Meanderings and Musings

It is that time of year again.

A little background (with links to further details on the backstory!): Holidays are hard, even if you don't take commercialism into account. I miss my late husband, I am trying to get my brakes fixed for a reasonable price, and my work schedule is highly variable. It's fairly ad hoc anyway, but in December and in the spring, clients go on vacation or leave school early or take mental health days without informing my department.

I have a child (yes, she's 18 for another week, but she lives at home while going to college) with an anaphylactic tree nut allergy, and another (14) who is neurodivergent and therefore easily stressed out by all the rapid-fire changes to her already shaky routine. Not to mention me, their mother, who is subject to her own neuro-quirks, and to seasonal affective disorder (SAD - a fancy way to say I want to hibernate in the winter) and recently, severely limiting dairy foods. And there was a shooting threat at one of our local high schools this week, just to make it extra stressful.

Whew! Just writing out that list is exhausting. Which is likely also (partly) due to the SAD and pandemic fatigue and the 2020/2021-ishness of it all!

That's not including the commercialism and the other issues at hand, like people who give lip service to Love Thy Neighbor while ignoring the practice of it. Or folks who take a perfectly nice opinion piece about how awesome the teachers at the affected school (above) have been and make it all about them. Or antivaxxers (not those who can't; those who won't.) Or even the ridiculous amounts of road rage I've seen lately (and remember, as noted above, I drive for a living; I see a lot of this!).

Anyway, I feel sort of helpless about the holidays. All I can do right now is maintain our somewhat eclectic and ecumenical holiday traditions to the best of my ability. I have two weeks off work, which is nice, but there's a lot that needs doing around the house in those two weeks. If my scattered brain can manage.

What, our holiday traditions? I mean, we're culturally Christian but philosophically agnostic. My dad's family tree was fairly secularly Jewish, and many of my friends follow some form of neo-paganism. So we're the family that has the six-year-old, six-foot-tall, artificial tree from Target, with origami stars of David and dragons and cranes and butterflies, the planets of our solar system (including Pluto), stuff the kids made themselves as Girl Scouts or at school, and a plastic TARDIS. This work of eclectic art is topped with something Target called "Celtic Angel" back in the 90s when I first bought it, but as she has no wings and is wearing that Christmassy red and green plaid, I think she's meant to be (St.) Brigid.

Not sure why that's so blurry. Might be the size of the screen I'm writing this on.

This post is getting randomer (more random?) by the moment.

Also, so many links to click!

Ah, well, I guess I called it Meanderings and Musings for a reason.

ANYway...

My point here is that I really need to do what my accidental clothing combination of the week advised: Don't Panic and Be Kind.

Three pictures in one post? I think the last time that happened was in my inauguration post. Almost a year ago.

Okay, back to the holiday bits.

Commercialism is, of course, a thing. I don't have any religious objections (see above; I'm agnostic) to such things, but I don't have a lot of cash with which to indulge my urge to buy All The Things for my kids, either. I am also proud to report that my kids are not the type to want the latest thing just because it IS the latest thing. Brand names? Who cares? Still not cheap, but at least I can buy the (usually) more affordable knockoffs instead of brand name $300 shoes for Liz, Destroyer of Shoes, you know?

Their wish lists are (mostly) as eclectic as our Christmas tree.

But aside from the usual holiday B.S., and the vagaries of human asshattery, this is looking to be a pretty good one.