Bridget's Christmas Progress Report.

It's December tenth today and Christmas is just a little over exactly two whole weeks away. I have the turkeys, the stuffings (we love boxed and frozen mixed now, who has time to make it from scratch?), the desserts, the butterflake rolls, the carrots by the dozens of pounds, potatoes too, wine for those who want some, eggnog and rum for the others, and fancy drink, AKA cranberry juice mixed with ginger ale for the teetoter boys.

I mailed the Christmas packages home today. It's not a record by any means. I've been so sick since our trip. I've been struggling to get things done and God bless, everyone is helping but then there's so damn much to be done it'll never all get done and that's okay too. 

The trees are up. Decorated and lit. The garlands and candles are out. The wreathes. The tiny trees and snowglobes are poking out from around books and skulls (not human. Actually bear but that's a whole other post) and vases. The lights are on outside all the time, around the clock now. I have a few things for Ruth and Henry and one thing each for the boys but as far as shopping goes I'm screwed because I am still completely under the weather and not able to run around. I did get a few huge rolls of wrapping paper after deciding I didn't want the plain brown butcher paper after all. I have probably five hundred feet of it because I'm a crunchy minimalist at heart but I'm also a raging Taurus so it's fine if some things are wrapped in champagne bubbles and velvet. Right? 

Right???

 So yeah, I guess the next two weeks will be pure shopping and cooking. I already hate watched Meghan Markle's 'Holiday' special where she elevated a bunch more stuff. They should just make a character for her on the Avatar series on Netflix. She could go around elevating all the things! For fucks sakes, that's enough. She interrupts everything and injects this forced casualness that comes off as pure arrogance. I know rich people and she's trying too fucking hard. 

I need candy canes to stir into my hot chocolate, but cinnamon flavoured ones, not mint because I don't like that much mint and I do love cinnamon. 

I got four packages of Christmas crackers to pull at the start of Christmas eve dinner and will be making more tourtieres for Christmas day dinner. It's supposed to snow a little! It's going to be amazing. 

Ali and Theo should write a Christmas song about me.

Peeling leaves off the pavement with the rake feels akin to peeling my skin off my bones when I go through the photo album in my head, plagued with favourites, shot dead with videos I've forgotten until they play idly through my mind like good dreams turned bad, rotten like the leaves on the driveway. 

They can fossilize there. I flap my hands at the uselessness of it all. 

Who cares if the leaves become part of the fabric of this Collective? Who cares if I abdicate any proof of one season into the next by force or neglect? Is there a clear winner? Is there any difference? Who cares if I buy Christmas presents when what we needed and never received was time? You can't give time. It's a construct, an idea brought in to force routine and routine and habits are what we live by.

Who cares if fall ends and winter begins? I'm not a winter person but I try to embrace it with oatmeal and hot chocolate and tiny lights, with Christmas movies and fresh-baked bread and long racuous or sometimes quiet dinners and sledding in the mountains. I don't snowboard any more. Too many serious injuries. We are too fast and too violent for sports like that. The competitive spirit comes alive and we will run over or throw down each other in an attempt to be first and when one of us (me) is completely deaf to the shouted warnings and five feet tall you don't want to be responsible for hurting her. 

Ha. 

Irony, like snow, is rare here on the point but on point always.

The lights are on though. The leaves are gone and done and we'll put up the tree in honour of those who only get to celebrate Christmas through us, by proxy sometime maybe in a week or two.  

Did you miss me?

I am home! We turned on the Christmas lights tonight. If you know my house just shut up and if you don't enjoy! Pretty sure you can see them from space but also really happy that they all work and they light up the dismalness of the west coast this time of year. 

I am tired. I am caught up on laundry, have made my peace with not hitting just about every single thing on my list, and am ready to throw myself into the holidays because I have nothing done. Absolutely NOTHING. Wait, I have two things purchased and that's it. Hahah. I have a cart full of things I'm thinking about on a website I like to gift shop from and the timing will work as long as I decide by Friday? 

I dunno, some years will be like this, especially with a huge trip in the middle of peak Bridget Holiday Planning Seasons so I'll do what I can and what doesn't get done will suffice. 

 That said, it's really nice to be home.