The Holy Name of Jesus - the 9th Day of Christmas

On the Ninth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a working phone and lots of missed texts.  Oh, and some other lovely things.

On Tuesday, I finally gave in, hunted up my old phone, found the charging cord, and plugged it in to charge.  It was so weird to power it on, and look at the old screen I’d seen so many times.  I remember when I thought it was so cool and cutting edge.  I mean, it could go on the internet.  Well, if I wanted it to, and if I was willing to pay the ridiculous data charges.  It was the nicest phone I could get at the time without having to spring for a data package.  I hadn’t realized how spoiled I’ve been by my smart phone.  I mean, this thing doesn’t even have apps.  I can’t read my kindle books.  I can’t connect to my home wireless network.  It feels so… so… old-fashioned.

Man, I really hope I still find my real phone.  Sigh.

It was funny yesterday when I finally activated the phone, and all the texts and messages I’d missed started pouring in.  They were coming so fast I couldn’t get into the sounds menu to deactivate the alert, so I just had a continuously buzzing phone for a little while.  I felt very popular!

In other news, Tuesday we had our Extended Family Presents.  It’s funny – I’m used to having marathon family gatherings on New Years Day (see also: our annual Big Family Party that we didn’t have this year), so you would think that a relatively low-key hang out with super-abundant hors d’ouevres (literally every horizontal surface covered) and a little gift-giving wouldn’t phaze us.  But when I came home at the end of the night I was totally worn out.

Of course, the stars of the show were the babies.  We had both grandbabies there, plus Fleur, so there was lots of little people underfoot.  Competition for baby time was hot, particularly since The Little Philosopher slept through most of the party, so we mostly had Sweet Pea to pass around.  I got some lovely presents, including a beautiful vintage tablecloth from Aunt C, and another DVD/Blu-ray player from Uncle S.  To be honest, I mostly put that on my wish list as a joke.  I never in a million years thought someone would buy it for me.  And now I have two.  But then, that’s the way of Wish Lists – you put something unusual on there, and chances are you’ll get multiples, like Mr. T who asked for an ax handle this year, and got three.  The one I got from Uncle S has more of the features I want, so I think I’m going to see if I can return the one from Mom & Dad, and maybe use the money to buy wineglasses.  Or tires.  Or something.

Of course, it’s still Christmas.  I still have a few presents to give (mostly to The Duchess & 007, who weren’t in town when we did family presents), and then there’s the CL Ephiphany Party weekend after next, plus two weddings, and, well, looks like the post-holiday let-down isn’t happening until February.  If then.  But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Though I would like to find the time to get a little laundry done…

A while ago I read something that I always think about this time of year.  A lot of times people get down right about now, when the excitement of the holidays is over, the nights are still cold and long, and there’s ice and snow to contend with.  It feels like we’re in the heart of winter, with everything cold and bleak before us.  But really, every day is getting lighter and lighter, every night getting shorter.  The turn of the year, the solstice which is the longest night, was actually a few days before Christmas, on December 21.  Every day since then has been getting longer and brighter, building towards the longest day of the yaer on June 21.  So really we’ve already passed the hard part.  Everything is downhill from here.

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