Like other quiet days it started with a cup of coffee in bed and an hour or so of reading to finish my first pass through Bergen’s The Time In Between. Then some unwrapping with gifts odd, ordinary, and pleasant–no toe-wigglers this year I think. A leisurely breakfast. Some phone calls. Now he’s off working on a story that needs another two or three pages added before the end of the year (and it’s hard for me to be churlish about his disappearance since he only has three days off in two weeks). And I’m reading blogs, thinking about the year, and drinking a so-so glass of wine. Soon I’ll need to decide if we’re cooking the chicken today or whether we’re eating leftovers. Easy, calm, and very much like ourselves.
Every year I manage to forget about this part of December. But now the radio has started to solicit and play “stories of happy memories of Christmases past”. I snap the radio instantly off.
Until this point if of my media-saturated year, I manage not to think much about old, old unhappinesses. My childhood was dominated by my father’s active but much lied about alcoholism and my mother’s over the top attempts to create and control happiness. Christmas was never a happy time and the ludicrous emphasis on mandatory happiness makes it all harder to keep in perspective.
So for the next week or so the radio stays off. Lots of vinyl to play instead.
Thanks to the corp I work for, I get a big chunk of time off in December through a combination of company shutdown days, statutory holidays, and vacation days. I usually fritter them away in errand running, movie and/ or bad tv watching, cooking, and reading with some cleaning thrown in out of necessity. Same plan this year. On the list so far
- tackle the bathroom which is becoming disgusting (so much for waiting for him to take his turn in cleaning it. And no twenty-five years co-habitation does not necessarily improve the male’s dirt recognition ability.)
- watch all of Season 7 of Buffy on my shiny new dvds
- cook a couple of the soups in my new soup cookbook
- make another run to the LC since they were out of my favourite whiskey during the first run
- read the novel I got from my mother-in-law for this holiday
- make a library run to drop off and pick up even more novels
- enter more books into my catalogue
- clear some cranky old boring dull items off my to-do/next action list
- stare into space
- sleep in (a lot)
- find some one in the city who sells good locally made cheese
- watch bad daytime tv
- send out more holiday cards
- wind up 2005 financial records and think through 2006 budget
- dust
- drop stuff off at St Vinnie’s
- see a movie or two
Over the last couple of years several of our relatives have undone our trick of moving a thousand miles west to create psychological space in the family. Somehow half the family has followed us and we now live shortish train rides away from them. And when kids were added to the mix our refusal to travel in December eroded. We still avoid scrambling to be with the extended family on the twenty-fifth but we do First Christmas a week or two before to please the children and the parents. The trip was pleasant enough; the gifts made people happy all round; and the food was excellent.
The kids giggled themselves silly. We suspect that one secretly thinks her father is Santa and not just her Santa but everyone’s Santa. The other is still very worried about the definition of “good” but is very clear that Santa only brings toys and never brings socks or underwear.
We’ve passed the milestone of First Christmas. And now we’re into the slightly less mad rush to fill the house up with good food and drink, clean away the year’s accumulated grunge, and enjoy the passage of time in each other’s company. An entirely secular and private time.
I’m in the middle of writing Christmas cards and I find myself reluctant. All because I haven’t been able to bring myself to update my address book to delete the names of friends and family who have died. Every time I look at their names I remember them and miss them. Even though it’s been several years since they died, removing their names seems like a betrayal. Maybe next year.
I find it very easy to lose a habit whether it’s a brain habit like writing or a physical habit like flossing. Life has been as usual with the usual ups and downs at work and home. And since it’s a quiet life we lead, I haven’t been much moved to blog about any of it. Some of the interesting stuff is happening at work (off-limits) or in other people’s lives (also off-limits). All the same I miss my small blog habit.
