Better Be Good

 

Who's a good girl?

I have only the vaguest of memories of this day.  I suspect I was 4 and I honestly don't recall if mom took me to the local theatre where we were given a few moments of 'Santa's' time and able to have our picture taken.  I suspect it would have been her because it was not something dad would be interested in doing.  

Since reaching adulthood, I haven't paid much attention to 'Christmas'.  For 40+ years the fourth quarter I was at my flat out busiest because I needed to do the craft fair circuit and deal with driving on winter roads, setting up, standing for too many hours on concrete floors, and deal with the public for way too many hours.  Hoping like hell enough people would buy to get me through the coming fallow months of income.   While the bills never stopped and we had to pay the next year's craft fair fees months ahead of when the income would come in.

After the publication of Magic I started doing more travelling to teach and frankly much of the time I was standing in my booth I was already looking at a busy time to come, organizing workshop materials, hustling to package up the yarns, send master copies of the handouts, making travel plans, frequently during times of the year where there could be travel delays.  

Mom was the one who insisted on 'family' dinners and when she no longer wanted to cook a big meal, we would tend to go out for 'dinner'.  This seemed to become even more important to her after my brother died.

Now she is gone and it is just us two, we don't do much and since covid, we don't eat in restaurants.  We had a couple steaks in the freezer, so we will have those tonight for dinner and call it done.

We no longer even buy 'gifts' for each other.  And I tend to give 'gifts' to friends randomly through the year, not tied to Christmas.

Frankly we have 'enough' of most things.  If we need something we go buy it.  Or when we make a major purchase we assign it to 'every Christmas, anniversary and birthday for the rest of our lives' - like the heat pump last year, and the hybrid vehicle this...

Friends give us small, thoughtful gifts, which are much appreciated.  But we try to live with gratitude every day of the year.

We are in our 'twilight' years, and the fall I had Aug. 31 was a shock.  Now, more than ever, we practice gratitude.

One of the things I am grateful for is you, dear reader.  When I started this blog I thought a handful of people might be interested in my pithy writing/thoughts.  So, happy holidays to you and yours.  I hope the new year brings satisfaction to you in some way.  Because I suspect 2025 is going to be Very Interesting Times, indeed.