Sunday Scribblings post-prompt "December"
December
A lot of people see December as a dismal time of the year, right up until the week of Christmas and New Years. It's usually dark and overcast and freezing cold. Most of the time there's at least some snow on the ground. It's a time for bundling up in so many layers you can't bend your elbows when you are forced to go outside. If you're walking, you're leaning forward, with your head down, picking your way over gleaming sheets of uneven ice or clumps of slush in dirty heaps floating in water stained black by passing traffic. The trees are bare and stark against the leaden skies and brittle, brown skeletons dot lawns and flowerbeds as the remains of spring and summer's verdant glory.
I welcome December as a time to read and write. Even without keeping any kind of track, I'm certain that I make gallons of hot tea and hot cocoa. I love to curl up on the couch or on the bed with a good book, a thick blanket, and a little plate of cheese and crackers. It's also a good time to catch up on watching movies and TV shows, and to make big pots of chili and vats of soup along with homemade bread. Comfort food reigns supreme in the bitter, howling month of December in our house.
I don't want to be a complete homebody in December, though. While I prefer to have my Christmas shopping done before the first of November and a good start on making the Christmas presents that I am going to be creating because I don't want to set foot in any store until well after January 1st, I do like to drag him out for our own little Christmas tradition.
Once December is underway, I'll get the MP3 player out and download a special playlist. Then, on a clear winter night, when the roads are clean and dry, I'll convince him to start up the car and get it all warmed up while I pour myself some hot tea and him some coffee into big, insulated travel mugs. Once we're ready to go, we get into the car, I plug in the adapter into the stereo system, and we listen to Christmas carols while we drive around and look at all the Christmas lights. We always drive through some where for dinner and buy ourselves burgers and fries, then continue on, until we feel that we've reasonably covered all of the hotbeds of holiday electrical activity. It all started on our first December together, on one of those nights when we weren't sure what we wanted to do. I made the suggestion and he went along with it, discovering, in the process, that my favorite traditional Christmas carol is “What Child is This?” and my favorite non-traditional carols are “Snoopy's Christmas” and “Christmas at Ground Zero.” I am also inordinately fond of “It Doesn't Have to Be that Way”, for which I blame my mother, who exposed me, at a very early age, to the magic of Jim Croce. He knew most of the words to most of the carols, at any rate, and sang along with them and me, while we drove aimlessly to see the displays that ranged from beautiful and elegant to gaudy and overdone to completely half-hearted and very nearly pointless.
Ironically enough, we don't put up lights of our own. I'm too clumsy to be doing anything like that on my own, especially since I can hardly wrap a Christmas gift-despite being able to make fantastic sock critters and do Viking wire-knitting pieces. He's come to accept that anything I wrap will end up lumpy, misshapen, and oddly taped, unless it started out as a square or rectangle, so, unless it's a gift for him, he does the wrapping. He says that he spends enough time on ladders cleaning out gutters and rescuing dumb cats who can't seem to figure out how to get off the roof after they've chased squirrels up there, when he's not trying to trim away tree limbs that are dead and scaring him every time the wind blows or a storm rolls in. He prefers not to add potential electrocution to the list of possible hazards outside. So, we don't put up Christmas lights. We do, however, have a fantastic assortment of ridiculously cute Peanuts window clings that adorn just about every window of our house.
I find December to be a comforting month, one that contains more fun than just the general Christmas stuff that everyone looks forward to doing. It can be productive, too. I look forward to December for my own reasons and, I know, so does he.
A lot of people see December as a dismal time of the year, right up until the week of Christmas and New Years. It's usually dark and overcast and freezing cold. Most of the time there's at least some snow on the ground. It's a time for bundling up in so many layers you can't bend your elbows when you are forced to go outside. If you're walking, you're leaning forward, with your head down, picking your way over gleaming sheets of uneven ice or clumps of slush in dirty heaps floating in water stained black by passing traffic. The trees are bare and stark against the leaden skies and brittle, brown skeletons dot lawns and flowerbeds as the remains of spring and summer's verdant glory.
I welcome December as a time to read and write. Even without keeping any kind of track, I'm certain that I make gallons of hot tea and hot cocoa. I love to curl up on the couch or on the bed with a good book, a thick blanket, and a little plate of cheese and crackers. It's also a good time to catch up on watching movies and TV shows, and to make big pots of chili and vats of soup along with homemade bread. Comfort food reigns supreme in the bitter, howling month of December in our house.
I don't want to be a complete homebody in December, though. While I prefer to have my Christmas shopping done before the first of November and a good start on making the Christmas presents that I am going to be creating because I don't want to set foot in any store until well after January 1st, I do like to drag him out for our own little Christmas tradition.
Once December is underway, I'll get the MP3 player out and download a special playlist. Then, on a clear winter night, when the roads are clean and dry, I'll convince him to start up the car and get it all warmed up while I pour myself some hot tea and him some coffee into big, insulated travel mugs. Once we're ready to go, we get into the car, I plug in the adapter into the stereo system, and we listen to Christmas carols while we drive around and look at all the Christmas lights. We always drive through some where for dinner and buy ourselves burgers and fries, then continue on, until we feel that we've reasonably covered all of the hotbeds of holiday electrical activity. It all started on our first December together, on one of those nights when we weren't sure what we wanted to do. I made the suggestion and he went along with it, discovering, in the process, that my favorite traditional Christmas carol is “What Child is This?” and my favorite non-traditional carols are “Snoopy's Christmas” and “Christmas at Ground Zero.” I am also inordinately fond of “It Doesn't Have to Be that Way”, for which I blame my mother, who exposed me, at a very early age, to the magic of Jim Croce. He knew most of the words to most of the carols, at any rate, and sang along with them and me, while we drove aimlessly to see the displays that ranged from beautiful and elegant to gaudy and overdone to completely half-hearted and very nearly pointless.
Ironically enough, we don't put up lights of our own. I'm too clumsy to be doing anything like that on my own, especially since I can hardly wrap a Christmas gift-despite being able to make fantastic sock critters and do Viking wire-knitting pieces. He's come to accept that anything I wrap will end up lumpy, misshapen, and oddly taped, unless it started out as a square or rectangle, so, unless it's a gift for him, he does the wrapping. He says that he spends enough time on ladders cleaning out gutters and rescuing dumb cats who can't seem to figure out how to get off the roof after they've chased squirrels up there, when he's not trying to trim away tree limbs that are dead and scaring him every time the wind blows or a storm rolls in. He prefers not to add potential electrocution to the list of possible hazards outside. So, we don't put up Christmas lights. We do, however, have a fantastic assortment of ridiculously cute Peanuts window clings that adorn just about every window of our house.
I find December to be a comforting month, one that contains more fun than just the general Christmas stuff that everyone looks forward to doing. It can be productive, too. I look forward to December for my own reasons and, I know, so does he.