Happy Festivus

The day before Christmas Eve... the sun is out and shining, and the temperature is about sixty degrees. I could do with another ten degrees of warmth, but it isn’t raining or freezing so I won’t complain.

We never did put up a big tree this year, but the rest of the house is all decked out for Christmas. My husband didn’t make the plum pudding either.... the days just disappeared right before our eyes. We were debating whether to have a small dessert party instead of our usual big Christmas party, but then I got a very bad cold and was sick for nearly two weeks. I was not in a party mood this month anyway, so the cold/coughing/sneezing gave me a convenient excuse not to entertain.

I have been reading my Christmas books, both old and new, all of which have made me laugh and made me cry. Seems that it takes a lot to make me laugh out loud these days, but very little to make me cry. I am still in the I-cannot-believe-that-happened stage and it’s going to take a good long while to get past that. I keep looking at old pictures... everyone all dressed up and young and smiling and happy and healthy. That’s the magic word... healthy. One would think, at such a young age, that she would still be smiling and happy, and healthy.

The local animal shelters have been having Pet Adoption Days all over town these past couple of weeks. Kittens and puppies, full-grown cats and dogs... all available with little or no adoption fees, just in time for Christmas. Pictures of smiling children with happy pets have been plastered all over Facebook. I hope there is a pet-god to protect these newly-adopted animals. Protect them from little kids who may not have learned to be gentle with such delicate little lives, and protect them from parents who will return them to the shelter at the first sign of inconvenience or misbehavior. The kittens and puppies are not toys... they are living breathing animals with emotions and feelings and hearts bigger than their owners’ hearts because all of their trust is given to the people who chose to take them home. And if you choose to take a pet out of a shelter and bring it home, that animal is trusting you to take care of it. Forever.... not just until you take down the Christmas decorations.

So be wise, people. Make wise choices.

And Merry Christmas.... wherever you are.

Too few days between now and Christmas....

Well. It’s been a while since I’ve written.

Halloween decorations went up and came down without a party this year.  First time we have not had a Halloween party since 1998. Christmas decorations went up on the first few days of November, and my husband and I had a quiet Thanksgiving dinner, just the two of us, with friends coming over for desserts. However, we were all so full of turkey and dressing that the pies never got sliced. But we had a nice visit and that was better than pie.

The after-school book club for the 5th and 6th graders is going very well. Just two boys out of the twenty students continue to find ways to interrupt and distract the rest of the class. I am being extremely patient with them because I know that most of these kids have very fractured family lives with very limited resources for fun and entertainment.

We usually get a big tree the weekend after Thanksgiving and it stands in the corner of the dining room. We have not gotten a tree yet, and actually that’s fine with me. I am getting un-enthralled with live trees. Live? They’re not live, they’re dead. They cut them down in October, ship them all over the country, store them till after Thanksgiving, and when you put them in your home, they have already started to dry out. We live in a three-story hundred-year-old wood house out in the middle of nowhere, at least fifteen miles from the nearest fire truck. Just one spark from the tree lights would send this house tumbling into a pile of toothpicks before the fire truck made it to the main highway by the fire station in town.

But my husband insists on a real tree. Fine. So I don’t sleep well from the day the tree comes into the house till the day he drags it out into the pasture so the birds can build nests in it. And when I clean the living room and dining room, I will be finding needles from that tree from now till August.

We are not having a Christmas party this month... when the invitations should have been written out, I was still reeling from family stuff that began around Labor Day and just when I thought I could work myself around everything, another tragic surprise happened right before Thanksgiving. This is just not the right time for a party, Christmas or otherwise. My mindset is not in a party mode. I am still in the I-cannot-believe-that-happened state of mind. But it is what it is, forever more.

Our kittens Julius and Peaches are growing into fine cats, both handsome in their own way.  Julius is the wise professor, Peaches is the playful imp. Sweet Pea sometimes looks at them and wonders why they are still here, and Savannah is letting the kittens cuddle up to her. She will play with them as she would play with puppies, and being that she is 75 pounds, I watch carefully so she does not plop one of her big paws on top of their heads.