Random And Otherwise Holiday Thoughts

Small wonder people get depressed thinking of Christmases past and future. The expectations that everything be perfect, the family dysfunctions, the financial strain, travel in bad weather; it's a wonder anyone likes the holidays, but most of us do.

We saw the Boston Pops with the Barenaked Ladies last night and what a treat that concert was, with some rousing Hannukah songs in the mix. I liked it ever so much.

I baked two NEW cookies today, which look like winners. Later in the week I'll make some of the tried and true. It's always fun to try something new. The first of the holiday visitors arrives tomorrow, so we are hoping the crap weather goes away, far, far away. I mean, rain?

I wrapped some presents, and found some Marcel Schumann paper from Marshall's (bought last year?) and I remembered how fussy I used to be about cards, and long individual letters to everyone and wrapping paper. I would obsess over gifts. Only the finest of everything would do. Now I buy UNICEF cards and grab paper anywhere and we do a nice but generic Christmas letter. The Schumann paper is beautiful and their cards were always a cut above. We always bought something from the Neiman-Marcus catalog, just for fun, obviously not the his'n hers gifts but something cool.

Tonight we're having stir-fried shrimp and I made a nice tart out on the BOGO on blackberries at Shaw's. This is a long way of saying that life changes and we change, and looking back, you realize you don't care about things that used to be VERY important, and now other things are important, and are you even the same person?

Looking back at a lifetime of Christmases of course one is the same person, only, well, different. And that is a good thing, as Martha would say. Who would want to be a case of arrested development at 15, 0r 30 or even (gulp) 45? The absolutely right Christmas card is not worth obsessing over for hours and it's better to cruise the UNICEF site on the web and find something you like and order it, taking 10 minutes instead of 3 days. And why write the same thing 25 times if you can say in once in a single letter?

In fact, I don't have to be perfect at all. I can schlump around the house all day in baggy socks and a bath robe and a discouraging word will not be said. Hell, I could probably do it and slurp a bit of gin (yuck) and that too, would not cause undue comment.

I eschew all perfection, but it would be really cool to write a sublime sonnet.

With this I saw au revoir.

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