Tag Archives: Frida Kahlo

Back in the saddle

I know. This is bad. No entries for weeks! My only excuse and the bane of my existence this time of year, is Christmas. Ugh. It takes over my life every holiday season no matter how hard I try to avoid its demands on my time and psyche. I know I’m not alone in dreading the annual holiday tide. Christ, it’s long. I swear it begins earlier every year. Retailers start in with the Christmas music right after Halloween. People start shopping and talking about Christmas in November, by early December they’re having their obligatory office parties and by Christmas eve I’m so sick of the whole thing, I just want to fly away like a red-nosed reindeer. This quote pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter. “If I had been the Virgin Mary, I would have said No.”–Stevie Smith. Or, “Happy Fucking Holidays” and I think a lot of people must say that. By the way, don’t virgins always say “No?”

We were all quite ambivalent this year. It was *magical* for me as a child but that is tempered by memories of drunken uncles fighting or falling on the tree and my parents being more broke than usual for months afterward. So the three of us debated but couldn’t agree on whether to have a tree or not. Finally Josef decided he did–Oh Tannenbaum–and so went out and procured one. A lot of work to put up but I have to admit, it looks and smells divine and we can let it rot on our woodpile in the back acre. I think next year we should buy a live one and plant it post-Christmas. At any rate, we just moved in August and this was to be our first Christmas in the new house. We had been planning a bohemian-themed gathering, with absinthe and exquisite corpses and finally had the opportunity to host it around the weekend of the winter solstice. Think we had this party and focused on it as a way to bypass some of the holiday madness but it caught up with us a few days later as we scrambled to get gifts for the children in our lives at the very least, and then wrapping, cooking, and on and on. We did have the pleasure of celebrating New Year’s eve in Whislter with my best friend Cathy at her fantastic new house that took nearly four years to build.

Busy week of meetings. Drove to Continue reading