How’s that for generic? For the first time in years, so many I can’t remember, I will not be alone on Christmas. Today, a friend is coming over, my homemaker is coming (She insisted. I love my homemaker), and later DD2 and I are going to drive around and look at Christmas lights, and have our traditional Christmas Eve Dutch Lunch. Dutch Lunch is something we used to get at a tavern near the steel mill in Pueblo, Colorado. It became our tradition. It is Italian bread and why can’t you get real Italian bread anymore. It is not bad bread in the shape of Italian bread, but terrible. Every store now seems to sell this. I bought baguettes instead. Provolone, capicola (sp), and cotto salami, the one with peppercorns. Banana peppers and beer. Dutch Lunch. I think my friend is bringing cookies, I hope, or we won’t have Christmas cookies. I can’t bake, and I tried to think of everything we’d need, but forgot cookies. Tomorrow we are having chinese food, and figs wrapped in phyllo dough (frozen appetizers). I am excited. I got used to the being alone for every single holiday, but it never stopped being sad.

My DD2. She has amazed me. She can be prickly (spectrum issues) and moody( body chem issues), but she is so very kind and caring, and thoughtful and generous and helpful, and she does so many little things that seem completely unimportant but make such a difference. Replacing the towels when she gathers the laundry, opening the cat litter box for me, peeling the gold foil off the beer bottle. She doesn’t tell me, and I just notice it when I go to do something, and it makes my life of pain and exhaustion SO MUCH EASIER. I don’t know how it happened, but I have really great kids. Hope you all have great families, too.

So in the middle of this, my friend came over, and I suddenly became super hyper and full of energy and talking about things I want to cook. Prednisone, the wonder drug right up until it kills you, has kicked in. For sure. Happy Winter Holidays, all of you lovely people out there.