The elevator and the candle

I made it through Christmas just fine. But sometime in the days afterward, a funk snuck up on me. The best visual to describe the emotional sinkhole I've gone into would be a mine shaft elevator. Somehow I descended from serenity and calm happiness into a sorrow so deep that the strongest urge I feel is to just shut down and shut out everything, even the light. I'm finding myself leaning back on an old remedy: Find one thing every day to be happy with, and somehow that day will go by OK. It doesn't have to be a big thing. It can be the print a leaf leaves on the sidewalk after a rain. It can be something silly and charming, like the the word "tacky," which is such a singularly human construct that the word always makes me appreciate my species. It can be seeing my fiance cheer at a football game or my cat stretch in front of the fire, or getting a friend's writing to look over, or watching a dog run zany circles in the park across the street. I wait for these things, and they get me by. I know from times before when I played this game that it works. These little talismans light my way to each new sunrise until steady cheer dawns in me again. The trick is to avoid wondering when that will be. I've got a story due in 17 days, so that ought to keep me occupied.

Holiday catch-up

It's been a while since I last posted, and that's because I was insanely busy with Christmas preparations. It's the first time I've ever not gone to my hometown for Christmas. Notice my use of the term "my hometown" rather than "home." Now, for the first time, I feel like my home is here, in San Francisco. It was a good decision to stay here for Christmas. But it meant that I had to have everything ready and into the mail by last Monday. Gifts for everyone I was giving gifts to; chocolates for everyone I was mailing or handing them to; cards sent. In the past I could just wait til the last minute with just about everything except cards, then put it all into the car the night before and drive it all to Santa Barbara. Not this time. I put together 18 calendars in iPhoto, made a tutu for one of my nieces, made 20 pounds of chocolates (truffles, caramels, barks). I was a good holiday citizen and got all my cards into the mail early.

It was my first Christmas away from my hometown and with my new family--my fiance--and while I've had some sad moments thinking about what can never be again, it was a good, self-supporting decision to stay up here rather than go to Santa Barbara to be where everything would remind me of loss rather than the joy of Christmas. But not being there at this time of year was so new to me that I wasn't quite sure of how to go about it. So I thought we could begin by figuring out what some of our holiday traditions would be. I requested we see a choral performance, since choir music means Christmas to me. So on 12/23, we went to see Chanticleer at St. Ignatius here in the city. It was the most exquisite a cappella singing I've ever heard. And the church was a stunner, too. It was so beautiful it nearly made me want to go Catholic (I'm still safely Greek Orthodox). We were so blown away by the whole experience that we decided to make Chanticleer's Christmas concert one of our permanent holiday traditions. We may add a nutcracker next year. In fact, next year we may just get each other Christmas concert tickets for gifts instead of the "under-the-tree" kind.

Last on the holiday catch-up list to write about is a dinner we put together tonight for 10 of our friends. We made crostini for appetizers and served that with sherries. Then came the main course: turkey with cornbread and roasted vegetable stuffing; mushroom gravy; lemon-roasted green beans; cranberries with port and cinnamon; bread and butter; pinot noir for the wine. Dessert was a chocolate panna cotta cake that came out wonderfully, paired with various ports and sauternes. The calorie load was staggering. Our guests were charming and fun. One of them brought the board game Taboo and we played a round, then chatted and drank more dessert wine until around midnight. The carnage in the kitchen was so complete--every dish out and every wine and cordial glass used--that we had to snap some photos. I'll post 'em later. Now I've got to head over to my wedding blog and catch up there. Then it's time for bed, at last.

My first Christmas tree ever

Believe it or not, I've never had my own Christmas tree. I always went home to Santa Barbara for Christmas; usually to help decorate the tree that went up shortly after Thanksgiving, and then again for the Christmas holiday itself. This is the first year those ornaments from my and my siblings' childhoods won't be unpacked from their boxes out in the garage. They'll stay there through the cold nights until one day next year we'll divide them. Meanwhile, my first-ever Christmas tree stands, lit and fragrant, in our living room in San Francisco. We bought it for $37 at a tree lot outside the Grocery Outlet in Redwood City. It's a six-foot fir tree. The cat loves to play underneath it. Thanksgiving was profoundly depressing for me. But the idea of Christmas, here with my fiance, with our own tree and our own new traditions, makes me feel peaceful. There'll be no sibling politics to deal with. No driving, except maybe to the store for any stray dinner ingredients. No house-where-parents-aren't. We'll go hear Chanticleer on December 23, open some bubbly on Christmas Eve, and make dinner for a few friends on Christmas Day. When I think of Christmases past, I feel so sad. But it's Christmas Now, and I can feel happy about that.