GETTING READY

December 8, 2020

Signs of the approaching holiday are beginning to show up here.  I made cookies yesterday.

This was a recipe from the Pioneer Woman that didn't turn out as well as I expected, but I wanted to make a couple of kinds of different cookies so I could leave a bag for the mailman, to thank him for all the work he's been doing for me (picking up lots of outgoing mail each day) I don't know if mailmen will be eating home made cookies in this coronavirus world, but at least I am doing something as a thank you.

We decided that with only the four of us here, we wouldn't buy a big real tree, but would go with the small artificial tree I bought several years ago.  So there won't be any tree in the living room, where we never are, but instead a little tree and Santa to put in the window, to look festive.

Ned set up the little tree in the family rooom and we have been decorating it for 3 days.

The first ornaments that always go on a tree, big or small are those I call the "necropsy ornaments."

This is our dog Seymour's favorite ball, the collars from two of our now deceased dogs, a smiley face necklace that Paul gave me one year--smiley faces were our joke.  And a black leather jacket with "bitch" in pink on the back.  I was determined to have a leather jacket on the tree the year David died and I even went to the Castro District in San Francisco, sure that I could find one there, but I couldn't.  I mentioned it on CompuServe (this was before Facebook and before Funny the World) and someone sent me this jacket.  Not sure I would have chosen something with "bitch" on it, but I suspect David would be happy with it.

Then this year I actually bought an ornament.  We have far too many already, but how could a critic fail to buy this review of the year 2020.

Also each year we put on the 7 dwarfs which my friend Kathleen made for me many years ago, a reminder of the  La Leche League convention we hosted 30 or so years ago where we joked that the 7 founding mothers of LLL were the 7 dwarfs.  Only we only have 6 dwarfs now.  Dopey was lost a long time ago, but we still put them on the tree.

The rest of the ornaments all have some special meaning, like the 49er player, musical instruments, the Enterprise with a recording of Spock wishing us a merry Christmas (ironic, since Leonard Nimoy was Jewish), and other special ornaments that were added to denote some special event that happened the year they were bought.

We've had egg nog -- another tradition, but not the recording of Bing Crosby's Christmas songs, since I had the DISH traditional carols on the TV instead.  I'll have to play Bing at some point.  It can't be Christmas without Bing Crosby.

So we are ready for the holiday.  Such as it will be this year.