Peak-A-Boo

It’s two days before Christmas and I’m almost done. Really. I’ve got a few more sock stuffers to get and we’re baking cookies this afternoon, but everything else is pretty well finished … including me!

Don’t get me wrong. I love Christmas. The lights, the music, the socializing, the food; it’s a kaleidoscope of colour and sound that remains unmatched by any other season.

It’s also exhausting. And with retailers out to score as much coin as they can in the precious few weeks surrounding the holiday, it’s easy to resent the occasion as much as anticipate it.

I managed to pace myself this year, squeezing in little bouts of shopping during coffee and lunch breaks before vacation, and running at warp speed to complete the to-do list once free of my harness. (Thank the gods for the magical “third paycheque” this month.) I’ve visited with family and attended too many celebratory teas/lunches/parties with my co-workers. I’ve enjoyed it all, but I’ll be happy when it’s over … kind of the way my father feels when visitors depart for home.

Last year, Ter and I bundled up and took a walk through the neighbourhood late on Christmas Eve. It was clear night and the sky spread wide overhead was sprinkled with stars. I don’t know why a winter sky sparkles more intensely than any other sky. Maybe it’s our distance from the sun that makes the darkness darker and the starlight frostier. No risk of a repeat this year—rain is in the forecast—but the silence close to midnight was sublime.

That’s the moment I treasure most at Christmas. The stores are closed, the presents wrapped and the pantry stocked. Neighbours, friends and family have been duly cherished and are tucked into their own homes to celebrate their own Christmas Days. The wee bears spend the night with their tree, lights on, and I go to sleep knowing I’ve done all I can even if it wasn’t all I wanted to do.

That’s when snow would be welcome.

Merry Christmas.

With love,

“Cookies For Santa”

The kids are decorating cookies when five-year-old Eric pipes up:

“My friend Jimmy says Santa isn’t real.”

“Jimmy doesn’t believe in Santa. If you don’t believe in him, then he isn’t real.”

“Well, I believe in him … but I have some questions.”

A bemused silence falls before Becky prompts him. “Like what?”

“Like how come we put out milk when he’d rather have a beer?”

“A beer? Who told you that?”

“Grandpa.”

Becky rolls her eyes, but Grandpa passed away last year and it would be disrespectful to say what she’s thinking.

“And what if he’d rather have a gingersnap or shortbread instead of a sugar cookie?”

“These aren’t sugar cookies,” Becky says. “They’re Christmas cookies, and Santa likes them best of all.”

“With a beer?”

“No, silly, with milk.”

“My teacher says the kids in England leave out mulled wine and mince pie.”

“That’s for Father Christmas, not for Santa Claus.”

“Aren’t they the same?” Eric asks, brow furrowed.

“Really,” Becky scolds him. “How could one person visit every house in every country in one night?”

“I was gonna ask that next.”

His sister speaks with the authority vested in an elder sibling. “Father Christmas goes to England, Père Noel goes to France, and Santa comes here. And if you don’t have Christmas at all, like in China, then you don’t get anything from anyone.”

“That sucks,” Eric declares.

“It makes Santa’s job easier, though,” Becky points out.

“I guess. So, what about the reindeer?”

She wipes a smear of neon green icing from her brother’s cheek. “What about them?”

“Why do they only get one carrot? We should leave out eight.”

“Yeah, but they’re tiny reindeer. Remember, in The Night Before Christmas? One carrot goes a long way.”

“I don’t remember carrots in The Night before Christmas,” Eric says, dubiously. “Or cookies, either,” he adds, eyeing the plate where iced snowflakes, stockings and snowmen are cementing themselves into a sticky pyramid. “How come the guy in that story doesn’t say about Rudolph?” he asks, suddenly.

“Rudolph isn’t in that story. He’s the ninth reindeer.”

Eric continues to frown at her, so Becky recites the reindeer names from the song. “ ‘Dasher’ and ‘Dancer’ and ‘Prancer’ and ‘Vixen’ …”

Eric snorts when she finishes. “If he’s the most famous reindeer of all, he should be in The Night Before Christmas.”

“Then so should Olive,” Becky says, daintily applying silver buttons to a snowman’s vest.

“Who’s Olive?” her brother demands.

“She’s in the song—‘Olive, the other reindeer’.” Becky laughs heartily at the joke, but Eric is annoyed.

“That’s stupid,” he says, crossly.

“You’re getting tired,” she decides. “Finish decorating your tree and we’ll get you ready for bed.”

He immediately starts whining—further evidence of waxing fatigue—but Becky is adamant. Babysitting five nights a week has made her an expert at reading the signs and a genius at manipulating him into obedience. Though Christmas Eve is only two nights away, she warns him, Santa watches up to the last minute.

Fearing for his status on the naughty-or-nice list, Eric is tucked into bed with no further argument.

Becky retreats to the kitchen and cleans up the decorating wreckage. She is standing at a sink full of purple water when her mother comes home from work. “Kettle’s hot,” she says as the door closes on the blustery winter night.

“Thank you, sweetie.” Mama hangs up her coat and comes to kiss the top of her daughter’s head. Becky is at the age of questioning Santa’s existence. She won’t be sure until Christmas morning, but right now, she remains doubtful. She casts a surreptitious glance at the bag her mother has dropped in the boot tray. It looks no weightier than usual.

“Did your brother behave?”

“Yeah. He was full of questions, though.”

Mama picks up a cookie—Becky’s fastidiously dressed snowman—and bites off his head. “Like what?”

“Like why we leave milk for Santa when he really wants a beer.”

Crumbs erupt as Mama laughs out loud. “Grandpa?” she asks when she can speak again.

“Yeah,” Becky says. She abandons the sink to pour hot water over this morning’s teabag. Her mother takes a seat at the table to finish her cookie. She looks tired, Becky thinks, and a little sad. They all miss Grandpa, but maybe Mama misses him the most. Though Becky doesn’t understand grown up words like “pension” and “finances”, she has noticed Mama’s more frequent use of the words “make do”. She dribbles milk into her mother’s tea. There isn’t enough in the carton to leave a glass for Santa unless Mama drinks her tea without it for the next two days.

Becky won’t have that.

She sets the cup in front of her mother. It’s a bold question, but one she is compelled ask. “Will Santa still come if we don’t leave milk and cookies for him?”

Mama is startled into meeting Becky’s gaze. “Of course he’ll come, muffin. You and your brother decorated these wonderful cookies for him, but even if you didn’t, even if we left nothing for him, he wouldn’t dare pass by my kids.”

Becky is more relieved than she imagined, so perhaps she isn’t quite ready to release the man in red.

Her mother watches her shoulders relax, and when she smiles, she is more beautiful than all the other mothers in Becky’s class. “I’ll tell you a secret, though,” she murmurs.

Becky leans close to hear.

“This Christmas Eve,” Mama whispers, “I think Santa will appreciate a coffee with his cookie.”

Everything Old is New Again

Is it cheating if a new story idea features familiar characters? It’s been a long time since I’ve written anyone new (or old, for that matter), but a few weeks ago, I started looping a song from the 70s and with it came a scene so powerful that I had to stop what I was doing and let it play out in my mind.

With the playing came the questions. Who, what, and why? “Where” was obvious from the song. “Why” became clear once “who” was answered, and if I bucked the characters’ identities at first, it’s only because I already know them.

The story appears to be a bridge in one of my ongoing vampire sagas, which is fine. At least it’s not a fourth variation on the vampire theme. I’m rather pleased that each of my three vampire worlds stands alone from the other two, but really. How many vampire societies can one author write before she begins to repeat herself?

My dilemma—if it even exists—is a growing concern that perhaps I am unable to write new characters. I don’t want to be the artist who paints the same tree for the rest of her life. I want to explore new worlds (and seek out new civilizations, ha ha), yet the comfort of a familiar voice, even a villain’s voice, is almost irresistible.

Like most writers, I get attached to my characters. When I want to go home, I return to Castasia, where the cast is so huge that I actually could spend the rest of my life writing about them. I still have plans to revamp (no pun intended) the Cassandra story from 2000, and a fourth Black story is presently incubating. I am not adverse to new characters by any means. I have a bunch of half-finished projects to prove it … so why is it that this latest nugget is about existing characters?

It probably doesn’t matter. Three vampire worlds and a mountain fantasy likely contain more characters than a lot of short fiction writers will conjure in a lifetime. The last thing I want is to be one of those folks who leaves the names blank and fill them in by global replacement after the story is finished. If I know the players so well, they know me as well, and that’s why they return.

There you go, Ru. No dilemma. Write on.

“What’s It All About, Elfie?”

Some cooks have a kitchen witch. The cook who lives here has me, an elf. Phil, to be precise. Phil on the Sill, not to be confused with the Elf on the Shelf. True, I only appear once a year, but that’s because my speciality is holiday treats.

The good stuff. Shortbread and mince tarts. Fudge and peppermint bark. Cookies. I’ve also overseen December birthday teas (who celebrates a birthday at Christmas, for crying out loud?) and the holiday headliner: roast turkey with gravy and three veg. Yep, veggies are welcome in this kitchen. Even Brussel sprouts, and they don’t always have to be sautéed with bacon!

Every December, I see what’s developed while I’ve been away. What new tools and/or ingredients have arrived in my absence. A tea advent calendar is new for 2015; that’s kind of cool. If you like tea, of course. I’m more of an eggnog man, myself, though it’s not so prevalent since the locals went semi-dairy-free … and discovered where the rum was going.

They thought I was a cute plush ornament—which I am—but I also serve a useful purpose. Elves are magic, you see, and those GF thumbprints went sideways last Christmas because I was whooping it up with Captain Morgan. Now that the household is nog-less, my skills are sharper than ever. Everything baked has been gold. Everything roasted, braised or stewed has been juicy, tender and delicious. I might look like I’m doing nothing, but make no mistake. I’m thoroughly engaged.

It’s my job, but it’s also my bliss. How lucky am I?

Auto Biography XIII

“Classical Gas”

Blue Thunder didn’t have a standard issue gas cap. The cap was locked, the little door meant to conceal it having disappeared during the decade before the car fell into my hands. A previous owner must have replaced the original cap, securing the contents of the tank from theft by siphoning. Fuel was an outrageous $0.42 cents a litre in those days. “Regular” fuel was leaded, and unleaded was the pricier option. Thunder, like the majority of vehicles at the time, ran on regular.

I was twenty-three years old, and the era of full service gas stations was on the decline. Most outlets had the option of full or self-serve, and if you pumped your own, the price was a little lower. I once overfilled Thunder’s tank, spewing gasoline over my shoes and the car’s rear quarter, but that didn’t spook me out of the self-serve lane. I was a fully independent female and perfectly capable of fuelling up by myself.

Blue Silver came with the Ford factory gas cap. You can identify an early Mustang’s model year by the front grille and the gas cap which, in 1966, was solid chrome and so big that it required both hands to unscrew. Fortunately, Silver’s previous owner had seen fit to secure it in place with a coil of cabled wire that made it impossible to leave the cap on the trunk after refuelling, but my arthritic hands often had some difficulty twisting it back into place once the tank was full.

One evening I pulled into the station, unscrewed the cap, pumped in five bucks’ worth of regular, replaced the cap and went on my way—Christmas shopping, I think, because there was no other reason to drive alone into town after dark. It was a half-hour drive, part highway and part city street, until I got parked. Stepping from the car, I was hailed by a young guy who had driven in behind me and wanted me to know that my gas cap was hanging by its idiot string. He’d followed me from the highway and tailed me to the mall, staring, no doubt, into the gaping maw of the open tank the whole time.

There’s nothing like the automotive equivalent of walking up the street with your skirt caught in your pantyhose to scare an independent female out of pumping her own gas.

After that, I paid a little extra to have an attendant fill Silver’s tank for me. After she was sold and Ter took over driving duty with both Camaros, I had so few occasions on which to address the fuelling issue that I haven’t pumped a drop into the Tiguan and he’s almost six years old!

“A Little Christmas”

Psst! Hey, there! Down here! Don’t look around; I’m speaking to you. That’s right, hello-ho-ho!

I know, you don’t believe what you’re seeing. I bet you thought I’d be taller. Not so, I’m afraid. My reputation has created a larger-than-life image, but it’s only proof that great deeds can be done by folk of any size … and sometimes smaller is better. How else could I manage to get down a chimney?

That’s neither here nor there, however. I stopped you for a reason. I saw you coming, but you would have bustled straight past me, never noticing my scarlet coat against the weathered wood of this fence. Do you even know where you are? You look like a tapestry on the verge on unravelling. Believe me, I know what the holidays can do to a person. Fitting Christmas (or whatever you choose to call it; I’m not particular) into the work/life balance is a challenge, but don’t worry. You’ll get it done. You always do. There’s plenty of time yet, all the time you need.

Stop watching the calendar. Consult your list. I know you have one, too. Trust me, there’s nothing more gratifying than crossing things off of it. And while you’re rushing around doing for everyone else, take a minute to do something for yourself. Even a little thing will help, like pausing for a steamed eggnog in one of those non-denominational red cups. The colour is so cheerful, who needs a symbol to rune the effect? Get it? “Symbol”? “Rune the effect”? Ho, ho, ho! I kill myself …

Ahem.

What you’re doing for others is enough, my dear. More than enough, in some cases. No need to bankrupt yourself in a show of affection. Love has no price tag. It has no anniversary, either, despite what the diamond merchants insist. Besides, I’ve watched you. Oh, yes, I’m watching every day, all year. I make no snap judgments on the naughty-or-nice matter, it takes a lifestyle to earn a visit from this jolly old elf. (I’ve never actually enforced the “no gifts for naughty” policy, by the way. The definition is too subjective.) My point is that you love your people every day, and you show them so by being your kind, compassionate, generous self. My work is so much easier thanks to folk like you, so be of good cheer, my dear. You are not alone. You are loved. Most importantly of all, you are worth loving, and you needn’t spend a fortune or wear yourself out to prove it.

On your way, now.

Merry Christmas.

Def Leppard

Cool graphics, too!

Their thirteenth studio album is self-titled. Fitting, from a band who needs no introduction. Every track on the disc is undeniably Leppard—the quintessential 80’s rock band. Not metal and not pop, but a perfect blend of the two that no one else managed to achieve despite the multitude of those who tried. Listen to any other hair bands from the era and you’ll hear a plethora of Joe Elliott wannabes, wailing away at fever pitch yet never quite duplicating, and certainly not surpassing, the wildcat yowl that made him famous.

And that sounds better now than it did then.

Slang remains my favourite Leppard album. I like its darkness, and its maturity. By that point in their career, the boys had become men and were unafraid to show it. There is pain in that album. There is loss. There is anger and betrayal and bitterness and desire, all so powerfully portrayed that you almost don’t recognize the work as theirs.

Maybe that’s why it didn’t sell.

The band spent the years after Slang trying to recapture what some fans feared they had lost: their signature sound. Euphoria kinda worked because it was obvious. X was a semi-departure into pop that also kinda worked (and inspired me to write the first volumes of Fixed Fire). Yeah! was a 70s cover album that totally worked because they made every track their own (their version of Thin Lizzy’s “Don’t Believe Me” blew me away). Songs from the Sparkle Lounge veered a little further off the beaten path, but you know what? Every successful band has a signature sound no matter what they produce—anything the Leps record will sound like the Leps because that’s who they are. No one else can sound like them, hence no one else will sound like them, and now that we’ve reached this inevitable conclusion, let me introduce you to what might be the best Leppard album since Hysteria.

I’ve played it from end to end a couple of times and I can’t find a throwaway track. It’s all gold. Maybe “Dangerous” is a little cheesy, but the guitars still kick butt, and as mentioned at the beginning of the post, His Royal Leppardness has maintained a powerful set of pipes. Really. I heard him perform live in April. Screaming in tune in his twenties was one thing. He’s still doing it in his fifties. I’d pit him against any of the present day howlers and dare any of them to keep pace with him.

This is a fun album. Sure, some of the lyrics are mildly embarrassing when sung by a middle-aged man, but there are serious sentiments, too. The guitars are bright and sharp. The bass is bold and occasionally funky (Sav is clearly a Queen fan). The drums boom and Joe’s voice is magnificent. I don’t say any this through my hormones, either. Def Leppard is a genuine, rock solid performance that deserves two things:

Play it loud; and

Guys, play it live! PLEASE!