Number of Christmas/Hanukkah cards I wrote tonight: 31
Total number of Christmas/Hanukkah cards I’ve written: 104
Number of days until Christmas: 10
Number of days until Hanukkah: 4
How it feels to have finished my cards before the holidays: Priceless
A Saturday off and fun things to do,
Getting cards in the mail and packages, too
Christmas good cheer and the excitement it brings
These are a few of my favorite things.
Shopping for friends and buying them stuff
A warm mug of coffee and a book full of fluff
Being pleasantly surprised when the telephone rings
These are a few of my favorite things.
Wrapping gifts until midnight using bright colored bows
Soft fuzzy socks to help warm up my toes
Elvis, Blue Christmas and, oh, how he sings
These are a few of my favorite things.
When the bills come
When the alarm rings
When I’m worried about getting the flu
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so blue.
People are dropping like flies around me. I’m surrounded by colds and flus and strep and stuff exiting from various orifices and the air is contaminated and no surface is safe to touch. I’m washing my hands 1,364 times a day until my fingers are shriveled and the cuffs of my sleeves are wet in an attempt to stave off the big, bad bugs and the sneak-up-and-slap-you-in-the-back-of-the-head bugs and the starts-out-small-but-turns-deadly-just-like-Jim-Hensen bugs.
I do not want to get sick. I do not have time to be sick. Sickness is for people who have written their holiday cards, finished their shopping, wrapped their gifts and done their baking. Sickness is a luxury I cannot afford. Sickness is for good little worker bees who have lots and lots of sick time accumulated because they only use it for--gasp!!-- sickness. I am too busy to be sick. Sickness would be wasted on me because I couldn’t even enjoy it, I’d have to keep on going and pretend I wasn’t sick.
I cannot get sick in December, but if it’s absolutely necessary, I might be able to pencil in a couple sick days in January. If I must. Until then, if get sick I’m going to have to smack someone.
I have thirty Christmas/Hanukkah cards left to write. That’s not so bad, considering I started with over a hundred. What is bad is that three days ago I thought I only had thirty cards left to write and I’ve since written over twenty. First, I misplaced ten cards that need addresses (if I know you and you haven’t gotten a holiday card from me by December 20th, I probably don’t have your address), then I added a handful of editors to the card-giving list. What better time to get in a few suck up points than the joyous holiday season? So, I’m having nightmares that the thirty cards will never go away, that every time I make a dent in the pile they will be replaced by more cards and there will always thirty of them. Scary.
I am running on chocolate and caffeine and sheer willpower these days, otherwise I would collapse into a weeping, quivering puddle just like Frosty. It’s been a stressful week. Actually, stressful isn’t a good word for it. Stressful implies something serious and weighty, when I’m mostly talking about the hectic, chaotic, insane holiday stuff. It’s self-imposed martyrdom and I do it to myself every year. I guess I’m afraid if I slow down for a second I might miss what everyone else seems to have this time of year-- family, roots, a sense of place. It sucks to feel like little orphan Annie when everyone else is starring in the Brady Bunch. I don’t feel sorry for myself (nor do I expect anyone else to feel sorry for me) because I’m grateful and lucky to have people in my life who care about me and look out for me. The truth is, I’ve worked my ass off to make this happy little life for myself and I’m proud of it. Still, I’m reminded at this time of year of what I don’t have that most people take for granted. It must be nice to be loved no matter what and not have to work at it so damned hard all the time.
The Pasta Fagioli was amazing. I added zucchini, beef broth and more cheese than the recipe called for. It was thick and rich and yummy. Definitely a recipe I’ll use again.
Speaking of recipes, I need to post my apple pie recipe from Thanksgiving. It was really good and I’m not big on pie.
The holidays are here and I haven’t done any holiday baking. I have cooking and baking to do this week for various things (a birthday cake for Thursday; lasagna and another cake for a work party on Friday; chili and yet another cake, as well as some other goodies, for a Navy party on Sunday), but I haven’t started my annual cookie, brownie, fudge, candy extravaganza. I should, hopefully, have some time next week. What would Christmas be without chocolate chip cookies and two kinds of fudge?
I’ll starve myself in January…
Life. Love. Writing. Friendship.
Sex. Books. Movies. Travel. Politics. Feminism. Academia. Insomnia. Rants. Raves. Chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Some names have been changed, some stories have been embellished. Thanks for stopping by and beware of the dog. Read more...
