Blue Christmas...

Christmas seasons past have, for us, often included multitudes of gratuitous celebrations, typified by an immense over-abundance of baked goods and adult beverages. So far I attended a Holiday Cookie Exchange. We have got only T's office Holiday party on the calendar for next weekend... and no babysitter lined up for that event. That's it for adult gatherings. Oh, there'll be Jack's preschool "Jingle Bell Party" to attend, and the MOMS Club party as well. Those will be just me and the kids, though.

There is, of course, the HOA Caroling event to look forward to. If I wasn't stressing out so much about all of the negative feedback on .. well, pretty much everything I have done to get the ball rolling on this event, I would probably be looking greatly forward to it. Probably.

This is the first year - maybe since T and I met - that I have considered not devoting an afternoon to the concocting of the traditional Christmas fudge and one or two experimental varieties of my own creation.

I sat down to write the holiday letter to our friends and family... and came up with a very depressing catalog of the past year. Consciously, I am aware that I lead a very charmed life in many ways. There have been so many positive things in our lives the past few months that it seems a bit pathetic for my holiday spirit to be in such dire need of a jump-start.

But T and I find ourselves on something of an island this Christmas, with no close friends in easy striking distance for a short visit with the kids. Even fewer in number are those brave souls willing to traverse the distance across our mountain to our cozy abode.

So there it is. A loneliness born of circumstance, and a holiday season tempered by the realities of a somewhat gloomy December. There is, however, beauty also in sorrow. There is warmth to be found in the somber quiet of the sleeping season.

I stopped to pump gas on my way to the Cookie Exchange. I was in T's little car with the heater that can only try so hard to produce warmth. I had promised to plug a few gallons into his tank so as not to leave him on empty for his drive to work the next morning. The air was bone dry and bitterly cold; each exhale of breath made a ghostly halo under the stark floodlights.

From the inky expanse of sky they came, dancing and swirling on invisible currents of razor-cold air. Tiny and dry, like fine paper confetti. If you listened intently, you could hear the individual touchdown of each nonchalant flake as it clacked against the pavement.

The first snow of winter.

It was too dry, too impatient to stick as it landed. Instead, the singular flakes kept their distance apart, swirling and drifting across the charcoal expanse of road like a thousand sparrows in cloud of flight.

It was a brief dance. The flakes gradually retired off into the darkness - until they fell no more, leaving the night once again clear and cold and deeply silent.

Solemn. Heartbreaking. Beautiful.

And perhaps I have spirit, after all. The spirit of the Solstice, that deep winter day of the longest dark, when we celebrate the beginning of a new journey to the long days of sunshine ahead.

And on Earth, Peace... and good will toward Men.

You Can Share My Umbrella....

Have I ever mentioned that I am really not good with - well - people?

I should clarify a bit. I'm a loyal friend, a good listener, and I do my utmost to be thoughtful and sensitive and helpful and all those things that are valuable in a friend. In short, I'm somebody you'd usually be glad to have on your team.

The problems arise when I have to communicate with people I don't know very well. If there's not an immediate connection - that spark of recognition when you meet someone who floats on the same wavelength - then I tend to flounder a bit. I fail to pick up on cues and misread tone and body language. I get antsy at uncomfortable silences in conversation. I rabbit on at a manic pace, desperately seeking a talking point that will elicit some spark of interest from the other party. In the end, I usually end up apologizing for all the bouncing around and do my best to slink away with a shred of dignity while the other person is left to puzzle over what in the world I was getting at and why I looked so terrified.

I can't recall exactly when I realized that my skills in verbal conversation where somewhat uneven, but I suspect it was fairly early on. It's something to do with why I started writing in the first place. It was only through conversations with myself, as it were, in a piece of writing that I began to find my path to really reaching other people.

It is in that vein that I present, with a wee bit of abashed pride, my first foray into publication. My article on LDSwoman.net went up today (in the "Time For You" section) along with some spectacular photos that superbly capture the mood of the piece. The photos are not mine, though I could wish they were. And although the irony of being published for the first time in an LDS-Inspired forum is not lost on me, I am incredibly impressed with the concept of the site and the combination of the striking photography and inspirational content brought a tear to even my cynical eye. And, crankypants that I am, tears that don't involve rage or frustration are a rare treat for me these days.

So go read it. And tell your friends to read it. Then tell them to come here and read about my experiences with accidentally purchasing adult novelties on someone else's credit card, just so it's clear I don't claim to be some sort of fountain of great wisdom. I'm just a girl who had a story to tell, and who tends to tell much better stories when I'm having the conversation with myself. Because I don't do so well with, you know... other people.