Almost December

Today I wore my winter coat that hangs unused most of the year in the closet. I put on gloves as temperatures in San Francisco hovered in the 40’s. Our lone heater in the hallway chugged away most of the day and the house is still cool. It’s dark by 5:15 and we’re eating dinners by candlelight. Winter is a comin’ in.

 

I also played my full repertoire of Christmas carols and winter songs to set the tone in our local English teahouse. The lot on 7^th Avenue filled with pumpkins a month ago is now filled with trees. The lights are coming up on the apartments, though the big tree at the entrance to Golden Gate Park is not yet lit— that annual ceremony is still a week away. And tonight I got my first Christmas Card via e-mail. “In November?!” I thought, and then realized it came from my Australian friends Margie and Paul, where it’s already December. 

 

It feels like just yesterday that we carried the each-year-larger-and-heavier Norfolk pine from our lightwell deck, that I dug out the Holiday CD’s that hide behind the row of jazz CD’s, that we brought the lights and ornaments up from the basement. This year, for perhaps the first time ever, my wife and I will be alone on Christmas morning. The past five years the grandkids have come down and we go on to Palm Springs and either celebrate Christmas here in San Francisco before the drive down or celebrate in Palm Springs. But having just come down for Thanksgiving, they’ll stay in Portland. So we’re wondering if it’s worth all the re-decorating, especially with no presents under the tree. 

 

I suspect that tradition will win out, though interesting that as Mr. Ritual and Ceremony, I’m even entertaining the idea of letting it go. But so it is. The kids grow up and then the grandkids and we both are long gone from the kids at school and without their wide-eyed visions of sugarplums, the Season takes on another face. We’ve seen every worthy Christmas movie many times over and the songs don’t reach as deep as they once did. We’ve stopped going to the annual Revels show and never were die-hard Nutcracker or Handel’s Messiah afficionados. The annual family newsletter folded inside of a card and slowly put in envelopes and hand-addressed is now a group e-mail sent just by me. 

 

But I suspect that nevertheless, we will persist. To be continued…