Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I exercise with a bunch of crazy fun people in the wee hours of the morning three days a week.  They’re a terrific lot and we share many stories.  They have embraced me in their group and I love being part of it.  Not only do we exercise, we share stories and bounce ideas and act as each other’s support staff.  Just before Christmas, Cathy Green announced that we all needed to wear our solstice shirts to our exercise class on December 21^st.  Of course the rest of us just looked at each other in a puzzled way and hemmed and hawed.  When I got home I decided that if Cathy said we needed them, I was just the person to make them!  After scrounging for shirts, especially long-sleeved white ones (the sleeves are for yet another project—they’ll be pseudo socks for the Scottish highlanders in the parade in Hello Dolly—more on that later), I brought out my glitter glue, gold fabric and solstice-appropriate embellishments.  I briefly transformed the kitchen island into a craft space and gleefully spent the day on a silly fun project.  Oh, and Mary Madore, yours will be waiting for you when you get back to Bloomington! 

So Christmas—it was wonderful in our house with Grandma and Great Aunt Lois visiting.  On Friday evening before Christmas we ventured out into the rain to see Oliver.  It was wonderful—Cardinal never lets you down, especially for the holiday shows.  The joy pouring out from a stage full of kids singing and dancing is overwhelming and you can’t help but smile.  The costumes were terrific.  The sets were incredibly complex and featured constant rearrangement and reassemblies.  The choreography of the shadowy bodies flitting across the stage to create the sets was a captivating performance hidden inside the play.  I had seen many of the primary actors before, but the undertaker’s daughter was new to me and I thought she was terrific.  Mike Price, the outstanding professional pillar and mooring for all the young actors, was in his element.  He is an amazing character actor—I could watch him on stage all day.  We went home delighted to feast and party until we had to deliver everyone to the airport on Monday.  

On Christmas morning, Jacob received an unexpected present.  He was supposed to be a bad boy in the Sounds of South holiday performance.  It’s part of the newer Christmas song:  “I’m getting nothing for Christmas”.  Unfortunately, Jacob got sick and wasn’t able to perform, so Jim tried to make it up to him.  You have to sing, or at least say, that title line in your head to get the joke, but hopefully you’ll grasp it when you look at the box that Jacob is holding. 

My boys must have heard some running water around Christmas, because they turned into beavers and built a dam around the carport.  Our neighbor, Martha Oakley, had a large tree cut down in her front yard, leaving huge chunks of trunk that needed a new home.  After a large number of treks back and forth to Martha’s house, hauling some ginormous hunks of wood each trip, and a heck of a lot of swinging of the maul, we now have at least a year’s supply of firewood guarding my car.  The only downside to the break is that there Was. No. Pie.  OK, yes, we’ve had cookies, brownies, stollen, chocolate, and rumballs, but no pie.  But I’m hopeful!  The stollen didn’t last long.  The cookie supply is dwindling after giving away many tins and keeping after them after meals.  There are a few rumballs and brownies put away in the freezer for a time when chocolate is needed, but it’s time for a new dessert!  We NEED some of the summer farmer’s market fruit to come forth for a pie! 

Until next week

Martina Celerin