Tag: Holidays

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Happy Thoughts, no politics on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve!

Seems like just last year we had one of these…

My year has staggered by. Some months and weeks have flown by, others dragged by like a slow scrape on your knee.

Remember those? You fell off your bicycle just slow enough that you knew you were going to scrape your knees and feel every rock or sharp bit of asphalt cutting into you until you came to a bloody stop. Somehow after you stopped the pain increased 10X. So your child mind was faced with the horns of a dilemma, you weren’t sure you wanted to stop, because the scraping wasn’t as painful as stopping.

Here we are again. Almost finished with another spin around the sun. I know it’s supposed to be a happy time. I’m not unhappy. I’m having a bit of a time holding onto the “Joy of the Season”.

It’s possible that it’s my age, the commercialization, that it’s the first Christmas without Jerry, that I’m just exhausted, or that I’ve paid a little too much attention to politics this last year. Any or all of the above may have dampened my holiday spirit. 

Face it, ain’t shit we can do about most of the things going on, so why focus on it?

That’s my major… perhaps my only resolution. I’m going to ignore as much as possible, and what I can’t ignore I’m going to try very hard to not get pissed about it.

One or more of my friends will probably be struggling with the same resolution. Maybe we’ll have to start a support group like AA.

Should we call it News Anonymous? Could work… as long as there’s bourbon.

The only things I want for Christmas are a little more strength and patience. Those gifts don’t have to be purchased or wrapped. They come from the big guy upstairs, and I’m hoping that I’ll wake to those gifts in my heart tomorrow morning.

My plan is to have a “Normal” Christmas Eve.

In years past, Jerry & I would make a light dinner, then we’d pour a glass of wine for him, bourbon for me, make popcorn or other snacks, and sit on the couch together watching Classic old Christmas themed movies.

The Bishops Wife springs to mind. A Christmas Story, National Lampoons’ Christmas Vacation, Donovans Reef, Operation Petticoat, Die Hard (sorry Mr. Willis.)

We’d just pick one at random and enjoy being together.

In recent years, neither of us wanted to be out on Christmas or New Years Eve.

If for some reason, we were out, I was the one doing the driving. That was okay with me. Jerry could imbibe and not worry about falling asleep on the ride home. He used the benefit of marrying a night owl only once or twice a year. It was always a pleasure to see him soundly sleeping leaned against the car window. Without saying it, he told me he felt safe and protected. I took pride in his feeling secure.

While I thank everyone for their kind invitations. This year I feel like I need to be here in the home we built and shared. I feel like I want to have that light meal, some popcorn, a bourbon, and watch a movie.

I need to close the chapter on our lives together. I need to do it with intention and purpose.

I set up a little tree in a call-back to his gift of a little tree in a bucket our first Christmas. The tin foil star from that first tree is proudly on top of this tree. There’s a symmetry that is comfortable and right.

Call it facing reality head on and that’s healthy.

I’m happy and sad at the same time.

I miss him terribly, that makes me sad.

Yesterday, I was playing music and found myself crying several times, it was like waves crashing on me. After each wave, I felt a bit better.  

I accidentally found the original, (and unlabeled,) tracks of a Christmas CD we’d put together years ago. Hearing him playing the harp really wrecked me, but again, I felt better afterwards.

I’m happy mostly for the season, and that I have several really supportive friends, and have had the time to work through the loss on my schedule, unhurried. I’ve been very fortunate.

Perhaps on some level I’ve received a gift of distance and understanding. 

From the moment he died, I’ve always known I had to carve a future. An early Christmas gift I’ve received is that now for the first time, I’m beginning to see a future having brightness and light. I’ll still miss him, I’m sure of that, but I’m starting to believe I’ll be okay.

That’s the best gift of all.

Have a Merry Christmas everyone.

Love

D.

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My take on the Biden Christmas uh, whatever it was.

The Biden White House Christmas … uh … thing… Whatever it was has been soundly thumped in the conservative news outlets.

The liberal news outlets seem to like it. That split is typical, so nothing new. Liberals hated Melania’s red trees. Conservatives tried to see the best.

After watching 2-3 years of various Biden holidays. I’ve come to the conclusion that the Biden’s are pretty classless.

In my family, they’d be the tacky distant relatives that you didn’t visit, or who might have been visited once in 20 years.

More money doesn’t make a classless person, classier, it just magnifies the classless behavior and poor taste.

This latest Christmas thing at the White House is tacky. I don’t care about the politics of the dance troupe or the individual dancers. I didn’t care for the costuming, or the actual dance, the entire production looked rushed and didn’t appear to fit the space. 

Some of the set pieces reminded me of Shopping Mall decorations from the 1980’s. You know, before Christmas decorations became offensive to small but vocal buzzkill groups.

It felt like Jill decided one morning, “I think I’ll have dancers” then called a dance troupe and said, “Be here at 3 this afternoon to perform.”

That’s the kind of thing a newly wealthy entitled woman would do. Especially if she had delusions of Queenhood. Thinking back on all of the Biden holiday events they’ve seemed poorly planed and executed.

They smack of poor folks from the holler getting an insurance payoff when uncle Cleatus got hit by a car. Suddenly they’ve got some money and they can make their dreams come true.

That’s when you see some of the tackiest shit you’d ever imagine. Neighbors will drive miles out of their way to see what new car or truck is up on blocks in the front yard next to the outhouse and shiny new 25 foot diameter satellite dish. There’d really be talk when uncle Cleatus’s family, had their new trailer repossessed after 6 months & had to move back into the old one. Parking would be easier with only one trailer on the lot.

It’s weird but I could easily see the Biden’s in a shabby trailer with a convertible in the yard on blocks. I could see Jill with her hair wrapped around beer cans, wearing $200 fake nails waiting on the welfare check. I could see Joe in a wife beater drooling on himself sleeping on the front porch, and Hunter passed out face down & naked in the drainage ditch.

None of it would strike me as odd or out of place.  That’s just the way they come across to me.

The sad thing is, the rest of the world may see the Biden’s in the same way. 

The other strange thing, (at least to me,) is that I’ve known very poor folks who lived in trailers. (Some were my family.) But they weren’t trashy like the Biden’s are. Sure they were poor, but their humble home was clean and well kept. 

Just because you’re poor doesn’t mean you’re trash, conversely, just because you’ve got money doesn’t mean you’re not trash.

My recommendation for Jill’s next Christmas in the White House, after the obligatory, “Bless your heart”…

Jill, hire some professionals to do the decorations. You’re maybe qualified to choose a theme, but after that leave it in the hands of people who know what they’re doing.

Go traditional. More Norman Rockwell. Less Las Vegas C-level off the strip showgirls.

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December 1st ????

This year has flown by!

Pretty soon it’s going to be snowy again.

I guess it’s not really surprising. Time seems to slip by faster as we get older. (At least I’ve noticed it more.) I’ve had a lot on my mind and been working through a bunch more emotional stuff. With those kinds of distractions it was easy for the time to slip  away.

On the plus side of things, Over the past week or so, I’ve been feeling lighter,  while I’m still unsure about a lot of things I don’t feel as weighted down or crushed as I have for the past year.

This isn’t just because we’re in the “Festive Season”. I haven’t even decided if I’m going to do the tree thing this year or not. It’s just me and the dog and Santa isn’t likely to come down my chimney.

I think there’s been enough time pass that there’s distance between Jerry’s passing and right here, right now. I miss him but it’s not the sharp dagger that it was. 

I make no guarantees about how I’ll feel mid January. But this first year of holidays and seasons changing has been hard. Two more to go and I’ll have survived them all. 

I’m not trying to rush the season, but I feel like making it to mid January is a milestone and somehow after that, I’ll be less burdened or sad. I have no proof that will be the case but it “Feels” that way.

It’s time to bust out the Die Hard Franchise, and Lethal Weapon just because they’re Christmassy I know Bruce Willis would disagree but Die Hard has been such a tradition for years I can’t resist.

It’s getting easier for me to toss things in the trash. It sounds stupid but after spending years worrying if I was throwing something of the other half’s away that was important. I was having a tough time getting over the habit. Nothing of his is important to him anymore, the only important any of it has is that which I assign to it.

I’m noticed I’m happier because the house looks less cluttered. There’s still a long way to go but it’s better and improves my general outlook on life too. 

I’m moving in the direction that I want to go. Whether I keep this place, or pack everything up and move, I’ll still need to be free of tons of useless stuff. Long range, my plan is to clear enough of the garage out that I can move my stuff from a storage facility up here. That will save me some cash monthly, and allow me to sort, sell, or trash stuff I don’t want or need.

If I’m going to move, I want the moving truck to be as small as possible.