A Great Idea

Here's a suggestion for you: if you want to avoid the stress, expense and sheer hard work of the Christmas/Hanukkah season, just arrange to get the flu the week before. Suddenly, the season whizzes by with little expense and effort! 

I sent this suggestion to my friend Nancy White, who wrote back that at one point, she considered remaining pregnant to avoid getting migraines, but decided against this. And perhaps, at further remove, I will reconsider my notion that getting the flu before Christmas is a great time- and money-saver.

But that's how it was this year - no messy tree. Christmas lunch - Chinese take-out - was delicious, no clean up at all. And the weather has been so atrocious that it made sense to stay in bed. I did venture down the street later on Christmas night, to join my neighbours Jean-Marc and Richard and their neighbours Andrea and Victoria and other friends for a full Christmas dinner on the best china, with the silver all shined. We laughed and told stories and ate magnificently, and at the end, I said, "I'm not related to one person at this table. What a relaxed evening!" 

I actually watched "It's a Wonderful Life" all the way through this year, for the first time - hard to believe that I only discovered the full impact of this classic at the age of 58. And "Citizen Kane," and "City Lights" with Charlie Chaplin, and for something completely different, the rented DVD "In Bruges," violent and hilarious. I watched it thinking of the great playwright Harold Pinter, who had just died and whose influence, with that of his colleague Samuel Beckett, was evident in every line of dialogue.

Otherwise, I'm hard pressed to tell you what I've been doing for the last week, except reading newspapers, eating leftover Chinese food and blowing my nose. Today, I did start work on a piece again. I'm better, definitely - actually getting dressed at some point in the day, even venturing out briefly, getting groceries, standing up sometimes. But mostly, I'm still lying down and coughing, a Cabbagetown Dame aux Camelias. I will be happy when my lungs return. 

By the way, the pageant was fine. A neighbour showed me a photo of the tableau at the end, beautiful and nearly perfect. There were the parents sitting in the straw with sweet babe, the little angels with halos and wings, the Wise Men, the shepherds, the star.  But the new producers had forgotten to remove the sign that normally hangs at the back of the stall, so behind the tranquil scene is a large blackboard that reads, "Our goats: Pretty, Scrabble and Gretchin."