My Favorite Things
It’s Christmas Eve day and given that it’s Sunday, this is a pretty lazy day. The family horde has yet to descend. I have started the day with a few of my favorite things. After a good night’s sleep and nice hot shower, I got dressed for the holiday. That caused me to spend a moment thinking about my wardrobe. One of the things I have always managed to do is to save a few special garments for wearing on holidays. In addition to holiday-themed socks, I have a number of red items just waiting for their moment in the sun at this time of year. My favorite Sunday activity is to make an early morning run to the bagel store. Today was an occasion to get extra bagels for our expected family guests later in the day in addition to my usual Mike & Melisa bagels…plus a few extra for their visiting family guests, daughter Amanda and her husband, Chris. The brought their dogs, German Sheppard Rex, who has been my pal for some time now, and Amanda’s Huskie/Malimut blend LittleWolf over to take a quick tour of the back hillside. Mike is in charge of the day’s agenda, so a walk up here and around the gardens was a good two birds with one stone activity. These days there are very few things I like more than showing off my gardens, especially on the back hillside where I have trimmed the Bison Boulder, the Hobbit House and the Bounding Ram with holiday finery of bells, ribbons and wreaths.
I hate to sound like I’m wallowing in all of my good fortune, but I do feel very fortunate indeed today. To begin with, Kim and I are in good health and as we all know from the ancient Chinese, that good health is the “one” in front of how ever many “zeros” we are blessed to acquire. On the health front, neither of us has anything to complain about in the least. My exercise and stretching program has left me feeling better than I have in a long time. It’s not like I’ve turned into a triathlete or anything, but as I have read lately, even marginal amounts of extra exercise makes a big difference to someone my age, and that is certainly my recent experience. Now that Kim is preoccupied with Buddy and back on the several times a day walking routine, she has even lost a few extra pounds and she too seems to be devoid of any complaints. In addition to feeling good, adding Buddy to the mix has brought that element of pet enjoyment into our lives. As we have adjusted to Buddy (and he to us) over the past week or so, we have come to love his cute and playful ways. He is definitely a bundle of energy who loves to play, but the fits of growling and wanting to be left alone have started to recede as trust is built among us. We are left with an overall sense of Buddy that he is a fun and cute pup who is a very pleasant little dog, and he has definitely become one of our favorite things.
As I sit here on another sunny day in San Diego and look around me at all of the lovely holiday decorations that Kim has put about here in the house, I am reminded at how much I like our lives together. At this time of year, it is all about family and I cannot think of anyone who is more all about family than my lovely wife Kim. Yes, she loves her family unconditionally, but she also loves my family unconditionally, and I love her unconditionally for that and many pother reasons.
My favorite things are pretty much the same as my blessing as for as I can tell. My blessings all flow from my lovely Kim. I love my kids dearly and would do anything for them, but as blessings go, they are supposed to be there to bestow them first on their own nuclear families and siblings, with whom they will share the rest of their lives and secondarily on me. And that is the natural rider and therefore fine with me. That means that it really is all about Kim for me. She makes my everyday life wonderful and she lifts my spirits each and every day with her kind and loving heart. I see it in how she deals with Buddy, just as she dealt with Betty and Cecil. I see it in how she treats others in her circle. She had her girlfriends from her alto section of her choral group over for a party the other day and it was not just a party but so much more. It was the twentieth anniversary of her mother’s death and she always likes to have a gal pal party on that day. The women lucky enough to be in her vicinity and her inner circle are beneficiaries of her extended deep love for her mother. This year these women were treated to a sumptuous feast and small gifts from her worldwide travels. One of the young women was so smitten by this outpouring of hospitality told her with tears in her eyes that she had never been invited to such a wonderful party as that. Such is the way Kim touches the hearts of those around her every day.
It is now Christmas morning and we are sitting in the sunny living room. Most of the wrappings from last nights present opening are cleared away. Buddy is still recovering and is already taking his morning nap after a good tug-of-war with me over his favorite raccoon rag doll. My son Tom and his lovely wife Jenna are on their morning flight from New York to San Diego and I have only to decide exactly when to get in my Ford F-150 Lighting Togo pick them up and bring them back to the bosom of our family, who will once again gather here for the day. While football has never been one of my favorite things, it becomes part of the landscape of the holidays given Kim’s family menfolk’s love of the game. So there will be some pro football game or other on the living room TV while the kids play with their presents and Kim and others fuss about in the kitchen.
This year Kim has asked that the theme be acts of kindness and wants everyone to talk at the Christmas dinner table about what they have been doing to realize on this seasonal mission of embracing acts of kindness. At the moment I am thinking I should say that I am quietly settling to have football on the living room TV, but I really do have to come up with something better than that because after 19 Christmases spent with Kim, and therefore her family, I have to admit that not so much football, but football on TV during the holidays, has become one of my favorite things. It reminds me that it must be the holiday season and there is nothing wrong with a little mindless enjoyment of the national pastime no matter how much I feel that its brutality (mostly on those who play the sport) will be its eventual demise. In the meantime, it means so much to people like her family that I am happy to not just watch it, but also enjoy it with them,
Today we will be joined by my sister Kathy and her husband Bennett and at least one of her kids (Alex) and his family (Stephanie and hers are recovering from some childhood illness or another). We will also be joined by my other sister’s daughter Nichole and her family, who have come west from Phoenix to enjoy the leaguers of San Diego. One of my favorite things about choosing to live out here in San Diego (now rated by U.S. News & World Report as the most expensive city to live in America) is that everyone wants to visit and for both Kim and I, it has become the natural centers of our families and thus our lives. I am blessed with too many favorite things to recount easily. Happy Holidays to all.