What, my readers may ask, has possessed me to go two weeks without posting a single word on my WordPress.com blog? Why do I think that people will just wait around and tolerate being neglected? Have I been sitting around twiddling my thumbs, picking my nose, staring at nothing? Well, no. Truth to tell, I’ve been getting ready for Christmas. And I’ve been getting ready for Christmas for several weeks now, and now have only two gifts left to buy, a huge bone (4 1/2 foot long) for my brother’s hound and something more potable for my brother (shhhh! don’t anyone tell them–they don’t read my blog). It has just seemed that every time I think I’m done, I get another great gift idea, and I persuade myself that I can spare the money, and so I do, and there we go.
My adventure started near the end of October, when the first catalogs advertising Christmas items came out. Forewarned is forearmed, and I had been told that ordering either online or on the phone was going to be drastically slowed this year, and so I looked up interesting gifts in the catalogs in October. But I didn’t actually buy many gifts in October, because the catalogs hadn’t got the lower or lowest prices yet. I ordered a few things that might take till forever to come in, and then I waited for the next catalogs to come out, so that I could order from them in November. Of course, I had some independent ideas which I researched on Amazon.com, and a very few items that I waited until this past week to pick up at the stores in person. But the predominance of my gifts I was able to order online or on the phone, and I had that done well within the month of November. Then all I had to do was wait for stuff to come in.
By the first of December, I was ready to wrap, and so I started wrapping. We put up our tree, and now all of my gifts except the two I mentioned are under the tree, awaiting their inevitable unveiling on Christmas morning. But there were still cards to do, and I always bake for some people here where I live, and that still needed to be done. Of course, the cards went by in a flash in one blitz of an evening, and I started doing my bread baking yesterday and stayed up all night finishing it last night (when I get motivated, I get motivated!). It was made easier (and cheaper) this year because so many people had told me they didn’t want cookies this year. Usually, I make four kinds, about 24 dozen cookies in all, but this year I settled on loaves of sourdough bread. This was convenient, as I was already planning to wake up my sourdough starter from its sleep in the fridge in order to take it up to my brother’s for Christmas so that we could make sourdough English muffins.
Since yesterday, I have finished the main part of my baking. The only people I have still to bake for are the ladies at the local charity shop, for whom we usually do a cookie tray. I think this year I will do a tray of sourdough bites with cheeses for them, by way of a change for the both of us. So now, I’m sitting looking at dirty dishes, feeling like I need a good nap after my all-nighter up baking, but still too wired to sleep. And of course starting last night late or early this morning really, we began to have a nor’easter (a storm off the ocean, full of rain and high winds, with some threats of flooding). The storm is going to last probably until tomorrow noon, so I have to be ready with towels and things to dry out the windows and sop up water, which is a fortune most people who are anywhere near a coast are familiar with. But I’m not really complaining; I’m done with so many things, and now I’m just very excited and can’t wait for Christmas to come.
That’s really the way of it, isn’t it? When you’re young, you generally think of Christmas as a time when you get things from indulgent family members and friends, and it’s a rare child who appreciates the sheer fun of giving. But once you get to be an adult, the fun is in surprising someone else with something bought or made that they will enjoy or profit from. So, here I sit, two weeks and two days before Christmas, waiting and waiting and waiting for the big day to come, so that I can celebrate with people I care about. And all this fooferall of my post is just to assure my readers that they are people I care about too, toward whom I feel I have a responsibility to post regularly and as interestingly as possible, even if I don’t know their names and they never comment. I hope this posting finds you well and deep in your own plans for whatever winter or December holiday you observe, and waiting eagerly for the next real literary post to come along. I promise to do one soon, as soon as I have recuperated from my own holiday efforts and have a chance to sit down and read again. Until then, cheers!
creativeshadows 
Already sorted for Christmas that is impressive, I still need to buy most of my presents as Nottingham was a bust the other week. Although I did buy Kraken and have started reading it already, two days and ten pages in and I really need so set aside a little more time to read it,
It is wonderful to give, much better than receiving,it is just one of those wonderful things that age allows us to appreciate. I find your posts are worth the wait, even if we do have to wait for weeks. I keep hecking back every couple of days to make sure as I hate to leave one of your posts uncommented on for too long.
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I have one more teeny gift to buy for a stocking stuffer, actually. But otherwise, I’m done (yes, really, now I am!). So glad you got “Kraken.” Let that be a Christmas present to yourself–I’ll be glad to hear what you have to say about it. Thanks for the ego rub about my posts; that’s my virtual gift from you this year, to be appreciated kindly. And you are welcome always to be as frank and direct as possible when you do comment, because it’s always worthwhile (was it Macbeth who said to Banquo “Others abide our question; thou art free?” Can’t recall, but barring the fact that i am not a murderous Scottish king and you certainly aren’t a ghost, well you get the idea!). Tonight was the booze stop, so now everything potable that I at least am going to be treating for is under the tree, and in a week or so will be transported to sit under my brother’s tree, at least until we open it. I so wish that you were here on this continent for Christmas, we’d have you along for Christmas dinner with the other ten or so of us celebrating together, and I think it’d be a blast! Anyway, have lots of fun on Christmas, and I’ll try to keep up with your posting, which shames mine in regularity and often in content. I’m just getting lazy, what can I say?
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I would love to be over your way for Christmas, that would indeed be excellent to set foot on your landmass again. I hope you have a great Christmas if I don’t see you before but naturally I hope I do and my posts have become terribly intermittent but I will endeavour to get a few more out soon.
On a sadder note, I am afraid Kraken has not grabbed me at all, I think I must be defective, or perhaps dropped on my head as a baby or some such. I was looking forward to it but despite enjoying a few bits of it, I just don’t feel a drive to find out what is going to happen. In fact I don’t think I will finish it as is my way with books that don’t grab me as life is short and books (mostly) are not. Excuse whilst I go and cower in fear at your disbelief at my utter blindness of what makes this book so fun for you.
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So sorry to hear about “Kraken.” It’s certainly the lightest (purporting to be all about the world of magic in London) of the lot of his books. The others deal with science and magic as parts of the same area of expertise as well, but in a more serious tone (he regularly maims or kills off important characters). I tell you what–give it one more try: have a look at “The City and the City,” which is about a twinned city and is his contribution to the mystery/suspense/police genre. You may like it better. I reviewed it sometime back in the spring or so, and I think it’s really a fine book. But if it turns out that you don’t like it, then picture yourself lobbing both it and “Kraken” at my head across the Atlantic, while shouting “Dumb-ass Yank!” Sometimes, verbal violence is called for, accompanied by a tad of book-slinging (I remember when I got mad at Freud and his gibberish and slung his biography against the wall).
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As its you and I am of the patient kind I will pick up the other book you suggest, it would be bad if I kept reading Cormac McCarthy but wouldn’t give Meíville another chance. I would never chuck a book, I even kept Moby Dick from flying across the room so I must be fairly calm, as for insulting you, I am English, we don’t do that sort of thing. I would be gentlemanly and keep quiet or at least tell you not to be dissuaded from recommending me more books…but by a different author.
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Wishing you a joyful Christmas my friend!
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As you wish, so may you receive (and other Biblical-sounding things). Seriously, I rely on you to keep up the front for TSFTPONCM (The Society for the Protection of Nude Christmas Mice). As long as you don’t start to think you are one, my dear chum!
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I shall get a tee shirt with TSFTPONCM printed on it, just for you. If I thought I was a nude mouse there would definitely be more photos than anybody was comfortable with haha, luckily I am feeling sane so far this year.
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I think the moral here is, “Procrastination is inevitable — even if you don’t procrastinate.” Who EVER feels ready for Christmas!?
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I would like to have done another post for Christmas, perhaps something on a Christmas text. But when the procrastinating about Christmas activities is done, then there’s procrastinating about getting back to posting–I’ll do it someday soon, but for now, I’m looking toward Christmas dinner (a day late, because we had such a big Christmas brunch that we decided to have our actual Christmas dinner today on Boxing Day). A great winter break to you, and a productive and successful New Year.
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