wrapping the year in silver tissue and raffia ribbon

1. Cooking: Last night, nodding to our old tradition of Mexican food on Christmas Eve, I made steelhead tacos for two, topped with salsa of oranges and cilantro. Today, a duck waits to be roasted, potatoes wait to be sliced and baked with cream and cheese (dauphinoise), and a few vestigial Brussels sprouts will be steamed and buttered, garnished with lemon zest. Lemon zest left over from lemons juiced for mousse (tonight’s dessert)…

2. Sipping: Côtes du Rhône for the duck, maybe limoncello to have with dessert.

3. Reading: I finished reading Paul Harding’s Tinkers last night, a beautiful novel that kept surprising me with its leaps from one consciousness to another. Or maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised because I think the point is that nothing is lost, that we all carry those we have come from inside our hearts and memories. I cried when I read this passage:

When his grandchildren had been little, they had asked if they could hide inside the clock. Now he wanted to gather them and open himself up and hide them among his ribs and faintly ticking heart.

Where have I read something like that before, I wondered. And then I remembered this passage from my own novella, Patrin:

My grandmother told me once that her father had worn a cloak, a loden cloak, given him by a man who’d bought some of the copper pots. It repelled both wind and rain. Sometimes he’d open it to allow two or three of his children to shelter within, she said. We sat under trees while the rain poured down, and it was our own tent, warmed by our father’s body.

4. Thinking: I am thinking all the old thoughts.

5. Remembering: This morning, John came downstairs first and made the fire and the coffee. Then he put the Chieftains’ Bells of Dublin on. It was our old signal to the children that it was time to come out to open their stockings by the fire. So this morning I was filled with those memories, more than 20 Christmases begun this way. When I reached the last step, I was…

6. Wishing: See above.

7. Eating: Already today–salty caramel fudge, shortbread, an apple, an orange, a handful of nuts.

8. Finishing: I am sewing the binding around the starry quilt.

9. Watching: Last night, “The Tailor of Gloucester”, and there is always something new: the look on the cat’s face as he places the cherry-coloured twist into a teapot on the sideboard, takes it out, puts it back. He doesn’t know whether to be resentful or generous. (Does this sound familiar?)

10. Wearing: Today I am wearing a plaid flannel shirt, a size too big, baggy jeans, red merino socks. I might change for dinner. My hair is braided into two pigtails. I am nearly 70.

11. Loving: Every song on Bells of Dublin. My family. The tiny Anna’s hummingbirds seen through the window over my kitchen sink.

12. Hoping: For a better year, for all of us, for our poor damaged planet. I saw a funny cartoon this morning, Santa standing on an ice-berg, talking to one of his helpers as they looked out on a city dense with smog, tall industrial chimneys emitting black smoke. Maybe I should have given the bad children solar panels instead of coal, he’s saying.

13. Enjoying: The tiny lights John has strung around interior windows, shelves, paintings.

14. Appreciating: Photos of grandchildren, their beautiful faces.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate.