Unforgettable

Let me just paint you a picture.  Plaid pajama pants.  Summer plaid, not winter.  Black furry boots.  An old grey thermal shirt, bed hair, no make up.  You may imagine a bra if you like, but there's not one in sight, so the picture just gets better and better.  Throw on a very old fuzzy coat to go outside and rescue the porch pot that I decorated from the garden, where it fell, add in the crabapple juice that dripped all over me, and I think you'll have an accurate picture of how I look right now.  Oh, wait.  There is a strip of black duct tape stuck to the side of my coat, because I also had to fix the artificial tree on the screened-in porch, the tree that broke in half on day ONE of it's existence (thank you, 61-mph winds) and did not seem to withstand my first mend-attempt of thin floral wire and bending the branches around the broken trunk.  I'm sure duct tape will be MUCH better.

So that's how I look this morning, a Christmas vision, but I have to say, it's been the most Christmas-y I've felt all season.   I have a list of things to do today, but they're all pretty fun.  We baked yesterday, so I'll have fudge for breakfast.  Cards are arriving, which I LOVE, and the house looks very festive.

It was in my kitchen today, that I first really felt that Christmas was here.  My IHome was blaring (really, really blaring) while I was coming in from the aforementioned tree debacle, and one of my grandmother's Christmas songs happened to be playing.  I stopped, I stood in all of my loveliness, and we sang together in the kitchen.  It was rather like when Natalie Cole sang "Unforgettable" with her dad, except that I looked horrendous, and my grandmother outsings me by a country mile, and there was no TV covereage.  When I listened to the words of that song, "Christmas is a Birthday Time," I felt totally and completely in the season.   I always think how nice it is for my mom that she gets to hear her mom sing, anytime she wants.  Isn't technology fantastic?  And if my grandmother were here, I think she might look at me in my drippy boots, my ridiculous shirt, my messy hair and say, "Darling, you look beautiful."

Many of my friends now share the wonder of these tunes with me.  In fact, just the other day, the other BEST day, Lisa got the news that she had kicked cancer's ass FOR GOOD while she was listening to my grandmother sing in her house.  Angels everywhere.

I'm lucky that I can press a button and hear her voice.  But if there's someone that you miss, just stop in your kitchen and say hello.  It will put you in the spirit for sure.

(below:  a picture of my grandmother, Ruby Wright, singing in my grandfather's band, Barney Rapp and his New Englanders.)