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juushikaTonight was the first night of Hanukkah. (Well, that was yesterday evening at this point, but precision is overrated.) With the cruise cutting my holidays short, I find myself in more of a holiday spirit than I am most years—preemptively making up for lost time, perhaps, or just trying to prove that I can enjoy myself despite the best efforts of fate to ruin the season. But everything is in disarray. Allie may not make it home until after Hanukkah, so we may have to light the menorah without her and reschedule gift opening to the 9th. Everything is foreshortened and hasty—most of my family doesn't even have wish lists, yet—and at the whim of schedules outside our control.
But I went home to light the first candle with my family. We haven't bought a new set of candles yet (another thing in disarray), so we scrounged through the remnants of old sets. These first candles were light blue—and beautiful with the brass menorah, bright flame, and deep blue night.
And it was a wonderful evening.
Jamie spent her day at the vet, getting some benign fatty lumps removed. Papa and I picked her up before lighting the menorah, and the vet tech warned us she would probably be dazed and disoriented, and maybe not even hungry—and Papa and I broke out laughing, and we were right, because when they brought her out from the back Jamie broke into dancing and wiggles to see her people, and then she hurried home to eat the food that had been denied her all day long. She was a little whiny and clingy, sure; she's in a bit of pain, and she will be for the next few days. But this is our Jamie. She's had two major surgeries and a few minor lump removals at the vet, and she's still happy to go there (the tech remembered her because "she really loves our cookies!"). She's overjoyed when she's returned to her pack, and even when she lies down for some pain-dazed rest she still wants you to hold her paw and look into her eyes.
This is family.
We're not big on the winter holidays. We celebrate so many of them that it spreads out and mixes into something mild and amorphous: gathering, a few symbols, some gifts, and everything pausing midway for my father's winter birthday. We don't couple our celebrations religion, and so there is no greater purpose than the gathering and the gifts. We rarely decorate the house for any occasion, and this year it doesn't even make sense to have a Christmas tree. Our schedule is all messed up, and we're all left a bit mixed up as a result.
That doesn't matter, really. We still come home to the most beautiful and loving dog (even if we have to go pick her and her sutures up from the vet), we light a beautiful menorah against the night, we spend some time as a family, we rearrange schedules to carve out more time. We gather. We give.
And yes, I wish I were staying here through the holidays, and how I wanted to follow![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sisterite's example and listen to The Nightmare Before Christmas while decorating the tree, and I begrudge the disruption. But it doesn't really matter. We gather, we give, anyway.
On the 10th, I'm taking the train up to visitcentury_eyes—she's been down to see me before, but this is my first time coming up to see her. Initially I was planning to make this trip in January, but Devon thought to change the schedule—and we was absolutely right. She'll open her doors to me and we'll gather, we'll give.
There are things I wish I could change, but there are some—a dog, a menorah, a friend—which I would not have any other way.
But I went home to light the first candle with my family. We haven't bought a new set of candles yet (another thing in disarray), so we scrounged through the remnants of old sets. These first candles were light blue—and beautiful with the brass menorah, bright flame, and deep blue night.
And it was a wonderful evening.
Jamie spent her day at the vet, getting some benign fatty lumps removed. Papa and I picked her up before lighting the menorah, and the vet tech warned us she would probably be dazed and disoriented, and maybe not even hungry—and Papa and I broke out laughing, and we were right, because when they brought her out from the back Jamie broke into dancing and wiggles to see her people, and then she hurried home to eat the food that had been denied her all day long. She was a little whiny and clingy, sure; she's in a bit of pain, and she will be for the next few days. But this is our Jamie. She's had two major surgeries and a few minor lump removals at the vet, and she's still happy to go there (the tech remembered her because "she really loves our cookies!"). She's overjoyed when she's returned to her pack, and even when she lies down for some pain-dazed rest she still wants you to hold her paw and look into her eyes.
This is family.
We're not big on the winter holidays. We celebrate so many of them that it spreads out and mixes into something mild and amorphous: gathering, a few symbols, some gifts, and everything pausing midway for my father's winter birthday. We don't couple our celebrations religion, and so there is no greater purpose than the gathering and the gifts. We rarely decorate the house for any occasion, and this year it doesn't even make sense to have a Christmas tree. Our schedule is all messed up, and we're all left a bit mixed up as a result.
That doesn't matter, really. We still come home to the most beautiful and loving dog (even if we have to go pick her and her sutures up from the vet), we light a beautiful menorah against the night, we spend some time as a family, we rearrange schedules to carve out more time. We gather. We give.
And yes, I wish I were staying here through the holidays, and how I wanted to follow
sisterite's example and listen to The Nightmare Before Christmas while decorating the tree, and I begrudge the disruption. But it doesn't really matter. We gather, we give, anyway.On the 10th, I'm taking the train up to visit
century_eyes—she's been down to see me before, but this is my first time coming up to see her. Initially I was planning to make this trip in January, but Devon thought to change the schedule—and we was absolutely right. She'll open her doors to me and we'll gather, we'll give.There are things I wish I could change, but there are some—a dog, a menorah, a friend—which I would not have any other way.
