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Thank you for sharing your holiday observations with me, both happy and subdued. It is a pleasure to have a window into so many of your lives. And your walks in the woods.
Christmas eve's gather with Christine's sister (D--) and her husband was pleasant, with Christine's chile receiving rave reviews. We embarked on an archeology project and found the kitchen table. I set with a combination of wedding dishes (coffee and desert plates, in case D-- brought a desert) and our every-day porcelain (because three nice bowls and only one chip on the fourth). I would love to find a plain or slightly decorated dish set that would go well with our wedding china, Noritake's Sterling cove, with a cream porcelain body with a platinum, grey, and white simple rim treatment. The cream porcelain is hard to match in other porcelain. We tried the colorwave pattern in stoneware, but the cream stoneware would get all marked up with flatware marks.
I keep wandering off to look at dishes. We have plenty of dishes: a huge set of a Noritake southwest pattern from my grandmother in a terra cotta color and some other pieces i picked up when i moved her things out of her home in a Dansk southwest pattern in turquoise. They are OK together.
I don't know how much my mother must have spent on dishes to have all the different settings for ... eight? more? that she had for setting such lovely tables. Part of me wishes i could set lovely tables like that -- but then for 360 some meals of the year it's just the two of us, and we have plenty of dishes for our usual dining. Sometimes i wish for the
Christmas Day, I woke a little earlier than usual the next morning (5:45) and drove over to my sister's to join her and Dad. I forgot to bring gifts. (Doh!) We settled on the couch and soon after all the rest of her family joined us, no one wanting to sleep in if guests were present. They opened their gifts, and i headed home at about 7:30 enjoying the morning light sparkling on thick frost.
Christine and i sat together as we do every morning, a meditative and comforting practice, this time an extended sit (if i recall correctly). She had already fed the cats and Carrie. I then went and made a danish, another wreath from crescent roll dough, this time filled with cream cheese and cranberries and pecans, with an orange icing. Just fabulous.
She wrestled with elephants but we had a pleasant exchange of our own gifts and a quiet day. "Pleasant." It's all in the frame, can i let myself be happy when i know she is unhappy? Yes, i cannot put her in the position of pretending, and i can see the spiral of guilt when she thinks her elephants are also damaging me. They don't leave me unaffected, but i can make the choice to see the pleasant, the pleasurable, the joy and focus on that. I see Christine trying so hard to be in the best place she can be. I can be in the best place i can be.
I thought my sister's family would come by to exchange gifts and waited around until it was time to walk Carrie. Dad had gone home early apparently. Christine and i walked Carrie to the nearby Zen Center (Christine's usual Sunday walk). It includes following a trail in the woods by the creek, and i admired the ice on the creek - unusual to see here, at least in the last four mild winters.
I exchanged some text with my sister and about an hour after we got back, she and her family stopped by for hugs and to literally exchange gifts. Then i drove Dad's gift over to him and hung out for a little bit.
The Christmas work holiday on Monday, i was coughing a lot and very tired. In the morning i confronted some emotions i was having about Dad: his obsessive avoidance of dealing with grief is ... weird. Yes, this is better than drinking too much, or sitting in a dark room, or so many other things. But there's something ... objectifying in how he's relating to these women. It's not about sex, he's looking for emotional intimacy, but, i dunno, it really seems he isn't thinking about what he brings to them.
Christmas eve's gather with Christine's sister (D--) and her husband was pleasant, with Christine's chile receiving rave reviews. We embarked on an archeology project and found the kitchen table. I set with a combination of wedding dishes (coffee and desert plates, in case D-- brought a desert) and our every-day porcelain (because three nice bowls and only one chip on the fourth). I would love to find a plain or slightly decorated dish set that would go well with our wedding china, Noritake's Sterling cove, with a cream porcelain body with a platinum, grey, and white simple rim treatment. The cream porcelain is hard to match in other porcelain. We tried the colorwave pattern in stoneware, but the cream stoneware would get all marked up with flatware marks.
I keep wandering off to look at dishes. We have plenty of dishes: a huge set of a Noritake southwest pattern from my grandmother in a terra cotta color and some other pieces i picked up when i moved her things out of her home in a Dansk southwest pattern in turquoise. They are OK together.
I don't know how much my mother must have spent on dishes to have all the different settings for ... eight? more? that she had for setting such lovely tables. Part of me wishes i could set lovely tables like that -- but then for 360 some meals of the year it's just the two of us, and we have plenty of dishes for our usual dining. Sometimes i wish for the
Christmas Day, I woke a little earlier than usual the next morning (5:45) and drove over to my sister's to join her and Dad. I forgot to bring gifts. (Doh!) We settled on the couch and soon after all the rest of her family joined us, no one wanting to sleep in if guests were present. They opened their gifts, and i headed home at about 7:30 enjoying the morning light sparkling on thick frost.
Christine and i sat together as we do every morning, a meditative and comforting practice, this time an extended sit (if i recall correctly). She had already fed the cats and Carrie. I then went and made a danish, another wreath from crescent roll dough, this time filled with cream cheese and cranberries and pecans, with an orange icing. Just fabulous.
She wrestled with elephants but we had a pleasant exchange of our own gifts and a quiet day. "Pleasant." It's all in the frame, can i let myself be happy when i know she is unhappy? Yes, i cannot put her in the position of pretending, and i can see the spiral of guilt when she thinks her elephants are also damaging me. They don't leave me unaffected, but i can make the choice to see the pleasant, the pleasurable, the joy and focus on that. I see Christine trying so hard to be in the best place she can be. I can be in the best place i can be.
I thought my sister's family would come by to exchange gifts and waited around until it was time to walk Carrie. Dad had gone home early apparently. Christine and i walked Carrie to the nearby Zen Center (Christine's usual Sunday walk). It includes following a trail in the woods by the creek, and i admired the ice on the creek - unusual to see here, at least in the last four mild winters.
I exchanged some text with my sister and about an hour after we got back, she and her family stopped by for hugs and to literally exchange gifts. Then i drove Dad's gift over to him and hung out for a little bit.
The Christmas work holiday on Monday, i was coughing a lot and very tired. In the morning i confronted some emotions i was having about Dad: his obsessive avoidance of dealing with grief is ... weird. Yes, this is better than drinking too much, or sitting in a dark room, or so many other things. But there's something ... objectifying in how he's relating to these women. It's not about sex, he's looking for emotional intimacy, but, i dunno, it really seems he isn't thinking about what he brings to them.