The Flat End of the Year

Post-Xmas, things slow down a bit for the last hoorahs of the old year. I'm crawling along in first gear here. Four days of friends stopping by was wonderful but tiring, and it's not over (there are still 6 Muffinpants family members and 3  iBrattleboro-related people to see). I'm glad for the break. The "just keep drinking til it's over" technique of coping is long gone, with nothing to take its place. So I guess that means I'm finally an adult. It was much easier to just meander through the holidays in a stupor.

As nice as this Yuletide has been, I think next year will be different. Maybe I'll go down to Billy's for the week. He ended up alone and I feel bad. Chiefy went to a family do instead of going out to dinner with him. And now it's looking like Chiefy and the Bensonhurst Bomber won't be buying a house in Florida, and Billy won't move there by himself. Florida is a pit anyway and I've been hoping they wouldn't. So, yeah, next year in Jersey! Maybe I'll get Billy to decorate and take the opportunity to help him weed out all the mountains of Xmas stuff Mac had bought and stored over the years, and maybe even go into the city or have people over to his house. We'll see.

And here comes 2015. In 2015, I'll have lived in Vermont for 20 years, Ian will be dead 20 years, and I'll go into my 5th year of living in The Shire. The Shire itself will be going through changes, as the new housing complex will be built to house most of the population that the government doesn't want living in the flood plain. I'm hoping to avoid living in this new building (which I'll call Red Rover) and waiting for the 2nd, smaller development to develop. It'll be rotten to leave this place when it finally happens, but it's inevitable. Old people and gimps aren't welcome where flooding occurs, so out we go. One way or another, 2015 will be my last whole year in The Shire. Every year brings changes.

There's a lot of good in 2014 to look back at, and a lot of bad, like every year. People left and people entered, things happened that impacted everything from my little home to my whole country. Years do seem to go by faster the older I get. Someone said that's because when you're 20, 5 years is a quarter of your life but at 60 it's just a twelfth. It's perspective. Days roll on, things happen, you keep going. Before we know it, Summer will be back. Pretty soon I'll be shopping for next year's Yuletide gifts. And we'll still, I'm sure, be waiting for George RR Martin's next book.

So here's to us and 2015. Let's make it unforgettable. Cheers! x

Beestitude for the Holidays

Beest has taken up residence under the tree. The last Tortie in my life, my parents' cat Patches, also thought it was her domain. However, Patches went to the space where there were no presents, in back, and stayed there until New Year's Day. Beest is front and center. She will not tolerate gifts near her unless they are suitable pillows, has shredded the gift wrap on the few I put under the tree (the rest are in an ottoman, and under or on top of my desk) and keeps kicking the presents back out across the floor of the front room when I put them back. In holidays past she bit off all ribbons, bows and tags, and I've adapted to those insults. But this is war.

I'm considering my tactical options.   

Blitzlebahs and Waazzlewahs

In spite of the Daily Horror (there's at least one every day now), I'm feeling very holidayish. Didn't think it would happen this year, but something is back. Maybe because the house is a shambles of decorations and odd foods that are only here in December... bits that make up traditions. Doing those things- the cards, the foods, the gift wrapping, the decorating and decisions, the budgeting, the shopping- makes things feel hopeful. Thanksgiving with Billy was great, and then bang! it's Christmastime. Haul out the holly! It's a longer process; the decorating I used to do in 2 days now takes at least a week, but slowing down has its benefits.

Hanging the ornaments on the tree is more of a marathon than a sprint these days, but every one of those bells, balls and tchotchkes have a story. So many people that have been in my life, and every year I take each piece out and remember something about that person. Kevin Destein's little china Pan and choirboy. Ian's Mom's straw figures. The old glass balls that have been in my family longer than I have. I can still hear my Mom sputtering when I picked up the ancient blown glass bell in 1968. NOBODY touched that but her! The angels that my brothers and I got, one each, after the elders died. Some of the snow frosted ones my Dad bought for his own sad, artificial tree when he and my Mom split up. Ornaments friends have given me through the years. I pull out Woodstock and wonder whatever happened to Jenny. The bagpiper that Cam gave me years ago is the second heaviest ornament. The heaviest is a Lennox china ball that MaryAlice had bought for me just before she died, almost 2 years ago already. I try  to put groups together, the rock band pieces, the Peanuts gang, the ones family members made. More than a hundred ornaments, each with its story. So it takes a while.

And food! Since I made mincemeat last year, I'm doing a fruitcake this year. A drunken one, and a big one. I've put off making the Irish cream, because if I make it when you're supposed to, it's gone by the Solstice, much less the rest. But it's got to be made soon so it tastes like something. So does the fruitcake. That's my weekend. There's no citron to be found, but raisins and currants will have to do. And I'm not doing brown paper around it, either. So there.

Today was a challenge. Hanging garland was at the end of to-dos, and when I reached up, my arm and hand shook like I was 99 years old. That wigged me out a bit. And I couldn't stop it, either. I hate when that happens.

And there's been a real-life Santa miracle. A couple days ago, I ordered a nice but not expensive art supply set. Ostensibly for myself, cuz I'm trying to teach myself to draw with my left hand and thought a new hand deserves new instruments. Then on FB today I see a mother asking for help getting her 15 year-old daughter art supplies for Christmas. Perfect fit. It was delivered tonight and mom will be here tomorrow afternoon for it. I also made some jewelry this year for gifts and have a spare silver wolf necklace. Happens to be her daughter's favorite animal. Tell me Santa didn't have a hand in this here.

So it's slightly nostalgic in the Shire, I'm feeling like Mrs. Cratchit putting the holidays together again. I really don't think Billy will be coming up with the weather we've been having, and he's driving to Florida 2 weeks after New Year. He was just here. I'll see him in the Spring. I also won't see Strider til the Spring. She has surgery and recovery time coming up, then it'll be deep Winter. She's happy as someone can get in this day and age, that's all I care about. And I've freed myself from obligations. Which leaves me free to have a huge debauchery episode a la 1978! Woohoo, bring on the holidays!