Santa Picks, from 1957 [ + zoom ]
For all the joy of the holiday, there is an underlying reflective melancholy.
I think Merlin captures this well as he writes about Judy Garland singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” He points out some great history in the lyric of that song. A fine read in which he says that Judy owns that song.
I agree, and Burl Ives owns Have a Holly Jolly Christmas and Bing Crosby embodies A White Christmas.
But I’m digressing from reflection, of which I’ve been doing lots lately, and a little extra today.
It goes with the territory of the season and getting old.
On the matter of aging, I’m constantly losing things. Then I spend half of the waking hour mentally replaying scenes to figure out when and where I lost something in particular. I’m even shaking my fist at the thought that these things aren’t lost, but stolen.
Oh, and my joints are creaky.
And for every hair that falls off my head a gray one appears in my beard.
And that’s just me. When I consider the rest of the world on any matter or level, there are lots of creaky joints.
But all this thinking without considering the good stuff would be terribly vexing—and though I’m not one to espouse that happiness has a price tag, I will relay this bright spot:
Dan and I decided that we’re giving ourselves a dining room table for Christmas. No other gifts, just a table. Trouble is, we couldn’t find one. Nothing fit what we had in mind or our budget. It had to be round, and tall, and seat 6, and be under $250.00.
We finally gave up and agreed that a table from Target would be not only fine, but potentially awesome.
When I was at work, Dan went out, bought it and set it up to my surprise.
Indeed, it does look awesome, and feels awesome.
So as midnight struck and we reveled in what turns out to be a whole new room for our house, I realized that it always seemed I got my birthday presents at Christmas. This year? I got Christmas on my birthday.
And the day continued to be fantastic, but I’ll save that for another journal entry.
You don’t look a day over 28.
Somewhat unrelated but still Christmas-y and possibly birthday-ish, there are many boxes of sea-foam colored ornaments at Target in Norwood right now, located in all the holiday stuff in the back.
I thought of you immediately when I saw them. They’re very pretty, so you might want to act fast.