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Some of our friends make a point of getting together every year at a local hotel bar in our holiday finest. (This year the organizer showed up in a tiara given to him by a former Miss Tennessee Earth. Sparkling leaves, y'all.)
While gifts are not required, producing them is part of the pleasure. Last year I made salted caramels. Earlier this summer, the BYM's face lit up when I dreamed aloud of giving Christmas pepper plants.
So, since then, there's been the tending of a tray of seedlings. There's been the collecting of brown paper bags. And last night there was a flurry of snipping and banding and ribboning before we headed to Mason's:
Part of the fun of the holidays is the dressing up, which for me often involves celebrating the victory of thrift-shop finds in tandem with treasures from friends and family. Last night I wore a gown from Goodwill, an anklet from eBay, earrings![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
xanthophyllippa.livejournal.com made for me, a ring from the BYM's grandmother, and a shawl from qrssama.livejournal.com. It's been a week where health and scheduling glitches put several crimps into my social life (this stupid cough. I'm obviously well enough to work long hours -- one colleague asked me if I was hiding a cot in my office, having seen me after 6 p.m. the night before and before 8 a.m. the next morning -- but lozenges give me an upset stomach, and hacking all the way through a friend's highlight reel would have been So Not On, so that was one of the events I had to bail on. Argh!) -- so it was especially nice to put on physical reminders of connections past and present.
Another friend is a professional decorator, and we happened to be seated near a tree she had decked out for the holidays. Isn't it beautiful?
While gifts are not required, producing them is part of the pleasure. Last year I made salted caramels. Earlier this summer, the BYM's face lit up when I dreamed aloud of giving Christmas pepper plants.
So, since then, there's been the tending of a tray of seedlings. There's been the collecting of brown paper bags. And last night there was a flurry of snipping and banding and ribboning before we headed to Mason's:
Part of the fun of the holidays is the dressing up, which for me often involves celebrating the victory of thrift-shop finds in tandem with treasures from friends and family. Last night I wore a gown from Goodwill, an anklet from eBay, earrings
xanthophyllippa.livejournal.com made for me, a ring from the BYM's grandmother, and a shawl from qrssama.livejournal.com. It's been a week where health and scheduling glitches put several crimps into my social life (this stupid cough. I'm obviously well enough to work long hours -- one colleague asked me if I was hiding a cot in my office, having seen me after 6 p.m. the night before and before 8 a.m. the next morning -- but lozenges give me an upset stomach, and hacking all the way through a friend's highlight reel would have been So Not On, so that was one of the events I had to bail on. Argh!) -- so it was especially nice to put on physical reminders of connections past and present. Another friend is a professional decorator, and we happened to be seated near a tree she had decked out for the holidays. Isn't it beautiful?
