2010 — The Best Year of Our Lives...So Far

On New Year's Eve we do not grieve

The passing of the year.

Instead we tend to look ahead

Forgetting all our fear.

Tonight a full moon lights the sky

And shines on hopes and dreams.

Even though most of us know

That they are like moonbeams.

Once again, our hopes may fade;

Our dreams may not come true.

But even so, on we go,

Believing in the new.

And that's a great and wondrous thing! By December, it's hard to remember the past months, and many things are not only worth forgetting, they're best forgotten. And the hardest — but most important — part is that they're best forgiven. Because for the most part, and certainly in the long run, they don't matter.

I intend for 2010 to be the best year of my life so far. And you know what "they" say about good intentions! The road to hell? Oh, well! That doesn't matter either.

In the short term, my main question is: Will we call the new year two-thousand ten or twenty-ten? And will we all agree on that? (Of course, saying two thousand and ten is just plain stupid.)

And it doesn't really matter! Or does it? ;-)

And So This Is Christmas

And so this is Christmas...

And what have you done?

Another year over

And a new one just begun.

And so this is Christmas

I hope you have fun —

The near and the dear ones

The old and the young.

A very merry Christmas

And a happy New Year

Let's hope it's a good one

Without any fear.

John Lennon

Culturefest Luncheon

One of the parties at our house this year was my citizenship students bringing food from their countries: Thailand, Laos, and Russia. (I "made" ice cream and berries.) Look at this table. It's 5 feet in diameter. OMG. It was incredible eating. And drinking. And fun.

The five of us women sat there for hours and put bulges in our bellies but not much dent in the food. I learned I LOVE Laotioan food. And I'd never had sticky rice...or Thai dipping sauce quite as hot as theirs, but it was all delicious. Everyone took some home, and we ate off ours for three days. Yum.

I also decided this holiday season to stop saving things. My new motto is: "It gets used or it gets gone." So I put away my stainless flatware and pulled out Mom's sterling. It's beautiful, it's tired of being in a box all the time, and it's going to get used until I die and/or it gets sold. And yes, it's going in the dishwasher. As soon as we get a new one.

Many, many things will go to auction this year...as I've been threatening for years now. This time I mean it.

I'll let you know how that goes!

This Christmas

This Christmas will be the best Christmas

We have ever had.

Laughing and singing happily

With our friends and family

We'll kiss under the mistletoe this Christmas.

Okay, call me sentimental — or not — but we took down our tree today. It had been up for three weeks, and it was very dry. Time for it to go! Like I said earlier: the tree's the thing. We'll save our presents for Christmas and leave up our few other house decorations until Dec. 26. Then it's all back into boxes to wait for the mystery of whether I'll get another tree bee in my bonnet next year.

My mind is already on next year...but not as far as Christmas. Time to forge ahead into the rest of my life, which is much less time than I like to even imagine...but still, it's the rest of my life!

O Christmas Tree...and Christmases Past

O, Christmas tree, O Christmas tree

Your gay green dress delights me.

My dad was also a big (not great!) singer, and this was one of his favorites. We loved our Christmas trees! And we loved our family Christmases.

Dad would take us to the Country Club Plaza on Thanksgiving to watch the turning on of the lights. It was a big deal then, and I guess still is, in Kansas City. And it was free and glorious and fun. I can still see them.

I know now that Mom always gave Dad/Santa the word on what to bring, but it was Santa/Dad who mostly got the credit for the great stuff — just what we always wanted. Magic!

We had to have "our place" near the tree so our dang siblings didn't grab our loot...not that we much wanted what the others got. Still. It had to be done, just as we had to write our names inside our matching stockings hung by the fireplace with care. You never know, and you sure can't trust a kid to do the right thing.

On the way to the Plaza — quite a drive — we'd sing Christmas carols in the car and gape at all the lights people put up on their houses and whatnot. Millions of lights, and all beautiful. To me, a tree is really a Christmas-light delivery vehicle, and of course, the best reminder of a nostalgic life that probably wasn't what it seemed back then.

"It's the laughter we will remember

Whenever we remember,

The way we were."

I've Seen Fire and I've Seen Ice

Oh, the weather outside is frightful,

But the fire is so delightful,

And as long as you love me so,

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Fire and ice. Funny how often opposite things go together so well. Happens with people, too. I expect that many children, especially grown ones, think that about their parents and wonder how the hell that particular union ever happened. And yet, it did, and here we are, replete with the memories, scars, laughter, and sadness of it all, proving what? The fire and ice combo worked anyway?

Yep. Life works. And Christmas comes around once a year. Last year, Jim and I didn't really have Christmas. We hung the wreathes Mom got when we moved here on the front porch, but no tree, no lights, no ho ho ho. Of course, we had presents, but we didn't do the trappings, and we truly didn't didn't miss them.

But this year I got the tree bee back in my bonnet. The pagans had it right early on -- the tree's the thing. This year I wanted a tree, and if I'm gonna spend good money on a dang dying tree, I'm gonna enjoy it for a solid month. Since our tree comes down no later than December 27, that means -- we put up our tree on November 30. Yikes.

It's beautiful! They always are. There's nothing like the smell, the lights, the feeling of a Christmas tree in the house. I put under it the toys from childhood I still have -- my Tiny Tears doll, Toodles; my one-eyed, eye-patched teddy bear Little Teddy; and my stuffed black lamb Cherry. (Hey, it has a pink pom-pom tail; what would you have named it -- Blackie?)

I put out a few other decorations from my family that I love, but we don't go whole hog. Just enough. I'm confident we'll get the snow, but it's still all not complete without a fire.

We only lived in Minnesota until I was about 5, so I don't remember if we had a fireplace. The small house we lived in in Grandview, Missouri, didn't have one either. But from the time Dad built us a house on 80 glorious acres outside the tiny town of Lone Jack, we had a fireplace. Mama insisted. She was from Texas, and she'd been COLD ever since she married Dad. Think fire and ice. Think opposites.

And when we moved into the Lee's Summit school district, Dad built us another house with a fireplace. One of my most vivid memory snapshots is of Mama warming her backside and hands in front of the fire. Even in Austin, Texas, where I lived for 30 years, I almost always had a fireplace. I'd play Tricky Dick and crank up the AC just to have a fire when I wanted one.

So we moved to Colorado into a house without a fireplace. I missed it...the dancing flames; the snap, crackle, and pop of the logs; the heat; the fire. Not anymore!!

Jim got me a fireplace -- for our TV. (I know, I know. Save it. I asked for it.) It's great! I put the DVD on full fire loop, and it cycles through a complete fire, from fire-up to embers. Yes, it even dances, crackles, and pops.

So this year for the Christmas season, here's what I'm doing almost constantly, since I work at a home office: I'm sitting in front of my gorgeous, real, Noble fir, with all the other lights off in the house, enjoying my fake fire, sipping Mouton Cadet red, and listening to Mike Metheny's beautiful version of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" on iTunes on our Mac. (You can get it on a Leonard Brothers CD....or ask me!)

If I'm working, I wait on the wine. And more than once, I've been surprised to hear a log fall in the fireplace, and I look up to make sure it hasn't popped sparks onto the floor.

And you know, if the plasma TV's been on long enough and/or you drink enough wine, even though you can't roast any chestnuts, you can still stand real close to the fire and warm your backside and your hands.

It's a hoot!!

'Tis the Season

Deck the halls with boughs of holly

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

'Tis the season to be jolly

Fol de rol de rol, oh fol de rol.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas everywhere we go. The holly's there, but there's not much jolly. So far, just about everyone I know is having quite a bit of emotional turmoil and trauma, mostly related to family situations.

Unless you deeply and truly buy into the religious aspect of Christmas, which probably most people will at least claim to do so they won't seem crassly commercial and shallow, the holidays can be special only in their increased amount of stress put on psyches and souls.

I like the crass commercialism of Christmas. I love the lights and colors and songs and sounds and all that stuff. I used to like presents more, too, but now I don't want another damn thing in my life to have to store. Bah, humbug. Still, I get presents and I like them after I have them. Rank hypocricy!

Mostly I love Christmas trees. Mostly my own, because I know every ornament we put on it, and it's heavenly to sit with only Christmas tree lights on in the house. I love the memories of childhood Christmases because they make me feel good. Mostly.

But often, all that is not enough to keep me jolly through the awareness of the underlying human condition. Wonder if that what's stopping much of the jolly everywhere this year?