And so it comes: the Christmas season. The Thanksgiving feast is barely digested and black Friday is here filling the newspaper and internet with stories of competitive shoppers pepper-spraying each other for that $199 42-inch TV set. Whoever those people are who show up at midnight at Target or Walmart, they are not in my personality quadrant. When it comes to shopping there is nothing competitive about me. You want it? You can have it.Last year, I got the shopping done early and sent it off in the mail to Pittsburgh and Idaho and felt pretty smug with myself. This year, I'm alarmed and overwhelmed. I now have to send to Arizona as well. My brain is fuzzy with mis-firing synapses. Do I even know where the post office is?
Salt Lake City looks gloriously lit up and decorated. Brigham Young's houses are wreathed with fruited greenery, and horse and carriages carry families along South Temple Street. We can hear the clip-clopping from our apartment.
Last night we had a family dinner at the Lion House. Everyone was dressed up and beautiful. The cousins teased and chased each other. The teenagers giggled and writhed. Tom took pictures. I loved all of them.
Present and past conjoined: I thought of my mother at a similar Lion House dinner about eight years ago. She stood up in the middle of it, raised her skirts and pulled up her pantyhose. It was also the night she removed her dentures and put them next to the salad plate. It was her last public outing.
Baby steps. Baby steps. I will join in the holiday fray.
How are the holidays looking from your vantage point?
I went out today for my regular Saturday shopping (groceries and the like). I stopped by home depot for some christmas lights for our house but it was chaos. I left. Then, the craft store for some plain red velvet ribbon. They had none. I left. I went to Costco and bought a fancy facial skin cleaner and my groceries and went home. I will get my lights when the rest of the world is done shopping at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI'm in total denial. Haven't pulled out a decorations box, threw the Christmas ads in the trash without a glance. I just don't feel like it. Thank goodness my kids are grown and I can indulge in my nothingness without worrying about damaging tender psyches.
ReplyDelete6 and 10 can't believe it took me all the way until tonight to get the tree up. They want to decorate it yesterday. 15 yelled at us when the radio station came up playing Christmas music in the car. Needless to say, he was not the child who helped me lift down the giant box bearing our artificial tree. It still has alternating tiers of malfunctioning lights and we still have not replaced it.
ReplyDeleteI didnt have the time to read it all. OK fine i had the time i just didnt want to read it. My bad. :(
ReplyDeleteI threw out our pre-lit tree last year because it was easier to dump it than try and store it. The boys are begging to go cut down a tree. I do not have an ounce of Christmas spirit in me. i do not want a tree. I dread trying to figure out how to string lights on it. I have 3 boys. The last thing I have time to remember is watering a tree. I am quite certain it will fall over anyway. I have not purchased anything and I've developed an allergy to places like Costco. I would rather have root canal than walk into Target or Toys R Us. Fa la la la la. The only thing Tom wants is a $100,000 pony. I fear it's going to be a dismal year of disappointment. I am thinking about gorging on gingerbread and sleeping until Valentine's Day.
ReplyDeleteI'm feeling like Jacqueline. And apparently a few others. What is it about this season that brings out such polarity in experience?
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