Christmas in my 60's means doing what I want to do. If that means no tree, no cookies, no present shopping and no stocking filling then that's what I'm doing.
I do love my Christmas Trees but all that effort for just me seems like too much. Last year we didn't get a tree simply because we never got around to buying one. This year we unpacked the fake plastic tree we bought somewhere/sometime. I sprayed it with Febreze but it still smells like plastic. Sunday evening after my first holiday party and 3 glasses of champagne, I put lights on the tree and showered the floor with plastic pine thingies which fell off the tree. My second string of lights ended with two female electrical connections and no male. So I had to take the second string of 100 lights OFF and start again. Somehow they got wrapped around the base of the tree and my foot. Everything was lit up and sorted out by the time G got home from work at 1 am.
Still no ornaments. The box waits to be opened.
I have ingredients for three kinds of cookies that I will be making for my co-workers at the library. Two include nuts which my daughter doesn't eat. I like nuts and am tired of making nutless cookies. My co-workers like nuts. G likes sugar cookies with frosting.
I have the pattern to make little stuffed trees and purchased little thread spools for the stems. I made paper collage Christmas cards. I have Christmas lunch dates with friends this week and next. I ordered sushi to be delivered to work this afternoon with extra wasabi. I listened to Christmas music while ironing shirts on Sunday. I'm going to attempt French Onion Soup as a special treat for G and myself. I want to make a reservation at Fore Street for an expensive and wonderful dinner with G after Christmas. I want to help G get into his Santa suit for one last visit to the children down the street on Christmas Eve. The kids are getting older and wiser. I want to walk down our country street late on Christmas Eve hand in hand with Santa.
I want to stop thinking about all the people in my life who died this year. I want to stop crying when I think about Corey. Or his parents. I wish my Dad lived closer so I could include him in our holiday meals. Or at least make him soup. My Dad always hated the holidays. Still does. I wish I could hear my dad say "I love you" just once.
I like cookies with nuts too.
ReplyDeleteThe best onion soup I ever made is as follows: One sticck butter and five onions sliced. Throw in the crock pot til the morning. Add beef broth. Serve with bread of choice and greyere. This was in a cook book of slow cooker recipes Nan Somebody that is no longer listed on Amazon and whose title I cannot recall. Surprisingly
good.
You've said it so well and with such honesty. Life is certainly full of celebration and grief. It's a balance.
ReplyDeleteFrench Onion soup was the traditional Christmas Eve dinner when I was growing up. With ruben sandwiches and cranberry pudding. At my house, the tradition has morphed into White Chili with paninis and cranberrry pudding.
I felt the same way this year about our tree...so much WORK done happily in years past, so we have a tree, with lights, and none of our traditional ornaments on it. It still works. And the picture of you walking hand in hand on christmas eve, so lovely. Merry Christmas, cyber friend.
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