The Twelve Days of Christmas: The Fourth Day

Actually, today is the Fifth Day of Christmas: I forgot all about blogging yesterday until I was in bed ready to fall asleep.  This is what comes of not doing something for so long.  So here is what I would have posted for the Fourth Day, had I remembered.

Arby planted himself on my apron on cookie-making day and I didn't have the heart to move him.  So he supervised from his perch while I stirred up a batch of spice cookies.










I must admit that I took little joy in Christmas festivities this year.  For years I've tried to keep alive the magic that I'd felt as a child, but have felt it slipping away as the decades passed.  I remember the long ago winter evenings of lying under the Christmas tree with the room dark except for the blinking of colored lights in the branches and the sparkle of tinsel.  For a brief time, the mundane world was transformed into something infinitely glorious and mystical.  

This year, as I plodded into the Christmas season, I finally realized that I no longer wished to force myself into these rituals any longer.  As a child, feeling as I do today would have been inconceivable and heartbreaking.  But trying to keep this fire lit in the old ways has become fossilized and meaningless.  So this year I tried to steer away from the old ways of celebrating winter and worked to reinvent how I approach the season.  This attempt had mixed results, but I think I'm on the right track.

The good news is that the activity of baking spice cookies with my cat is a keeper.  We'll build around that.