tis the season

This was my intended post for the Monday after Thanksgiving, the day we took my brother-in-law to the emergency room, so it is a little out of date.

Thanksgiving usually marks the beginning of the Lost Days for me. Lost Days because if I haven't accomplished it by now, it's probably not gonna get done this year.

Usually the days between now and New Year's find me short of time and with too many obligations. Usually, we are struggling to finish a job before year's end which gives me little time to spend on preparing for all the holidays that are crammed into this short spate of time. And believe me I think everyone of them is celebrated amongst the family. Thanksgiving, Hannukah (which is stupid early this year, I will barely have digested my Thanksgiving meal), Christmas, Marcmas (as we refer to Marc's birthday and the three day celebration that accompanies it) and New Year's. I say usually because this year we are in-between jobs. Plenty of time to shop and prepare for the different holidays, for a change, but little cash with which to do it even if I was so inclined. Right about now we are questioning the wisdom of paying for the new AC/furnace we got last July in full instead of financing it. I'm not too worried though as it already looks like next year we will be back to work. In the meantime, we are being frugal.

One of the things that makes these the lost days is that the closer we get to christmas, the harder is it to get any kind of business done but most of what makes these days lost though, is all the socializing among the family and friends. Easily 7 events alone among the family starting with Thanksgiving and ending with New Year's Eve. Throw in the three days of the studio glass open house, start adding in parties (assuming of course that we get invited to some) and it's enough socializing to last me for a whole year.

In fact it sends me into near total isolation in January and February.

Obviously, some things referred to have come and gone while we were busy elsewhere. We are relieved that there will be no Marcmas this year. Usually his birthday is when family members come into town from Denver and Dallas to do all the holiday visiting and exchange gifts. In the past there has been a night out adults only pool tournament, a bowling party for all the kids and adults the next day and then the third day one of the brothers will have a gathering of the clan at their house. Fun but exhausting. The Denver contingent has a new wife and so they are going to Florida to be with her parents this year and what with the poor economy the Dallas contingent doesn't feel like doing the traveling.