Ice (Not in My Drink)

The last week or so here in Southern New England, the mornings have been brisk (Tuesday it was about fifteen degrees (F) shortly before noon when I took the photo, below, of the Lower Falls at the Yantic River, a short walk from our house). I'm starting to think our children inherited their love for warm temps from me. Where they got their taste for Rastafarian Country & Western music from is a puzzlement to us all. 

The weather's been crisp but with no snow. As I'm not asking for a sled this year, again, I'm not terribly upset about the lack of white stuff. I'm proud of how well I can control my emotions when every morning I look out the window, don't see snow, and don't break down and cry. Inside, our house went from the day after the first Saturday in December to CHRISTMAS in null comma nichts. 

My German wife is the world's most organized person-she has transformed a lazy dullard into, okay, a bad example; let's use the kids, or the house, or the neighborhood. She is a wizard at organization, and our house is now festive with a capital F (and a neutral pH).

Lower Falls of the Yantic River in Norwich, Connecticut

The letter "F" is also the beginning of a word, and part of a phrase, I use a lot from around Thanksgiving through the end of the year (and not fa-la-la-la). I was never good at making or having friends when I was a kid, a lifelong habit as it happens, so when I watch people the other eleven months of the year cross the street rather than talk to me, as they now wish me 'all the best', I know better. I'm more polite now and don't tell them where they can stick their well-wishes, mainly because they'd walk funny, but I figured you out, so don't think you fooled me.

Sigrid addresses cards, organizes the holiday shopping, shops for gifts for all our neighbors, and decorates our small evergreen tree in the front yard with some kind of bulbs and decorations. I help. I stay out of her way. 

In recent years, our family has returned to its 'original size', as our children, Patrick and Michelle, are themselves adults and lead their own lives with their partners. On Christmas Eve, we'll have gift opening complete with oohing and ahhing and lots of 'you shouldn't have' (mostly from her as I shower her with all kinds of stuff I think she'll like, festively wrapped, very nearly). 

And in the spirit of the season, there will be a time as the afternoon surrenders the last of its light and the darkness rushes in where I stand in our yard and strain to hear, if only in my mind, the melody of my most favorite of all seasonal songs whose words I cannot understand but whose sentiment is wonderfully clear.
-bill kenny