(A Few) of My Favorite Yuletide Things

 Not my real house...wait, can they do that??

 By the time I arrive home in Maine tomorrow evening, it will have been the longest I’ve ever been away. Considering I spent a semester abroad in Denmark, and now live only a short flight down the east coast, this is quite impressive.

If by impressive I mean, unbearable. I miss home.

As my anticipation for Maine and the holidays mounts (along with my homesickness), I’ve relied on some of my favorite things to get me through those Christmas blues and keep the spirit of a Maine Christmas alive here in the city. (Sure, we have the tree at Rockefeller Center, the Nutcracker by the New York City Ballet, and one of the largest Santa-suit pub crawls in the world…but do we have Christmas trees made entirely of lobster pots?? Um, no. No we do not). 

So in celebration of heading north tomorrow, and to get me through one.more.day, here are a few of my favorite Yuletide things!

My favorite Christmas scarf (courtesy of my brother, Ian): It's super cozy and gives my usual black-on-black NYC uniform a pop of festive color. I've worn it every day since Thanksgiving...er, Halloween...er, okay fine, Labor Day.

Good Maine Folks: The Down East "Maine For the Holidays" issue arrived just before Thanksgiving. I cried. Check out the aforementioned lobster pot Christmas tree.

Snowflake Bentley Christmas ornaments: We started collecting these as a family years ago, and now we all have them on our own trees. They come out with a new one every year, and they remind me of colder, cleaner climes. (Read more about Snowflake Bentley here — pretty sure we were separated at birth!)

My pup, Tucker: He loves Christmas and snow as much as we do. Lucky for me, he's also my mom's favorite photo-bombing subject, so I get constant puppy pics no matter where I am!

Christmas Shows: I know I know, this isn't specifically a Maine thing...but I like to keep my holiday calendar booked with Christmas shows and festivities (here, Carnegie Hall for the Vienna Boys Choir) to keep the spirit alive, no matter how bust the season!

Family Christmas Trees, Near and Far

Courtesy of mom and dad, we all have these Vermont Snowflake ornaments — a taste of New England winters and a family favorite!

It used to be that I was Commander in Chief when it came to decorating the Christmas tree. Even after I left for college, my family would wait to decorate the Christmas tree for when I returned home — 1) because it was tradition and 2) for fear that I would hurt anyone who deigned to decorate without me.

But now that we all live across the country and have homes and Christmas trees of our own, the times they are a' changin'. We've been forced (somewhat reticently, on my part) to adjust to life and Christmas preparations (which to me are almost the same thing) on our own.

Of course, The Tree will always be the one at home in Topsham, Maine — and I doubt, no matter how old or far-flung we become, that will ever change. So in honor of London family traditions near and far, here's a little photo tour of our Christmas trees from Maine to Colorado to New York City!

In Colorado, a lodge pole pine from the national park makes the perfect tanenbaum (and Hobbes helps to pick it out!)

Plenty of space between the branches for ornaments (and presents!)

A tree from the stand on the corner makes an NYC apartment cozy and bright.

...and a much bigger tree glitters up the street in Washington Square Park!

In Camden, Maine (one of our family's favorite seaside spots) a tree sets sail from a lofty mast.

At home in Topsham, Maine: The Tree, and The Pup!

So That They Might See

Party in Booth 4

On Monday nights, from 7:00 to 9:00pm, you will not find me watching Dancing With the Stars. Nor will you find me on the couch watching Monday Night Football (although, were you to stop by our apartment, you would find Ben doing just that). You also won’t find me watching Gossip Girl (but rewind four years and I’d be right there drooling, er, watching with my college girlfriends in the common room).

You will, however, find me in a 6x6 soundproof box in midtown, a copy of the Iliad in hand and noise-cancelling headphones clamped over my ears.

Outside the booth, you will find my friend Richard, or maybe Brian, or perhaps Maya, plugged into similar headphones, rocking out over a large soundboard and hovering over a double-monitor computer screen.

Recording a law textbook bibliography...oh joy!

If by rocking out, I mean recording classic works of literature and collegiate textbooks. 

These are members of my Monday family, and at the beginning of every week I join them at the Learning Ally studio to record audiobooks for the blind and dyslexic.

Growing up in Maine, service was a part of everything we did. Whether rounding up old toys and hand-me-downs for Goodwill, or mentoring in an English class in one of the elementary schools by my college’s campus, or ringing the bell outside the local department store for the Salvation Army in single-digit weather, volunteering has always been a part of my life. 

It always disturbs me when people bring up Maine’s supposed “lack of diversity.” Sure, we may be lacking in racial diversity, but when it comes to socioeconimic and educational diversity we’re all over the map. 

Coming from a place where sprawling seaside McMansions butt right into working waterfronts has always lended my volunteerism a sense of urgency, and the work that I do, familiarity. There are so few of us Mainers that I knew any way I could give back would impact someone I knew directly — maybe someone I went to school with, or someone who did municipal work in my town, or someone who plucked the fresh veggies out of the ground which were now on my full plate.

Howdy, neighbor

I’m not talking here about giving back financially — although that’s important, too, let’s be honest, I’m a young professional with grad school loans living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. The contribution with which I feel I can make the greatest impact is more of an intellectual one. I feel extremely blessed to have grown up in a house that valued education and curiosity — long before it was “cool” (I wish the “geek-chic” movement had been around circa 1999!). I had the privilege of going to school with brilliant minds and thinkers interested in social change. Not everyone (in fact, very few) have access to the professors, textbooks, and intellectual challenges that we faced, and were encouraged to overcome. So I see it as a responsibility for all of us to give back in whatever way our brains see fit.

After all, it’s good to share a little nerdiness every now and then — and when I hop into the recording booth on Monday nights I know that I’m helping someone who physically cannot read in the same way that I can to understand the text, explore it, and gain the same fascinating knowledge from it that I do. Because, hey — blue eyes, four-eyes or no eyes, a Classics nerd is a Classics nerd...and we’ve gotta stick together!

Citing Wikipedia? Really??

The Hunt

My dad is an expert at many things: fixing things, making things grow, building a fire, and inserting a good pun into any conversation. (Many a dinner conversation has been interrupted by a "beet's me!" exclamation over my favorite roasted vegetable.)


He is also an expert at finding that elusive object that we only search for once a year, but which we remember for years to come (or, if you're me, and may or may not also be Santa's daughter — not sure how that works — FOREVER): the perfect Christmas tree.


We always give my dad a hard time for being, to put it lightly, a man of few words. I remember studying vocabulary flash cards for the GRE, and coming across the word "laconic."

laconic: (adj) using or involving the use of a minimum of words; concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious.

From that point on, it was an easy word to remember (and did, incidentally, end up being on the test). I just thought of my dad.


In our family, we know that his demeanor is not a matter of rudeness or mystery, but rather an efficiency that is best described as precision. The man knows what he wants, and doesn't have a whole lot else to say about it.

Kevin "Kev" London: Professional Christmas Tree Spotter

So our hunt for a Christmas tree was always, perhaps, different from some other families'. Rather than the long, drawn-out, hot-chocolate-infused afternoon spent wandering around the tree farm, our search consisted of pulling up to one of the tree stands by our house, walking once up each aisle (if not just the front row), and then dad choosing the very first tree that he saw — undoubtedly spotted out the window even as he pulled in.


We're talking 10 minutes, tops, from start to finish. He didn't hunt; he purchased.


And yet, we always ended up with the most perfect tree on the lot.

Hark! A tree!

You would think that, living in Manhattan, the hunt for our Christmas tree would be very different from my childhood searches at home in Maine. In fact, it's very similar (if not more expensive). This city — with its lights, crazy cab drivers, and unpredictable pricing scheme on everything from coffee to Christmas trees — all but demands efficiency, a skill that I acquired from my dad and his uncanny ability to make the best decision, on-the-spot, every time.  


So last week, Ben and I met after work, walked over to the closest tree stand to our apartment (only one block away this year!) and chose the very first tree we saw. 


As always, it was the most perfect one on the lot. 

A very merry NYC Christmas to you!

(Not) Home for the Holidays

To say that I am a stickler for preserving family traditions is an understatement. As my family and friends know, I’m not exactly adept at change — especially between the dates of November 23^rd through January 1^st.  

I didn’t realize how renowned my holiday fervor (er, obsession?) was until my college roommates and I were decorating our suite for Christmas. We had a tree, wreaths, and ornaments strewn all over the living room. I left the room to get something (probably another six-pack of Leinenkugels, our favorite holiday beer) and when I came back…the decorations were exactly as I left them. My roommates just stared at me for a minute, until one of them finally broke down and said: “We didn’t want to do anything without you here, in case we didn’t do it right!”  

No you may NOT help me decorate! Okay fine...but only if you wear the antlers.

As the first big event of the holiday season, Thanksgiving embodies so many of the traditions that my family holds dear (and that I clutch white-knuckled). We have Thanksgiving at my house in Topsham with the whole family, and I mean the whole family — both sides, all cousins, aunts, uncles, two sets of grandparents, and always a few friends. This in itself is my most cherished family tradition, one that my grandparents instilled in my parents when they were kids: there is always room at our table for one more chair.

(Some of) the fam at the annual Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot. We have uniforms.

In fact, our Thanksgivings are so large that we rent banquet tables to seat everyone. We fill the dining room table (the kids’ table) and then run two long banquet tables straight through the living room, so everyone is seated in a large “T” formation. Remember the final scene in Dr. Suess' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"? (The cartoon version, duh. I don't mess around with that Jim Carey nonsense). It looks a lot like that, only swap the Who's for Londons and Levesques, and replace the Grinch with my dad (if you know me, you know I mean that as a term of utter adoration). We typically have somewhere between 24 and 34 guests, although it never feels that big. It just feels like family.

Dad carving the roast beast.

So it came as a huge surprise to my family (and myself, for that matter) when I announced that I — the holder of the traditions, the marker of the calendar, the planner of the festive table decor — would not be coming home for Thanksgiving this year. 

After five (or is it six?) Thanksgivings spent apart (not to mention a ton of other holidays during four years of dating long-distance) my boyfriend Ben and I decided it was time to stick together. I was long overdue for a visit to the homeland, and excited for some quality time with his family. So to Minnesota we went.

Not-so-festive his and hers airport food.

I was apprehensive — not about Minnesota, which I love, or his family, whom I love even more — but about the empty seat at the kids table where I used to sit. Who would put the paper leaves on all of the plates, and arrange the dessert table in order of pie circumference, and force everyone out of the house to see a movie when we were too full to move off the couch, let alone to drive?

You can probably guess the answer. In Minnesota, we spent the long weekend eating until we could no longer move (Ben's mom is an incredible cook); rolling ourselves down to Arden Park for the annual Turkey Bowl on Thanksgiving Day (I scored a TD!); and saw Dickens’ A Christmas Carol at the Guthrie Theater, one of the most fantastic architectural spaces I have ever stepped foot in (and it was the most hilarious rendering of the play I had ever seen).

Me, Ben, and Hubert!

In a word: it was family. Different from mine at home, of course, and about 1500 miles to the west, but familiar in so many ways. And absolutely wonderful. The world did not implode, as I subconsciously fear when it comes to deviating from The Plan, especially around the holidays. The fire was still crackling, the old stories were still told, and the Tofurkey (which I eat every year as the lone vegetarian) was still divine. I even attracted a few lighthearted jabs for not eating the turkey, which — as you know if you've ever had Thanksgiving at my house — made me feel right at home.

Ohh…I get it. That’s what it’s all about, huh? Ayuh.

P.S. — I'll be home for Christmas!

Across a Wire

I emailed my cousin Rebecca the other day to check in and see how she was doing, and was amazed that right as I sent my message, a response from her popped up in my inbox. I opened it, thoroughly impressed by her attention and obvious speed-typing prowess…only to see that her email actually predated mine by about four minutes.

Meaning that she had sent it while I was still in draft mode.

Meaning that we had just emailed each other at exactly the same time.

This would be weird enough if we were sitting in the same office, or even lived in the same state. But Rebecca isn’t even on the same continent as I am.

She’s currently studying abroad. In Sweden.

Let’s ignore for a moment the fact that Rebecca and I are essentially the same person. Four years my junior, she goes to Colby, drives my old car, wears my old clothes, and spent this past summer living in my old room in my parents’ house (are we seeing a pattern, here?). Again, ignore the fact that she is more bubbly, brilliant, and blond than I am. The truth is, for my family (or, “the London clan,” a term of endearment that I’m sure was once self-described but now is basically a pronoun) this exchange isn’t weird at all.

Me and Rebecca being...me and Rebecca

Nearly every time I call home my mom answers it with “your ears must be burning,” Mainer-speak for “we were just talking about you, but all good things, I promise.” Sometimes I take out my phone to call her only to find it vibrating in my hand with her name on the screen.

There was a time when we were all in Maine, the whole clan, with no one farther away than a two-hour drive (and that’s Sugarloaf, our second home anyway). Calling at all was almost frivolous; we’d just drive over and “take off our coats, stay awhile” (also Mainer-speak, for making yourself comfortable). 

But as we’ve grown up (four of the eight grandchildren are now out of college, the rest in it or close behind), some of us have moved away, and the others are constantly traveling (including two sets of grandparents who “snowbird” in Florida). Still, we find a way to keep in touch with check-in calls, Facebook messages, and (when we can get it) time at home to visit.

Family news is telegraphed this way, across states and even continents. A recent call home to my dad disclosed that my uncle was at the house on his way to the airport to visit my cousin in Sweden. This was followed by a call to my aunt, who told me what day she would be home at Christmas and asked how my mom’s road race was earlier that morning. Which turned into a call with my mom, telling me she was just arriving home from a road race (yep, already knew that) and that she was pulling into the driveway and my uncle’s car was there (yep, knew that too) and had I heard that he was going to Sweden to visit Rebecca?

“Yep, mum, I heard.” I knew.

I always know.

Three Mainers Walk Into a Bar...

I’m always amazed at how many Mainers I run into going about my daily life in Manhattan. Of course, coming from a state with such a tiny population (fewer people in the entire state than most U.S. cities…er, fine, towns) tends to make you extra excited about finding your kin (because we are undoubtedly related somehow…duh). Let’s just say that it’s not that same “small town” kinda feeling when my friends from Bergen County catch each other in a coffee shop downtown.

But it’s even more special when I find myself in the presence of Mainers in the city that I actually know.

Cue: this past weekend, when one of my best friends from Colby (who it just so happens is also a native Mainer) came to visit me in New York. Well, fine, she technically made the trip for her admissions interview at NYU Dental School (pshh), but we conveniently kept forgetting that was the reason she was here.

We have always joked about how fitting it is that even on a campus overrun with the “20-minutes outside of Boston” kids, we ended up finding each other. In fact, we’ve figured out over the years that we used to play each other regularly in travel soccer when we were younger, despite our hometowns being about a half-hour apart.

Lane from Maine. She's kind of a big deal.

There’s just something about those good Maine values – family, loyalty, a killer work ethic and refined appreciation for dirty jokes – that created and sustained our friendship over the years.

So, naturally, when she came to visit we had to celebrate….

…By hanging out with other Mainers.

Admittedly, many of my friends here in the city are Mainers of the honorary persuasion, meaning that they are mostly Colby-Bates-Bowdoin kids and….mostly of the first population. But, hey, after spending four frigid Februaries in our fine state I say you’ve earned the prestigious title of Mainer.

So we had to do what Mainers do best: cozy up in a series of bars on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and drink a few beers. Or seven. But who was counting (not me).

Mmm, biergarten.

Throughout our glorious Saturday afternoon pub crawl through the West Village (my neighborhood — convenient much?) the conversation kept returning to Colby and Maine. Who wants to road-trip to Homecoming?  Who’s in for New Years? Did you hear about that thing that happened on the Hill? Two of our dear friends are currently planning their wedding in Boothbay next fall, while neither of them is actually from there.

Wait you went to Colby too? Weird.

Needless to day, after our daytime adventures we woke up Sunday in need of some serious brunch, so we met a close friend in the ‘hood for eggs and Bloody Mary’s.

...A friend who went to my rival high school (boo Dragons!) and then also went to Colby.

We recapped this phenomenon on Sunday night when we met another friend for dinner, my friend’s friend from high school in (you guessed it) Maine. How was it that we had spent the entire weekend in an enormous city surrounded in a cozy bubble of Maine-ness, only to find ourselves recapping it over a glass of wine with the same Mainers that we kicked it off with?

Some would call it luck, others coincidence. Still more might call it acute xenophobia. But we decided it was a sense of place in an otherwise transient city.

I’ll drink to that!

In Memoriam

"Our job is to be epic and tiny, both." — Colum McCann, The New Yorker, September 12

Thinking of you today and always, New York.

T'aint Likely

 The week after Labor Day is always a busy one, but I started mine off with a bang. 

…Literally. My street blew up.

I was in the shower when I heard one huge thudding BANG followed closely by another. The metal clasps rattled on the shower curtain rod, and I could still hear them softly tinkling as, with conditioner still in my hair, I grabbed a towel and ran for the nearest window, more than half-expecting to see one of the buildings on fire downtown.

After all, this is New York, and it’s September. One unfortunate side effect to living in Manhattan is the subconscious but ever-present anxiety about bomb threats and terrorist attacks. Many a date-night has been thwarted by suspicious packages in Times Square or unidentified boats on the Hudson that came too close for comfort. Especially in September, and especially with the tenth anniversary of 9/11 right around the corner.

Needless to say, I was pretty rattled, and on high alert. 

After a close inspection of the downtown skyline from my living room window, I didn’t see anything out of place. But then I heard the sirens and bleating of firetrucks not so far away from my apartment. Actually, wait a minute…the sound grew closer and louder until I realized that they were not just nearby, but turning onto my street.

Busy night on W16th Street

At this point, my inner journalist took over. I threw on some clothes (conditioner still in my hair, which I only realized later when I found myself brushing through silky goo), grabbed my mini recorder, and ran downstairs to the street below – all eleven flights, remembering that, in the instance of a bomb threat or fire, an elevator is the last place you want to be.

Down on the street, I was met by a line of police and about a dozen fire trucks, choking off the entire section of W16^th street where I live, one avenue to the next. People walked slowly toward the scene down the street, led by a blaze of fire and already coughing from air heavy with smoke and electricity.

At the scene

Someone asked:

“You think it was a bomb?”

…And that’s when I heard it:

“T’ain’t likely.”

Now, for those of you (aka, most people) who don’t speak Mainer, this is about as wharf-tongue as they come. The term, obviously, means, “no, it’s not likely,” but there’s an undertone in there of “you’re screwed, good look with that” as well.

Normally, it’s a funny down-home-ism that my dad and I like to joke about. My best friend’s dad, who is a lobsterman, uses it as a response for almost anything (although, unlike me and Dad, he’s usually not joking).

But in this case, it wasn’t funny at all. It was an instant source of comfort during a scary and uncertain time. 

As I found out eventually, the explosions were not a huge deal or attack of any kind. A manhole blew on my street (a result of extreme underground pressure from the crazy humidity we’ve had this summer) and ricocheted onto a nearby car, which exploded…and then caused another car to explode before hitting a powerline. Okay, yeah, it actually was kind of a big deal, but nothing like a bomb or attack (thank goodness).  

But hearing that familiar phrase — “T’aint likely” — down there on the street made a lasting impression. It’s like walking through a crowded airport overseas and spotting someone wearing your favorite sports teams’ baseball cap. Unexpected, and oddly comforting.

At the source: Bailey Island, Maine

As the fire died down and I walked back into my building (where I would be for the rest of the night because the street was sealed off and the police wouldn’t let us leave), I passed the Mainer-speaking man as before, and smiled.

“I wonder if they’ll have it cleaned up by tomorrow?” I asked.

“T’aint likely.”

Our Third Wheel

They say that rain on your wedding day means good luck. I can say that, after sitting through two typhoon-worthy graduation ceremonies (both my own) I feel lucky just to be alive, having not died of hypothermia on another milestone day. So it seems only fitting that on another very important day (well, weekend) of my life, I should be met with rain of historic proportions.

This weekend marks the first that Ben and I will spend together in our new apartment. And we will be greeted on this momentous occasion by none other than…Hurricane Irene.

Besides the obvious logistical wrench that Irene has thrown into our carefully-laid plans (shopping for a new couch in 90mph winds? Count me out!) there’s a psychological one as well. For weeks, we’ve been looking forward to finally settling into the apartment, maybe painting a wall or two, and exploring our new neighborhood. We talked about a nice dinner out (my favorite restaurant, Pure Food and Wine, is right up the street…aka, YES PLEASE) followed by a nice bottle of wine in one of the nearby parks. Maybe we’d even get a romantic moonlit stroll in there. You know, hold hands and stuff.

Home Depot, maybe Bed Bath and Beyond - I don't know if we'll have time!

The point is, it’s not gonna happen. As of noon today, public transit is no longer running, which puts a serious damper on shopping for houseware. Good luck getting a cab in a city that has too few of them even on bluebird days. And sloshing in gail-force winds through fifteen inches of rain is hardly a romantic stroll by anyone’s standards.

At first, I shook my fist at Irene for becoming the unwanted third wheel to our party of two. But then, as I considered the alternatives, it dawned on me: Netflix movies, cozy sweats (probably stolen from Ben’s side of the closet) and having a legit excuse not to see another human being for the entire weekend? Could this be real??

Turns out that we couldn’t have lucked out more. Crafty Irene created just the romantic weekend we were hoping for. 

Soaked...and happy

Batten Down the Hatches! (Alright, If You Say So)

For those of you who have been living (or hiding) under a rock for the past few days, Hurricane Irene is on her way up the East Coast as we speak. For New York City, this means the following:

- Mayor Bloomberg held an emergency press conference last night, announcing that the city’s transit system would be shut down as of noon on Saturday, effective (at least) through Sunday.

- President Obama declared the state of New York in a federal state of emergency. F-E-D-E-R-A-L, my friends.

- 300,000 New Yorkers have already been evacuated, and hourly updates will ask more to leave their homes or move inland from the water that surrounds the 23-square mile island of Manhattan.

- Flashlights, bottled water, and candles are now relics of the past, to undoubtedly be auctioned off at Christie’s for exorbitant amounts in the coming weeks.

Oh, and perhaps the most egregious of all:

- All transportation is suspended this weekend to and from the Hamptons.

Now, it’s not that I’m not taking this seriously. 90mph winds are a kick to the face – literally – and 15” of rainfall…well, that’s more than a foot, which can’t be good. But, as a Mainer, I can’t help but look on as the increasing panic ensues and think…”So what?”

But it's so nice out!

Back home, preparing for storms is part of every family’s routine. “Look’s like a Nor’easter,” the lady at the grocery store checkout will say. So you buy a few more batteries (to go inside the 17 Maglites you undoubtedly already have at home) and a few jugs of water. And maybe a six-pack of Shipyard, too, to make those hours spent reading fireside by candlelight bearable. If by bearable, I mean, downright enjoyable.

I could get used to this.

We lose power at home all the time. In fact, I think that one of my roommates was starting to wonder when we didn’t live without power, until she finally made the trip to Maine with me this summer and witnessed our (working) lightswitches for herself. Because nearly every time I called home from New York my parents were sitting in the dark, sipping nice wine by a huge fire and…loving every minute of it.

“Omg, ew, I thought they meant you all had to bathe in there,” one of my friends said with relief when I explained to her that, no, filling the bathtub with water before a storm is NOT for taking communal baths, but for flushing the toilet (manually), brushing your teeth and using for drinking water should the power go out and faucet’s not work. No. Big. Deal.

It’s funny, but to see uptight, jaded New Yorkers in panic-mode is honestly a little refreshing. After all, beneath those stern, too-cool-for-school exteriors are real human beings. Human beings that would rather not get carried away from their townhouse apartments in a flash flood.

Or, maybe, I just have more salty Mainer in me than I realized.

I hope it’s the latter.

Spotted: Mainers in their natural habitat.