Good heavens, New Years Eve 2021 ALREADY??!!

 

I have made my resolutions for the coming year, God willing I shall be able to report NYE 2022 my success or (sigh) lack of. My 2021 NY resolutions are a mixed bag of success and fail so the fails are moving to the 2022 list. Successes have become habit, am I satisfied with those successes, er, no, there were not enough of them to grant me the satisfaction of achievement. Oh well, ONWARDS TO 2022!

 

Planning ahead, I have the diaries (desk and Paul's Filofax), the Verse A Day mini magnetic fridge Bible verse ready to be moved to the front of the fridge. Tomorrow whilst watching a vintage Christmas movie I'll tab the months of the desk diary and note appropriate dates to be remembered including the bin-to-the-kerb schedule. 

 

Fox's second son arrived 1st October 2021, so far he is the very image of his mum - also a ginger with blue eyes so there is that. Oh, the poor wee bairn has arrived with his paternal side ginormous ears (sigh) and like all of my side of the family including his dad, is already wanting 'real food' as opposed to the clearly boring formula, juice, and water offerings. I did warn the dil by the time the little fellow was two months old he'd be making it clear 8-12 ounces was not enough. She talked to the paediatrician who of course advised against it. She talked to her nan who advised, as I did, to try a tiny amount of rice and banana flake cereal mixed with formula...my newest grandson now sleeps through the night and is gaining weight and length. 

Fox's first son will be 18 in May and seems quite pleased about the new brother, he is enjoying watching his father relearn all the things he learned when the firstborn was an infant. He especially enjoys watching his father's preparations for nappy duty - a jar of Vicks now carried in Fox's pocket after everyone (absolutely everyone) got great amusement watching my poor son gagging as he changed nappies. 

My new dil is rather splendid, quite sensible and level headed. 

Paul and I are anticipating our 11th wedding anniversary in the New Year (mid-January), still able to claim 'happily married' status. 

Worries, however, abound. The geo-political situation is best described as perilous with Russia, the Ukraine, the Belarus weaponising of willing invaders pretending to be 'desperate refugees' and that lunatic hag Sturgeon proving that Naughty Nicola portrait true with her power-crazed 'covid restrictions' despite the realities and of course her insistence on indy-ref NeverEndDums. And here in Britain the attacks on civil liberty and democracy are on the up-tick despite the obvious truth the Omicron variant is proving to be the end-game for 'the deadly virus', between Sturgeon, Drakeford in Wales, and the hysterical SAGE group 'advising' the PM the 21st century version of the Black Plague is nigh, civil liberties are being stripped from all but never more than the way 'the un-vaxxed' are being demonised as 'unclean', selfish and anti-community. Oh and don't chance going anywhere without a face mask or you're quite likely to be verbally and physically attacked whilst being threatened with police action.

There are credible rumours of door-to-door pressure parties arriving with injections and refusal to take no for an answer without a printed and certified medical exemption (which I had to force my GP to accept from my three consultants who are adamant I cannot-must not be jabbed with the so-called vaccine owing to my multiple conditions being susceptible to the increasingly fatal side effects of the jabs). The so-called 'vax-pass', utterly useless for preventing spreading the 'deadly virus', is being used to keep 'the un-vaxxed' from venues and employment, and the rumour is the pass will soon be required for entry to shops including supermarkets.

And so we see off 2021 with hope for the future but fears for it as well.

 

 

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

 

And now it's Christmas 2021. The wrapped presents are on the table as I put the smaller tree on the mantel this year - no Father Christmas Grotto look at our house this year owing to Paul's unwillingness to take every last thing out of the shed in search of the Christmas boxes. In a few minutes I'll go put the beef joint in the slow cooker.

I know my husband - once a box goes to the shed I know I may never see the contents again  so I had a bit of Christmas craft and decor stashed in the house including a small non-Balsam Hill tree and some lights including the clip-on candle light string the non-Balsam Hill tree branches will not support. No major worries, I also had a set of micro-wire white lights (plug-in) to string on the little tree. 

 

We do have Christmas here in the living room but there are no stockings, Santa Bags, multi-colour outdoor Christmas lights, no lush Balsam Hill 4ft Christmas tree and German made reproductions of antique Christmas baubles, no Advent Wreath and Countdown Calendar. Our traditional wreath is 'somewhere in the shed' along with the candle bridges, garlands lit and unlit, and worst of all, our Nativity scene is 'in there somewhere'.

I ended up buying a little folding triptych Nativity scene, a set of mini-glass baubles including a finial topper, a new candle bridge and 4 sets of micro-wire blue outdoor lights (all that was left online at Festive Lights in the run-up to First Sunday of Advent). I dug out the Christmas shape mini-biscuit cutters and used the star, bell, and gingerbread MAN to cut decorations from air-dry clay, and some candy cane striped pipe cleaners cut easily into mini-candy canes.

 

I could go on about my efforts, for example how I used a honeysuckle vine wreath I made years ago left from Paul pruning the massive overhang into our garden from the neighbour's (got their permission first, of course, and they were mortified to see how invasive their plant had become), added some red and green jute twine with some big red 'jingle bells' and called it a door wreath. It actually has some charm. And I rather like the look of the Christmas tree on the mantel with the Christmas cards crowded together. 

The outdoor lights arrived in time to be lit at dusk on First Sunday, the air-dry clay finally dried, were painted and on the little tree. All in it actually has been a nice Advent season and now it's Christmas. 

Last night before supper Paul and I took a walk around our town to see the Christmas lights and it was lovely to be out there in the snowless but VERY cold Christmas Eve air walking around the neighbourhood and town centre. Best of all, an increasing number of our neighbours are putting up Christmas lights - all 'tasteful' so no inflatable snowmen and Santas, just sumptuous Christmas trees glowing from Victorian bay windows (we live in the Conservation Area), lit shrubbery and trees, and more candle bridges in windows without trees - I like to think my candle bridges started something but we live at the end of the goat track so I doubt mine started anything:) BONUS: one of the shops has a white light plump pine and holly garland outlining the shop door and Paul wants to do that to our door Christmas 2022. Big change from the man who had two strings of ancient fairy lights and one forlorn little plastic apple with some holly and pine for a Christmas decoration.

I have our outdoor light display on timer so at 10pm when the lights went out, I made sure to light the battery tea light on what we call 'The Christ Candle' - placed in the front window to run all night to light the way for the Christ Child. I've done this for decades, my small way of reaffirming my faith, my hope the single candle shining through the night tells the neighbours Yeshua is welcome and wanted in my home and my life. Last night after 10pm when I popped in where Paul has his computer set up, he asked 'Have you lit the Christ Candle?'.

O' Come O' come, Emmanuel! To ransom captive Israel...