Christmas Eve Contemplation

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I normally stress myself out to the max. I stress about baking. I stress about gifts. I stress about sending Christmas cards. I stress about feeling guilt for not traveling to see family. I stress about taking time off work. I stress about getting my marking done for the courses I teach. I stress about giving a shitty mark before Christmas because I know how badly students stress.

I make life infinitely worse for myself than I need to and, because I create all this stress for myself, I freeze and get little done, creating even more stress.

That, weirdly, didn’t really happen this year.

I abandoned the notion of handmade Christmas cards this year, but I did send out cards and I think most even got to their destinations in time.

Since everyone is working from home…there was no need to make a batch of Christmas jam for giving around the office.

I did get the marking done relatively quickly…and did give out a couple of crappy marks, but I also didn’t get any backlash so I guess they knew it was coming.

I did get some cookies baked, and kept it under control, not going overboard, and dealt with too many soft bananas by baking and freezing a couple of loaves of banana bread for later.

I spent most of today prepping everything for tomorrow’s over the top dinner for two so that I can spend most of the day doing a puzzle with my guy, or reading a book, or just generally relaxing. The turkey is brined, the potaoes have been mashed with cream cheese and topped with parmesan and wrapped and ready to go in the oven. The dressing is in a casserole and ready for cooking. The carrots, golden beets, and yams are peeled, cut, and ready to go into a roasting pan. The beans are par-cooked and ready to toss with lemon juice, herbs, and goat cheese. The potato water was kept and put in a jar, for flavourful water to add to the pan drippings to make gravy.

And, prettiest of all, a cranberry curd tart with a roasted hazelnut crust is ready and waiting in the fridge. There is no food colouring in this dessert…that’s all from the cranberries.

So, with all that, I didn’t take this photo today.

But I liked this photo when I took it the other day down at Jericho Beach.

The woman on the log looking out to sea, out of focus, as this year has felt.

The catkins, the only thing in focus, a sign that winter will pass and a new year and new spring will arrive, and with it promise of a better year.

This has been a hell of a year; worse for many than most. Death, sickness, loneliness, heartbreak. Job losses, loss of friends and family, loss of spots for medical procedures that were pushed off because of hospital constraints, financial stress. Idiocy, hypocrisy, denial of science, ignoring of facts.

So many of us were lucky to keep our jobs, to be able to work from home, to manage to transition from normal to abnormal. At best many of us were inconvenienced.

So among all of that crap, the recognition that much of what was lost was less important than what remained. Much of what we think we need is just what we want.

We didn’t travel this year, so some of that saved money was donated to the food bank, to the animal emergency hospital to help someone who couldn’t otherwise help their pet, to funds to help children in need, to other charities in desperate need because fundraising opportunities were so limited. We are lucky, because we could do that for others.

Strip it all away and what are you left with?

A lot.

I am grateful for what I have, and for those of you in my life. All of you bring me happiness in one form or another, and where and who I am today is, in some part, because of all of you.

Merry Christmas, and I hope that 2021 is less interesting for all of us.