The twelfth day of Christmas

On Christmas Day afternoon, my granddaughter looked under the tree and offered, “Christmas is over.” Any five-year-old would have agreed with her. All of the presents had been opened, stockings had been unstuffed and Grandpa was doing the rounds of the carpets with the tinsel-sucker. Her little face was pretty sorrowful. She’d been through weeks of storytelling, carol singing, naughty and nice threats, cookie baking, present wrapping and then, the letdown. LOML, aka Grandpa, reminded her that there are 12 days of Christmas and the twelfth day would be on the very day she went back to school, in Vancouver. She seemed okay with the wisdom of a man who’d spent more than a few years on the Christmas circuit, and she loves going to school. On the days following the 25th, she reminded all of us, at the top of her scratchy five-year-old voice, of the “days of Christmas”, with her own rendition of the song while she gazed at the calendar on the fridge. From my perspective, it was a delightful mix of the traditional song and the Doug and Bob Mackenzie version.

So, here I am on the Twelfth Day of Christmas. Every one of our dozen guests (plus the two huskies) has returned to their own homes, and if I were going to write a piece about the goodness of the Christmas season, I’d write it on the Twelfth Day of Christmas. Hard to believe it, but I have had enough of the trappings of the festive season. Maybe having so many people here for the two weeks makes me want to move along. Maybe it was the volume cooking, towel collecting and cleaning. From my experience, as an adult, by the 6th of January I just want to be rid of the tinsel, the candy canes and the poinsettias, in favour of travel brochures and seed catalogues. Maybe I’ve had one too many tiny chocolates wrapped in foil and one too many eggnogs with a tot of rum. Perhaps I’ve been tricked into one too many meals, thinly disguised as “hearty, healthy winter fare”. Yup, on the Twelfth Day of Christmas it’s just about time to write about the goodness of the season of Christmas, before I get grumpy and make a plan for the year ahead. After all has been said, done, unwrapped, baked, basted and poured, the twelfth day is a good day to stand back and survey what I could have done, what I meant to do and what I will do as I approach Christmas 2014. It’s a good day to clean up the mess and face the music.

So, on the Twelfth Day of Christmas, it’s good for me to remember that our local food banks still need donations. There may have been oodles of Christmas miracles, but not nearly enough that carry on throughout the year. People in our community will still wake up hungry. In spite of Stephen Harper’s promises, a lot of people will still be out of work or under-employed or be working-poor and in need of a hand up. We all know the drill. Keep the canned, smoked oysters and the candied yams on your own shelves, and throw an extra bag of pasta, a jar of peanut butter or can of soup into the grocery cart then drop the goods off at the local food bank. Of course, a donation of cash helps the organizers purchase fresh produce, meat, fish and poultry. The Twelfth Day of Christmas is a good day to survey my closet and sort through the excess. If you know me, and many of you think you do, you know I have more than one black sweater and more than one pair of black jeans. I plan to make a donation of good, clean clothing to a local, charity- driven, secondhand shop. Charity-driven secondhand shops work wonders in a small community like ours. And, the Twelfth Day of Christmas is a good time to resolve to keep in touch with family and friends who might need help with everyday tasks such as driveway shovelling or grocery shopping or housekeeping or maybe just a friendly visit. I’m not into making resolutions, but why not be a good neighbour.

Why wouldn’t I resolve to be a more generous person this year? In the past I have written about how virtuous I’m going to be about losing the flab, getting fit and eating clean. I’m still on that path. What I’ve resolved, under the influence of a glass or two of bubbly on the Seventh Day of Christmas, is to be more involved in this community. This year, I’ll try to make a contribution, somewhere. Twenty fourteen will be the year I remember I’m only a small part of a big community, and that I can make a difference.

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca