A Condiment and the Christmas Spirit

I can’t believe Christmas is less than two weeks away.  Ten days from now, I will be getting ready to fly south for the holiday, and I can’t wait to spend almost two weeks with Mom and Dad.  This is the second Christmas without Grubby, so I am still in escape mode.  Grubby loved Christmas, and he always went overboard for it. 

I would put on my Christmas music, which was a very eclectic selection of different styles of music: traditional favorites, Pavarotti – I mean, nobody does O’ Holy Night like Pavarotti – blues, and on Christmas morning, it was always “Canadian Brass Christmas”.  That music carried me all the way through the season, and when I was overseas in Europe and missing home, it always helped me get in the spirit.  Even when I was on Crete and swore I wouldn’t put up any decorations, early December found me down in Chania Old Town buying a little tabletop tree with lights and a few ornaments. 

I always loved decorating my tree, reminiscing about all the mismatched ornaments, and remembering where they came from.  I collected ornaments wherever I went, and I’ve always had colored lights on my trees.  I have glass ornaments that I bought in Connecticut over 30 years ago, along with ornaments that were gifted to me by my first AA group in Naples, Italy back in 2004 – my first sober Christmas. 

When Grubby and I moved in together, we ended up collecting ornaments wherever WE went.  We kept the colored lights, and he even drug out a couple of Christmas trees from his parents’ shed, so there are currently no less than three trees in my attic, and probably enough ornaments to fill them all!  He bought me a Pug Angel who took pride of place at the top of our tree every year, and sometime during the weeks leading up to Christmas every year, a little blue box with a white bow would appear – resting on a branch, waiting for the moment he gave it to me. 

Like last year, this year is different.  It’s hard to get in the spirit when your person isn’t here anymore to help you, but I am trying – oh, how I am trying!  I have been listening to my Christmas playlist in the car, and it helps some, especially when Otis Redding’s version of “White Christmas” comes on.  If you haven’t listened to this version, you are missing out!  I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but at the point when Otis sings, “May your days, may your days be merry and bright”, Grubby would always sing at the top of his lungs, “MAY-OH-NNAISE, MAY-OH-NNAISE!”  I miss that!  Every time my playlist shuffles to it, Abby and I turn it up and try to imitate him, but it’s not the same.  Leave it to Grubby to sing about condiments in a Christmas song!  What I would give to hear it one more time…

So, as I prepare to head out for the day and send off a package to Mom and Dad for our upcoming Cruisemas, I will leave you with this: Sing, sing loudly, even off-key!  Record your loved one’s silly things! What I would give to have him here, driving me nuts still!  No matter how much they drive you nuts (because, let’s face it, they all do at some point!), remember that it could always be worse – you could be like me, rudderless without my true north, wishing for one more song about condiments…