Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Snippets from a Very Strange Pre-Christmas Season

My seminary writing is over, my grades are turned in, so why do I feel like I can't compose a coherent blog post?  Let me record some snippets from this very strange pre-Christmas season that I don't want to lose:

--My hips, wrists and fingers are sore today in weird ways.  I was on my feet a lot of yesterday, putting baseball caps into cellophane bags and twisting them with a twist tie that was half an inch too short, but usable if I squeezed hard enough.  It's a winter student appreciation event.  I am not a baseball cap person myself, but many students seemed touched.

--I sent this Facebook message to a colleague and friend, which seems to perfectly capture what I'm feeling these days:  "Up early enough to make chocolate cake for Mollie's b'day--budget your calories accordingly. Or, what the heck, we're going into year 3 of a global pandemic, so maybe we're not paying attention to calories anymore."

--I have yet to bake Christmas cookies or bread, so it seems strange to make a chocolate cake.  But I have milk that I need to use up, and cake seems more fitting for a birthday at work, and baking a cake from scratch is much easier than cookies or bread.

--Our condo building put a pool table and other games into the major sitting room downstairs, and my spouse and I have been playing the occasional game of pool and/or PacMan.  It's a fun thing to do for free that we wouldn't be able to do in other living situations.

--I've been enjoying seeing neighborhood lights as I walk each morning.  I feel like I should send everyone a thank you note.  It keeps me motivated to keep walking each morning, even though it's been unseasonably warm and humid.  The weather, too, is a disconnect from the season.  It always is.

--I made this tweet/Facebook post yesterday:  "Because life is not unsettled enough, we are under a gale warning until 10 p.m. tonight. Granted, I do not have a boat, but I don't remember ever having a gale warning in late December in South Florida."  Happily, the weather just seemed a bit breezier than usual, with a spat of rain here and there.  It could have been much worse.

--We've taken a different approach to an Advent wreath this year, since lit candles on a wreath don't feel safe in our rental condo.  We have a balcony, and on 4 rails, we've wrapped blue lights.  Week 1, we plugged in one rail's strand, two weeks = 2 rails, and so on.  It's been lovely.

--My mom and dad called me at work, and my first words after "Hello" were, "Are you sick?"  In this time of a new variant and cases skyrocketing, that's my love language, my way of saying, "Please don't die on me just yet."

--Most holiday seasons leave me wistful for the time when I had more children in my life and make me wonder if I should have had children of my own.  This holiday season, I'm glad that there aren't many children.  We are having trouble being festive, and I'm glad not to have the pressure of making magic for the children.

--Yet throughout the days, for the past few weeks, I have had the Magnificat in my head, the words of Mary:  "Surely from now on, all generations will call me blessed" (Luke 1:  48b).

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