Valerean

This is a story that starts out very sadly, so if you're depressed by the holidays you might want to skip the first part. Back in 1979 I was in military basic training during my first Christmas away from home. Because we were poor and our parents had major relationship and addiction issues, and we belonged to a strict religion, the holidays were always pretty unhappy at our house. My mother had been very angry with me for joining the military without her permission, so I didn't expect even a Christmas card from her. Instead she sent a box of oranges to me to share with my squad, and a little stocking filled with her homemade fudge. That was the last time someone made a Christmas stocking for me. In the 44 years since then I've always put up stockings for my family and filled them with treats. I even made new stockings for everyone a few times. Each Christmas I would wait to see a stocking hung up for me, but no one ever did that. The stocking you see up there w...

I was looking through my photo archives the other day and noticed how faithfully I photographed our Thanksgiving table every year. This one is from 2011, when we had a guest along with the kids (I think my nephew, although I'm not sure.) I have always been proud of what I've made for Thanksgiving dinner. I worked very hard on the meal every single year. But unless Katherine or my nephew are visiting I'll probably never make a big one like this again. Honestly? That's a relief. Thanksgiving 2008. The tradition of the holiday being my burden started with my mother. She expected me to help with the cooking for Thanksgiving from the time I was five, and put so much responsibility on me that I could make the whole dinner by myself before I was a teenager. I've always liked cooking, but not the stress and effort involved in making holiday dinners. It was what was expected of me. Mom trained me to view Thanksgiving dinner as my holiday job, and I've ...

I hope you all are having a lovely holiday. Here it was exactly as I expected, only a little worse. I'm trying to be grateful it wasn't much worse. Thanks to the bomb cyclone Katherine got stuck in Denver for 5-1/2 hours, but late on Christmas Eve afternoon her flight finally took off. Thousands didn't, so I am very grateful she didn't have to spend Christmas Day in an airport. Meanwhile, I suggested to my guy that we leave an hour early because the airport was going to be a disaster area. He felt confident a half an hour early would be time enough (the man has no concept of time.) Turns out a disaster area would have been pleasant compared to Orlando International. We used all of our spare time stuck in traffic. They closed all levels of the parking garage because it was full of people coming and going. We went in anyway, and circled all the full lots for what seemed like forever, but couldn't find a parking spot. Getting out of the garage was th...