I seem to be having a hard time letting go of Christmas this year. Most years, come the end of December, I can hardly wait to pack up all the all the Xmas decor that is strewn about the house. This year I feel differently. As dusk settles in and the house darkens, I am still enjoying turning on the lights in the Dickens village and around the mantle and plugging in the tree. I don't want to pack away the Christmas dishes and candles quite yet or turn off the holiday music. Target has no trouble packing up Christmas. Yesterday I went there to buy a rug for the kitchen and immediately learned Christmas had been replaced by Valentine's Day. I wandered about looking for the rug and rolled past the 50%-off Christmas shelves. Most years I would have walked on by, but not this year. Christmas nostalgia got the best of me. I found myself putting a rather hideous bargain $7 Santa Claus cookie jar in my cart. When I got it home, Harry said it was so ugly they should have given it away. He then asked when I would be packing up all the Christmas decorations and I told him probably sometime near Valentine's Day.
Two Christmases ago, we drove up the Cortez side of the Baja Peninsula to La Paz and spent Christmas Day on the beach. I remember thinking that I couldn't remember feeling so carefree and relaxed on Christmas. My decades on Abbott always included dinners that required all the leaves for my dinning room table. Last year we flew from Cabo to Sarasota for Christmas and, as always, Pat and Bill pampered us rotten. This year I have been running myself ragged on a gimpy knee and loving every frigging minute of it. I decorated the house, I shopped, I baked cookies, I wrapped presents, I cooked, I cleaned up, I cooked, I cleaned up, I shopped, I ..... My physical therapist got mad at me, telling me that after an hour or two on my feet, I need to sit down. I asked him "Who has time to sit down at Christmas?"
This year I had the joy of watching my granddaughter open her Christmas presents. We had not been together with Ivan and Joanna at Christmas for four years. We made homemade ravioli. My sister Julie invited all of us to her house on Christmas Day to make tamales. My sister Ardee, her husband John, my nephews, and my niece and her boyfriend came for dinner last night. Harry made us a delicious stracotto al vino rosso (well if you don't know, you don't need to know, right?) served with braised leeks, both from a new cookbook our daughter-in-law gave us for Christmas. I whipped up a rather delicious chocolate bundt cake and everything received rave reviews. New Year's Eve we are having friends over for a little party. The friends are doing the cooking. Brian is making a beef stew and Anne is creating one of her famous salads. Monday night Alexis' childhood friends Katie and Beth are coming for dinner. While Katie has been exiled to far-off St. Paul, Beth has been living and working in Madrid. She is bringing several Spanish foods for us to savor.
So, an exhausting and calorie-packed Christmas it has been for sure , but wonderful. I hate to see it end. But ... all good things ..... As children's author Dr. Suess said, "Don't cry because it's over, be glad it happened at all." I know Harry will be glad when I pack away that half-price Target cookie jar.
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