Blogosaurus Vex

December 25th, 2008

It’s early in the morning and I’m the only one up.  Merry Christmas to me!  (And you.)  I’m a bit sad actually – this is the first time in 18 years that my brother and I haven’t gotten up together, the rule being the first to wake wakes the other, so that we can share the moment of arriving in the living room, glowing with tree lights but otherwise dark due to the early hour.  And then we open our stockings together, creating little piles of chocolates and toiletries and minor presents, books and magazines and socks.  All this followed by the wait until seven, the official hour when our parents may be roused and the grander festivities of present opening and breakfast begin.

Though our parents haven’t been together for probably ten years now, and I’m married.  This is the first year Christmas dinner is being held at my place instead of Dad’s, and Dad and my brother are currently at his place, while I am here.  Awake first, and now awake alone.  Husband enjoys the holiday I think mainly by watching me enjoy it – that’s good enough but doesn’t make for a fellow early riser; I won’t wake him.

So I’m eating tortilla chips and drinking a pop and thinking about the gravy I’ll make for the turkey eaters – yes I am providing a turkey for dinner – why not?  Once a year I can buy a bird.  It’s not as though I will be forced to eat it.  Though I have become paranoid about its bacteria, because of my recent bird-related illness as well as a long established tradition of a meatless kitchen where nothing I cook requires sterilization procedures to maintain my health, so everywhere the bird touches as I brine it and rinse it and dry it and prepare it for baking requires a vigorous soaping followed by bleach to disinfect.  I will say I am greatly enjoying working with the bird, reengaging with the little rituals of creating a roast.  Buying it was sad but trussing it is fun.

My dad is sick.  I don’t want to give much in the way of personal details but things have been very complicated with him lately.  A combination of lifestyle choices and medications (prescribed) has coincided (in the literal sense) with an as-yet undiagnosed but potentially very serious illness – it’s complicated because what’s going wrong may be in no small part due to things he’s done knowingly to himself.  I am sad and angry and afraid.  Mostly I just feel anxious and worry about whether he’s getting the right tests, and what we’ll do if the organ in question just quits.  Part of it is he feels constantly like he has a terrible flu, so it’s hard for him to drive out here (also his rheumatoid arthritis is so bad he can’t make a fist, and it hurts his hands and knees and feet to drive).  He wears out easily.

So Christmas this year may be a somewhat abbreviated affair.  Dad and my brother will come around lunch time, and leave soon after dinner I imagine.  I wish it was like our Christmasses of years past, with a full day spent together from waking to bedtime, but that can’t happen at my place.  And holidays at Dad’s have become a bit depressing to me.  I can’t quite explain it but I find his big bachelor’s house saddening, more so even in recent years than in the ones immediately following the divorce.  My apartment is cozy and warm, full of lights and decorations and music, and feels very Christmassy.  Dad’s house feels like he tried to make it festive but it didn’t work out.  So I wanted them to come here, and so they are.  But the price is, I only get them for part of the day.  And I have the morning alone.

But I think I’ll go wake up Husband now anyway – we’ll eat cereal and play Bing Crosby and we can behold the turkey sitting naked in our fridge and say “Ewwww!”, and it will make the waiting much pleasanter.

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Posted in Personal, Veganism | 2 Comments »