Christmas is, if nothing else, a hiatus, and it also demands hiatuses. Spittin’ Grits is therefore experiencing a hiatus.
Hiatus is a useful word, by the way. For example, it allows me not to say “Christmas is a real headache.” Which it is. Christmas has become too stressful, too costly, too loaded. Yet it is billed everywhere as the warmest, most joyful, most spiritual, most valuable family time of the year.
A lot of people out there know something I don’t know, or I’m just cynical.
Were it not for our 2-1/2- year-old granddaughter whom we have custody of, I probably wouldn’t be having it, except for cooking on the 25th. For her, I’m throwing a Christmas this year. We have watched The Polar Express a million times, talked about how Santa is watching for good behavior, and put up a tree and other decorations. My silver flatware, which I use maybe once a year, is sitting piled up, waiting to be polished for the first time in, I don’t know, five years or so. Yeh, I’m cynical.
I put up this mini-lighted garland in my foyer over the mirrored wall, which I have to get help with nowadays. The day Joanna Leigh came in from day-care school and saw it, her eyes lit up. She walked over to it, felt the fake needles, looked at the lights, and said “real pretty.” That sort of makes it worth the effort, I guess.
Then she took a mini-light, poked it on the palm of her hand, and said, “I get flu shot.”
What???? A flu shot? She didn’t even get a flu shot; she got the mist. I have no idea where on earth that came from.
The next day, I got the den tree up. She came in, her eyes widened, she walked over to it, and said, “I give Teddy a flu shot.” (For an introduction to Teddy, see the recent, November 11, post, De Facto Parenting, Part III.)
Christmas is memories, for sure. Some good, some bad. Christmas is family time indeed, but it also brings out the worst in individuals and their family dynamics. This Christmas will be the Christmas of the mini-light flu shot.
So, go have yourself a merry little Christmas NOW. And I’ll take a short HIATUS.
I appreciate your visiting Spittin’ Grits and I hope you’ll check in after Christmas.
Meanwhile, don’t forget about this year’s New Year’s Eve gift of a Blue Moon. See the September 6 post, The Worm Moon.
