Posts Tagged ‘holiday gatherings’
Holiday Socializing
Cyndie and I did the old back-and-forth routine again this Christmas, starting with the hour-long drive to the Cities on Christmas Eve to gather with family from Cyndie’s mom’s side, then returned late to sleep at home. On Christmas morning, we fed the horses (Asher is away at a trainer’s kennel for a week) and then drove back to her mom’s for the classic Friswold breakfast and an opening of gifts exchanged.
From there, we drove home again for a brief rest in the afternoon, which allowed us a chance to feed the horses before driving back to the Cities for food and fun at her brother’s house.
Up past our bedtime for the second night in a row, stuffed beyond sensible with scrumptious foods, and buzzing from the precious energy of socializing with people we love so dearly, we hopped in the car one last time to drive home and crashed into our bed to sleep deeply.
I am ever so grateful that this was the only crashing we experienced because we witnessed some crazy speeding and risky maneuvering occurring on the highways yesterday. No one wishes for a traffic ticket on Christmas, but that doesn’t mean the Highway Patrol should take the day off.
It didn’t appear there was any enforcement in place during our cautious commuting, and some reckless speed demons were taking full advantage. Thankfully, road surfaces weren’t excessively slippery, and no bumpers were bumped throughout our many trips to and fro.
Every last trip was worth it for the treasure of special holiday time with our peeps. For those who love solitude, it provides a healthy reference for how nice it is to return to the calm and quiet of our own homes after periods of intense socializing.
Down in the paddocks, there was some unique social interaction going on between one particular pigeon and the horses and me.
I first noticed it walking around me as I rolled out the wheelbarrow to do some housekeeping under the overhang. It showed up on a fence board as I was sweeping off the placemats under a feed station.
When I arrived to tie a hay bag, the pigeon didn’t move away from its puffed-up position where I wanted to be. So, I took its picture.
Friendly little guy. When I stepped out of the barn with buckets of grain, it was sitting on Swings’ back. After it stayed perched there while Swings walked over to eat, I pulled out my phone to take another photo of the friendly bird.
I was too slow. It had hopped down to see if Swings was sharing any holiday cheer on the placemat below.
The rest of the pigeon flock is much more flighty about the presence of humans, but this one seemed to have no fear. Much as they tend to annoy us for the racket and mess they create, not to mention the temptations they are for Asher, I chose not to shoo this one off.
It was Christmas, after all. That wouldn’t have been in the holiday socializing spirit.
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Old Schoolmates
Last night, I traveled back in time with a small gathering of guys I went to high school with. It’s an annual holiday event of simply showing up at a designated establishment at a given hour for beverages and a few hours of catching up and recalling escapades from our youth.
Sort of a tiny fraction of a high school reunion. Certainly much easier to plan and pull off. We met at Fat Pants Brewery in Eden Prairie.
It is a little crazy-making for me because it is usually the only time I see most of them in a year. My connection with them is from when we were teenagers, so that remains my mental reference, while I am looking at us all in our mid-60s. I can’t deny having several conversations about our age, health, ailments, and end-of-life contemplations.
When reaching the point in life where it becomes obvious that one is closer to death than to one’s birth, health conversations flow rather naturally.
These are people who I ran with across old people’s lawns and got yelled at (metaphorically), and now we are the ones telling kids to get off our lawn, so to speak. While hanging out with this bunch, I felt a certain appreciation for our shared experience of growing up without cell phones. These are my people, regardless all our variety of differences.
One thing that I’m struggling to comprehend after our visit is what the heck happened to us all between the 1970s and 2023. I’m afraid it’s mostly all a blur. Somewhere in there we raised kids and worked careers but it almost seems like just incidental anecdotes at this point.
After several hours passed in a blink, holiday greetings were exchanged, and one by one we headed back into our real worlds for another year. Something about that feeds my yearning to be able to participate in this ritual each December.
It’s a little adventure of stepping out of our present lives and spending a few fleeting moments with older versions of our younger selves one night of the year.
It feels very much like what Christmas is all about.
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Touching
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scattered lines
of words and letters
both simple and complex
like a dream
waving at us
as they pass by
blossoming forth
in spontaneous bursts
of loving energy
exchanged in person
at festive holiday gatherings
or quietly read
at home
consumed in silence
touching hearts
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Relative Something 