Posts Tagged ‘Christmas celebrations’
Getting Near
Christmas! The big gift-giving, family-seeing, holiday-partying extravaganza that just happens to coincide with a day on the Christian religious event calendar is only ten days away! Ho, ho, ho.
Cyndie and I have watched two holiday movies in two nights this weekend and she is currently on day two of her cookie-baking blitz. I am pleased to be able to report that she is getting near that elusive point of feeling fully recovered from the illness that has befuddled her, sapped her energy, and imposed a splitting headache for about a week now.
I am less happy to admit that my willpower to resist over-sampling the sweets coming out of her double oven has been weaker than I remember since recognizing I suffer from becoming easily addicted to sugar in my diet.
“Be gone from me, cravings!”
I’d spend more time outside to get away from the aroma of cookies fresh from the oven, except the frozen glaze covering the land has made it dangerously slippery, especially when attached by leash to a dog that doesn’t care whether it’s icy or not.
I had finally assembled the lower half of my winter “spacesuit” so that I could jump into my boots and pull up the overalls like a firefighter answering the bell when the temperatures moderated, and now I’ve been romping about outside, spacesuit-free.
We’ve enlisted the help of some horse-care volunteers through the rescue organization This Old Horse to cover evening feedings for a few days to give me a break from this spell of solo duty on the ranch. There is no reason to rush Cyndie back into dealing with the elements again while she continues to make her way to full health, as far as she can get anyway on the continuum of what full health is for her.
Ten days, folks. The six-year-old me is getting as excited as possible for being stuck inside a 65-year-old ever-more-Grinch-like party pooper. (For the record: In my opinion, Christmas decorations are the most make-work hassle current society has ever manifested.)
Have a holly jolly next ten days, everyone!
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Meandering Paths
We wait all year long for Christmas to get here and just like that, it’s over. Happy December 26th. Today is my half-birthday. To keep me humble, the skin by my thumbnail has split so that it constantly stings. One of the ways I deal with painful cracks in the skin on the edge of my fingernails is to apply germ-killing New-Skin. It occurred to me that, as I was wincing at the stinging pain of that antiseptic feature, it wasn’t much different from the constant sting of the cracked skin.
Cyndie and I made two trips to Bloomington, MN for Christmas gatherings of her family over the weekend. Driving was entirely nerve-wracking on Saturday and a little less-so yesterday. It’s really unsettling to be rolling along on what looks to be dry pavement, traveling at posted speeds, and constantly coming upon vehicles that have recently spun into the ditches.
I have no idea what they were doing to end up in their predicaments, but not knowing made it a guessing game about what I could do differently to avoid a similar fate. (Can you say, “black ice?”) Luckily, we completed all our driving without incidents.
Yesterday, to join the family at her mom’s place, we decided to skip giving the horses the noon feeding they have become accustomed to receiving. As we pulled up the driveway when getting home around the time for the evening feeding, the horses gave a little show of their opinion on the matter. One might describe them as looking a little “hangry.” (Irritable or angry because of hunger.)
Upon making my way down to the barn, I was happy to find their gesticulation had been more dramatic than necessary. They were much less rambunctious than I expected them to be and barely fussed over my choice to do some housekeeping before serving pans of feed. Conditions in the paddocks and under the overhang are stabilizing now that wind and snowfall have abated for a couple of days.
It isn’t much, but having the temperature climb to single digits above zero is at least a psychological improvement over the brutal conditions we’ve been dealing with over the last… I’ve lost track of how many days. Feels like it’s been a month or two.
I always enjoy seeing evidence of the horses’ meanderings out into the fresh snow on the fields. You can almost visualize the four mares heading out in a parallel formation before making some loops. These tracks appear in the mornings which tells me they go on these adventures in the dark of night.
My nighttime adventures are all in the dream world but feel a lot like the way those meandering pathways look.
The Monday after Christmas on Sunday feels like we have to wait 364 more days to find out if we were naughty or nice enough to get our wishes wrapped up and delivered under the tree.
Now that’s a long meandering path.
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So Christmassy!
Christmas morning with Cyndie’s family is all breakfast and presents, on a grand scale, both. After getting lavishly fed, we headed downstairs to find 23 people’s-worth of presents around the tree.
It doesn’t take too long for Santa’s little helpers to distribute the packages around the room.
Then begins a cacophony of ripping paper, saving bows, exclamations of surprise/love/and delight, and many voices talking all at once.
As quickly as possible after everything was opened, I needed to slip out for a return trip to the ranch, where Delilah was patiently awaiting some attention. She was very grateful to have a chance to get outside to do her business. I granted her as much time and freedom as possible, trying to make up for the many hours she has been left alone in the last few days.
She seemed to think it made for good opportunity to hunt critters that live in the grass beneath the snow.
“Wha-aat?” she says after we get back inside. “I’m a good girl!”
After I got her fed, and darkness moved the chickens into the coop, it was time for my second drive of the day to Edina.
The Christmas feast which included salmon and beef tenderloin, easily justified the added driving.
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Cyndie stayed at her parent’s house overnight Monday and all day yesterday to help with preparations.
Christmas 2018 was definitely a day that felt wonderfully Christmassy in our family! The added blessings of having Norwegian relatives joining in the festivities was icing on our cake.
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Relative Something 