Slightly Off Center

Because we work right up through Christmas Eve, I've long since trained my family back in the midwest not to expect Christmas presents by, you know, Christmas. I figure if they can arrive by Epiphany (January 6, which also happens to be Orthodox Christmas), I'm doing good. Yesterday, I did this:

Yep, loaded up the car with boxes (still too snowy/slushy to bike) and took them down to the Post Office and UPS Store. I am officially done for the year. Spent the afternoon clearing out packing materials and scrap cardboard from the studio, and washed a load of clay towels so I'm ready to go back to work next Monday, but for now, I'm free. Officially off duty for the rest of 2021.

What am I gonna do with myself?

Merry Christmas, Solstice, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, or whatever winter holiday you favor, I hope it's happy, peaceful, and full of love and friends. We're slowly decompressing from the sales season, will have Christmas dinner for supper, maybe open presents, maybe save 'em for Sunday. Who knows? It's just the start of the Christmas season.

Woke up this morning at 6:24 to Christmas greetings from a friend in Wisconsin who doesn't understand how time zones work. Sang Christmas carols with an expanded Newman Center choir (only one Christmas day Mass, so both the 9 and 11 am folks were there) that had sopranos and altos, along with my lone tenor. Carols are fun because everybody knows 'em, and we all have the harmonies down from years of repetition. We also had an operatic soprano who knows a few of the grand, soaring descants on Hark the Herald and Angels We Have Heard. Was going to introduce Shannon to our hand-made Nativity set, but Regina's grand-kids were crowding the space and we couldn't get close enough to touch. (She's blind, so will need hands-on to appreciate.) Fortunately, there's time. It's just the start of the season, after all.