This Past Week, Part I
Christmas has been everywhere and absolutely nowhere.
This year was really hard in that retrospect for me and I'd been doing my very best for most of the last two weeks not to look at it much because while I was working Monday, Thursday, Friday of that week (December 23rd, 26th, 27th), my best friend and my mother were working every day this week. My extended family all gathered together in New England, again, for last Friday through this one, and my stepfather flew up to Dallas to see his daughter & granddaughters Christmas.
My Christmas was set up months and months ago to be very bare, with occasional highlights. Which is, unsurprisingly, what it turned out to be.
Friday: Sibling Christmas & A Yule Surprise
Unexpectedly (or more, not quite certain to 'when' but aware, maybe even 'hopeful' something would happen with my step-siblings after the non-step sibling appearance of anything at Thanksgiving) a week or two before last Friday a FB message party started with the youngest claiming her house and everyone (family and friends) to be there last Friday, and bring this thing with you.
Which was everyone bringing gifts and something for the meal (I ended up bringing a bottle of wine, truffle kisses, and a dark chocolate orange). Dinner was large in people, medium in dishes, and pretty wide on fun. The explosion of kids, gifts, jokes and playing with everything was pretty great after dinner, too.
After all was said and done I got to drive my step-brother home, too, because he needed a ride and because my gift arrived at their house in the middle of the say while he was already at the younger step-sister's house. I got to see their house, and learn they live barely ten minutes from my house, have an amazing book and teacup collection, and fawn all over my gift like a five year old.
Went home after that, intending to fall asleep dead to the world, but ended up instead told to wait up because Jason (Earl's boyfriend) had a small Yule surprise for us. Which was really lovely, both that he decided to do one (being Catholic) and because it turned out to be an amazing, hilarious, laughter filled little evening playing with new toys.
Presents from sibling night:
Kathleen - Dragonology
Jennifer - Lord of the Ring Pez Set
Barbara - *Large* stuffed frog
James & Jessica - Doctor Who Tardis Teapot and Tardis Tea ball
Jason - Red Darth Vader Light saber Chopsticks
Saturday: Haven for Hope
Saturday morning was mostly an all clear zone, because my afternoon/evening was spoken for, or so I'd thought until a knock on my bedroom door had me up and out for breakfast early with Earl and Jason before Jason would have to head back up to Austin. Marvelous breakfast out was had for and by all, and I got to have a slightly shorter free afternoon before I needed to meet up with my stepfather for the afternoon.
While it is still a tentative and newly fledged thing, this thing where my stepfather and I get along and do things together, and even more important -- alone together, he decided this year to invite me to Christmas in the Streets with him which is through my parents church. The church makes all this food, and then they take it to Haven for Hope and spend the night serving all the people there.
It was an amazing day, and an even more moving night. I spent a good half of it handing out post-dinner goodie bags and talking to fifth-grade daughter of one of the women enrolled in the program there. I had so many moments, and I cataloged so many different type of emotions people had to us giving to them -- from boundless, bare gratitude to that wary, tense frustration or annoyance.
I made the executive decision when children, carrying the poinsettia’s we'd brought as decorations, came up to me, holding them like one would imagine someone would a teddy bear, asking if they could keep them that the answer was yes. That if someone wanted to yell at me later, they could, but that they looked so sad and so awed in turns, and I had this gorgeous tree at home I'd been all but ignoring -- they were allowed to take a poinsettia back to their rooms and keep them.
In the end we served somewhere around 300-400 people, and in the end, mostly I wanted to go home and hug my mother and just not let go, because this year has whipped me and dragged me through the mud and there are cracks all over my foundation, and she has yelled at me at least twice this year about not telling her i needed help when I went without something for food for weeks, but I have never been here.
Not this terrible year, and not even the year when I was 19 and they kicked me out, under complicated post-event circumstances. I've always been safe, always had a roof, always known if I could batter down my pride my parents would give me money for groceries, or take me out for a meal, always want to know I'm okay wherever I am and would do whatever they could to help if they knew what was wrong.
I've never been here, and that's a gift I take for granted all too often. That none of those are free or given like air. Somewhere mixed in with all of that, I've also given my name to a few of the groups at the church who come serve at Haven for Hope about 3 hours every month. I'm not sure I'm ready for every month, but I'd definitely like to do more of this next year.
The Rest of that weekend / Time before Christmas Eve-Christmas
I came home after Haven for Hope and treated Earl to dinner at Olive Garden for Yule (even though they sent us each home with a left-overs box from what was left of the serving food, too). It was a pretty nice time out all things considered.
I did rereads and final edits on my already-submitted While I tell of Yuletide Treasures secret fic that night, and start knocking my 12 Days of Jersey, Year prompts out the next day/Sunday. (I'm endlessly excited about 12 days since it's something Laura and I are running for the second time, tiny 100-word H50 New Jersey Christmas fics every morning and evening for the 12 Days of Christmas, having only started yesterday and running until the 5th.)
Sadly, this was the day we found out one of my best friends' Christmas packages to me wouldn't get to be sent until after January 5th, which was a little sad making for me and greatly sad making for her, but we persevere. It's, also, the day my father decided to answer my request for his address to send a Christmas card his way with the question of what he should get me for Christmas. So there's that, too.
Monday I went to work and it was pretty normal. People, live letters, and then the announcement somewhere around two that everyone could home at three early (while still getting to count it as an eight hour work day). So that was really nice, and I spent the free time stopping a few places to pick up stocking gifts for Jason and Earl that I hadn't yet.
Gifts spread out one a day since Yule:
Rachel's - Dark orange chocolate, a inspirational bookmark, a gold candle and tea
Winter's - a large no-stick pan liner & a tea color-matching mug
Still Unknown - Bottle of Cashmere Glow
[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2269621.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]
This year was really hard in that retrospect for me and I'd been doing my very best for most of the last two weeks not to look at it much because while I was working Monday, Thursday, Friday of that week (December 23rd, 26th, 27th), my best friend and my mother were working every day this week. My extended family all gathered together in New England, again, for last Friday through this one, and my stepfather flew up to Dallas to see his daughter & granddaughters Christmas.
My Christmas was set up months and months ago to be very bare, with occasional highlights. Which is, unsurprisingly, what it turned out to be.
Friday: Sibling Christmas & A Yule Surprise
Unexpectedly (or more, not quite certain to 'when' but aware, maybe even 'hopeful' something would happen with my step-siblings after the non-step sibling appearance of anything at Thanksgiving) a week or two before last Friday a FB message party started with the youngest claiming her house and everyone (family and friends) to be there last Friday, and bring this thing with you.
Which was everyone bringing gifts and something for the meal (I ended up bringing a bottle of wine, truffle kisses, and a dark chocolate orange). Dinner was large in people, medium in dishes, and pretty wide on fun. The explosion of kids, gifts, jokes and playing with everything was pretty great after dinner, too.
After all was said and done I got to drive my step-brother home, too, because he needed a ride and because my gift arrived at their house in the middle of the say while he was already at the younger step-sister's house. I got to see their house, and learn they live barely ten minutes from my house, have an amazing book and teacup collection, and fawn all over my gift like a five year old.
Went home after that, intending to fall asleep dead to the world, but ended up instead told to wait up because Jason (Earl's boyfriend) had a small Yule surprise for us. Which was really lovely, both that he decided to do one (being Catholic) and because it turned out to be an amazing, hilarious, laughter filled little evening playing with new toys.
Presents from sibling night:
Kathleen - Dragonology
Jennifer - Lord of the Ring Pez Set
Barbara - *Large* stuffed frog
James & Jessica - Doctor Who Tardis Teapot and Tardis Tea ball
Jason - Red Darth Vader Light saber Chopsticks
Saturday: Haven for Hope
Saturday morning was mostly an all clear zone, because my afternoon/evening was spoken for, or so I'd thought until a knock on my bedroom door had me up and out for breakfast early with Earl and Jason before Jason would have to head back up to Austin. Marvelous breakfast out was had for and by all, and I got to have a slightly shorter free afternoon before I needed to meet up with my stepfather for the afternoon.
While it is still a tentative and newly fledged thing, this thing where my stepfather and I get along and do things together, and even more important -- alone together, he decided this year to invite me to Christmas in the Streets with him which is through my parents church. The church makes all this food, and then they take it to Haven for Hope and spend the night serving all the people there.
It was an amazing day, and an even more moving night. I spent a good half of it handing out post-dinner goodie bags and talking to fifth-grade daughter of one of the women enrolled in the program there. I had so many moments, and I cataloged so many different type of emotions people had to us giving to them -- from boundless, bare gratitude to that wary, tense frustration or annoyance.
I made the executive decision when children, carrying the poinsettia’s we'd brought as decorations, came up to me, holding them like one would imagine someone would a teddy bear, asking if they could keep them that the answer was yes. That if someone wanted to yell at me later, they could, but that they looked so sad and so awed in turns, and I had this gorgeous tree at home I'd been all but ignoring -- they were allowed to take a poinsettia back to their rooms and keep them.
In the end we served somewhere around 300-400 people, and in the end, mostly I wanted to go home and hug my mother and just not let go, because this year has whipped me and dragged me through the mud and there are cracks all over my foundation, and she has yelled at me at least twice this year about not telling her i needed help when I went without something for food for weeks, but I have never been here.
Not this terrible year, and not even the year when I was 19 and they kicked me out, under complicated post-event circumstances. I've always been safe, always had a roof, always known if I could batter down my pride my parents would give me money for groceries, or take me out for a meal, always want to know I'm okay wherever I am and would do whatever they could to help if they knew what was wrong.
I've never been here, and that's a gift I take for granted all too often. That none of those are free or given like air. Somewhere mixed in with all of that, I've also given my name to a few of the groups at the church who come serve at Haven for Hope about 3 hours every month. I'm not sure I'm ready for every month, but I'd definitely like to do more of this next year.
The Rest of that weekend / Time before Christmas Eve-Christmas
I came home after Haven for Hope and treated Earl to dinner at Olive Garden for Yule (even though they sent us each home with a left-overs box from what was left of the serving food, too). It was a pretty nice time out all things considered.
I did rereads and final edits on my already-submitted While I tell of Yuletide Treasures secret fic that night, and start knocking my 12 Days of Jersey, Year prompts out the next day/Sunday. (I'm endlessly excited about 12 days since it's something Laura and I are running for the second time, tiny 100-word H50 New Jersey Christmas fics every morning and evening for the 12 Days of Christmas, having only started yesterday and running until the 5th.)
Sadly, this was the day we found out one of my best friends' Christmas packages to me wouldn't get to be sent until after January 5th, which was a little sad making for me and greatly sad making for her, but we persevere. It's, also, the day my father decided to answer my request for his address to send a Christmas card his way with the question of what he should get me for Christmas. So there's that, too.
Monday I went to work and it was pretty normal. People, live letters, and then the announcement somewhere around two that everyone could home at three early (while still getting to count it as an eight hour work day). So that was really nice, and I spent the free time stopping a few places to pick up stocking gifts for Jason and Earl that I hadn't yet.
Gifts spread out one a day since Yule:
Rachel's - Dark orange chocolate, a inspirational bookmark, a gold candle and tea
Winter's - a large no-stick pan liner & a tea color-matching mug
Still Unknown - Bottle of Cashmere Glow
[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2269621.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]