Let It Go, Let It Go

A few years ago I developed the really very simple and not catchy at all Christmas motto of "do what you can and let the rest go". I spout it off airily sounding all zen and wise. I'm sure it surprises no one that I suck mightily at putting it into practice.

What I could and did do: Get most of the Christmas decorations up at a reasonable time: Get all my Christmas shopping done and sorted and organized in the downstairs closet weeks ago: Bake fifteen batches of ten different kinds of cookies/squares/bark and delivered some to a few people I know and one I don't know: Write out forty-two Christmas cards, most of which were mailed in time to (probably) be delivered before Christmas: attend one absolute banger of a Christmas party.

What I'm trying to let go of: delivering cookies to more people - there were some people I really really wanted to get cookies to, and I ran out of both time and cookies. I will probably do it after Christmas, but it's not quite the same: finishing and mailing the rest of my Christmas cards - again, will finish them after Christmas, again, slightly disappointed in myself: getting the Christmas tree decorated so we could put all the decoration boxes away and have a tidy, decorated house - this isn't really my fault (as if 'fault' is even the issue) because Eve didn't get home until Tuesday night and I didn't want to do it without her: getting all the presents wrapped and getting the wrapping stuff put away. 

Also, my sister and her family have had to call off coming for Christmas for the fourth year running, after coming almost every year. The year before Covid their work schedules didn't allow it. Then there was Covid. Then we thought they'd be able to come until Omicron fucked everything up a week before Christmas. Now the fucking storm of the century or whatever. It's not as devastating this year because they were here at Thanksgiving, but Angus wasn't, and I want the Christmas morning cousin pileup, and everybody opening up their hilarious gifts together, and it fucking sucks. But I've already mourned it and moved on, because there's really nothing else to do, and my kids both got home ahead of the weather, and my parents won't be alone, and many people have it much worse, and we will just deal with it.

I've been realizing that one thing that has been sort of subconsciously bothering me is that I have been influenced by tv and movies to think that I should be baking and wrapping and decorating in an already-decorated, professionally arranged and cleaned, perfectly spare and tidy house. Except it's hard to bake without any baking stuff out, and it's hard to wrap without wrapping paper and tape and shit all over the table, and it's hard to decorate without boxes stacked all over the place, so this is kind of an unreasonable expectation on my part (unlike with other stuff on tv, like relationships and jobs and sex and montages set to music). 

And now, so I won't be all downer-ish right before Christmas, the story of our day yesterday. My sister called first thing in the morning to break the bad news. We talked and bitched and moaned and laughed, and my niece shouted that they were definitely coming for a long weekend during reading week for Eve and my niece and nephew. I hung up and went and told Eve, and since it was a beautiful day with snowy trees (as if the weather was mocking us extra hard) I asked if she wanted to go for a walk, even though I really didn't want to. She said "...yes", meaning she really didn't want to either. We decided to drive to the river trail because it's extra pretty in the winter. I called down and asked Angus if he wanted to come, without the expectation that he would say yes, but he did. So that was nice.

We got to the trail and there was a sign saying Trail Out Ahead. We ignored it and walked for a while. Then we go to the bridge where we usually stand watch the ducks, and whoops, no bridge. The Trail Out sign made more sense now. We did a bit of a loop back, which was not bad, but we thought we'd drive around to the parking lot at the other end of the trail and try again.

We got to the other parking lot, and there was no trail to the trail (sorry, I'm too tired to explain). So we let Lucy off leash to run around in the empty park space for a bit. But the snow was pretty deep, so she chased Angus for a bit but then was not terribly impressed.

We had gotten out of the house and played in the snow so we decided we were good to stop at Starbucks and head home.

We went to the drive-thru speaker and I said can we please have three hot chocolates, one regular with sugar cookie syrup and two white. I thought the price sounded a little steep, but I don't go to Starbucks often and I thought maybe Christmas drinks were more, so whatever. We got to the window and the girl said something I didn't quite catch, except I got 'where are you going' so I said home after a walk. She said "big family?" and we all looked at each other and blinked and said 'um, no?' She closed the window to get our drinks and I said "did she just ask where we're going with all these hot chocolates? Three isn't that many........ I did order three, right?" We thought back to how I had phrased the order and how she answered me and Eve said "...I think you might have ordered five". For some reason we found this utterly hilarious, and by the time she handed us our five hot chocolates we were wheezing. On the way home I kept trying to say why I had thought it was a good idea to say the order the way I did, and berating myself for being confusing, while the kids comforted me and Angus called it "a crisis of Canadian proportions". He also said it was much more aesthetically pleasing than having three hot chocolates and an empty slot in the tray.

Eve texted her BFF Marianna (HI MARIANNA), who was just home from drama school in BC, on the way home and asked if she wanted a surplus hot chocolate. We dropped off Matt and the dog and went over to Marianna's (her mom got home soon enough to drink the fifth hot chocolate before it got cold), and eventually this happened.

In sum, the day went happily and hilariously off the rails in the very best way. 

And now the freezing rain is ticking at the windows, and I can't go to bed until Angus gets home from Avatar (the movie theatre is only about a three-minute drive away and he promised to drive carefully). And Matt said we're not going to lose power (when I was running around tracking down all our battery packs and telling people to charge their devices), so either he'll be right and we'll have power, which is good, or he'll be wrong and I'll get to say I told you so, which is not without its own particular charms.