Merry Christmas!

I’m having a quiet Christmas day with coffee, cats, book, and tapestry weaving. We’ll drive to my sister’s house tonight (not far away) for dinner and some family love.

Last night Sandy and I exchanged gifts, which we don’t always do. I declared Christmas to be a no obligation zone years ago, although I’ve yet to completely enforce that internally. I much prefer to give and receive on the heart’s schedule rather than obey the social demands of a day on the calendar. This blog has long advocated Buy Nothing Day and Buy Nothing Christmas. Sandy, however, has never really been on board with my anti-consumerist holiday philosophy, and this year I gave it a pass.

I bought Sandy a present because I saw something I knew he would like and be surprised by. (It was a Flexcut wood carving tool set.) He bought us two bodhrans! Now we can really annoy the neighbors. He nailed the perfect gift, something that we could do together. We will need to learn the techniques of playing these drums.

Normally I do a Festivus post, but I’ve been really sick for almost a week and didn’t feel up to it. Still sick as far as my intestinal health, but my energy began returning last night and I actually got out of bed and did laundry. I feel better today than I have in weeks so who knows how long my body has been fighting this off? If I’m not okay after eating Christmas dinner at my sister’s house tonight, I suppose that I’ll go to the doctor, but at least I had a colonoscopy last year so have no worries there. Maybe it is related to my gallbladder removal almost three months ago.

Sandy volunteered to work today and since no one else is in the building and he expects no calls, I noticed that he took his violin. He used to do that when he worked third shift. Maybe I should get out my woodrow and tune it. We are both wishful musicians without the drive to actually practice, and it is shameful how many unused instruments are in our house. I learned early on that my creative gifts are in areas other than music. I took music lessons for most of my childhood and teenage years, including singing, piano, percussion, saxophone, and music theory. At some point you have to appreciate that you tried and the path is not yours. It made my life richer in the effort, and high school band was the bright spot in my dark teenage years.

A friend and I plan to hand deliver my tapestry “98% Water” to the Folk Art Center for the Tapestry Weavers South show later this week. It will be nice to have a road trip with a friend.

Now I’m going to make myself eat something and finish The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan before giving sitting at the loom a try. The one good thing about getting sick is that I’m back to my pre-gallbladder surgery weight, but it’s not a diet that I recommend. It feels bizarre to have no appetite at all for three days.