Pictorial fragments from the past week

Hosted by Mrs4444.

This week's Friday Fragments has, very conveniently, been put off till Saturday which means I didn't have to be incredibly rude and spend part of Christmas Day hiding away behind the laptop in order to participate. Of course just because I didn't have to have net time yesterday doesn't mean I stayed completely away.... I'm so addicted. Head on over to Half-Past Kissin' Time for more fragments from the festive season.

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Our camping trip to Fingal Bay last weekend kicked off to a great start with us stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway, we took 2.5 hours to travel about 5km. I was able to get online from my phone and find out that the reason for the jam was a caravan accident, that there was a rescue helicopter on the road and that all lanes were closed. So we resigned ourselves to being late and were very grateful for cool weather, fully charged Nintendo DS's and that it wasn't us who'd managed to flip their huge caravan and have the roof of their 4WD removed (not sure if that was due to the accident or the rescuing). We arrived with just enough time up our sleeves to get the tent all set up before the light faded.

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The next morning Tom was ready to head to the beach at 7am but, as it was still quite overcast and cool and we had shopping that needed doing, we made him wait for a while. By the time we got to the beach there was not a cloud in the sky and we were all well and truly ready to get wet. The water was crystal clear and FREEZING but that didn't stop anyone - not even me, but there are no pictures to prove that ;-)

This was about as big as the waves got.

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On Christmas Eve we went to Adam's brother's place for lunch. I made a Greek salad and a pear, blue cheese and walnut salad, and we took some prawns along as our contributions to the meal and we sat around eating and talking while the kids played in the swimming pool. It's possible Caitlin may have been in there just a little too long.

Wrinkly fingers!

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Christmas lunch was at my Mum's place and we were very happy that my 99 year old Grandma was able to join us. It was quite an effort for her to be there but she was glad to be there and, as I told her, it's such a wonderful thing for the kids to know their Great Grandma and be able to share special occasions with her. As we sat around the table after the meal Caitlin ran off and grabbed her new sketchbook and Derwent pencils and drew a portrait of Great Grandma which she then gave to her to take home. I think it was a bit of a hit.

Caitlin with Great Grandma

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Caitlin scored big on the art front for Christmas, as well at the set of 72 Derwent watercolour pencils, she got a desk easel with paints, brushes, a palate and a couple of canvases, they seem to have gone down well.

Caitlin painting a dragon

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One of Tom's presents was a drawing kit with a book on how to draw mythological creatures, this has been a huge success with Adam and Caitlin getting in on the act as well. This one is a collaborative effort between Tom and Daddy.

Dragon by Tom (with some help from Dad)

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Today we have eschewed all the traditional Boxing day pursuits of movie going, sales shopping, cricket or Sydney to Hobart yacht race watching and have spent the day lazing around doing nothing much. Adam did get a bit energetic for a while though and whipped up a loaf of Ginger Beer Bread using the Spiced Ginger Loaf recipe from our bread machine's instruction book and using Lord Nelson Old Admiral beer in place of water. It was pretty damn good.

Bread, cheese, ham and pickles. Perfect.

The times they are a-changing

When Adam and I married I pretty much co-opted him into our family Christmas traditions, when Christmas lunch was at my mum's place we'd have lunch with his parents and then head over to join my family, if my family were further afield for the day we'd go to them for lunch and see his parents in the evening on the way home. That became less fun when we had small kids - traveling for an hour across Sydney in the heat on Christmas day was pretty hideous and after one particularly bad experience involving visits to three different homes, stifling heat and a blanket of smoke and ash from bushfires over most of Sydney we called it quits. Besides, my siblings and cousins were all starting to have partners' families to see and getting everyone together was getting harder and harder.

Eventually we stopped trying to see my cousins, Aunts and Uncles on Christmas Day, sometimes we manage to see them at a family gathering sometime close to Christmas - perhaps a picnic one weekend in December, or as we did this year at my Grandmother's birthday party - but we don't exchange gifts anymore.

In recent years we've tried to alternate spending Christmas Day with either my family or Adam's. Ideally my brother and sister and their families do the same and we try to synchronise so that we're all together for Christmas lunch in the years when it's my family's turn. It's worked out pretty well a few times, last year we all managed to be together at my Mum's place for lunch - 9 adults and 8 kids. This year I invited Adam's brother and family to our place for Christmas lunch but they decided they'd rather do lunch on Christmas Eve at their place so we're taking my mother-in-law there tomorrow and bringing her to my Mum's place on Christmas Day for a quiet lunch with just us, my Mum and Dad and my Grandma. My brother's family will be up in the Blue Mountains with his in-laws and my sister probably won't be home yet after having had her 3rd baby by c-section on Monday this week. Yep, I'm an aunty again :-)

Adam grew up with a somewhat different experience of Christmas. His family did not travel at all on Christmas Day, they stayed at home and had a traditionally seasonally inappropriate baked dinner and Christmas pudding lunch just for their immediate family with Adam's Grandma sometimes there as a house-guest. Afterwards they would all pile into the car on Boxing Day and head north to Gosford to spend the day with the extended family, but on Christmas Day itself, no going nowhere! So it was quite a shock to the system for Adam to be dragged all over the city on Christmas Day. Lately Adam has been expressing a desire to celebrate Christmas the way he grew up doing it and for Reasons^TM* I've begun to see the merits of the idea.

In fact we're both very much inclined to say that this will be the last year that we go anywhere for Christmas Day, we'll be very happy to have any and everyone come to our house to celebrate the day with us but we're staying put. I'm tired of the dragged out process of deciding who is going to be where and what, if any, presents we're giving each other and not knowing for sure until well into December what I'm expected to do for the big day.

Some things won't change for a good few years yet though. There'll still be fruit mince pies, milk AND beer** for Santa and carrots and a water bucket for the Reindeer - they make a terrible mess every time, water spilled everywhere and carrot fragments all over the front deck - and the kids waking up way too early. It doesn't seem to matter to them that they've known about the whole Santa gig for years, it's just not Christmas unless you play the game!

*the sort which are significant but which I don't propose to elaborate upon.

**milk AND beer?! I hear you cry...Look, I grew up leaving the milk out, Adam's family did the beer thing. When David was old enough to notice Christmas we had a discussion and reached an impasse. So we decided to let Santa choose which he wanted, and would you know, he usually has both! Guess flying around in the heat in those ridiculous clothes works up a serious thirst ;-)

Friday Fragments and Linkfest No. 13

Hosted by Mrs4444.

I won't be around to comment on everyone else's Friday Fragments till early next week, we're off camping at the beach for the weekend - wish us good weather and kid-friendly surf!

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Monday morning's car trip to school conversation went like this - Tom: Mum, how old do you have to be to mumble mumble mumble? Me: I can't understand what you're asking. Tom: *repeats* Me: It's like you're speaking a foreign language! Tom: How old do you have to be to have sex? Me: *enlightenment dawns, he was spelling S-E-X and I just wasn't parsing it because I wasn't expecting it*

I do love these philosophical challenges pre-caffeine and with only 2 minutes to adequately answer the question. I think I said something about the age of consent in NSW and the fact that even if you're "old enough" it's not whether you're allowed to that matters, it's whether both you and the person you're with really want to and if you both feel ready for the sort of commitment that being that intimate entails - only with smaller words.

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David went to his end of Year 6 dinner on Monday night.



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From David's page in his school yearbook

• People I Most Admire: My dad because he does medieval re-enactment.
• When I Grow Up I Want To Be: A happy adult.
• Where I See Myself in 10 Years: Successful.

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Caitlin won first prize in the singing section of the school talent quest and Tom came third :-)

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We watched The Fifth Element with the kids on Wednesday night, they hadn't seen it before because David has always vociferously protested that he Does. Not. Want. and we've always given in and watched something else instead. It was the same with Star Wars way back when, we practically had to hold him in a headlock on the couch to make him watch it. Apparently if it's something Dad and Mum like it couldn't possibly be good. But on Wednesday Adam and I told him we were watching whether he liked it or not and when he said he'd go sit in the study we were even meaner and told him he had to sit in the lounge room.

When we got to the bit where the Diva is singing and Leeloo starts kicking butt Tom got very excited and said "I love it when the girl is not the damsel in distress!"

Oh, and do believe David quite enjoyed the movie after all. I apologized for making him sit through it and he said "Yes, it was a bit silly."

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Linkfest time!

Feeling like doing a virtual culinary tour of Sydney? Check out the list of Sydney food bloggers at the end of Helen's post about the Sydney Food Bloggers' Christmas Party.

I HAVE to cook this sometime: Momofuku Bo Ssäm (slow roasted pork)

Continuing the food theme and adding maths to the mix - The Mobius strip bagel. I don't usually eat bagels but I think I may need to go buy some just for this.

Tim Minchin's White Wine in the Sun is available to purchase as a single and 50% of the proceeds from December sales will be going to Autism research.

I object!

I've been hoping to catch this on video for a while now. Clara has strong opinions about just who should be allowed to sit next to me on the lounge and she's not backwards in letting Adam know that it shouldn't be him.


Click here if you can't see the embedded video

Wordless Wednesday

Snuggles

For more Wordless Wednesdays click here.

25 Things You Had No Desire to Know

Meme time. Because I can.

1. Name someone with the same birthday as you. Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic (I googled my birthday expecting to be completely uninterested in the result, but that kind of appeals.)

2. Where was your first kiss? Against the outside wall of the church hall during a youth fellowship social event.

3. Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else’s property? No. Nor humorously either.

4. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex? Yes, but only for fun :P

5. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people? Nope Except for the several times I was responsible for getting an entire movie theatre full of Browncoats to do a sing-a-long, including once when Joss was there...how could I forget that?!

6. What’s the first thing you notice about your preferred sex? Smile.

7. What really turns you off? Bigotry.

8. What do you order at Starbucks? I don't. Starbucks would be pretty much my last resort for coffee. But where ever I order it's either a large skim cappuccino or a double shot espresso depending on time of day.

9. What is your biggest mistake? I have a horrible suspicion that the answer to this is not budgeting over the last couple of years.

10. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose? No.

11. Say something totally random about yourself. I like pickled onions.

12. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity? Nope.

13. Do you still watch kiddie movies or TV shows? Not if I can help it.

14. Did you have braces? No.

15. Are you comfortable with your height? No, I'm unhealthily short but I'm working on it, apparently if I just follow these 5 easy rules for height-gain I can gain 5cm in just a few weeks. It's a scientriffically proven* system! *Results not typical.

16. What is the most romantic thing someone of the preferred sex has done for you? Married me? That was pretty romantic.

17. When do you know it’s love? When you say "I hate you!" and the person you're speaking to laughs and gives you a hug.

18. Do you speak any other languages? I can count to ten in several...

19. Have you ever been to tanning salon? No.

20. Have you ever ridden in a limo? No.

21. What’s something that really annoys you? The sounds of shooting and explosions in computer games.

22. What’s something you really like? Silence.

23. Can you dance? I don't know about can, but I do dance, dancing is good for the soul.

24. Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room? No.

25. Tag 5 people! I stole it, at her suggestion, from Carmen. If you want it, it's all yours.

Party time!

Our Christmas party on Saturday afternoon and evening seemed to go well, I certainly had fun and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one.

We began the afternoon with the traditional sharing of diseases. What? That's not part of your usual Christmas celebrations?

Viv, aka tigtog, fared particularly badly on the contagion front.

A little later on, just as Adam had been obliged to duck out for a few minutes, this strange man dressed in a completely inappropriate fashion for a summer day in Sydney, turned up carrying a sack full of goodies.

The kids seemed to know what he was there for!

After Santa left we got stuck into serious eating of all manner of munchies brought along by our wonderful guests - delicious dips, munchable veggies, scrumptious fruit, tofu balls of awesomeness, salad, shortbread, brownies, cookies, gingerbread, icecreams - thank you so much to everyone! (I'm not going shopping for at least a week.) Clara had a field day clearing up scraps of ham as it was carved but was saved by the wonderful ZB many, many times over from potentially disastrous encounters with chicken bones from the BBQ chooks.

Margaritas and mango daiquiris were distributed, the children stuffed themselves silly with chips and sugar, and we settled down to party on into the night.

Browncoats sure know how to have a good time!


(Ok, that may have been a little bit staged...but only a little!)

Eventually it all got too much for Clara, even the screaming slingshot monkey wasn't enough to get her moving.

There are photos, and even a video, of the exploits of rather later in the evening, but, as both photographer and subjects were rather worse for wear by then, those images will not be seeing the light of day. Suffice to say there was raucous singing along to Meatloaf and The Blues Brothers and I shall leave the rest to your imagination. We finished up with a viewing of Dr Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog, we had to, there was someone who HADN'T SEEN IT!!!

Adam and I got to bed at 4am. It was totally worth it. But I did rather wish I could spend Sunday doing what Clara decided was the best way to deal with the morning after.

Find sunny patch. Flop. Snooze.

Beginner's Guide to Messiah

When Adam announced that he was buying tickets for us to take the kids to a performance of Handel's Messiah at the Sydney Opera House the day after our Christmas party I was a little unsure of the wisdom of such an endeavour. At breakfast this morning, which we were eating at midday on account of Adam and I having gone to bed at 4am, Tom very nearly confirmed all my fears by greeting the news that we were off to the city with a massive attack of the grumps, but after I threatened dire consequences for bad behaviour and Adam promised mango smoothies as a reward for being cooperative he pulled his head in and stopped whinging.

What we went to see was not a full performance of Messiah, instead it was this:

From the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs website:

Beginner’s Guide to Messiah

SUNDAY 13 DECEMBER, 2pm

On Sunday the 13th of December at 2.00pm, we invite you and your whole family to The Beginner’s Guide to Messiah with an entertaining and informational performance of Messiah excerpts. Our Artistic Director Brett Weymark will guide you through the inspiration to the music with insights into the great master, Handel.

It was fantastic! After the overture Tom leaned over to whisper in my ear "This is actually really good, I'm glad you brought us." Brett Weymark, the conductor, did a fabulous job talking about Handel and the music, covering the history of the work and its performances during Handel's life, anecdotes about Handel written by people who had met him, and discussion of the music itself. I think my favourite bit was Brett telling us to listen to the violins to hear how fast the angel's wings were flapping during the bit where they visit the shepherds. It had just the right touch of humour to make it accessible to the kids and at 1.5 hours wasn't too long. The kids would never have lasted through the 3 hours of a full performance of Messiah and I'm not sure I would have either!

In front of the Opera House



The Harbour Bridge as seen from the Opera House forecourt.



Inside the Concert Hall with the orchestra and 300-odd choristers.



My lovely family waiting for the show to start, on one side of me Tom, Adam and David



and on the other side, Caitlin.

19th Down Under Feminist Carnival

The 19th Down Under Feminists Carnival is up at mynxii's LJ, The Professional Lapcat. As usual there's bucket loads of fabulous reading on offer, so click on over and get on with it!

Friday Fragments

Hosted by Mrs4444.

Things about which I am glad:

Despite my fears I did not have an excruciating back spasm and find myself swearing loudly in the middle of delivering my Parents & Citizens Association President's report to the hall packed with the entire families of nearly every student at my kids' school.

When Caitlin tried to pick the front door lock with a stick this afternoon she broke a piece of stick off inside it thus preventing the key from fitting in the lock. The sliding security door uses the same key as the front door (which was the only key I had with me) and the bolt that slots into the floor on the inside of the glass sliding door was undone. So I could still get into the house. The broken off stick was successfully removed with the aid of a large needle. So I didn't have to pay for a locksmith.

There are just three days of school left.

I remembered to get the kids to make cards for Adam's birthday tomorrow, even if I did have to get them back out of bed to do it.

There are fairy lights all through the trees and shrubs in my front garden - it's like living in a fairy grotto. We don't so much put our Christmas lights up as chuck them semi-randomly into the garden, I like it that way.

Wednesday next week is David's last day in Primary School. I do not anticipate getting teary over this.

My Mum came over this afternoon and helped clean up the house for our Christmas party tomorrow, she supervised the de-chaos-ing of the kids' rooms. I think if I'd had to do that on my own today there'd have been murder done. My Mum is made of awesome, I may have said this before.

Did I mention that school finishes next week? And that it's a short week? Only three days!

Oh, and my back seems to be all better now, I was a bit worried that I would still be in pain when it was time to head off on our camping trip but it looks like I'll be fine.

Things about which I am less thrilled:

My dad, who's bipolar, gave us all a bit of a scare on the weekend when it became apparent that he was a little bit, or possibly even a lot, manic. Thankfully his doctor had already begun adjusting Dad's medication and he'd started to come down again by mid-week. Dad's only had one full on manic episode, it was pretty devastating.

I have not yet managed to find the time or motivation to bake any fruit mince pies. Brendan is going to kill me unless I get my arse into gear tomorrow morning.

The kids all drank huge glasses of milk with their dinner tonight and now there's no milk for the morning.

Tidbits from Tom:

On being given toad in a hole* for breakfast: "No toads were harmed in the making of this hole."

On how he feels about his drama award: "I'm like a cat contemplating its second name** and feeling proud."

*Yeah, I know, the egg version isn't really toad in a hole.

**Referencing T.S. Elliot's The Naming of Cats -

"But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?"

Wordless Wednesday

At Presentation Night tonight one of the two Outstanding Achievement awards given out in each class went to Tom. I may be just a little bit proud of him. Again.

For more Wordless Wednesdays click here.

Drama

I'm not usually a big fan of drama in my life, but there are varieties I quite enjoy. Last night we had a bit of both.

Tom was dropped off at rehearsal for his Drama school's end of year showcase performance at 3:30pm, he was happy and excited and all was well with the world. When we arrived just after 6:00pm he was sitting outside looking somewhat forlorn. I asked if he was ok and he announced he was feeling sick and wanted to go home.

I had a strong suspicion that either something had happened that upset him or that he was simply suffering from stage fright. But there has been a bit of a tummy bug around, David and I had both had it...

During drama classes early in the year he'd several times suddenly decided he'd had enough and up and walked out of the class to lie on the grass outside (much to his teacher's consternation, who would look around the room to find Tom missing). He would say it was because he couldn't stand everyone being so loud - he's like me, too much noise and chaos makes us both feel physically ill.

At in the middle of the year when the drama school did Midnite in an afternoon and evening show we'd had a similar moment in the time between the two performances. Tom insisted he really wanted to go home, I managed to persuade him to stay and at the end of the night he was admitted to being glad he'd stuck it out.

Last night was a little more complicated, all three grandparents had come to see Tom perform and on top of that Adam and I were both committed to taking part in the parents' item. Even if Tom bailed out we couldn't really leave. Eventually, after much negotiation, Tom agreed that we'd sit at the back of the auditorium, near the door, and he could go outside if he needed to. I went to tell his teacher that Adam and I would indeed be there for our performance and the next thing I knew Tom came running up and plonked himself down with his classmates all set to be a part of the show after all. I'd given up trying to persuade him to perform but apparently I'm better at that than I thought.

The show was a series of skits based on Aesop's fables, written and directed by the students and student teachers. The parent's item was a brief introduction to Greek theatre and Aesop leading in to The Tortoise and the Hare. It was narrated by Karyn (Tom's drama teacher) and the parents' job was to ad lib the actions illustrating the narration. We didn't know what parts we were getting and we hadn't seen the script. I ended up with the role of the Tragic Greek, robed in a flannelette sheet toga and armed with a plastic Sting replica. Adam was The Hare, his costume was a ballet skirt and a red scarf (over his blue sun t-shirt, shorts and sneakers), the cause of much hilarity.

The Comic Greek and I were first up, acting out the concepts of Comic and Tragic drama, illustrating the worship of various gods and then throwing Aesop off a cliff at the end of his brief life-story. Then it was time for the fable.

The Tortoise kept removing her shell to take a swing at the Hare, the Hare was having way too much fun playing up to all his female fellow performers and the Tragic Greek completely failed to keep a straight face through it all. Apparently there's a video of the whole thing out there somewhere, hopefully I can get hold of a copy.

Tom's class began their skit by coming on stage dancing and then breaking into small groups to act out fables involving donkeys. Tom was the merchant in The Merchant, The Donkey and The Salt. He was awesome (even if I do say so myself), he stomped in anger when the donkey lost the salt in the river and he cheered in glee when his trick with the sponge caught the donkey out. After the show he was explaining about how he had to do really big gestures and expressions so that the audience would see properly - he certainly got that part right!

After all the performances came the awards, medals for students who had been with the school for 3 years, most popular class member and best actor in class both voted for by the class members, best and fairest chosen by the teachers and student teachers, scholarships, and most improved.

In Tom's class the most improved award went to a "young man who nearly didn't make it on to stage tonight."

Here he is this morning, still as proud of himself as he was last night when he went to collect his award and stood on stage with, as he told me, "a bit of a tear in my eye."

I'm rather proud of him too.

Pensive puppy

Clara spends quite a lot of time in this spot staring out the front window and keeping a look-out for the cats. The lounge has suffered somewhat as a result. Not that it was in particularly good shape to begin with...

The ghost of Christmas past

Once upon a time my Christmas day started with getting up as early as I thought I could get away with and seeing what was in the pillowslip on the end of my bed. I still have very clear memories of finding books and games in there. The books were my favourite presents. The pillowcase in question was this one. It was bought at a school fete I think, many many moons ago, it must be going on for 30 years old now, I still use it on my bed occasionally.

My tiger used to spend most of the year on my pillow but come December it was booted off in favour of the pillowcase made of Christmas fabric, I think mine had holly sprigs on it but I don't seem to have that one, it must have stayed at my mum's place.

Once my sister and brother were awake, and it was no longer completely stupidly early, we'd haul our pillowslip sacks out to the loungeroom and see what had been left in the stockings (lollies mostly if I remember rightly). The when the whole family was awake it was time to open presents in our pjs, grab a quick breakfast, get dressed and head out to church. I loved going to the Christmas morning service, a lot of my best friends were there and we would exchange Christmas cards and compare Santa loot, it was a wonderful way to start a day of celebrations.

Next up was either a dash home to prepare for the hordes of relatives who would be descending for Christmas lunch, or piling into the car to drive across Sydney to be horde-like ourselves. I can't remember a Christmas Day in Australia as a kid that didn't involve my cousins (we were in the US for 3 Christmases when I was growing up). We'd usually just got back from a week long beach camping holiday with our cousins a day or two before Christmas day too - I might write more about those holidays in a future post. I have no idea how my mother managed it, she must have been way more organised than I ever am.

Even when I was heavily involved in youth fellowship and very consciously celebrating Christmas as being about the birth of Jesus it was still very much all about the connections with people, seeing my friends, giving to charity, finding a gift for someone that was just right, spending time with family. Our Christmas traditions were wonderful and I wanted Christmas to keep being wonderful in exactly the same way forever.

Of course, that wasn't possible, instead Christmas is now wonderful in ways that are sometimes very much like my childhood memories and sometimes in other new ways, and sometimes the things which I wish were still wonderful are not anymore and have had to be left behind and that's hard. But then, we've been making our own traditions over the years and that's pretty wonderful too.

Bliss

Tom, aged 3 yrs, in the surf on his own for the first time.

For more Wordless Wednesdays click here.

I'm really rather fond of this time of year

Here we are at the beginning of December, my house is strewn with Christmas decorations, the kids have decorated the tree, we have strings of lights ready to festoon the garden, I have all my special Christmas candles out, the Advent calendar is hanging by the dining table, there's Christmas music loaded up on the iPod and I've started my annual re-read of Connie Willis' Miracle and Other Christmas Stories. Yes, I'm an atheist celebrating a pagan mid-winter festival co-opted by the Christian church to commemorate the birth of a man who was was almost certainly not born on the 25th of December and I'm doing so in the middle of summer.

Of course I'm also rather stressed by all the STUFF that has to be done in the next few weeks and when people ask me how I am I tend to reply "A little weary..." and I whinge about being asked to do extra things like make 40-odd jelly cups and cook brownies for a year 6 mufti day on the same night as I'm hosting a P&C executive meeting at my place and having my mother-in-law over for dinner. But I do it any way. Because it matters to the kids. But I made Adam cook the brownies. (That was last night by the way.)

Is there a point to all of this? Well may you ask...there did seem to be one when I started....
(It would help if I wasn't half-way through my second glass of Stanton and Killeen muscat.)

Oh, I know! Christmas, it makes me happy, for lots of reasons that are to do with family and friends and celebrating life and sharing and thinking of others and reconnecting with people we don't see often and good food and drink and silly traditions and memories and endings and beginnings. So what I thought I might try and do through December is write a little about some of those things and try to explain why I, I really like Christmas.

Meanwhile, I'm going to finish this glass of wine and eat another chocolate elf.