Festive Heat

Today is both fun and a working-hard kind of day. It's not just the usual Saturday housecleaning, but also the day I am taking my old desk out to my car so it can go to a young writer. He is fourteen and the son of a Wounded Warrior, and already published. The Christmas gift he most wants this year is a desk.

For a writer, a desk can be a very big deal. It's a tool, it's a sacred space, it's a visual, physical reminder of work we love. I know how important a desk is.

So I am excited to be able to give the desk where I have written so much; this may be the gift I am happiest to give this year. I hope he will like it.

Gossamer TEC inspecting the desk before cleaning and packing

Today is also the day I have brought the tree out and set it up. It needs shaping and lights, and decoration, but it is up and the furniture reconfigured around it.

With unseasonable heat, I am *sweating* getting up to all this, even wearing a t-shirt instead of winter clothes. Finally - and for the second time this week - I have resorted to turning on the air conditioning.

In DECEMBER.


I don't live in Hawai'i or Florida, folks. Sustained weather in the seventies at this time of year is not only not normal, it's actually a little difficult to deal with, because the daily logistics of wardrobe alone get confusing. But, more than anything, it mucks with my head. At a time of year the phenomenon is not natural to the climate, "high pressure" takes on its most unpleasant connotations. Sigh.

But I love today.

Decking the tree was always the ritual of my parents' anniversary (not 12/12, but close, and I hew close to this because having a tree up for five or six weeks ends up oppressing and depressing me; it's not natural to me). I love the lights, I love the color and closeness of all those cheering things in my living room.

This year, for the first time since I have lived here, I'm putting up the white plastic candle lights in the windows. These, too, are home memories for me - and, again, I like the light. With some work done around here recently, this one more touch adds a little more cheer.

These touches and rituals and gifts are FUN. This is elemental to those things we do to observe the season, and to share it. Yesterday, I shopped for the Wounded Warrior himself for a few hours. I've finished most of my personal gift list as well, and know what to do for one more person, and the team celebration I planned was lovely and went well, with two of our top executives joining us and relaxing.

Christmas is on; I am grateful and enjoying December. Even the strange heat and headaches, I can manage.

How is your holiday season going?

Smells all right; the angle seems off, though, for this knee-hole

Seems to be missing a drawer, ma