Holidays – Page 10 – The Hermits' Rest

Love, Peace, Happiness. The Big Letdown

Many times, I write about how the passage of time and the learning opportunities I’ve taken advantage of have led me to be more content. And it’s true. I’m handling life’s ups and downs fairly well right now. That doesn’t mean I don’t notice what’s wrong in the world, though.

All day today, I’ve been reading about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the things he said and did. (His actual birthday was last week, but the US loves Monday holidays.) I also listened to a lovely song imploring us to listen to what John Lennon said, give peace a chance and all that. Today, I’m reminded that King said:

“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.”
Speech to the Negro American Labor Council, 1961.

I came of age in the 1970s. It wasn’t a perfect time, but to me it seemed like things were going in the right direction. Women were working toward equal rights in all ways. Black people could marry white people. Gay friends were emerging hesitantly from their closets. People talked so much about peace, love, and equality.

Now that I’m over here, looking back from over 60 years wandering our poor beleaguered planet, I think I was quite wrong. By surrounding myself with my “tribe” of people like me, I was blissfully ignorant of much of US society, and certainly VERY naive about how businesses and capitalism worked.

I know there are still people out there like me, working to improve the environment, feed the hungry, bring peace and understanding among our fellow humans, and all that. I see that in my volunteer work every day. But, I no longer have confidence that we have the numbers or the strength to accomplish much. (I’ll still keep doing my part.)

Really, stop reading if rants bore you like they do me.

Here’s Why (Or Stop Reading Now)

The heart of my sadness is this: I once believed people were basically good and kind, just sometimes they were confused or misled. I now see too many people taking pleasure out of harming others, spurred on by their own “tribes.”

Holiday for Harvey

Whew. I was not a hermit today, as I spent a fun bit exhausting day surrounded by people. But I did fine, laughed a lot, and made it through dinner for nine people at the ranch table this evening.

The highlight of the day came toward the end of the delayed present opening. For some reason, Harvey really likes presents. He tried to take Lee’s wrapping paper, then was just SURE some hand cream I got was a treat for him. Glad he didn’t chomp down on it.

Here’s the cutest. My sister gave Lee some pint glasses that were carefully wrapped in bubble wrap. Lee threw it on the floor. Harvey, usually a slow mover, pounced on that precious wrap like the happiest toddler in America.

He then proceeded to vigorously shred it, tossing each piece gleefully in the air. Triumph!

He spent five minutes on this, before getting distracted by some tissue paper.

Visitors Easton and Nicole crack up as Chris watches.

Only then did Carlton and Penney take a turn.

That wasn’t the end of Harvey’s holiday fun. Chris and I had built the first fire in our outdoor fireplace this evening. We all took turns sitting by it in the chilly air. At one point I looked over, and there was Harvey, sharing a loveseat with our friend, Mike. He genuinely looked like he was part of the gathering as a fellow friend.

What a good dog.

Festive Nestivus to All Fellow Hermits

I was taking the day off from blogging, but when I read this post on the Sweatpants and Coffee blog, I had to share this wonderful new holiday, which I’m apparently celebrating today! I’m already in the mood, as my Snapchat picture shows.

I love the idea of a celebration of introversion. By sitting here on the balcony, drinking coffee, and watching the marauding band of feral cats go back and forth. I’m properly celebrating this Holy Day.

We’re not a gang, we’re a club. (SNL quote from long ago).

According to the creator of Nestivus, Nanea Hoffman, this defines the holiday:

She suggests we cuddle in blankets, pet your animals or squeeze something soft, and communicate in our preferred introvert method, avoiding eye contact, if desired. Ahh.

A vulture just flew by so close I could count its feathers. There are titmice, chickadees, and cardinals in the trees (when the cats are elsewhere), and the child in the next building has stopped hysterically squeaking a toy and yelling , “Here kitty kitty!”

Mrs Cardinal is quietly chirping in the bushes in this photo I made nice and cozy for the Nestivus celebrations.

Mrs. Cardinal and I are both relieved. Festive Nestivus to you, unless you are out in a crowd celebrating Boxing Day, the extrovert alternative.

Angsty Holiday Introspection: Christmas Eve with the Hermits

Here I sit, alone with my fellow Hermit, each of us typing on our separate keyboards, listening to a dog bark in the distance. Ah, Christmas Eve.

More than one of my friends, and one family member in particular, has asked why I’ve gone out of town for the past three Christmases. So, I’ll answer that instead of giving another boring nature report (I’ll do that tomorrow; I did cool stuff today). The short answer is: self preservation. The longer answer, and how I plan to deal with my holiday angst follows.

We interrupt this angst for a cowboy Christmas display. Carry on.

Background on how I’m wired: One of my major “love languages” is gifts. I’m one of those people who hang on to things for years, just because they remind me of the person who gave them. I have my Kathy Dettwyler Faberge pansy thing, my cake cover and weird quilts from my Granny Kendall, a pod sculpture and a goddess from my friends in Illinois…on and on.

Because of this, I always loved Christmas. I treasured so many gifts, even ones I didn’t actually like, because I knew some family member or friend took time and effort to choose it. That made me feel loved. I looked forward to my sister’s gifts, as well as those from my brother and later my boyfriend, because they were just what I liked (all three of them have the gift knack, which I don’t think I actually got). I just loved being with family and enjoying each other as we exchanged thoughtful and fun gifts (we were never much for expensive ones).

Pause to enjoy a ranch in Bandera County.

When my kids came along, I just loved buying and making gifts for them, because I loved them so much and wanted to see them happy. Same for the rest of the family.

At some point, I realized I was going way overboard and buying too many things for too many people I cared for. It became clear when I found many carefully chosen and hand-made gifts discarded when Declan’s first girlfriend moved out. I realized many of the nice/carefully chosen things I’d given my own kids weren’t treasured; they were just tossed in a pile in their rooms to be found when I cleaned them out. (I KNOW some kid gifts are just for fun and don’t last forever!)

Then it dawned on me that no one in my current family was big on giving gifts. I guess it isn’t their love language. (My spouse likes to give surprise gifts, but doesn’t like Christmas.)

PLUS, I always wanted to have a wonderful family meal for Christmas. When it began to also include all the neighbors and many friends, I got overwhelmed, though, and the planning started to stress me out. The last time I hosted a dinner, I looked out and saw three people cooking and serving like crazy and the rest just staring at each other.

That was 2016, the same year that half the people invited didn’t even have the courtesy to bring a token gift or food contribution. I’m all for giving. Honest. It just suddenly struck me as really unequal, and I felt like I was giving like crazy without even thanks (I am sure I was thanked; I was over-exaggerating, a thing I have been known to do.)

I looked around after that Christmas dinner and exchange of 90% gifts from me and very few gifts for me. I said this isn’t working for me. It’s also not working for them. Why am I trying to give them the Christmas experience I want? What do they actually want? I decided that next Christmas would be different.

High-quality fencing is all one needs for Christmas.

The next year I booked us a week in New Mexico, and my kids, the current partner of Declan, Lee, and Anita all showed up. We drove around, hiked, shopped, relaxed, and played games. It was great.

Ha Ha! Today Didn’t Suck!

What do you know! A group of people determined to have fun despite setbacks CAN do it. My little department at work is like that little engine that could in the kids’ story. We just keep on doing good stuff and having a mostly positive attitude.

We had three people with sickness or sick children, but ended up having a lot of fun at the little party we had at the Bobcat Lair house this afternoon.

It helps to have a pro party planner on the team. Maggie chose a great caterer who brought a traditional holiday meal to the house, while we did appetizers and desserts. I picked out decor items. It ended up so pretty!

And I just wish I could make green beans as good as theirs. Yum. I managed not to overdo carbs, too! But I enjoyed myself!

Jen dressed tastefully but festively. I screamed Christmas.

The best part was our white elephant exchange. We encouraged fun and funny gifts, and for a small group we had our share of great ones.

Beautiful sardines. Jason said he’d eat them.

Marlene says, “Hmm,” about the Mac and cheese

In the food department, Anita and I found a sampler of sardines. And Maggie brought a dozen Velveeta Shells and Cheese. There was a hilarious game of Golden Girls Trivial Pursuit and one called Kenny G Keeping It Saxy. That got stolen a lot.

Vlassic was the most popular boy in the room. He hardly barked at all, and only stole one giant cookie. I’m proud of my dog.

What I enjoyed most from the humans was seeing all of us relaxed and happy. I work with some very smart and humorous people. It’s sure good to enjoy each other and get to know each other better. It helps that we could all talk together, because there weren’t too many or too few.

Whoops

When I wrote yesterday about a feeling of dread, more than one reader responded that they felt clumsy at those times.

Doom came to this squirrel. Great shot of the black vulture by Anita!

Sure enough, today was full of minor oops errors and even a major one. And it wasn’t just me. My poor friends and colleagues dealt with it, too.

I got Maggie this fine hat as a consolation for not getting to go to Party City with me.

There were also disappointments and such at work. Even the good news of the day went sour. I couldn’t even make things better by shopping for our department party (at the Bobcat Lair) with coworker Maggie, because traffic got weird.

I’ll just cheer you up with photos of our Christmas lights, all from a box we found in the garage.

But hey, I remembered lots of positive things at therapy, too, and managed to go out with Anita to get the last party and family gifts just in time. I wish I hadn’t broken a delicate glass orb, though (the major error of the day), but I only got a small cut!

I even put lights in the cedar trees ( ashe junipers).

So yeah, those feelings of doom seem to portend something. But all in all, I’m grateful to the people who brighten my days.

Those blurs are snowflakes. Wish I had more!

I’ll be way more interesting after tomorrow’s party! In the meantime I hope you like our hodgepodge of holiday lights.

Oh, Christmas Branch?

Here’s something fun and positive! Last week, the building where I work put up their lobby decorations. They are really nice and subtle this year, with logs and sticks as prominent elements. One decoration caught my eye:

These sturdy twigs with a few glass ornaments on them are lovely and simple.

No matter how hard we tried, we could NOT get the giant stocking left over from many years ago to attach to the backhoe.

They brought back memories of my mother’s favorite decoration back when we lived in south Florida, where people placed a small dead tree painted white in front of their picture window. From it, they hung lovely satin balls on ribbon, with a spotlight on the whole thing. It was so pretty.

When I got home to the Hermits’ Rest, I focused on outdoor things. Kathleen and I re-used many decorations yesterday to brighten up the ranch. As we did that, I assessed our tree situation. The bare-branched “nature tree” we keep up all year around finally quit lighting up, so it really can’t be a Christmas tree this year. It lasted many years, since we first started building the house, so I can’t be too upset with it.

Small-Town Parades ROCK!

Wow! We sure had a fun and exhausting time yesterday getting ready to participate in our very first Cameron Christmas parade. Even more fun was the parade itself.

Getting the float ready. Even Vlassic’s in there, somewhere.

During the week, Kathleen and Mandi made lots of signs for the float, so once Lee and Kathleen very carefully got the thing down to our office, we finished decorating it. We added more and more lights, which was good, because we hadn’t actually realized the parade is in the dark.

Thanksgiving Hello

If you’re in the USA I hope you’re reflecting on what you’re grateful for today. Right now I’m grateful that USUALLY Facebook works great out here. Today I can’t greet anyone!

I’m grateful for whoever shows up today to eat with me.

So far, it’s rainy, and some of our guests may not make it. I hope that 29-pound turkey wasn’t a mistake! But I’ll just enjoy the day!

My wish for you is that you cherish what is good in your life and learn from the challenges. I’m grateful for friends and family who’ve reached out to me already…my stepmom, my step sister, my brother, a couple of Cameron friends, the book club, and even my favorite undergrad professor. Wow. Love is everywhere.

Be safe, eat well, and hug someone who likes to be hugged.

Hugs-giving OR What Are Your Traditions?

Apparently the DOG tradition is “Thankstuffing” according to the Bark Box people, who sent us a nice stuffed turkey toy for Vlassic to destroy.

Admittedly, I am one of those people really uncomfortable with the traditional US Thanksgiving origin story, especially since I have ancestors who were there on both sides of that particular piece of history. Probably most of us who are descended from the early settlers in the US are like that, since the settlers and the people who were already there seemed to hook up a lot when they weren’t attacking each other. As with most historical eras, I have a feeling that there were people who were good to each other and those who were not. Anyway…

The cactus in the kitchen window also wants to celebrate. Ooh, Aah.

…what I do like about Thanksgiving is the idea of an entire day to remember to be thankful for the abundance you have, your family, and your friends. That’s what I celebrate every year…that and delicious food, especially my oyster cornbread dressing and my orange/ginger cranberry sauce. I could probably get through the day with just those and a baked sweet potato.