New and Old Traditions This December

Last Sunday, we went for a drive and didn’t head back home until it was starting to get dark. To my delight, many homes already had their Christmas lights up and some were displaying decorated trees in the windows. I totally get it. The need for Christmas cheer is more important than ever this year. Local news reports tell us that customers are buying Christmas paraphernalia, including cards, much earlier than normal.

As is my usual tradition, I decorated our tree this week, as I like to have it done by my son’s birthday in a couple of days. Three weeks ago, I started holiday shopping because I wasn’t sure if our area would have further lockdown restrictions by December. I’m not a fan of shopping online yet, although I’m getting there.

Sadly, many local outdoor lighting festivities have been canceled along with in-person fundraising activities, so I’ve been doing online donations. Christmas will look a bit different for many of us this year. Our gathering will be pared down, though we’re still planning a turkey dinner with all the trimmings. And there will be gifts to wrap, cards to mail, and favorite Christmas movies to watch, so lots of our traditions will be intact.

The biggest and most welcome change to Christmas 2020 is the presence of our little Ellie, who is now fourth months old. It will be awesome to celebrate with a young child again, even though she’s too young to understand what’s going on.

So, new and old traditions merge this month into what I hope will be an optimistic end to 2020. What hasn’t changed is the gratitude I feel for what I do have and the opportunity to give back in a variety of ways. Now that preparations are underway, let’s hope this last month of the year will be the best one of 2020 yet!

The Last Month of the Year

Ah, December. Never a hugely productive writing month for me, as other priorities take over. Many of you are all too familiar with the busy-ness of shopping, baking, wrapping, decorating, and Christmas office functions, etc.

I’m starting a week or so earlier than usual this year, and am already decorating a second Christmas tree. Our home tree was finished this weekend with my sister’s help. It’s a conglomeration of over thirty years of a mixed bag of ornaments, nearly all of which have special memories.

The second tree is for our front desk at work (that’s my office). Both were worked on between other tasks, but I managed to get them finished. I also decorated the coffee table in our family room, something I didn’t do when my kids were little and the house full of pets.

I’ve also started thinking about shopping. For the first time in my life, I took part in a black Friday sale by ordering one item online for my sister, which she requested. The contrarian in me doesn’t normally take part in the annual shopping hysteria displayed on TV, but this is my sister and she event sent me a photo of the item, so I dived in and ordered online.

I don’t abandon writing completely in December, as there’s a fair bit of editing to do, goals to accomplish, and deadlines to keep in mind. My jacket designer has new versions of The Blade Man’s cover for me to peruse (I’m loving their work, by the way) and there are a million other marketing tasks, but the tasks will still be there after the holidays. Because Christmas and family always come first with me, my cover reveal won’t occur until the first week in the new year, and then the tasks will really ramp up. Stay tuned!

Part of all the busy-ness this past weekend was fun stuff, like doing some wine tasting and picking up our case of wine from the Township7 Winery in Langley. Later we took the SkyTrain to LaFarge Lake to see the incredibly beautiful lights all around the lake. It was my first time seeing the display and it was simply wonderful.

From now until Christmas, my writing pattern changes. There will be a little bit of editing every morning (which is when I work best), the day job, then Christmas preparations until the big day arrives, and of course other chores and errands. My family isn’t large, so shopping isn’t too bad. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to fit a little more writing time in than I thought. Or maybe I’ll just sit quietly and contemplate new ideas and opportunities that have been springing up.