Sharon Saracino
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Burning the Bayberry Candle

12/18/2011

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     The holiday season and the smell of bayberry and pine always seem intertwined in my mind and memory.  The pine is obvious...the Christmas tree. But what about bayberry? Bayberry candles have been used on dinner tables and given at Christmas for years as gifts of friendship and prosperity. Where did the idea originate?
     Our early American ancestors were the epitome of do it yourself-ers; really, did they have any other choice?  Candles were more than a decorative accent in those days, they were a necessity.  In the fall, when the slaughter for the upcoming winter took place, the animal fat, or tallow, would be gathered and boiled and candle making would commence. Candle making in those days was a gruelling and smelly job. Tallow had a tendency to become rather foul smelling as the weeks went by, let alone the months, so imagine how delightful the aroma by Christmas time in mid winter!
     Somewhere along the line, most likely among the more affluent classes, some enterprising women found that beeswax or bayberry wax made for a far less foul taper. Women gathered bushels of bayberries and boiled them for several hours causing a waxy substance to seep from the berries. This substance floated to the top and once   cooled, could be skimmed from the surface in much the same way we skim  fat from cooled broth today. It takes approximately 15 pounds of bayberries to render one pound of wax. That's a lot of berries and a lot of work! No wonder they were valued for not only their scent, but for their rarity.
     Early American folklore says that lighting a new bayberry candle on Christmas Eve brings health, wealth and prosperity in the coming year.
"A bayberry candle burnt to the socket brings food to the larder and gold to the pocket."  Many Christians believe that the light of the bayberry candle on Christmas Eve will welcome the Christ child into their homes follwing the tradition that the Bay Tree sheltered the holy family during a storm. Neo-pagans burn the bayberry candle for prosperity and happiness on Yule or the Winter Solstice. So, it seems that whatever your beliefs, the bayberry candle imparts nothing but sweet scent and good tidings. May your bayberry burn bright this holiday season!



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Ho Ho Help, I've only got a week!

12/16/2011

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I don't quite know when it happened, or how, but this year the Christmas Spirit seems to have forgotten where I live. I am usually the first one shopping, baking, getting the tree up, not to mention my enormously overdone nativity (it has its own zip code). This year, I seem to be running permanently behind, no cookies baked, shopping not finished, down sized nativity, not a card written...and the worst part is, I feel overwhelmingly witchy and annoyed with the whole thing, for the most part. I'm not happy with a single gift that I bought and haven't listened to a single Christmas carol. Yet, overall, I'm quite content at the moment and can't really attribute this lack of ho ho holiday cheer to any particular reason. Last night I watched "Selling Spelling Manor" on HGTV and wondered if anyone on earth really needs a seventeen thousand square foot climate controlled attic and three gift wrapping rooms. I wondered about the gift wrapping rooms, especially, as I was sitting on my sofa trying unsuccesfully to wrap gifts on my lap while watching. And I have to admit that with three entire rooms of gift wrapping goodies organized into hundreds of plastic boxes at one's disposal, the finished product certainly eclipsed my sad and less than professional attempts. Then again, there should alwaysbe  more to consider  than appearance, right? Wow, I hope so or I am in so much trouble!  It reminded me of something I wrote a while back. I was reflecting on someone who was very good at presenting an elegant, finished exterior with very little to offer beyond the outer wrappings. This person seemed to always come out ahead while others who didn't have quite the same flair, but had far more to offer in terms of character, were continually overlooked.
Each of us is a gift. Some wrapped in shiny paper with bows and tassels….eye-catching, brilliant.  Others lie in battered cardboard held together with yellowed tape, luck…and the occasional prayer. Some pristine with perfect corners, others cruelly crushed and awkward angled. The choice may seem obvious…but, be cautious…choose wisely…the perfect package may be filled with nothing but crumpled tissue, while real treasure is disguised by a plain brown wrapper.

 That being said, if anyone finds the Spirit of Christmas, can you please give him or her my address..I'm becoming desperate!
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Big Apple Christmas

12/11/2011

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I have never been in New York City this close to Christmas, so when my sister invited me to tag along with her and some friends who wanted to see the tree at Rockafeller Center, I thought 'cool'! My sister, brave soul that she is, thinks nothing of driving into the city as opposed to a bus trip or other means of transport. While it definitely allows you more freedom to come and go as you please, as someone who absolutely hates to drive anywhere, I say better her than me. (I say this with thanks and admiration) After rising at 5:30am (which somehow seems sacrilegious on  Saturday morning) we were on the road bright and early (although realistically it was dark and cloudy and felt more like early evening than early morning) and walking around the city sidewalks, busy sidewalks dressed in holiday style by 10:30am or so. The crowds weren't so bad when we first arrived, but as they day went on, the momenteum picked up until it became a real challenge to navigate the streets. Finding an eatery that didn't have a line stretching around the next block also became a challenge, but we finally found a warm and toasty Irish pub where we had tasty, if simple fare, and just enjoyed sitting down and being out of the wind for a while. We took the subway (with only one snafu of getting on the wrong train) down to Canal Street seeking bargains, and my sister's friend really was the negotiator extraordinaire! The scene reminded me a little bit of Rome in that there were licensed vendors as well as those whose wares were displayed from the depths of large trash bags or laid out on a cloth tarp, ready to grab and run when the police came along. As my experience of big cities is limited, it may be that this is a common practice, but I couldn't help thinking it must be a tough way to make a buck. Walking around the city, we couldn't help noticing the roving packs of Santas and other assorted Christmas characters everywhere we went. I initially thought that it must mean that NYC had more Christmas spirit than anywhere else on Earth! I later learned that they were participants in a city wide bar crawl. I guess that explains the banana with a Santa hat on his jingle bells and the skinny Santa in the corkscrew Who-ville hat being held up in a standing position on the subway by his elf girlfriend.

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Winter has arrived...

12/8/2011

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It's never a good sign when you go out to start the car for work at 5:30am, in the dark, in subfreezing temperatures, and find the doors frozen shut. First I broke a nail. Then with a great deal of exertion, clawing, and colorful language, I finally got the door to give just enough that the interior light came on; of course it was too much to hope for that I could then get the door to re- latch so the light would go off. Dead battery waiting to happen; story of my life.  Finally, I was able to pry the back door open and scramble over the seat, which I'm sure is going to leave several marks in obscure places, to reach the ignition and turn the car on. I turned every dial on high and blasted the vents hoping that by the time I finished my coffee and came back outside, the driver's door would be defrosted and the interior of the car would bear less resemblence to a meat locker. Did I mention that I was doing all of this in 29 degrees without a coat? It wasn't like I'd planned to hang around out there. Who knew that the light coating of snow that fell overnight was encased in a shell of ice? By the time I finished my coffee and did my hair (an exercise in futility as my life is just one long, continuous series of bad hair days) the doors did, indeed, defrost. The rear defogger, however, had decided to go on strike in the interim and the snow covered back window was still frozen solid. Naturally, getting out of my driveway requires that I back up between my husband's van and my son's PT Cruiser...not a good idea with visibility zero! I had, by this time, locked myself out of the house and the ice scraper and snow brush were, you guessed it, in the house. I found a twig (ok it was a huge branch) that had fallen from the neighbor's tree and hacked away at the solid mass covering my back window. Please don't tell my husband, he kind of has this thing about cars and paint and scratches and such. At last, it gave way and slid off of the side of the car with a gloppy sigh, right into my shoes. It's nearly twelve hours later now; my feet are still damp but at least they are no longer blue.
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Motivation (or lack thereof)

12/7/2011

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Because this is purportedly the blog of someone who enjoys writing, you are perhaps expecting some deep and philosophical entry about the motivation behind a story idea? Afraid not. Today my motivation, or more accurately the lack thereof,  is related to getting my house to look like something resembling a living space, preferably complete with holiday decorations. With Christmas just weeks away, I have less than nothing done and can't seem to harness the ambition to do it. Tree is up, but barely decorated, large grass covered platform is prepared for the nativity display  which generally ends up being half the size of the Middle East (apparently the husband had a little more ambition than I), but I just keep looking at it and waiting for the Christmas elves to sneak in and do it all sometime deep in  the dark night while visions of sugarplums, or sinfully sexy and well -muscled heros from my favorite paranormals, dance in my head. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not happening. My plan for Santa to complete all of my shopping and gift wrapping isn't looking too promising either! Bottom line? It looks like I'm on my own. Step one: get dressed. Step two: third cup of coffee. Step three: get dressed. What? I'm not procrastinating, I'm pacing myself!
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A cold rainy day...

12/7/2011

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Today is one of those days that would have been perfect for sleeping late, snuggling in a fuzzy robe with that first cup of coffee, taking a leisurely look at the morning paper, and then maybe doing a little writing or <gasp> baking. Yes, you've guessed it; not a Christmas cookie in the house. I am usually so much better prepared for the holidays, but this year they seem to have crept up on me when I wasn't looking. It's dark, it's gray, and the temperature seems to be dropping by the hour. Of course, that could be my imagination since it just looks so dreary and cold that I'm reluctant to leave the house. Sadly, I won't be able to do any of the above listed things on this weather challenged day; it seems that I have an actual full time job and, unbelievably, they expect me to show up on a daily basis and actually be somewhat productive. I know, it shocks me too!  However, I do like to eat, as anyone who knows me personally can attest, so lucrative employment is probably a good thing. Oh well, tomorrow is another day...what do you mean it's not the weekend tomorrow? Seriously? Seriously.
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Playing Catch Up!

12/6/2011

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After a double computer crash in early November that set me back at the beginning of the month, I'm happy to again be up and running. I recently took a NaNo prep course through Pennwriters taught by Susan Meier. Susan's tips are a fantastic way to get ready for not only NaNo, but any writing project. If you haven't checked out her website, you owe it to yourself to check it out. She's got something for readers and writers alike, and her workshops totally rock! My goal for NaNo was to complete the story of Kat and Kassian, but somewhere in the course of preparing, Max Logan took over and hers is the story that found its way onto the page. In Death Benefits,Thirty-something Maxine Logan is divorced, depressed, and dysfunctional, living over her father’s garage and generally in a major rut. Just when she thinks things can’t get any worse, she finds herself dead; the victim of a D.I.E (Death in Error) caused by an overeager Grim Reaper in Training. She brokers a deal to be sent back to Earth as a temporary substitute for the Superintendent of Spiritual Impediment. Can a girl who can’t recognize her own problems rectify the issues of the living impaired? Or will she discover that concentrating on their issues gives her a new perspective on her own?

Now on to Kat and Kassian...sometimes I despair that their story will ever be completed! But, hope springs eternal...
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First Post!

12/6/2011

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Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the posts from my previous blog over here, but you can view them at http://sharonsaracino.blogspot.com/ if you are the least bit curious! Over time, I may be reposting the information here as I go. With NaNo behind me, and Max's story complete, it's time to move on to other characters and other projects. The funny thing about Death Benefits is that it was not the story I intended to write for NaNo, but Max just took over and wanted her story to be told! Characters are like that sometimes, I guess. I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I'll be spending the next few weeks editing, preparing for Christmas, and packing for a trip to Italy. My son and I will be going to Rome, and as it's his first time, I'm incredibly excited to share the experience and that wonderful city with him!
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