Christmas 2013

Christmas was lovely. It was white.

It started, as usual, with sausage rolls and buttered panettone for breakfast as we opened presents. I will never get too old to lose the joy of giving and receiving presents... I mean - come on! The day ended with a different sort of Christmas dinner. I was bored with turkey and the other usuals, so after the soup, I served a festive Italian salad with arugula, goat cheese, pomegranates, and Soma's delicious lightly candied pecans chopped into it. The main course was a wild boar bolognese sauce over pasta. Gooooooood. For dessert, my mother made her traditional killer trifle. Mmmmm. I'd also made a big Christmas fruitcake a couple of weeks previously and my mother and I had a scream making little fondant figures for the top. The donkey looked like a giant rabbit originally. Joseph looked like Genghis Khan, so fierce he looked like he'd rather eat Baby Jesus than, you know, take care of him, and hide him from Herod, etc. Actually, he could have been Herod in disguise.






I bought this little wooden tree for my desk at work a couple of years ago. The yellow wooden star on the top disappeared quickly. I didn't want to use the tree with out it, so this year I looked for - and found - a lovely German-made, unpainted wooden star at Flatirons, the fantastic gift store on Jarvis, just north of the St. Lawrence Market. I painted it white and put it on the top, and it's much prettier and more delicate than the original. Score! And... it's staying at home.





Over Christmas break, I had some cosy nights in my big wing chair. Next you see the table setting for Christmas day. The snowball candles came from that same fabulous gift store in Apsley. And they burn really well. And there's a new shot of me trying out a new lipstick shade, Clinique's Plushest Punch. That sounds Christmassy! It's odd, I used to avoid red in makeup or clothing; now I embrace it in all things.

Aging and the Up Series

The Up series, originally assisted on, and now directed by Michael Apted is a superb documentary project following the lives of a group of British people from the age of 7 to, now, 56. Every seven years the documentary crew checks in with them. They're ordinary people living their lives, and - even as they express on this latest edition of 56 Up, that none of the viewers can really get a sense of them - we do. I feel I know them, at least somewhat. I care about them. It's moving to see them getting older and go through the rites of passage of marriage, children, parental death, illness... It's a brilliant and moving episodic visit and I urge you to see it.

I have read of people writing letters to themselves as children. It's an interesting thought. Would those letters be better served written for actual children? Maybe heavily edited versions. Most of it would come across as weird, old-person, finger-wagging and whining. I recall my dad telling me how time would fly. Pffff... I couldn't believe him. When I was four, I remember my mother telling me I'd have to wait for an hour for us to go somewhere. An hour! I was horrified. That was forever. I distinctly remember the interaction, the feeling inside me.

An hour!

What would I say to Little G now, if she was disposed to listen and comprehend?

Oh Little G, you have no idea. An hour is so short and so precious. You will waste many and cherish some. Life will disappoint you in many ways but be more amazing and wonderful than you can ever imagine. The world will be crueler, but the earth will be more breathtakingly beautiful than you suspected. You'll change in ways that will astound you, but remain the same in others. You'll be aware of your mortality way too young, but your strength will amaze you. You will take things too seriously... try not to. And know that only when you're over 40 will you realize that what you really want is what you wanted when you were seven, but convinced yourself for years you didn't. And never EVER visit a chiropractor. That alone is the one thing I would hope you remember. It would make all the difference. I could go on, but you're only four and are not listening and let's not bore the others. Now, go back to playing with your nesting dolls.