls scratched their names with their rings, and I think it used to be a common practice.  At least, I've seen other windows etched with names as well, including one in a private home in Virginia. The home was built on a hill and surrounded by large trees so that it caught summer breezes, and I imagined the occupant, perhaps a teenage girl, daydreaming as she looked out the upstair window over the valley below. Was she waiting for company to arrive? 

The next photos (above and below) are from the Early American (17th Century) collection, housed off by itself in a small third-storey nook not accessible from any other part of the museum. For the first couple of years we explored the museum, we didn't even know it existed. But the MMA is so large that it's fun to wander around in it much the same way that C.S. Lewis wandered down long hallways as a child. So I used to let C.Z. guide me around by the hand.  It made the grandmas smile, and one day we found a small staircase. At the top was a Puritan meetinghouse surrounded by little Early American period rooms, which we could explore all by ourselves!

Now that the American Wing has been renovated, these period rooms have been mostly dismantled and made into display rooms for casework, and they are made more accessible via a new glass elevator.  Some of the old architectural elements remain, but several of the rooms no longer look like someone could live there. 

I remember how enchanted C.Z. was with these rooms as a child, when we'd go in and pretend for a few minutes that we lived in them.  The new arrangement looks like it would be interesting for Antiques Road Show buffs, but less so for children.  Still, many period rooms remain downstairs and in other parts of the museum.  And now that the ones upstairs are more accessible, maybe they'll be open more often.

This Shaker period room on the lowest level (19th Century) hasn't changed. I've always liked it. My own bedroom furniture is Shaker style. I'm not sure Shaker furniture quite works in an Arts and Crafts era New York City apartment, either, but I like to pretend it does!

Most of the American artworks are still housed in the study collection. For one thing, the American Painting galleries are still closed, with highlights on display until 2011 in the European collection. The study collection looks like a grocery store for art--many narrow aisles of glass cases, with masterpieces inside.  Even before the renovation C.Z. and I were often surprised to find paintings by Mary Cassatt or John Singer Sargent crammed into these glass cases.  Many of the artworks do get rotated into the galleries now and then, though.

While exploring the study collection, we were sometimes amused by the curators' sense of humor. Some of the pieces looked as though they were bored or wanted to escape.  The woman above appears to be peeking behind the bust next to her. 

And among many expressions of placid Victorian calm, and even resignation, we found this fellow (above center). Whatever could he be so indignant about?  We turned around in the aisle, following his gaze exactly, and saw...

Clearly the feeling is mutual.  

Photography at Cooley Studio

The co-op teens went to visit Cooley Studio yesterday.  (His website is an art exhibit in itself.) Ryann Cooley is the husband and father in one of our co-op families, a fellow Redeemerite, and an advertising photographer.  I would have loved to have seen his studio and talked to him, but alas, I had mom duties.  

C.Z.'s best photos from yesterday were of the other kids, but since I don't even post photos of her on this site, it didn't seem right to post photos of other people's children.  So, I'm only putting up some C.Z. took of the studio itself, which was seemingly inspiration enough!

Create your own artwork

Ever since someone sent us a link to this website, I've been creating special effects with our photos.  They're not really big enough to print, but you can order prints from the site, I think.  And they're awfully fun to play around with!  Effects vary from the "Warholizer," which makes your photo look like an Andy Warhol pop print, to "Stenciler," which makes your photo look like a faded daguerrotype.  It's sort of like the iMac Photobooth, except that you can use any photo you want.  

Have fun!

At MoMA today

Our co-op went on a field trip to MoMA.

Afterwards C.Z. and I walked around in the galleries with a friend.

We always like the design section.

This was a polyprolene screen hanging from the ceiling.

C.Z. "got" the irony of this stuffed mushroom cloud.

And this is an anonymous gallery visitor in a room full of Mondrian paintings.

But almost as much as the artworks, we like the museum space itself.

And that's why I took my camera today!

And the verdict is...

Figures from the Neapolitan creche at the Metropolitan Museum.  The bridge with the pig on it is in a different spot this year, and the figures in the foreground are rearranged or different.

They change it!  We're absolutely certain that they change it!  The nativity scene at the Metropolitan Museum, that is.  C.Z. and I went there today, and we noticed right away that the bridge with the pig on it was in a different position than it was last year.  And a young page boy in yellow boots was on a different side of town, and there was a cherub flying out of a waterfall who was cleverly positioned to look like he was grabbing at a cow's horn, and there was a man sleeping on some steps, and another with some cymbals where last year there had only been the cymbals on the ground, and much more...

Phew!  Finally, a ten-year-old mystery solved.  And just in time, too, because the no photography sign was back up and they were enforcing it.  They don't want anyone to know!  

I'm sure you all must be every bit as excited as we are.  

C.Z. and I also had a great time looking at the new medieval wing, including some great artifacts from barbarian days, and a very Lord of the Rings-looking Viking sword with a faded inscription on the blade.

And then, in another exhibit, we found an Amati violin from 1558. It's possibly the first violin ever made.  There are only twenty extant Amatis in the world, which could explain their fabulous price.  C.Z., of course, wanted to know why they kept it in a museum, when anyone could see that it was meant to be played.  

The Amati violin we saw today at the Metropolitan Museum.  Image from Wikipedia.

And then we walked home through Central Park in the sleet.  It was marvelously bleak out, and we saw a hawk eating something (I won't say what) in a tree.  And now it's snowing, and sticking! A very nice week-and-a-day before Christmas, this has been.

P.S.  I've just realized that if you click on the creche picture, it blows up to screen-size.  It's not the greatest quality (I was snapping quickly in low light), but you can see more that way.  Have fun playing "I Spy"!  

Christmas traditions

I've recently gotten to thinking about what we have done for Christmas all these years, since this year I have discovered the amazing and beautiful Advent blogosphere.  We haven't usually made a lot of special homemade foods or crafts, and don't think the relatives with whom we spend Christmas would particularly enjoy them if we did.  And what we do doesn't look like much of the intentional Advent preparation that I'm seeing elsewhere.  In fact, I confess that I have sometimes thought of Christmas as the sort of last frontier of simplicity--that is to say, I can live the rest of my life simply, but Christmas?  It lives me.

But, we do prepare for Christmas, and these are some of the things we've done:  

First of all, we always, always go to Georgia for Christmas itself. Georgia is, in my memory, the land of plastic nativity scenes, tattered street decorations, plastic toys that require batteries, Jingle Bell Rock, and the Pink Pig at Rich's. To be fair, it's also handbell choirs, carolers, poinsettias and some really nice home tours.  But all of this is more sentimental than faith-building to me.  We enjoy our visits, and are quite ready for them by the time they occur, but there's a definite crowd factor.  We don't really choose what we're going to do. We just do what our families have always done.

So we start our Christmas season in New York.  When C.Z. was small and we were new to New York, we sampled most of the usual events. The first year we went to Midtown to see the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree and have a look at the windows at Saks.  And we poked our heads into FAO Schwartz.  But since no one in our small family likes shopping or crowds, we were happy to say "been there, done that" and move on.  And we never went back.

Someone once gave us Rockettes' Christmas Spectacular tickets. We appreciated them, and we went, but we never went back to that again either.  As Bob puts it, we tend to shy away from anything with the word "spectacular" in it. 

We took more permanently to The Nutcracker.  Though it's a completely secular event, we did find that our little girl naturally enjoyed graceful dancing snowflakes and giant Christmas trees that rise up out of the stage floor.  And she always shook with silent laughter as the purposely-comical dead Mouse King was carted off the stage, pot belly up.  And since New Yorkers inevitably become acquainted with the world of real child performers, we speculated how the little Marie/Clara/whatever-her-name-is felt at having to be whirled around alone on that bed barefoot and with her eyes shut for quite some time.  Did she ever get cold or dizzy? 

One year we even took a small nephew with us, who despite his extreme youth, masculine persona and general exhaustion, stayed awake admirably during the entire performance. Admittedly, he was also quite perplexed about why he couldn't hold his blankie during the show, since it seemed simple enough to him that he should be able to leave it in the cab and get it back after the show.   But I digress.

At some point, Handel's Messiah performances began to overlap with our Nutcrackers.  When the New York Philharmonic began to perform it again after a twenty-year hiatus, Bob wanted to see what that was like.  In preparation, he played the Sir Colin Davis/LSO version every day from Thanksgiving until the performance the week before Christmas.  This tradition stuck, and we went for years, especially after we moved to the same neighborhood as Riverside Church and it became a local event.  And since we only listen to Messiah during December, I still get chills every time I hear it.  I tested it out again last night while cooking dinner, and found myself involuntarily conducting with a wooden spoon.  

And last but not least among the classic New York Christmas observations is the Angel Tree at the Metropolitan Museum. We no longer live in that neighborhood as we did until 2004, but we still go see the tree at least once every season.  This year it coincides with the re-opening of the Medieval section of the main museum, so I'm especially eager to go.  (Next week, I hope.)  

The Angel Tree is a giant Christmas tree decked with real Baroque angels, and surrounded by a Neapolitan Creche.  And of course, being properly Baroque, it's under-lit.  It's blatantly Christian (even if the museum only touts it as artistic), extremely popular with visitors, and they play real religious Christmas music.  I hope it lasts!

  

Detail from the Metropolitan Museum's nativity scene.  Will it look the same this year?

When C.Z. was smaller, Bob would try to prolong her interest in the Angel Tree and Neapolitan Creche by playing "find the..." so that I could admire the scene for longer.  Her attention span is nice and long now, but they still try to memorize the layout to discern whether the curators rearrange the townsfolk of Neapolitan Bethlehem each year or put them in exactly the same spots as before.  The problem is, they never can quite figure out which it is because there are just too many figures to memorize and the museum doesn't allow photos.  At least, they didn't until last year.  Last year the usual forbidding sign was missing, and having of course hopefully packed away my camera anyway, I whipped it out and took several dozen photos. So, this year we're going to study them first and see whether we can solve this mystery! 

And on a couple of occasions, we've gone through the Medieval hall just before Thanksgiving, or just after New Year's, and found the whole tree area enshrouded by folding partitions, and glowing from within. Of course we peeked through the cracks in the folds, and saw conservators carefully brushing off angels and packing them away in boxes, under brilliant lighting.  Oh fun!  I felt like Claudia in The Mixed-Up Files.

And besides the Angel Tree, the Metropolitan is a wonderful Advent resource generally if you just want to go and contemplate the Incarnation.  They have a Duccio Madonna and Child, for instance, and also one of my favorite Madonna and Child statuettes ever (see below). Historian Barbara Tuchman said that Madonna and Child statuettes before 1350 portrayed little maternal affection between mothers and children, because the Christ child was supposed to be separate and the Virgin abstracted.  But one look at this statuette rather blows that hypothesis out of the water.  I don't think Ms. Tuchman cared much for the Medieval Church.

Mid-14th c. French statuette at the Metropolitan Museum (and one of my favorite pieces in the museum)

As for our own tree, since we always go out of town for Christmas itself, we usually buy it early.  We bought one this weekend, in fact.  But the first few years we lived here we only had a table top tree, because we really didn't have room for a bigger one, and perhaps I was also in denial about where "home" was.  Then there was the year that Bob first tried to buy a full-sized tree, from a French Canadian on the corner of 2nd Ave. and 80th St.  "Fiftee(n)?  Non, I said fiftee!" When we got home, we crammed the tree up against our living room storage unit, which also doubled as our dresser, since the living room was also our bedroom.  To get clothes out, I had to reach behind the tree.  Needless to say, I was still finding needles in my clothes until May. But at least they smelled good!

  Some of the shoe ornaments

When we finally started getting a real tree, I started buying those shoe ornaments from the Metropolitan Museum, on sale after Christmas. That's kind of odd, because I'm not a big fan of shoes.  I think, in retrospect, I must have liked the idea of having souvenirs from the museum. (Since of course we weren't going to be in New York much longer).  C.Z., meanwhile, was accumulating a collection of silver bells from Bob's mother each year.  And we have various other ornaments from other museums, or of other personal significance, as well.  We all like the fir smell, and the evening that we decorate, we have cider or hot chocolate while listening to Handel's Messiah or some other Christmas music.

And of course, there's our own nativity scene. My mother started C.Z. on that.  At Christmas time, I would let C.Z. play with the figurines, and they used to be among her favorite toys.  The first Christmas we lived here, she holed up under the desk with them for hours, where I heard her mutter things like, "Once there was Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, a goat, and a donkey.  And it was fine, and it was good, but their only problem was the goat couldn't fit in the barn..."  The next year, she stared and stared at the Baby Jesus figure.  She stared so intently that I finally asked her what was on her mind.  "If I stare at him long enough," she responded, "I wonder if he will become real." Indeed.

And there were books, like Peter Spier's Christmas, and most especially Gennady Spirin's The Christmas Story.  C.Z. was very fond of both illustrators.  

Our latter-day Christmas seasons have been marked by moms' group parties and violin "winter concerts."  At the moms' group (now co-op) parties we've done everything from re-enacting the nativity to playing carols on recorder, but since they're church parties, they're Christmas parties. And since C.Z. originally took violin from a teacher at a nearby parochial school, some of the string concerts were happily religious, too.  But there is always something about a Christmas performance--the last minute rush to get new dress shoes, the jitters right before the performance, going to everyone else's performances, and the mad dash to the airport, usually only a day or so afterwards.  Anyone who has a child who performs knows what I mean.  My friends whose children dance in repeated performances of The Nutcracker really know what I mean.  

Now that C.Z. is in a conservatory program, her string concerts have nothing to do with Christmas except that they're given right before it. I'm just glad that they're not the day after! (This comes to mind because I used to have friends who traveled for college bowl games.) And my mother-in-law, brave soul, frequently flies up from Georgia for C.Z.'s concerts. (How many women do you know who will cheerfully spend four days out of town the week before they serve Christmas dinner for the extended family?) C.Z.'s orchestra concerts now have precluded some of our other celebrations, including Messiah, which has moved back to the much less decorative Avery Fisher Hall this year anyway.

But the "winter concert" will never preclude the Lessons and Carols service at Redeemer.  We try very hard to stay in town until Lessons and Carols, and even go to our old location on the East Side to see the full-dress version.  Not only does it have an orchestra, choir and (need I say excellent?) soloists singing excerpts from Messiah and other oratorios, but native speakers read Advent passages in many languages, including many from countries that are not traditionally Christian.  There's nothing quite as thrilling at Christmas as hearing Luke 2 read in, say, Farsi.

So, this leaves me with an opportunity to arise to the challenge of Advent personally, to prepare amidst all the bustle.  We've done Advent wreaths before, but we rarely remember to start them the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and we're never home to light the Christ candle.  Not a problem--we'll do what we can, even if it's just C.Z. and myself reading Isaiah and singing a carol alone at 7 p.m. before Bob comes home.  But I think we'll limit it to Sundays this year.

Now, I can see how someone reading this post might get the idea that our Christmas celebration is all about tickets we purchase, and in fact, about events we can attend only because we live in New York.  This is possibly true in some sense, but these things always involve trade offs, don't they?  For years we celebrated each New York Christmas as though it would be the last, because we thought it would be.  Because we go visit family, we've never spent a Christmas day at home. We never did the Santa tradition, except to tell the story of St. Nicholas, and never had room (or sometimes money) when C.Z. was young for more than the tiniest and most essential toys. Quite honestly, for many years as I watched the cousins reveling in their Santa bounty, I wondered if perhaps we were too austere.  But I never wondered once we got home.  We are all thankful for how we've celebrated Christmas, even C.Z.  We may not have celebrated with the same traditions each year, and we may not have always been the most diligent with our readings, baking, and crafting but we've always had plenty of Advent expectation in our hearts as we've approached our Lord's birthday.