It really is lovely, in the rainy windy wet dark way that can be December in Haines, and walking on the beach yesterday made me feel “hale” like those young men in A Child’s Christmas in Wales. I have a cold, so have been sleeping and reading more, in between manic bouts of holiday cheer.Yesterday, the four little granddaughters (ages 3-6) came by for a Christmas brunch. I served pancakes, raspberries, and whipped cream on my mother’s good China with the Messiah playing. I also wore my mother’s Pearls. I figure I’d imprint (as my mother used to say) this part of their culture, so when they are old they will hear that music and it will mean Christmas, too.
We poured peppermint tea from a real pot into real cups and saucers and nothing spilled and nothing broke. Then we opened presents– books! And read them. (The youngest, Silvia Rose, was totally engrossed because the oldest, Caroline, knew how to read and did it so well.) Honestly, I was prepared for a disaster, but there weren’t any. There was a little blood on a finger and knee, that may have been raspberry juice, but it did follow a loud crash upstairs in the playroom that is still unexplained, and Silvia Rose did cry a little and fall asleep on the floor, but that was late in the day. Ivy took off all of her clothes at about the same time,but that had more to do with a book about a polar bear losing his underwear that was a gift from their Aunt Eliza, than anything else.
It’s a another busy day today. The cousins are making graham cracker gingerbread-style houses with about twenty other little kids. I am not in charge of that, but it is my fault it’s happening, as we used to do make that joyful mess with their mothers and aunts and uncle when they were small. Also, Matt Davis and his family are playing carols on horns today around town– they will be at the lumberyard at 2, and also at Main Street stores where I must get some shopping done.
And finally, it is the winter solstice. My tradition is to walk up to Lily Lake for the sunset, but it looks like it won’t even rise today in all this gray, windy, slush and rain. (The forecast is for snow and cooler, and a little sun even!)
Besides, I do need to go Christmas shopping (and stop by the borough office and find out about the recall effort and threatened law suit by the former manager’s supporters, as my borough assembly member email has been down..) Some say this is the darkest day of the year. Given a choice, which we all have, I prefer to think of December 21 as the beginning of lighter days, don’t you?