TheBanyanTree: a Christmas tale

[Indiglow]

What a fun new memory to add to the old!  Too cool!
J

--- On Tue, 11/30/10, Julie Anna Teague <jateague at indiana.edu> wrote:


From: Julie Anna Teague <jateague at indiana.edu>
Subject: TheBanyanTree: a Christmas tale
To: "banyantree" <thebanyantree at remsset.com>
Date: Tuesday, November 30, 2010, 8:53 AM


So, Sunday, in my ongoing efforts to simply enjoy the heck out of this beautiful season of fun and family and gifting and baking and pine boughs and twinkling lights that I love so much, my 20 year old son, Andy, and I decided to go to this pottery painting place called The Latest Glaze.  I'm sure they have something like it where ever you live--you choose a piece of cast greenware, paint it, they fire it, and it comes out in beautiful colors.  This is something we had not done since Andy was ten years old.  We still have cups and bowls and plates and all kinds of goofy things we made back then.  I can still see one plate he painted when he was 9 or 10, which I pull out every Christmas--funny snowmen and words around the edge in 10 year old scrawls, "Let's have fun in the snow together!"  It was just something fun and creative to do on a weeknight or Saturday afternoon, it was fun time spent together, and you end up with a silly memento.  But you
 know, eventually a boy turns 12 or 13 and wouldn't be caught dead with his mother in a pottery painting place, not to mention that there are a world of new things at that age to do and be interested in, and painting pottery fell out of favor.

But Andy was gone for a few days--he and his girlfriend Liz took a trip to St. Louis after Thanksgiving--and so when he got home on Sunday he asked me if I wanted to do something together.  Heck yes, there won't be enough days in this lifetime that I get to spend with that boy.  We have a loving relationship that is one of the brightest lights and biggest blessings in my life. And we always have a pretty good time hanging out. Somehow the pottery place popped into my head and I asked him if he was game to paint something together for Liz for Christmas.  He thought she would think it was stupid, since she's a ceramics major at IU, but I assured him he could tell her it was totally my hair-brained idea.  So then he got into it.  He tells me they've been cooking these "one pan" meals and putting it all into one big bowl that they then both eat out of.  Gag....er....I mean...how sweet ;)  I'm picturing Lady and the Tramp.  Ok, it was pretty cute of
 him to tell me that, so we decided to paint a really big, colorful bowl and paint noodles on the inside. Two of the noodles curl up one side of the bowl and form a heart.  (My idea, but he did approve.)  It was really quite cute.  And the whole time there, we were singing Christmas songs with the radio, talking, joking, and just having the best time ever.

When we got home the boy said, "Thanks for doing that with me mom.  That was fun."  And thus, my friends, this Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day.

Julie