Holiday Meanderings

It's funny how it just feels like a whole lot of talk and hoop-la and all of a sudden - there it is - sitting right smack in our lap, Christmas Eve. Tonight Andree and I built a ginger bread house. It's the first time I ever made one of those. It certainly wouldn't win a prize but, hey, it was fun sharing that time together while we listened to Christmas music on CBC radio. Now there's only one more sleep and we get to see what Santa put in our socks! There are presents too!

It might be Christmas Eve but there's not too much commotion in our little world, just the two of us and Pumpkin of course. We've braved the grocery store this morning and did some last minute shopping then we dashed over to the Leo's video store and picked up a couple of movies. We watched the "Christmas Clause" this afternoon and we're about to hunker down with a big bowl of popcorn and watch the other one, "Away We Go". I'll likely follow that with a little bit of journal writing before turning in for the night.

On Tuesday December 21st, winter solstice, we attended the Christmas Celebration of Light at the Centre for Spiritual Living. It was a beautiful evening full of Christmas stories, songs and inspirational talks. It was followed by a time of fellowship and sharing of all kinds of goodies that people brought in. I took a recipe that was passed around on my Write Haven group called Snickerdoodles and made some of those to add to the gourmet table of treats.

Tomorrow we climb the mountain to Big White to share Christmas supper with my sister and her husband. That will likely be a rather quiet evening too followed with, for myself anyway, a soak in the outside hot tub surrounded by mounds of snow under what I hope will be a shinning bright moon and evening stars.

On the Sunday before I went for surgery, Andree, one of our friends from Armstrong and I, went to a tree farm where we could walk around and pick our own Christmas tree. That was way more fun than buying a cultured tree at one at one of those parking lots in town. We didn't decorate it until a few days after I came back from surgery when I was feeling a little less wobbly. Andree snapped a picture of me when I came back up from the recovery room. I had to look twice to realize that was me. I looked a little bit washed out that's for sure.

There's lots of stuff going on for me lately. Lots going on in my psyche. I'm going through a lot of emotions and a lot of heavy duty thinking, wondering, contemplating, analyzing, and assessing. I feel like there are lots of changes coming. Good changes for the most part but there's also conflicting feelings of joy and excitement for the newness and the movement in a forward direction that I feel is brewing.

This sense of newness and excitement is mixed with a sense of heaviness and sadness. The awareness of a friend who is very sick and facing the reality that her life is coming to an end. It's hard to balance the two some days. Endings and beginnings. That's what is around the corner for all of us right now. Christmas signifies the end of a year and the beginning of another coming right up behind it.