Spontaneous Combustion

Happy December! Where's my snow?! Everyone said, "Oooohhh... you're moving out to snow country...." Yeah, right. Fog n' rain I gots, snow... nadda. And for those of you who have slept through previous posts. I love snow, always have. I'm just weird that way.

So, here we are, launched into "The Season." (Duck season, wabbit season... duck... wabbit! Shoot me now!) I'll try to keep my tannenbaum tirades to a minimum in hopes that the rest of y'all find some peace and behave yourselves. If you don't... all bets are off. I won't even hardly gripe about the over abundance of "holiday" music, or about all the ads trying to convince my fellow poverty-stricken Americans to spend, spend, spend, or about the sudden flood of holiday email spam. I won't. I promise. Pass me the duct tape.

There are people who make it feel like Christmas on any given day and I love that.... people who make the good get a little bit better... people who help make the bad get gone (apologies to Norman Gimbel for swiping lyrics from It Goes Like It Goes). It has occurred to me (with no surprise) that Scott is one of those people. Holidays and birthdays get passed over, but little treasures appear out of the blue on any given Tuesday. With nary a word a glass dolphin suddenly graces the bookshelf; twinkle lights get strung from the rafters; a pair of hiking boots just my size shows up on the stoop; a winter jacket gets handed off with a "here, you need this"... stuff like that. There's never any fuss and "thank you's" are often shrugged off (although custard pies and chocolate chip cookies are graciously accepted). If he only understood how much it all means to me, though I suppose then the meaning would then be lost (I just love a paradox). Love isn't in his kiss; it's in the moments between.


Apropos of this post, Iggy stopped by the cabin on Friday. We had planned to meet up somewhere "in the middle," but she said, "Heck, I'll just drive out there." Once there she treated me to breakfast at a local greasy spoon. It was a rather spontaneous and wonderful visit.

Neil Diamond once sang it best:
You make it feel like Christmas
even when things go wrong
I hear the sound of Christmas
in your song
all year long

And that, friends n' neighbors... is the way it should be! In all our proper planning and quest for the American Dream, we've lost our spontaneity. Give it back to yourself as a gift this year - that's not a selfish thing to do, because it rubs off on others. Toss the plans out the window. Give the gifts that keep giving - your time and your love. Thoughtful gifts are the moments that are thought full. Trust me on this one... the tangible is never so dear as the intangible.