Christmas Eve and A Comedy of Errors

Good morning all! To those who celebrate Christmas, or at least like Christmas and enjoy some of the traditions associated with it -- may your day be happy and bright. I walk on a cloud of clichés. Jingles in my head, wedged there by hours of listening to the radio in the car.

The day dawns with no particular glow to it, no brightness in the way you might understand it, but what is brightness anyway? My Henry greeted me at the usual hour, with his usual eager tail wag and lick of my hand. Eventually, the sun came up, albeit behind clouds. Bright is a state of mind, not a meteorological term. 

A photo from our early morning walk, taken inside this time. For your holiday viewing pleasure.

 

 

 

Like so many of you, I have a lot to accomplish today. It seems that mainly I need to undo mistakes made earlier. 

But first, breakfast.

And a Henry hug.

Or two.

Or three.

 

 

 

And at least a listen to the King's College service (Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols), broadcast live here at 9 a.m.. Did you know that  370 million people listen to this worldwide? They say that even some climbers of Mt Everest tune it. I didn't know you could get good reception up there, but I suppose if you climb high enough you're going to pick up signals.

As many of you know, I am not a church person. This isn't the time nor place to explain my worldview (some of it may be gleaned from the pages of my memoir, Like a Swallow, which you can still buy and read if you're the curious type), but we are on the the day of Christmas Eve, so it's hard not to mention religion or tradition, or to not address the question of why on earth I would listen to a service all the way from England, given that I do not attend services here, in my own backyard.

Someone noted that listening to this broadcast is a way of connecting to those you love, and I suppose there is some of that for me: typically, my daughters listen as well, so we form a triangle of listeners, separated by distance, by age, by many things I suppose, but not by a love of sharing something that is beautiful, even if it has a different meaning for each of us.

 

And then I begin fixing mistakes.

First, the birdhouse saga. My balcony is a mess like you wouldn't believe. That's because after getting a visit from a couple of house finches when I put up the faulty smart bird feeder (do not get a BirdBuddy, no matter what the NYTimes Wirecutter people say; get instead the way, way cheaper HiBird Pro, though this one, too, has its faults, which I will note later), I had to keep supporting those birds with seed, even though I no longer had the feeder (I sent the BirdBuddy back to Slovenia, or actually Amazon, so perhaps a landfill). I put seed on the table and now every inch of the balcony floor has seed on it.  

Today I begin a new chapter in my learning about birds: I put up the HiBird Pro. 

The installation is straightforward, in part because I already know a lot about smart bird feeders. And immediately I get message after message that there has been a visitor to my feeder, and another and another. I see that I will have to figure out how to turn off notifications, otherwise, my devices will drive me nuts! Still to solve: cut back on messages, clean up balcony.

 

Now, surely you remember my other problem? The one where I only realized two days ago that we do not have a second fondue pot even as I am to make tonight two fondues -- one with meat, the other with cheese?

Hours of searching finally got me to order one from Home Depot (online) and another from Walmart (also online -- neither place had in-store sets). Both promised delivery today, though with a note that it may be late. As in -- after dinner. Home Depot then retracted and pushed it down to late December, so I ordered a back-up from Amazon. This one too promised December 24th, but it also said by 8 pm, which is a nonstarter. 

Maybe you do not know this, but when you order a fondue set, you do not get any source of heat with it. That has to be purchased separately. Finding one that can be delivered in one day is a whole other bag of trouble. Especially when you do not really know which heat source is appropriate. Online descriptions do not tell you this. I located one that claims it's for fondues, so it might work, and Amazon promised it for a delivery last night, of all things! And it came last night. Except it came not here, but to the farmette. Maintaining two addresses for our one Amazon account has turned out to be a huge issue. Confusion abounds. Needless to say, I have to make a trip to the farmette today to pick up the fuel cans for the fondue set that I may never receive on time. 

My hopes were still with Walmart, until I saw the message today: my fondue set will come today to 1313 John Q Hammons. Damn! I remember now that early on, I had an order from Walmart -- of a photo I needed for Ed's birthday -- and I inadvertently put in that very address. I don't live at 1313 John Q Hammons. One of the digits is off in that address. The photo went to the conference center across the street from me. And now Walmart auto-filled this second purchase from them to that wrong address. The conference center is of course closed today. I tried going to the connected hotel to ask them to keep an eye out for this delivery, should it come, but Henry hated the floor there (yes, he is fussy that way) and refused to go in. Or at least to venture off the patches of carpet by the doorway. So what are the chances that I will track down this second late-arriving, wrong address given, fondue set from Walmart? Pretty slim.

All this nonsense is using up precious time -- time I need for baking for tomorrow's Christmas dinner. And here's the question: should I grate the fantastic Swiss cheeses (Gruyere and Emmental) for the fondue that may never happen?

 

In the meantime, Henry and I drive over to the farmette and pick up the fuel cans and Ed. I need to give the pooch a good run today. May as well go to the dog park next to the farmette (let's just call it Ed's dog park), which actually is a fine idea, because Henry loves Ed, and I have human company for my walk.

Henry is really feeling active today -- he has a lot of energy! -- so we make two loops.

And it is beautiful. Especially since we are wearing shoes with cleats so chances of falling and breaking bones are slim.

 

Now comes the Christmas miracle. Or two. Or three. Or maybe it's that there are often good endings to stories that start off looking like we're headed for a fiasco the size of a watermelon.

First, and least importantly, my birdhouse is not only up and running, but, too, it is beloved now not only by the house finches and chikadees, but also by a tufted titmouse (if you trust AI) and a mourning dove (I could recognize that one any day).  I've cut off the notifications, but I also understand that there's such a thing as too much of a good thing. The smart feeder takes a photo every time a bird moves on it or to it. That makes for a lot of photos to delete at the end of the day! 

The second miracle is one that really leaves me deeply satisfied. Apparently FedEx noticed that the address is nonsensical. They called me, I corrected it. Their response? Great! We will deliver it to the corrected address the next business day! So, two failed fondue deliveries. 

But there is a third.

And the third was placed in the proper place in the delivery room today at 2 p.m. You gotta love Amazon at times like these. 

There will be cheese fondue tonight.

The third miracle? Well, life in general. Dinner with the young family, watching the kids get more and more excited -- all that makes this day special, even to people like me who pick and choose traditions associated with Christmas. But then, don't we all pick and choose how to behave, what to give of ourselves, how to react to events as they unfold? 

Christmas Eve dinner.

A tray of cheeses...

 

 

 

Three is the magic number tonight. Three happy kids...

 

 

 

And three fondues, with the cheese one bubbling in its amazing little red pot. (The other one has broth for the meat dippers and also, thirdly, for the salmon chunk dippers.) Boiled potatoes, a salad, bread. Sauces for the meat. All there, in place. No fiascoes. Only deep satisfaction that it all came together in the end.

 

 

 

And three desserts that will probably carry everyone through the New Year!

 

 

 

I stick around to take their traditional Eve photo. In matching pj's. Goose included.

 

 

The two big kids console my Henry. Do you wish you had doggie pajamas as well? (I think we can all guess that Henry, while appreciating their empathetic kindness, would politely say no.) 

 

 

I leave them to their cookies for Santa. And dental floss. Sparrow read somewhere that you should leave Santa some dental floss. To keep that chuckle healthy and bright.

 

Thank you to all who have read this far. You are truly good souls, I'm sure of it.

with so much love...