We Wish You a Merry Christmas…

I hope everyone had a good holiday. Ours was truly a white Christmas… of course, that’s to be expected in Vermont. December = Snow.  Or rather, Christmas Eve = Ice.

We left Milford after 6 pm so we didn’t get into Ludlow until abour 10 pm, and it’s another 20 minutes to my parents’ house from town.  So off we go up to South Hill with the reassurance that the road was great when my dad came home from work. Not so much anymore. As we left the asphalt for the dirt section of the road, we noticed two cars just sort of stopped, one at a cross street and one right in our way.  Not entirely sure just why they’re stopped, we go around and proceed up the hill.  Scratch that.  We attempt to proceed up the sheet of ice.  We got about halfway up and there was no way the car was going any farther. I called my mom and after some slipping and sliding and creative braking, we got turned around and went back down the hill into town.  My mom met us in her little tank of a Subaru and we left our car at the Norwalk Ski Club.  By the time we got back to that particular hill, the sanding truck had come by, but there were still a couple of a sketchy spots.

My dad took us down the hill on Christmas morning and we drove around a bit until meeting Lisa and Kurt for breakfast at Trapper’s, a little diner on the main road in Ludlow.  Kurt then wanted to look for a geocache in a couple feet of snow. Yeeeah.  After that futile little adventure, we all went back to my parents’ house and had a pretty mellow day in front of the fire, watching Christmas movies.  Well, everyone else was mellow.  I couldn’t sit still.  I was extremely tense and restless, which only got worse as the day went on, making for a really unpleasant dinner preparation for me. To make matters that much worse, my stomach had been bothering me since the previous afternoon.  I eventually ended up crying upstairs, then walking in the cold, in the dark, in the snow, just to get out of the house, and leaving everyone else to take care of dinner.

The thing is, I don’t like Vermont. I mean, why should I?  I haven’t had a normal Christmas since my father started working at Okemo.  Not to mention the fact of his affair while he was up there and the fighting when he was in Norwalk.  And the perpetually crummy apartment he rented.  Then my mother was always up there, and while they were up there, I was having a mental breakdown.  Then they basically make it impossible for me to stay in Norwalk by selling the house out from under me.  I could’ve stayed in my grandmother’s upstairs apartment, but she didn’t want Alan there, and at that point, he was practically living with me already.  Then they buy this alarmingly rustic log cabin.  It’s dark and smokey and cold and depressing and way out in the boonies.  At the time, their closest neighbors were all "flatlanders," who came up for a week here and there.  I spent a week there earlier this year and I was miserable the entire time.

And I hate living out of a suitcase, everything cluttered and messy.  It causes me a lot of stress when my environment is like that, and up there I hardly have a choice.  Even when it isn’t, the place exudes a certain claustrophobic clutteredness. I hate it.

So Christmas is Vermont is not an easy thing for me.  My parents have already promised to come down to Connecticut next year.

Dinner turned out all right.  It wasn’t as good as I know I could have made it had I not been having a small breakdown.  The green beans and carrots were lamentably soggy and whoever mashed the potatoes forgot to add the garlic powder.  Presents went fine.  My dad was a little disappointed because he ordered my pretty blue towels from our registry, but they got sent to our house, so he didn’t get to wrap them.  My mom got me a jewely box that is absolutely perfect and a gift card to Michael’s.  Also a squiggle ball for the cats to play with.  Lisa gave me a fleece jacket in a gorgeous shade of purple and a pair of hand-knitted socks.  My grandmother gave me an angel ornament and a check in a pretty bronze enamled box.  We gave everybody jars of soup mix.  I also gave Lisa and Kurt pictures from our wedding in a nice double frame and a handmade windsock that Lisa probably likes and Kurt probably hates.  I made my mom a table runner that I’m especially proud of and that looked beautiful with the table all set and sparkling.  I might have looked a little better if we had matching china, but at least we could mix and match nice china instead of the crappy everyday stuff. Here are a few pictures of the presents I made…

The Soup Jars…

The Pictures and the Windsock…

The Table Runner (folded)…

And spread out with the table set…

 

::Sigh::

And now it’s snowing and will be doing so for the majority of the day.  And I have a sweetly purring kitten tucked into my robe, keeping me warm.  And I have nothing to do today, which is perfectly fine with me, given the weather.  Maybe I’ll take a walk and enjoy the blowing snow.

Oh! I finally met with the owner of the daycare I interviewed at before Thanksgiving.  Her name is Pam, she has two centers in Stratford, and is in the beginning stages of opening another one in Norwalk, of all places.  So I said, hey, I grew up in Norwalk.  Turns out, so did she and her husband.  And the daycare she’s acquiring there is on East Avenue, not that far from my grandmother’s house, which she is familiar with since it’s right across the street from her doctor.  LOL… Small world, eh?  And best of all? I have the freakin’ job! At long last!  She’s going to write up a proposal letter to officially offer me the job and I’ll more than likely be the first one to start.  She wants to get me certified by the state as a head teacher as soon as ever may be, and the odds are that I’ll be the person opening the center every morning.  I’ll start as soon as they’ve got kids, which will hopefully be in the next week or two.  Soon!

So in the meantime I can finish up on certain household projects that I’ve been neglecting.  ::cough cough:: Like painting the trim in the kitchen that’s been on hold for no apparent reason since October.  I guess now’s as good a time as any.  And maybe I’ll paint the bathroom while I’m at it.  Lord knows it needs painting.

But now is the time for breakfast and further kittysnuggles.  I’ll post again soon with my list of 101 Things in 1001 Days. ^_^

~Liz