Silver and Gold...

Yesterday (and today, for that matter--although I didn't get to enjoy it nearly as much due to work) dawned beautiful and sunny. At one point the sun was streaming in, the kitties were lining up in the sunbeam, and the tinsel absolutely lit up, reflecting like a giant, vaguely-cone-shaped disco ball. My cat, Spock, was delighted--he loves to chase lights on the walls. Since most of my wrapping paper is holographic or foil, the presents were tempting, too.

I spent most of my weekend asleep, which seems bad except that I apparently really, really needed it. On the bright side, I was early to work this morning and revving to go, which is good, as I'm tackling a revision (and creation) of policies and procedures this week. I'm thinking of taking Friday off from work, Saturday is my holiday and I'm having guests over. The house, as usual, looks like a cyclone hit it. I'm beginning to wish I could add maid to my holiday wish list; but somehow I don't think maids do full excavation without danger pay.

I had some great faux-chicken patties today, made by the same people who do Boca (TM) Burgers. They're spicy chicken-style veggie patties, which coupled with Heinz 57 sauce was divine. Unfortunately, I'd brought some onion nan from Vishal to accompany them. Apparently, much as I love nan, I'm not up to this brand. It's the last thing I ate a couple of months ago before I got that awful GI thing, so I've got a taste aversion, I guess.

I saw a Boston Public tonight on TV for the first time in awhile. Seems Harvey Lipschutz(sp?) recently found out that he has a son who is African-American (Harvey is quite white and quite Jewish) and he was struggling with the idea of being invited to his family's Christmas celebration. He finally decided to go. They tried to make him feel at home with a menorah, ,and his son (who now has grandchildren of his own) said he wasn't doing it just for Harvey, but because he'd just found out he was half-Jewish and was trying to get in touch with that side. I loved Harvey's response. "First lesson: Hanukah ended three weeks ago". Then he taught the kids how to light the menorah. It was sweet.

Since I am inexplicably still in the holiday mood (it's usually beaten out of me by the end of Thanksgiving), I offer up this list. Feel free to post your own:

1) Favourite Christmas carols: Little Drummer Boy; followed by What Child is This?--you can't go wrong with Greensleeves, after all. I keep trying to rewrite O Holy Night for pagans, but I'm having some trouble. You may ask, why is a pagan nattering about Christmas stuff? Well, for one thing, these are part of my childhood. For another, I like them. Lastly, our big contribution to the season was the whole gift-giving, evergreen trees, boughs of holly, and lights. That's enough, don't you think? We don't have great music or TV shows though--not enough of a market, I suppose.

2) Favourite Holiday programmes: Nestor the Long-Eared Donkey, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, in that order. I'm also fond of The Nightmare Before Christmas and A Child's Christmas in Wales as read by Dylan Thomas. The last sometimes comes on the radio. The most pagan programme I've found is the Rankin-Bass adaptation of L. Frank Baum's Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. Very classy. If I could collect all the Rankin-Bass puppetry stuff from the 60s and 70s on DVD, I would. (They gave us Rudolph, Year without a Santa Claus, The Little Drummer Boy, Nestor--all sorts of them).

3) Least favourite programme: A Christmas Story, although to be fair I've never seen the whole thing--the kid just annoys me so much. I've seen him recently, all grown up. He improved a great deal.

4) Favourite book to read during the season: The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper

5) Favourite book to read to little ones during the season: The Velveteen Rabbit

6) Worst holiday: The year my mom and I had the flu

7) Best presentation of gift: My dad gave me a key wrapped in a matchbox that fit our outbuilding, where there was a 3-speed bike.

8) Silliest holiday picture: My dog, Cerys, with a big bow tied to her head.

9) Holiday pet peeve: The fact that most Christians don't know that the Twelve Days of Christmas run from Christmas day to January 6th (Christmas, Old Calendar). At work they try cutesy things like wearing certain items for the twelve days before Christmas.

10) Favourite thing about work at holiday time: Getting to pet Santa's horses when he comes to visit the kids.

11) Strangest thing that puts me into a holiday mood: Warm weather. I grew up in Louisiana. It seems normal.

12) Least favourite present: Anything given to me to wear by my ex-mother-in-law. She always gave me yellow or pink, neither of which I could wear. I still have a sweatshirt my sister-in-law gave me, though; it's purple with a snow scene. She was the savvy one in that family.

That's all I can think to blather about tonight. :)