Now that my children are bigger, life is less hectic, but a whole new aspect of Time has been revealed. I used to feel that all Christmases were, essentially, the same. They were stable, unchanging, predictable. But children change at such a faster rate than adults do. While my husband and I are still mostly the same as we have been for decades, our children are different beings than they were just a few years ago. Where is that adorable toddler boy who called everyone and everything “Dada?” And where is that constantly smiling baby girl would not sit still for a second? Sometimes I miss them so much.
So now Christmas, which for a time felt very much like a chore, feels like an incredibly precious and rapidly diminishing commodity. You only get so many of them, and every one of them is different. The Christmases of today are not the same as the ones of yesteryear, no matter how we cling to our traditions. I am learning to treasure each one, because there will never be another like it, and there will never be as many as we might wish to have had.
Welcome to Day 12 of the 2022 Virtual Advent Tour, hosted by my friend Sprite at Sprite Writes. For this day of the Tour, I’m going to talk a little bit about Time, because there’s nothing like Christmastime to draw my attention to the passage of time. The closer the holiday gets, the faster time seems to move. It’s a phenomenon that became particularly pronounced after I had children. During the years when my kids were small, the days of December would whip by so fast that I could almost hear them buzzing past me. Life isn’t as hectic now that my children are older, but time still flies by at an alarming rate at this time of year.
For that reason, and others, the holidays can be stressful, and one of my favorite methods for coping with the stress and focusing on the happy elements of Christmas is to watch Christmas movies, especially Christmas rom-coms. In keeping with today’s theme of Time, one of my favorite subgenres is Christmas movies that involve time travel, and I have composed a list of a few that I have watched and enjoyed over the last few years.
12 Dates of Christmas (2011): Amy Smart plays Kate, a woman who is intent on getting back together with her ex-boyfriend and irritated about being set up on a Christmas Eve blind date with a man named Miles, played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar. After a disastrous first date with Miles, Kate gets trapped in a time loop and has to do the day (and the date) over and over again, giving her plenty of time to discover not only that Miles is a great guy, but also that she has a lot of growing to do.
The Knight Before Christmas (2019): Vanessa Hudgens plays Brooke, a teacher whose last relationship left her feeling down on love and no longer believing in knights in shining armor. Josh Whitehouse plays Sir Cole, a Medieval knight who is magically whisked to the future to fulfill his quest to become a True Knight. Both Hudgens and Whitehouse are adorable, and the time difference is handled with little fuss, so the story doesn’t get bogged down. It’s pure Christmas fluff.
Just in Time for Christmas (2015): Eloise Mumford plays Lindsay, a psychology professor with a bright career ahead of her. Michael Stahl–David plays her boyfriend Jason, and the cast also includes time-travel pros Christopher Lloyd and William Shatner. Torn between love and career, Lindsay is magically transported three years into the future to witness what her life will be like if she sacrifices one for the other. It’s a cute movie worth at least a single viewing, if only to see Shatner sporting a most unusual beard and hamming it up during his two onscreen appearances.
It’s Christmas, Carol! (2012): Emmanuelle Vaugier plays Carol, a Scrooge-like publisher, and Carrie Fisher plays a ghost who visits Carol at Christmastime to warn her about what will happen if she doesn’t change her horrible ways. I first watched this movie a few years ago, and it didn’t make much of an impression on me, but that was before Carrie Fisher’s death. Now, to see her come back as a ghost is a certain kind of awesome, and she makes the film worth watching.
Scrooged (1988): Bill Murray plays a Scrooge-like television executive, and Karen Allen plays his love interest Claire, who is virtually his exact opposite. The film has a wacky and wonderful supporting cast that includes Bobcat Goldthwait and Carol Kane, among others. Bill Murray can be abrasive at times, but not so much in this film. His over-the-top style is part of what makes this bizarro Dickens-inspired comedy work.
Parent/teacher conferences were today. The teachers had nothing but good things to say, and I’m so proud of both children.
I noticed that a couple of things were missing from my top desk drawer. I was certain that I’d put them there, so I took the drawers out to see if the things had fallen behind. Not only did I find what I was looking for, but there was a whole bunch of other stuff lurking in that dark, dusty place. I found a $10 bill, a Target receipt from 2017, a picture of my son from 2012, a walker pass for the kids (who knows which year), a magnifying lens, a packet of stickers, a camera case, a small notebook, a whole pad of Post-It notes, and at least a dozen tickets for previous years’ Advent calendars. Quite a stash!
Speaking of the Advent calendar, I already printed enough tickets to get us through the 24th. That’s the benefit of having done this so many times before. The designs are all there on my computer. All I have to do is pick which ones I want to use, tweak them if necessary, and print. At least that’s one less thing to stress over at this time of year!
My PCR test came back negative. We had hoped it would, and mostly expected it to, but it’s a relief to have a definitive answer. As a family, we share our germs whether we want to or not, so a negative test result for me is like a negative result for the whole family. Now we can all go about our business without having to worry that we are (or recently were) contagious.
I still don’t know how a non-Covid virus was able to rob me so completely of my sense of smell. It wasn’t just the diminishment of senses that comes with being stuffy. It was a sudden, total loss. I went from being able to taste and smell normally one minute to being completely unable to the next. I guess I’ll have to go with my husband’s theory that I have permanent or semi-permanent damage from my previous Covid infection. So, if this ever happens again, I probably shouldn’t worry too much that I have Covid. Of course, then it will be Covid, because Murphy’s Law. 😉
Fortunately, my sense of smell has started to return, and one minor good thing to come out of this is that I now know where to get a PCR test. Ever since the state testing sites shut down, we haven’t had a reliable source for testing. I don’t want to go to the doctor’s office, because I don’t trust their billing policies. Though the test itself would be covered by my insurance, I’d probably get a bill with a $60 charge for “handling the swab,” or something ridiculous like that. I also don’t want to use CVS, because their scheduling system is evil, asking intrusive questions and expecting that I’ll upload an image of my health insurance card (fat chance!). Ultimately I used Walgreens, and though the testing process itself was slow, as were the results, at least the experience was simple and not infuriating.
I had a cold last week. It was mild, and I wasn’t coughing or sneezing much. But, after getting negative results from two rapid Covid tests and subsequently spending time with friends and family for Thanksgiving, I totally lost my sense of smell and taste. It was very upsetting, because that’s such a classic Covid symptom. I wouldn’t have left the house at all if I’d thought I had Covid.
I still don’t know if I had Covid. The belief is that the rapid tests will show if you’re super contagious, and it’s possible that I had Covid but wasn’t likely to spread it. In that case, the risk would have been minimal. Or maybe I had Covid and was contagious and breathed it all over everyone in the world. Geez, I hope not. Or maybe I didn’t have Covid, and it was just permanent or semi-permanent damage from my previous case of Covid that made it possible for an ordinary cold to wipe out my sense of smell (that’s my husband’s theory, anyway).
I went for a PCR test today, though, because I would like to be certain at least of whether or not I had Covid, and presumably I’d still test positive on a PCR test at this point if I did have Covid. The thing is, all four of us ultimately got the cold, and we did a total of four rapid tests among us. If the rapid tests can’t detect Covid in 4 out of 4 tries, then I need to know that. I’m a “Got Covid, Stay Home!” kind of girl.
I found a few more autumn-themed romance movies, which made me happy. That doesn’t mean I’m forgiving everybody for going overboard on Christmas already, though.
I am so tired. One night of inadequate sleep is enough to ruin several days for me. I stayed up too late on Monday. Yesterday was utter misery, so I tried to go to bed early last night, but I couldn’t sleep, and today has been miserable, too. Ugh.
My mother, who was a French major in college, learned a lot more about the French language than I ever did. She once told me that a circumflex is often indicative of an S having been removed from the word at some point in its history (the circumflex is the little “hat” that the French sometimes put on top of their vowels (â, ê, î, ô, and û.). Why the French felt the need to memorialize the lost letter permanently is beyond me, but it’s interesting and sometimes helpful.
My favorite example is “la fenêtre,” the French word for “window.” If you add an S after the circumflexed letter, you get “fenestre.” Then you can see a clear link between it and the English word “defenestration.” (My kids think the word “defenestration” is hilarious, BTW, right on par with “exsanguination,” which is another word with a French connection–“le sang” means “blood” in French.)
Knowing that a French word might have once contained an S can sometimes be helpful when trying to figure out its meaning. For example, the other day I came across the verb “hâter.” Always looking for cognates, I naturally guessed “to hate,” but that didn’t fit the context, so I tried adding an S (“haster”), et voila! The meaning was revealed. It means “to hasten.” Similarly, “la hâte” means “haste,” “hâtif” means “hasty,” and “hâtivement” means “hastily.” Now I will be able to remember the meaning of “hâter,” because all I need for remembering a French word is something to hang my hat on, and in this case it’s the “hat” itself!
I started this blog back in 2007. I haven’t been celebrating my blogiversaries lately, but this year, in April, was my 15th. The fact that I still write posts, however sporadically, after fifteen years is impressive. Most people don’t keep up their blogs even a fraction of that time, sadly. I don’t know which is worse: a blog that starts out with a few really strong posts and then just stops, or a middling blog that goes on for a few years and then just stops. Either way, the stopping is the problem. It’s human nature to wish for anything that is good, or even just familiar, to go on forever and ever.
So I’m proud of myself for keeping the blog alive all these years, always coming back, keeping it on life support. But, the blog is not free, and once again I find myself wondering if I’m really getting my money’s worth out of it. This year year has been particularly lean in terms of posts. Maybe blogging just isn’t my thing anymore.
Well, as they say, use it or lose it. My blog hosting auto-renewed at the end of October, which means I’m paid up through next October whether I blog or not. So I’m going to make a deal with myself now. Life support is not the same as living–commit to the blog by writing at least a post per week (not a big ask), or let it go.
I am currently reading a book of poetry (Come on All You Ghosts by Matthew Zapruder, 72/108 pages), a book in French (Le Lion, La Sorcière Blanche et L’Armoire Magique by C.S. Lewis, translated by Anne-Marie Dalmais, 144/186 pages), one of the Top 100 Children’s Books (Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis, 118/243 pages), and I will be picking out a new English-language, non-kid’s novel soon, having recently finished The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow. Whichever book I finish next will be my 52nd for the year!
The Grace Keepers by Kirsty Logan, A-: This melancholy but beautiful novel is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which the sea has risen so high that there’s hardly any land left. The only people who live on land are those who are born there and those who are rich enough to afford to buy their way onto it. Everyone else lives on the sea. One of the main characters is a young woman who’s part of a “dampling” (sea-dwelling) circus that voyages from island to island to earn food. Her circus act involves a tamed bear that she lives with in a small coracle hitched to the other circus ships. The other main character is a young woman who is, in effect, a funeral director for damplings. She lives alone, on her own small island, with little company except for “graces,” which are a type of bird used in the funeral ceremony. In this ceremony, the body of the dead dampling is dropped into the sea, then a grace is caged on the surface above. When the grace dies, the period of mourning ends. That aspect of the story is horrible, almost enough to make me not want to finish the book. The character struggles with the morality of that part of her job herself, often feeding the graces even though she’s not supposed to and doesn’t have food to spare. IMHO, this would just prolong the birds’ suffering, but I can see why she’d still feel compelled to feed them (and of course, symbolically, this means that mourning is supposed to be short, but she’s making it last longer for some reason). Each of the women has a secret, which will be revealed as the exigencies of life and death bring them together. While the story overall was sad, the ending was vaguely hopeful.
The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel) by Michael Scott: Twins Josh and Sophie get mixed up in the war between good and evil and the battle for possession of the Codex, a book of powerful magic. On their side, the immortal alchemist Nicholas Flamel, his wife Perenelle, and the warrior Scathach. Against them, the immortal John Dee, and other agents of evil, including the Morrigan and Bastet. This was a fast and fun read, but I don’t have time to continue with the series right now. Though Nicholas Flamel is also mentioned in Harry Potter, there is otherwise no connection between the two series.
My husband and I stopped at Target on Tuesday to return a few things. While we were there, I checked to see if they had any discounted Halloween candy, because I had a hankering for candy corn. Whoever was responsible for ordering the Halloween candy at Target had totally overdone it on the Brach’s Autumn Mix this year. There were boxes and boxes of it left over. We arrived just in time to snag a bag of it. A Target employee was removing the product from the shelves even as I debated over whether to get the traditional candy corn or the Autumn Mix. I don’t know what they were planning to do with the excess candy (the woman said they were “getting rid of it”). It’s sad, but there’s no room in the world for leftover Halloween candy anymore. Everyone’s obsessed with Christmas now. Considering that some stores start putting Christmas stuff on the shelves in October, skipping Halloween and Thanksgiving both, I guess I should be grateful that Target at least still lets us have Halloween.
In related news, I am irritated that Hallmark and other streaming services have pretty much skipped autumn and moved straight into winter/Christmas romance movies. Don’t they know that autumn is awesome? There ought to be oodles of autumn-themed movies, and that’s what I want to watch right now. If I were to start watching Christmas movies now, not only would they be totally out of season, but there wouldn’t be any new ones left by the time December rolled around. Save Christmas for December. Meanwhile, give me more romances featuring Halloween, fall foliage, hayrides, pumpkins, apples, and other fun, fall-related things!
