Well that was a nice little blur wasn’t it?
Christmas morning there was snow on the ground and cookie dust on my chin
Christmases are nice when your kids are little and under Santa’s spell for the day and heavenly cooking smells from the kitchen, buttery and sweet and sometimes a whiff of rosemary and promises, and squeals of joy mostly and gingerbread and hot chocolate and reindeer antlers for the dog and watching the cat wig out on catnip.
But give me grown up kids any day especially when they’re mine and they are so gaspingly funny
The night before Christmas I played them the radio special I was on and they roared and shot knowing little glances at one another and at me and afterwards they said my voice sounded just right and that they weren’t just saying that.
Then the suggestion that I should make a podcast which I quickly diluted into maybe an audio version of my blog which I’ll probably give a whirl but not today, Zurg, because while it’s still sort of Christmassy I’ll try to link up the one from the radio show at the end of this blog even though it still makes me cringe but it’s probably good for a cackle or two.
And then there was the game. I don’t know why it’s called CODENAMES and I don’t know why there’s a silhouette of a dressed-up man and a dressed-up woman on the cover because it’s a word association game and not at all clandestine but I guess they had to give it a theme because some genius in marketing said so and they gave it a sort of spy theme which is dumb but it doesn’t get in the way too much.
We had many riotous moments and I had my own private ones during which I overflowed with appreciation for each of my kids, you know, they’re so wonderful, so different, so the same
One daughter said RELATIONSHIP and other daughter had to pick one of the 25 cards, each with a single word, and the words at this time included BAND, MARRIAGE and DIAMOND and a couple more perfectly suitable words for RELATIONSHIP but guessing-daughter thought long and hard and decided on ICE CREAM and she was RIGHT.
So that was hilarious
Christmas morning was perfect. Brand new snowfall so there was snow on everything and the details were exquisite in the forest which we stumbled through and when we got back everybody was up and drinking coffee and being very grown up although that would soon all change.
And who cares about presents, really, but it’s nice when you give good ones, isn’t it? Like my son got an espresso machine and we were lively all day but relaxed in a nice way too because we all got CBD oil which goes very well with espresso
So I have these friends who just a couple of weeks ago moved to Campbell River on Vancouver Island where they are currently staying in a ho or motel on the ocean getting over it I guess before they purchase a home. They are not tech savvy and they have one phone between them which they barely use but on Christmas day I sent them an xo by text which requires little in the way of reciprocation because it’s barely there anyway.
Usually people send the same thing back, you know, or sometimes they double it or cap it or even ignore it
But not these two. I don’t know what kind of phone they have but it’s def one where incoming and outgoing are in the same colour because they kept a conversation going between the two of them and each of them thought they were talking to me. Get it? Except I bailed after the initial xo.
It was fucking hilarious
So one of them answered my little xo with all the best to you and yours and the other one answered same to you and all the best to your family or something like that and then the other one said have a lovely day and then the other one said you too and thank you for thinking of us and then the other one said hope you are all well and the other one said we are great thank you and it went on and on until I guess they maybe nodded off mid-afternoon because their final few texts were gibberish.
But until then their stamina had been Olympian
Everybody’s out now and it’s just me and Daisy on the couch sharing a sleeping bag. It’s dusk, I’ve been reading most of the day, writing paragraphs once in a while and then deleting them, and drinking tea out of my new teacup which has a beautifully-shaped handle that was strange until it pretty quickly wasn’t and now all other handles in the world are the strange ones.
And then there was the drinking game which when they told me about it I laughed all my air out and it took me a minute to get a grip.
So fucking ludicrous
So you put a Santa hat on top of your TV and then you watch something (they watched the Christmas show of The Office) and whenever somebody lands perfectly under the hat and it looks like they’re wearing it, you drink. When they told me about it at first I said “wow… also a good game to play alone” and my daughter who has this lovely little apartment by herself said “perfect!” with such gusto my air all came out again.
Anyway. Turns out the hat was too often a perfect fit and they had to change it up in favour of something a little less drinky, you know, which at first was a moustache somebody made and taped to the screen and then they used my son’s glasses which I’m still giggling about.
Me and Daisy just tried going for a little walk but it’s raining out, the sharp kind, which is awful for Daisy because eyes right on top of her head but it was lovely for me because it felt like stars
And because I am twelve and there’s nothing on TV, I think I’ll text my Campbell River friends how was your day?
