A Quiet Christmas

Back in August or September, when it appeared that my dad was going to last well into 2008, my mom, brother, and I decided to make this an easy, quiet Christmas. Well, bowing to the Fates, my father upped and passed away on November 10. Which, as it turns out, isn’t a great time for the quiet Christmas thing.

Why? Two reasons. First, it’s still close enough to Christmas that even as I write this we are still dealing with the administration of my father’s death. Never mind any lingering fatigue/depression we still feel. The fact of the matter is that enough energy gets expended with dealing with account changes, and form filings, and so many other details that what’s left over is mostly used for trying to feel normal. The second reason is that it wasn’t far enough away from the holidays for us to make any substantially different plans. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue, but I now have the Scotts* to plan for.

See, here’s the deal. Mary isn’t big with me giving the gifts. I try to do it in any case (it’s my way), but I do know it rankles her a might. This year sort of fed into her desires as my dad increasingly required my time and energy, and I simply couldn’t divert from that to the very serious task of gifting. You see, I don’t just knee-jerk just any ol’ gift out of obligation. No, I think about it for many months before the event…largely because many of my gifts take a significant amount of time for me to develop into their final form. By signing onto the "quiet Christmas" pact, I was also tacitly saying that I wasn’t going to be gifting for Christmas this year for the Scotts, either.

Past experience has taught me that I can’t put together seven gifts, or one nifty group gift, in the six weeks my father left me (less, if you subtract out the funeral week plus thanksgiving). I just can’t — not unless I’m visited by an osculatory Muse. And it gnaws at me a bit. I do have a bit of free time now, but it’s useless to me. I can’t help but think that maybe I can make something nice for the two little ones (I hate Lara and Dawn thinking that I don’t love them enough), but time is running short and I have no suitable ideas.

I’m just hoping that everyone will understand that after the year I’ve had, there just wasn’t enough of me left to parcel out so soon. I hope and expect to do much better in 2008 — not that I have any ideas, just yet, but they’ll come. Besides, I still owe Jamie and Scarlet birthday presents from this past year (what can I say…I deferred out of necessity). All I can give them this holiday is my love and my heart-filled, no…soul-filled, thanks for being there when I needed them to be there the most.