Shiny

[verin_the_brown]

So it’s December and I think I can safely say that we’re all eagerly awaiting the solstice and the slow increase in the length of days. When I lived with my parents, we celebrated Christmas in our own secular way, and I liked “the season” a lot. I liked Christmas day a lot too because we got presents and what kid doesn’t like that. Most of all,

Comments

Shiny

[merlin_sleeps]

My best memory from childhood Christmases was always getting an exotic present from my mysterious aunt who lived in Switzerland. (Her husband came back to the United States; she didn't.) The present was always art supplies, such as colored pencils, calligraphy pens or pastels -- and oil pastels, which I had never known existed.

So I would spend Christmas afternoons drawing. There was nearly always snow on the ground but a sunny sky, and the bright light was the best of the whole year for drawing. And my mother always put out a bowl of many kinds of grapes (never any other time), so I would concentrate on drawing those grapes in all their subtle shadings of amber to burgundy or gold to burnt sienna.

My best adult Christmas memories involve being quirky and different, like the time we got a new garden hose and mounted it on the fireplace brick as a Christmas wreath. Or the origami birds on the Christmas tree. I'd begin tearing out New Yorker pages in November, when the magazine started getting fat with lush ads. I'd cut squares of interesting patterns from the ads and fold a few birds each evening until Christmas.

Maybe you can find a Senior Quantitative Analyst action figure for the top of your tree. It does sound kinda angelic. Way to go!

Re: Shiny

[verin_the_brown]

Maybe you can find a Senior Quantitative Analyst action figure for the top of your tree.

I think the closest thing I have to that is the "Supermom" action figure you got me, which I keep here at work.