Stepping Into Christmas

On November 22nd, Ter lamented, “Christmas is five weeks away and I’m not ready!”

I just looked at her.

Maybe she meant she wasn’t mentally ready. I certainly wasn’t. Steamed eggnogs aside, there wasn’t much to feel Christmassy about ... but why would there be, when it was only November 22nd? Even when you know it’s coming, you can’t be ready for anything five weeks in advance. If you are, you mustn’t have much of a life.

The big eastern syndicate has us programmed to freak out if we’re not wrapped and ready to go by December 1st. What we forget is the length of time between December 1st and 25th—and there’s a lot of it. There is also a real danger of peaking too early. Being Christmassed-out before Christmas Day kills the holiday buzz. Prepping is the fun part! Steps toward it can certainly start in late November, but you’d better pace yourself if you want to experience the holly jollies in full.

A week after Ter’s lamentation, the house was mostly decorated. Part of our shopping was done. Collecting for our festive feast was underway. Holiday tuneage was in light rotation. Miraculously, we were both feeling the cheer a tad more than we had been a week earlier.

Another week passed. We completed shopping for our December birthday girls. My annual anxiety over devising pictures and poetry for the cards was stirring. No drafts had begun, though. My anxiety has to become a grand mal panic before I get to work; part of the routine involves reassuring myself that the magic happens over a weekend, and that weekend hadn’t arrived yet.

Last week, I arrived home to the tantalizing perfume of Ter’s orange and almond Christmas cake, fresh from the oven. We helped the neighbours trick out the building lobby with holiday sparkle. Christmas music went into heavy rotation. We snacked on eggnog creams and fruitcake truffles. I got more loot, both to give and to get, as Ter checks off my Christmas list. And I finished the cards this weekend.

Next week, present wrapping, cookie baking, perhaps some visiting, ritual viewings of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Mr Popper’s Penguins—oh, and the rekindling of my annual fling with a dark and spicy Captain Morgan, yowowowrrr.

We’re not done yet, but little by little, we’re getting there.

That’s what the five weeks are for, silly.

Merry Christmas.

The Importance of Tea (Part VIII)

“My Cups Runneth Over”

Our dinner dishes are routinely done by my 7:30 teatime, and though we have a dishwasher, I prefer to do them by hand. My evening teacup is usually in the load, left over from the night before and the first item to be used after washing, often within minutes of the sink being drained. I’ll dry it myself rather than use a different cup for my ritual chamomile brew.

You would think that the cup doesn’t matter. Apparently, it does. One night I was late getting to the dishes. I came into the kitchen, saw my gold teacup awaiting its wash, and experienced a curious bout of mild panic. I had naively imagined my tea steeping while I did the dishes, but could it happen in another cup? Ha! Rather than talk myself into sensible behaviour, I watched myself fill the sink with hot soapy water, wash the gold teacup, peel off the rubber gloves, hand-dry the cup, then set it aside with the bag o’ tea dust installed. Then I flipped on the kettle and proceeded to wash the daily dishes. End result: evening tea drunk from the evening cup—I neither use that cup during the day nor drink anything other than chamomile tea from it.

That got me to thinking. When I inventoried my teacup collection (they’re actually mugs; only when invited to tea at The Manse do I sip from a china cup and saucer—and yes, I have a favourite there as well), I realized that specific cups exist for specific teas, and now I’m wondering if I need professional help.

If I do, it likely began in childhood. Growing up as one of five kids, I specifically remember a set of Melmac (?) cereal bowls with different-coloured rims—mine was orange, and if I had caught anyone else spooning corn flakes from it, I’d have freaked out on them. Same rule applied to the coffee mugs that appeared in my teens. Truly, I don’t remember if I chose the mug or it was chosen for me, but once I’d drunk from the vessel with the taupe flowers garishly splashed upon the ceramic, it owned me. I drank everything but coffee (yuk) from that cup—soup, broth, hot chocolate, and herb tea. When I left home, the cup stayed behind to serve during visits to the parental units. And I began my own collection.

Today, Ter has one cup—fitting for a woman who only drinks one kind of tea. I, on the other extreme of first-world frippery, have five. Five. Excluding the glass tumbler I use on all-writing days. And when company demands that I share, I try not to cringe when my green-ginger-in-the-morning-on-a-day-off cup is conscripted to contain something black and sweet. How I’ve come to this “singular usage” policy is a mystery, but what truly alarms me is that I’ve started doing it at work, too, with three cups and counting.