Ho-Hum-Ho-Ho

Ali as close to Santa as she would get last year

I haven't felt much like writing lately.  Maybe it's the dark and the damp weather.  Maybe it's because Thanksgiving is just around the corner and it means Christmas is closer than I'd like to think.  Maybe it's just the other side of the political campaign and I'm tired.  Maybe it's because the physical therapy appointments for my Mom go on and on.  Maybe it's merely a down time--can't be up, up, up every single day, can I?

Thanksgiving is only 9 days away.  Our turkey-day dinner is the regular fare--with only my Mom and brother and my husband and me.  I invited my 88 year-old Aunt Billie to come but her son is driving all the way from Oregon to pick her up and take her down to be with her family.  Neither one of my brothers ever contributed any wives or children to the world so our family has gotten very small.  We'll eat turkey, stuffing, salad, homemade cranberry sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes cooked in some fashion, Costco pumpkin pie (I can't make a pumpkin pie as well as they do) and a new pie I'll bake this year, Apple/Cranberry with a crumb topping.  The dinner will take all day to make and will be eaten in 15 minutes or less. Then we'll watch a movie (maybe Nemo) or play Quiddler.  I can't decide whether I like it quiet like this or whether I'd like a bunch of sisters-in-law and nieces and nephews around.  I don't get to decide.  This is what we have, so there you go.

Four days after Thanksgiving I'm on a plane to Wisconsin for the annual visit with my son's family. Every year we get in the car and journey to the Mall of America, across the river to Minneapolis, to have pictures taken with The Real Santa Claus.  This year there will be two little girls sitting with Santa.  Alison hasn't sat on Santa's lap yet, preferring to have him hide behind her, or lay on the floor in front of her.  We are interested to see what happens this year, with her little sister, who will be a year old on December 4.  Will Ali finally, at age 3 1/2, let Santa near her?  Will she be brave for her little sister?  What will Little Sister think of a rosy-cheeked, white-bearded, suspender-wearing stranger?  Zuzu loves all her grandpas and her boy cousin, Jessie, so she may think Santa is okay.  We'll see.  Regardless, we will have the pictures taken and laugh over them later.  

When I come home from Granddaughter and Santa adventures I will have much to look forward to.  My daughter, Erin, and her husband are coming from Norfolk on December 21 for the first time since they moved back East many years ago when husband, Kent, was still in the Navy.  And my second daughter will be coming from San Diego with Granddaughter Alecia and Grandson Alex on Christmas Day, to stay in the area for almost two weeks.  This will be a test of how much I like lots of people around at the holidays.  It will be so unusual that I will hardly know how to act.  I expect lots of baking and coffee drinking and talking and looking at old photo albums. These two sisters haven't seen each other in a very long time, so I hope their time together is happy.  They will have an opportunity to get to know each other again.  An opportunity like this may not come around for a long time.  Since I lived in the same vicinity as my brothers all their lives, it is hard for me to imagine losing touch with my siblings, though even living in the same county it was possible to let things slide.  Relationships between siblings is complex.  Jealousies, hurtful words, slights (imagined or otherwise), misunderstandings, disagreements, different views of life--all can keep you from enjoying one another.  And aren't we all supposed to love our brothers and sisters?  Doesn't it say that in some book somewhere?  As has been said over and over--you can't pick your family.

So that's what's coming up.  In the meantime, I'll cook, bake, decorate and take pictures and look forward to quiet and noisy holidays and then the New Year coming.  It'll be here fast.  I hope this rather dark mood lifts soon.  I think it will the minute I smell the turkey roasting.

Brown Shoes Nails It

Go over to Brown Shoe's blog:  http://middledaughter.blogspot.com to get another perspective on Barack Obama's election.  The writer of the Brown Shoes blog is one of the very best writers I know.  I wish she posted more often, but when she does, it is special and worth waiting for.  By the way, she is NOT my middle daughter, though I wouldn't mind at all if she was.  I think she may be too old to be my middle daughter, but she is an artist, a wonderful cook and as I said, a wonderful writer.  She is funny and sensitive at a dinner party (which is mostly when I see her) and a good and generous friend.  She'd make a great middle daughter.

Unbelievably Incredibly Real

I am having trouble believing that it wasn't all a dream. Did I really see the political map turning blue? Did I really see people dancing in Times Square, on Capital Hill, in Chicago?  Did I really see Jesse Jackson crying?  Did I really see and hear Jon Stewart call it for Obama and then take at least a minute to compose himself before he could speak again?  

I really did.  All those months, hoping and talking about why I wanted Obama to be President, giving away my Obama buttons and dreaming that this day might come.  The reality of it was more than I had dreamed.  Joy came out of me in the form of tears.  I cried when Jon Stewart proclaimed Barack Obama the next President of the United States.  I cried again when I saw the faces of the jubilant people in Times Square.  I cried more when Barack and his family took the stage in Chicago.  I cried again this morning when Bookworm called and yelled into the phone, WE DID IT!!!!  

This morning I wanted to keep celebrating, so I watched morning TV to see the images again.  This morning the pundits were wearing big grins, trying to hide them, of course, because they are supposed to be unbiased, but you could see how happy most of them were.  We are happy.  We are hopeful.  We are buoyed up by the undeniable fact that America got it right this time.  We are a sick country that finally chose health, after years of suffering.  We know we did the thing that will be best for us.  And we also chose to transcend race and to make Martin Luther King's dream come true. To be alive and present at this time in history is an honor.