I AM PUTTING UP OUR CHRISTMAS LIGHTS RIGHT NOW. WON'T LIGHT 'EM UNTIL AFTER THANKSGIVING...BUT WHY PUT 'EM UP WHEN IT IS COLD. THE DAY IS GORGEOUS...AND I AM REASONABLY STEADY ON THE LADDER.
BAH HUM BUG.... I HATE CHRISTMAS!
True, true. L.A. Christmases sucked but I'm sure that has much to do with my own history/ traditions as much as anything else...
Mangoes!
Mangoes; fresh mangoes, eaten over the sink, juice running down your chin (stains clothes!) Margo's mango chutney on the ham; mango ice cream, mango sauce.......
mango overload - they're absolutely at their peak, and cheap as chips around Christmas time.
Ooh! That does sound wonderful.
That's it. I'm moving to Oz.
Both Mr. Noddy's tended to approach Christmas with a "Bah, Humbug!" attitude, but when I was young and in my prime, circumventing gloom was a challenge, not a chore--particularly since the winter solstice has much more meaning for me than Christmas.
Unfortunately my younger son was in an accident on the solstice and pronounced brain dead on Christmas Day. He remained on life support so his organs could be harvested.
Since then the holiday is a melancholy one for me--but it does my heart good to see other people festive and cheerful.
Noddy, I believe that's the first time I learned of that.
.
.
How old was he?
Christmas is wonderful as far as the family is concerned...but I do hate the commercialization. It's the tackiest time of the year( he sing-songed)
Douglas died when he was 30 1/2 years old. Last summer solstice I quietly celebrated a birthday that might-have-been. He'd have been 39.
Every mother's worst nightmare. I'm so sorry.
margo wrote:Piffka wrote:
Maybe if you had Christmas in June, Olga, it would "feel" better to you. I think it is unfair that so much of the world's interest is set for the northern hemisphere, leaving all you in Oz and S. America trying to do something out of season.
Piffka (and Sozobe)
Whaddya mean it's out of season? Christmas is a summer festivity.
How can you stand all that awful snow and cold and stuff. Really!!! You'd freeze at the beach - and the mangoes wouldn't be ripe. And the days would be short (and cold - yechhhh!)
What I'm trying to point out is that what you see as the Christmas season doesn't remotely resemble what seems so natural here.
Mind you, - I'm with Olga, dysfunctional family and all, but after Christmas - off for a week at the beach, sand, mangoes, cold ham, wonderful summer fruits, long, hot days, bracing surf.......
Yep - exactly Margo!!
Mind you, I would love a white christmas one day.
It DID snow in the Adelaide hills one Christmas day, when I was a weelowan - but not in the foot hills where we were.
Noddy, I'm so sorry you lost your son.
Noddy, my heart aches for you.
Sozobe, colorbook, Ceili--
Thank you. I miss him terribly--and always will--but his death has taught me a great deal. Thanks to modern medicine untimely deaths of the young are much rarer than in the past. Still, a surprising number of parents have lost a child.
Douglas's death is one reason I support our troops in Iraq, but deplore the decisions of the administration who sent them there. Every death--military or civilian--is a death too many. I weep for the mothers of suicide bombers. They have lost children to death and to misguided ideals.
Douglas always loved the holiday season--and this is a comfort.
I am sorry too, Noddy. It is nice for us to think of Douglas as liking Christmas celebration.
I have not as tough a story, but it does color my view of the holidays. One Christmas eve my dad went out for a walk and didn't come back... where was he, where was he, it was getting later and later. I opened the front door for something to do in my confusion (my mother being in the kitchen), and there he was crumpled on the little brick porch. It turned out to be a severe bleeding ulcer, one of the first of the episodes of physical and emotional problems that would continue to beset him until he died; it was the start of some hard family years.
On a lighter note, I would have loved my later Christmases in LA if my husband and I could ever have had it at our house. I did love Thanksgiving, which we often did at our house - a matter of putting the turkey in the oven and then going for a long walk on Venice Beach. Somehow it was usually a gorgeous day on Thanksgiving, whereas Christmas eve day and C. day were spent in part on the freeway, first going to one of my cousins' homes in Orange County, and then coming back late at night, and leaving earlyish the next day to go to my husband's parents' place in Hemet, dammit. Someday I'll rant on about how much I disliked those days in Hemet. And then driving back from Riverside County in thick traffic...
I see that wasn't a lighter note, by much.
But I did like Christmas as a child when we lived in New York and Chicago, Chicago (Evanston) especially - not entirely because of the fun with snow.. but in large part because of the neighborhood camaraderie.
First edit was to talk about Chicago,
second was to change the word 'hated' to 'disliked'; hated was too strong for such complex feelings.
I am so sorry, Noddy. I didn't know.
Tell us more about Douglas, if it's not too painful or private. What kind of child was he? What kind of man did he grow into? I'd like to know something about him.
Noddy, I am so very sorry. for your loss.
Eva, Lady J--
Thank you for your sympathy. I don't want to hijack this holiday thread any further...perhaps some other time. A sad tale's best for winter.
