A Very Merry Christmas

 

 

I hope you had a merry Christmas, if you had one. It’s January! It’s the next year! Who’s still thinking about Christmas? I guess nobody. But when you’re constantly trying to live in the past, you can’t help reminiscing about what happened two weeks ago. Or maybe I’m just so terribly behind that it’s all a soup. I hope you had a good break.

 

It was our most chaotic and disorganized Christmas ever, mostly because we moved, but also and actually mostly because I’ve become increasingly unhinged with age. We have a yearly ongoing family wager over how many ornaments Junia will break, and this year we all lost because, shockingly, Caleb broke two and Junia broke none. A real plot twist in the Chan family saga.

 

I had no wrapping paper or supplies, so I tied up everyone’s gifts in blankets. I live in fear of someone bringing up furoshiki, because mine were old baby blankets and bedsheets folded over and knotted up. The whiff of babies past was unsettling.

 

We had the staff over for our year-end gathering, which was lovely. I cooked my first turkey in this new place, and it was nice to know it was about as stressful here in this new kitchen as it’s been every time before. The reward of five hours of staring at this giant bird in the oven was enough leftover turkey to last us until the next turkey holiday. Turkey pho, turkey casserole, turkey for Chicken, and turkey for Tuna.  

 

 

 

 

 

It was a merry Christmas, despite or because of it all. The kids are back to school, and I am back to more obviously avoiding the things that need to be done.

 

In any case, I hope you had some turkey and a good finish to the year. There’s nothing like a fresh start, even if you sort of fudged your way through the first few days of it.

 

I’ll end here with this photo of Junia at our church’s Christmas Eve service, thrilled to be holding this candle precariously close to many flammable and nonflammable things, including her own face, and doubly thrilled to put my parenting skills in public doubt to everyone behind us (we attend an Anglican, predominantly white church).

 

Parenting skills notwithstanding, what is Christmas without a bit of light?