Christmas 2009

I love the fact that Christmas is the time one thinks about all the people that have been special in ones life for one reason or another. I know the current feeling is that cards, let alone letters are a waste of resources and some even their time, but I love sending and receiving them.

Sitting writing cards give me the opportunity to remember and think about all the people that for some reason or another I am no longer in regular contact with, but still think about and want to know how there are and what they are up to. I really love Christmas letters and keep them all and read them several times.

Last years I did not send Christmas cards due to the awful year I had had; a simple and routine biopsy left me with an awful infection sewn inside me that had traumatic consequences that left me needing daily treatment for three months, being on antibiotics for a lot of that time. This left my immune system compromised and I spent a lot of the remainder of that year ill with any virus that passed the shop door. The death in mid December, and up country funeral, of an aunt who was very influential in my upbringing brought me to the decision that I was going to be unable to make my cards and could not bring myself to buy them. It is only as I prepared for this Christmas, which also has not been a trouble free year that I realise what a bad place I was in last year.

The shop has had a wonderful year, and I continue to love it, although the cancer diagnosis my sister had at the beginning of this year did give us all a bit of a worry; her wedding acted as a double celebration after the results of her surgery gave her the all clear. Most of the family were there including ‘the Americans’ my brother and his wife along with their boys with wives and one grandchild; the bridegroom’s son, who is an only child with no cousins, loved feeling part of a big family, we all found it a very special occasion.
The best news of the year was to hear that Lee and Kate will be having a baby in May; especially as my brother had rung my dad gloating he was going to beat me in the grandchild race as his grandchild will have a sibling in June. I am already trying to work out how I can manage regular trips up-country and have made sure I have somewhere to stay in May.

Boxing Day morningI was standing in my new kitchen looking out the window watching the birds, the sun had just come out after a shower of rain, the old apple tree still had rain drops on the branches that flickered and flashed rainbow colours in a halo of sunlight, it was so magical I hardly dared breath knowing any moment the angle of the sun would change and the moment gone, when Tom came and stood beside me and put his arm around my shoulders and we watched together. How is it possible I got to be so lucky.