Do I know it's Christmas time at all?

I am in a state of confusion.  My brain knows it's Christmas Eve.  I've looked at the calendar (which reminds me I need to buy a new one soon, the most ridiculous one I can find).  I see that it's December 24th.  But I still have to make dinner for Dan and myself.  I have to go get bread so he has sandwiches for the rest of the week.  There isn't a big meal to plan for and thus I can't just plan on eating leftover ham and mashed potatoes for the next week.  I don't have to make toffee for my dad or wrap any other presents.  There is a Santa at the mall, and the red and green National Day decorations are still up everywhere.  I have the ingredients to bake a million cookies, but I don't have anyone other than Dan to feed them to and he is disinclined to haul them to work everyday.  So I am confused.  I'm playing Christmas music, so I feel like I should be doing something other than playing games on my new iPad, but I don't need to.  It's Christmas, but not like usual. 

 

There's no rush or clutter or drama.  Tomorrow we're having dinner with some friends I like very much to mark the occasion.  I've already made a rum cake and bought the wine.  So the organizational part of my brain is looking forward to New Year's Eve.  We have reservations at aloft and tickets to their Glow Into 2013 party, to which we're supposed to wear white.  So I need to get something white, but it feels unnatural to go out shopping for New Year's Eve before it's even Christmas. No, I don't own any white clothes.  Black is more my style.

Because of exactly this

There's nothing wrong with a quiet Christmas, it's just unusual.  It doesn't upset me (OK, Dan, it's on the web, I'm not holiday depressed).  Not that my neighbors think I'm having a quiet Christmas; they've been hearing music playing every time they pass my door.

This album, naturally

Maybe I'll mix up a batch of toffee anyway.  It is Christmas Eve, right?

Tall Tales and A True Story

Every family has their crazy stories, and I believe that mine has a few more than most.  My Granny was a trick pony-rider in the circus.  My dad had a pet shark as a kid.  I caught a shark, and then we ate it.  I that shark was a descendant of my dad's pet.  The first thing my sister did when she could crawl was pull my hair (something that set the tone for our entire childhood relationship).  Once my dad and Gramps decided to make chicken salad in a kitchen with counters too small to hold the food processor, so they brought in a ladder for extra space. 

Editor's Note: Not all details are historically accurate

 Here is the tale of how Shawna ended up in the lake and everyone got sick except her:

Months ago, being a manly man, my brother-in-law decided he couldn't be seen driving a VW Beetle and traded it in for a 1990-ish Mustang.  The nicest thing to be said about said Mustang is that it's a "project car".  It will never ever ever be getting back together with Taylor Swift…I mean, it'll never be completely fixed.  Never ever.  Did I mention I'm still fighting the flu I got on vacation? Moving on.

Shane is always working on that stupid car.  Always going to the auto parts store, always greasy, always frustrated. 

Not Pictured: Shane's Mustang

On this particular Wednesday he had rented an expensive tool to put some rubber thing back on some metal thing or some such automobile nonsense.  My dad, an expert in fixing lemons having worked extensively on my Chrysler LeBaron, was out on the dock fishing and spending time with his grandson, also conveniently avoiding having to get his hands dirty.  Shane, knowing how full of wisdom my dad is, went out to the dock with his expensive tool to ask him a question about it.  We all know where this is going, don't we?

Dad fiddled around with the tool, and PLUNK, off came a piece and fell, not onto the dock, but through the dock, into the lake below.  What happens then?  Every possible idea is thrown out. 

Shawna:  Do you remember that net we had at the beach house?
Dad: That would be perfect, does she still have it?
<Shawna calls Cathy who says she will find and bring over the net>
Shane: You know what we need, a big magnet.  That piece costs $127.
Shawna: $127!!!! I'm going in to get that damn thing myself.
Dad: You know that water is freezing and filled with deadly bacteria.  It's practically a cesspool.
Shawna: What's a cesspool? <SPLASH>

"The water's fine"

So Shane is gone to get a magnet, Cathy is on her way with a net, Shawna is in the lake feeling around with her toes in the freezing mud, and Dan and Shaedon head off into the sunset to fish somewhere with less commotion.

"My mom is crazy, Uncle Dan."

Cathy pulls up with the net, looking particularly frazzled (she was interrupted getting her house ready to host Thanksgiving dinner) and with her little dogs too, at the exact moment that Shawna uses her toes to pull up the part out of the muck.  The huddled masses (Me and the baby), give her a cheer, then she runs into the bathroom to wash off whatever deadly spores might have been living in that water.  Her clothing was destroyed.

And I'm the one that's still sick.  So I guess the moral of the story is that holding a baby is more dangerous than jumping in a lake.

The baby was confiscated as a biological hazard when going through security

The End

A Brief Interruption

My Dear Friend,

I have indeed returned from my brief sojourn to the New World, and found my family there thriving and the atmosphere most congenial.  Unfortunately, upon my return to the Orient, I seem to have contracted a most virulent case of influenza which has thus prevented me from my regular correspondence.  I believe I am fully to blame for contracting this illness, as I had the arrogance to wade into the foul air of a public school (children, as you know, are quite unhealthy to be around, especially in large groups).

The sickness consists of a congestion of the head and chest which no poultice or tablet seems to assuage, and a general heaviness and soreness of the limbs.  No consistent fever has been detected on my part, or the part of my erstwhile nurse and husband, and I do feel as if I am slowly recovering, although a brief trip yestereve to acquire rations for the week resulted in a my being unable to rise from my bed for almost a day!

More details about my holiday will be forth coming as soon as I have recovered sufficiently to order my thoughts and daguerreotypes from the trip.

Sincerely,
S

"Not wounded, sir, but dead."