Thursday, December 17, 2009

Christmas Cheer

Anyone got some to spare?

Every time I look at a calendar, I have a hard time believing that it's December. Let alone more than halfway through December. This year has passed unbelievably fast, and I'm proud to say it's a year in which I'm pretty sure I read more books than watched movies. I wrote two books this year--neither contracted, but it was something to keep me in "writing shape" in between contract stuff. I'd hoped to write three, but a variety of stresses these last few months have made "fun" writing a little harder.

For those of you who are on Twitter, you've probably seen my kitty tweets. Vet still has no idea what's wrong with her, and naturally my kitty-mama worrying has stressed me right back into the cold I had at the end of November (which I don't think ever really went away). *reaches for tissue* This, of course, makes me not want to shop for the last of my Christmas list, or bake cookies/fudge like I do every year.

So how about spreading some holiday cheer? Jokes? Funny stories? What's something fun you did/are doing for Christmas this year?

Talk to me. :)

3 comments:

Unknown said...

This happened a while back when I was at university in Ottawa (Canada).

I was in my new apartment, but not really in the Christmas mood. Parents breaking up at Christmas, divorcing over the next Christmas, with ongoing fights over the next few Christmases'll do that to you. Anyway, the point was I was feeling VERY Bah Humbug! I had no decorations up and was feeling very blah about the whole thing.

On Christmas Eve my dad decided he'd had enough of it. Yes, he admitted he was partly responsible for my Humbug-ness, but I should get over it. He insisted I come over to his place to decorate the huge tree he'd gotten. We actually had a lot of fun and I was looking forward to going back the next day for dinner. He sent back to my place that night with a pine tree branch that had fallen from his tree and orders to 'at least do SOMETHING at your place'.

I went home, taped the branch to the door in my living room, decorated it with a few balls and tinsel (which the cat ate... and you can figure out how that ended up) and went to bed.

That night there was the biggest ice storm that Eastern Canada had seen in a while. Trees fell over from the weight of the ice, roads were skating rinks and power was out over most of the area. Welcome to Christmas morning!

We'd spent hours the night before decorating, preparing assorted dishes (ready to pop in oven) and all the power was out at Dad's place. Disaster.

But wait! I had power at mine!

While he piled presents and food into his car to drove over, I called around to other friends to see if they were okay. By the time the turkey was cooked we had 3 other friends over - their plans having been ruined by no electricity and cold apartments. So we ended up celebrating Christmas in a squishy apartment, under a poorly decorated branch and it was one of the best Christmases I can remember having.

The funny? Well the irony is obvious, but the line that stole the show no matter how many times it was repeated that day? My dad describing his drive over to my place, saying "you would not believe how many turkeys were on the road today!" He wasn't referring to bad drivers; he was refering to people driving around, bird in pan, trying hard to find a working oven.

Hope your kit is better soon! I am alone with Christmas with just my two for company. I have a few new toys for them and I hope they are going to be in a playful mood.

Kelly Meding/Kelly Meade said...

That's a terrific story! Thank you for sharing.

ETA on the kitty: I'm driving her to see a specialist tomorrow morning that's 2.5 hours away (because I decided to live in Hicksville, USA). High on the vet's list is pancreatitis. :(

Mardel said...

It's extremely hard when your pet is sickly. They are like children to us.

Sorry, I don't have a funny X-mas story unless you consider grown children getting upset because their mommy (me) decided to stop doing stockings (come on! they're grown=ups!). That was two years ago, when I decided I'd rather spend the stocking money on presents for grandchildren...(one at the time, only a 10 months old). Well the next year, my then 29 year old son came over with bags of candy, small gifts and threw (lightly threw) the stuff down on the couch and said "There mom, do the stockings now!". He helped me do the stockings. The extremely ironic and funny thing is this...This year they really are not getting stockings from me. hahahahaha. I love them though!