Times Worth Having

Curiously, I am finding myself in the holiday spirit.

Perhaps I’m cheerful and holidayish because my work days are looking shorter, and the end is in sight. I will go home at 5:00pm and eat my dinner with my handsome Head Chef, and whisper to my dog, and watch a movie or play a video game. I will walk through my garden before the sun goes down, and it will be good.

I’ve even started to voluntarily play the Hip Holidays and other seasonal music in our collection. Mind you, this is as significant a step as when I first fail to object when Head Chef puts on his holiday favorites on Thanksgiving morning. Indeed, I myself have chosen the “Holiday” genre for iTunes to use on my computer’s Party Shuffle. And I have done so more than once.

I am ready for Christmas. And I don’t mean shopping. I am ready inside, and that is where it really counts.

As for my shopping, I never really started. Distant family – even Boulanger – have shamed me by sending something, but I have sent nothing. Far-away friends whom I miss almost daily will get nothing, too.

But I miss them all right now, so very much, and I think they know. And when I see them again, we’ll hug and smile, and it will be just like yesterday. We’ll be older, fatter, thinner, and almost certainly a little greyer, but our hands will touch and we’ll talk, and it will feel like home.

I am also ready to laugh and enjoy. The video game we play sports peculiar Christmas iconography at this time of year, but calls it by a different name. And yet, rather than fuss about how similar to Christmas it is, I busy myself preparing gingerbread cookies to present to Greatfather Winter.

And then Sean sent me this, which I marveled and laughed at. Such a feat of technical mastery could only be achieved by a lighting special fx artist of great skill. I am amused to think of a fictional collapse of the broadway, rock, and other stage show industries that leaves such accomplished and comedic people with equipment and spare time on their hands. Kudos for their remarkable humor through these hard times.

On Christmas morning we’ll be up the mountain at Friturier’s house overlooking Honolulu on what will no doubt be a sunny and beautiful day. We’ll be in shorts and flip-flops, drinking gin fizzes and eating fatty foods, and living life on Friturier’s terms. Which is to say, living today as if tomorrow was of no consequence. Laughing loudly as if everyone should hear, and enjoying our island family from way out in the middle of the ocean and up on top of the world.

These can be difficult times and they can be good times, worthy of being had.