Dept. of Ambivalence and Hope
Wednesday, 24 December 2025 10:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaffy_rChristmas Eve Thoughts
I'm sitting in the livingroom, listening to Kpop rather than Christmas music of either secular or Christian origin. I've been prepping for Christmas Day, when we'll entertain four friends, and the house is full of the smell of two types of dressing cooked tonight so that I don't run the risk of overcooking it in the same oven as the tiny turkey (10.5 pounds) I bought for our somewhat unexpected meal. Unexpected, because we hadn't planned to do Christmas at all; one of our friends texted to ask if we were doing Christmas, possibly because they remembered that I'd said I wanted to invite them to a post-Thanksgiving dinner, and I just texted back "Yep!" because they've been very good to us, and this was one way we could repay them.
We jumped into "Emergency Christmas" mode, and I've already completed the cranberry orange relish and the Green Slime (it's a 1950s/60s recipe I got from Bob's mom, and it's not a canonical Christmas for our friends unless this is part of the menu, lime jello, cream cheese, maraschino cherries and all.) Tomorrow morning I'll stuff the bird with some of the dressing that didn't get baked tonight; I'll bake the veggie side-dish Bob and I chose; I'll make the peach cobbler I decided on instead of pie because cobbler is much, much easier to make. Then it's on to sweeping and damp-mopping the diningroom before putting extra leaves in the table and setting the Christmas board.
Last year, we were both despondent about the federal election and, without having the kids and Harlan here to be Christmasy for, we spent the day in a bit of a funk. To put it mildly.
A year later, the despondency has lifted a bit, but we still hadn't thought about Christmas much. We had improved enough to buy gifts for our three closest friends, and their son, but we'd expected to share them on New Year's Eve. Instead, that text came, and the rest is recent history.
And tonight, I got a comment on my AO3-archived story, "It Was Wonderful," a fanfic based on "It's a Wonderful Life," which Bob, Andy, and I have loved for years. For several years on Christmas Eve, I've reshared the fic, which I originally posted on my LJ, then on Dreamwidth, and I eventually posted it on AO3, and was always tickled when I got the few kudos I did for it.
The comment was thoughtful and that would have been all I needed to read. But the person then asked if they could do a podfic. They were polite, said they'd understand if I didn't want them to do that because they'd still love the story. I checked them out and found that they a) weren't the type of scammers apparently infesting the archive these days (people pretending to be fans of stories, then working around to asking for money to "create fan art" for stories) and b) were experienced podficcers.
I told them I'd be honored. It's the first time anyone's done that for one of my pieces, and it seems like a lovely and unexpected Christmas gift.
I'm not much of a believer these days - not a Christian, certainly, although my experience with Christianity growing up in a house filled with love was very good, and that experience colored the way I approach spirituality. But as Bob has often said, and I believe him, some stories are true even if they never happened. The story of a child born in a stable and placed in a manger for warmth, a child who angels sang to sleep, who shepherds approached quietly after having heard the lullabies, a child who was a hope of peace ... well, that's not a bad story to happen, even if it never did.
And then there's "It's a Wonderful Life," and "It Was Wonderful." You can find the latter at the link, should you like to read it, either the first time or perhaps for another time.
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate. Peace be unto all, even those who don't celebrate. I am lucky to know all of you.
I'm sitting in the livingroom, listening to Kpop rather than Christmas music of either secular or Christian origin. I've been prepping for Christmas Day, when we'll entertain four friends, and the house is full of the smell of two types of dressing cooked tonight so that I don't run the risk of overcooking it in the same oven as the tiny turkey (10.5 pounds) I bought for our somewhat unexpected meal. Unexpected, because we hadn't planned to do Christmas at all; one of our friends texted to ask if we were doing Christmas, possibly because they remembered that I'd said I wanted to invite them to a post-Thanksgiving dinner, and I just texted back "Yep!" because they've been very good to us, and this was one way we could repay them.
We jumped into "Emergency Christmas" mode, and I've already completed the cranberry orange relish and the Green Slime (it's a 1950s/60s recipe I got from Bob's mom, and it's not a canonical Christmas for our friends unless this is part of the menu, lime jello, cream cheese, maraschino cherries and all.) Tomorrow morning I'll stuff the bird with some of the dressing that didn't get baked tonight; I'll bake the veggie side-dish Bob and I chose; I'll make the peach cobbler I decided on instead of pie because cobbler is much, much easier to make. Then it's on to sweeping and damp-mopping the diningroom before putting extra leaves in the table and setting the Christmas board.
Last year, we were both despondent about the federal election and, without having the kids and Harlan here to be Christmasy for, we spent the day in a bit of a funk. To put it mildly.
A year later, the despondency has lifted a bit, but we still hadn't thought about Christmas much. We had improved enough to buy gifts for our three closest friends, and their son, but we'd expected to share them on New Year's Eve. Instead, that text came, and the rest is recent history.
And tonight, I got a comment on my AO3-archived story, "It Was Wonderful," a fanfic based on "It's a Wonderful Life," which Bob, Andy, and I have loved for years. For several years on Christmas Eve, I've reshared the fic, which I originally posted on my LJ, then on Dreamwidth, and I eventually posted it on AO3, and was always tickled when I got the few kudos I did for it.
The comment was thoughtful and that would have been all I needed to read. But the person then asked if they could do a podfic. They were polite, said they'd understand if I didn't want them to do that because they'd still love the story. I checked them out and found that they a) weren't the type of scammers apparently infesting the archive these days (people pretending to be fans of stories, then working around to asking for money to "create fan art" for stories) and b) were experienced podficcers.
I told them I'd be honored. It's the first time anyone's done that for one of my pieces, and it seems like a lovely and unexpected Christmas gift.
I'm not much of a believer these days - not a Christian, certainly, although my experience with Christianity growing up in a house filled with love was very good, and that experience colored the way I approach spirituality. But as Bob has often said, and I believe him, some stories are true even if they never happened. The story of a child born in a stable and placed in a manger for warmth, a child who angels sang to sleep, who shepherds approached quietly after having heard the lullabies, a child who was a hope of peace ... well, that's not a bad story to happen, even if it never did.
And then there's "It's a Wonderful Life," and "It Was Wonderful." You can find the latter at the link, should you like to read it, either the first time or perhaps for another time.
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate. Peace be unto all, even those who don't celebrate. I am lucky to know all of you.
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Date: Thursday, 25 December 2025 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, 25 December 2025 04:38 pm (UTC)