It's Beginning to ...

 I am looking out at a grey afternoon with low cloud and fine, fine snow showering down. More of a November feel to it than pre–Christmas December. Both my daughters have their trees, and the YD is supposed to be putting hers up this afternoon. We will see what happens with the cats in both households. The granddaughter has her terrible brat of a cat home for the holiday and the YD’s younger cat has never been exposed to a Christmas tree, having started life in Pakistan.

Edited to add the first encounter of Gilgit and the tree. So far, so good.

I have my present wrapping stuff out of storage, but only one set of gifts so far. I would be shopping except. Except. Covid. We went to a dinner party a week Wednesday and I came home with a case of it that developed over the weekend. And JG has caught it from me. Both of us are still showing two lines on the tests and so no shopping is being done. The YD stocked us up with food on the weekend and both daughters are on standby if we have needs, but you cannot send someone to buy their own Christmas present. Unless you are my father, that is. He did that.

I remember with some glee the year he handed my teenaged self a large sum of money and told me to go to a lingerie shop and buy my mother a beautiful nightdress. And I did that. And wrapped it. The look on my mother’s face when she opened it and stared at my dad was, um, priceless. I think his only foray, ever, into Ladies’ Intimate Garments was a trip with me just before I was married when he insisted I buy a pair of lovely silk pajamas and went with me to get them. For my wedding night. He also tried his formal and inhibited best to tell me not to expect too much from my groom on this occasion. And was much relieved, although red-faced, when I told him it would not be a problem since I ‘had my period’. (What my mother had trained me to say. SHE called it ‘the Curse”.)

I started writing this in a very dark mood, but telling that story has cheered me up no end. I did love my father a lot, even when I wanted to dot him one with a heavy object. After my mother died, he moved himself into an apartment in a seniors’ building, divested himself of my mother’s ‘stuff’ (the grandkids got it) and enjoyed a new lifestyle, even setting up a lovely girlfriend. But his lifestyle did encompass my participation. 

The most egregious trick he played on me was what happened when the building supervisor asked him to join the management board of the building. He declined but told her that I would be delighted to take part. I was elected in a flash, and ended up secretary, of course. I also had to be on call to drive him to appointments and events. And was not, ever, allowed to make him the slightest bit late. When he was planning an excursion, he would line up everything he would need on the hall floor in his apartment, including hat, library books, cushion for the car seat in cold weather, etc. I learned to open the door just a bit, cautiously when I called for him. The grandkids were adult by this time, and they thought the whole thing was very funny. I am sure my grandkid is chuckling over her mother and aunt complaining about me, indeed, perhaps at this very moment. 

On the other hand, they are probably too busy disentangling cats from Christmas trees.