Merry Christmas!

It rained this morning, but the sun was out by 11 am and Boise was sparkling clean and surrounded by snowy mountains. It was a toasty 45 degrees by lunchtime, so I ate my lunch outside with the cats roaming the backyard and me in my bare feet.

Merry, merry Christmas to all!

My Christmas was wonderful and I know I have not been so busy for Christmas since the Christmas driving marathons I used to do when I lived in Vegas. Then I drove from Vegas to Dad's Santa Monica Christmas Eve, stayed overnight at Dad's and drove to pick up Lauren in Moorpark on Christmas morning, then drove to Mom's (Pasadena) or John's (Woodland Hills), then drove back to Vegas the day after Christmas.

John and Jen sent a gift card, which I whipped out and spent early on Christmas Eve day. Then I baked banana bread for Christmas Day and went to an open house on Christmas Eve. I ate some things that were good for me and then planted myself next to the three kinds of homemade english toffee, which were all good. One of the nice things about not working during the holidays is less exposure to holiday treats, so I can eat them the few times they are around. When I got home I called John's and caught almost everyone in my family to say Merry Christmas. John was grateful that my Mom's old boyfriend was not there this Christmas and I think he might have actually told me I was right about the guy, but that is another story.

I already opened the Belgian chocolate hazelnut seashells that Mom sent (which were actually from Harrod's in Heathrow Airport and the beach scene on the tin is an English beach), but I opened what I already knew was a calendar with everyone's birthday and anniversary written in it for me on Christmas morning. It was a cat paintings calendar this year, which will be good reference for my children's book. Christelle picked me up at 9 am and we went to deliver Meals on Wheels and I contributed some of the banana bread. We chatted with one woman for a while until we could no longer stand the cat pee smell and the other guy barely let us hand the food through the door. I was glad to be doing this with someone else, I'm not sure I could have by myself. Talking to the woman reminded me of how I told my Mom that if she was in a nursing home and a hurricane was headed her way I would come and get her and not leave her to a staff of strangers.

When I got back from Meals on Wheels delivery, I baked another apple pie to take to Mary Kay's sisters for Christmas dinner and then headed to Mary Kay's. I went to Mary Kay's first and then followed her to her sister's, which was way on the southeastern edge of Boise. Mary Kay has a cat named Bodie. Bodie is stocky and gray and old and has a big face. When I got to Mary Kay's, Bodie was laying in the middle of the floor wearing a cat-sized orange BSU shirt with his arms wrapped around his new catnip toy like an old drunk. Mary Kay says he actually feigns a broken leg when she puts that shirt on him, he is pretty wobbly anyway, but she says he moved pretty quick earlier for his special bacon and eggs Christmas breakfast. When we left, Bodie headed out to parade the neighborhood in his bright orange shirt.

When Mary Kay asked her sister if I could come for Christmas dinner, her sister asked if I was bringing my pie. This time I used the Honeycrisp apples again, Meyer lemon juice, that I squeezed and froze at Thanksgiving, and fresh grated lemon rind and I did a solid crust with a few apple cut-outs for venting. I think it came out even better than Thanksgiving, but I can see it now, Mary Kay's family saying, forget Shelly, is Shelly's apple pie coming for dinner? Both pies were completely gone at the end of the evening, but there were 15 people and this time there were only 8. I thought I left enough room after prime rib and mashed potatoes for pie, but after a nice sized piece with vanilla ice cream I felt really stuffed. I read something recently that said if you are not stuffed when you leave a holiday party then you did something wrong and you should go back and eat some more, so I guess I did that right.

I was home by 9 pm on Christmas evening and too tired to do anything more than sleep. Today I mostly stayed home and cleaned up all the messes I have not had time to clean for 2 days.

My Christmas call to Lauren was very brief on Christmas Eve, but I headed off crying about it with a call to my Mom. That worked and it was nice to have a holiday conversation with my Mom apart from the hectic, loud noise in the background call I made later to John's. Mom was going to John's without the boyfriend and not allowed to bring the dog (who cannot behave during present opening), so we appear to have both needed the conversation.

On New Year's Eve I write an inventory of the prior year and then write goals for the next year. One of my friends brought up doing something like this and I told them I do one every year and somehow got myself facilitating the exercise for a group of people. We are going to meet tomorrow so I can suggest what people should get done beforehand and see how I can structure the meeting, so I pulled out my inventory for 2009. More about that later, but if you had told me on December 31, 2009 that on the same day in 2010 I would be living in Boise, Idaho and facilitating a meeting on a fairly intimate topic with a group of women that I only met a few months earlier, I would have said you were high.