Right.
Let's get back at 'er.
Of my three choices, I've decided to answer, "what made you laugh this year?"
I feel a little bit like the judges for the Oscars, the only movies you/they/I remember well enough to vote for are the ones that were released at the end of the year. The Academy Award Winning movies are typically the ones that come out at Christmas.
So when thinking about something or someone that made me laugh this year, all I can remember is the thing that happened recently. Did I laugh before that? Maybe? Does anyone remember me laughing at any point between January and November?
ANYways, I laughed.
It was the beginning of the month, and I was thinking about Christmas presents. I usually give a small token gift for everyone in my book club because affection. And book club is life giving and my favorite night of the month. We had gone on a Used Bookstore Crawl in Chilliwack, in July and I asked the owner of Nuggets to take a photo of us inbetween the bookshelves across from the til.
I had taken a selfie of us (an ussie) in front of The Bookman, but my head is too big (I was in the foreground) so I asked him to take a pic where I wouldn't be the star. (See what I mean?)
So, for Christmas, I was had reprints of the Nuggets photo printed and I put them in frames, one for each of us.
And THAT'S when I remembered that Marj wasn't able to join us. So the photo is incomplete.
Not willing to abort a good idea, I wondered if I could get a designer-friend to photoshop Marj in, assuming I could find a suitable photo of her somewhere.
I checked her Facebook page, and THANK GOODNESS that woman likes to load her pages with family photos because I was presented with a gold mine of incredible options.
And, then, because I usually start projects at midnight, and don't go sleep til everything has been executed according to the vision I have in my head, I wondered if I could somehow add Marj, myself. Without needing to wake anyone up.
Thanks to an Instagram Stories feature involving stickers, I FIGURED IT OUT. And as I stuck stickers of Marj into the bookstore ussie, I laughed. A serious, belly laugh. Complete with tears. I just couldn't stop.
I sent them to London Drugs at, like, 3 am, to get printed and couldn't wait to pick them up to see if they turned out. And then it felt like an eternity til we had our December gathering on the 18th. I was so excited to share the fun.
Thank goodness Marj is The Absolute Queen of Riotous Laughter, and loved the photos as much as I enjoyed making them:
(Maybe you had to be there?)
Three things I'm thankful for:
1. Today is Winter Solstice. Longest night of the year. The schlep to get here has been arduous and heavy and slow. It felt like the worst case of PMS. But today it ends and the light returns.
I celebrated by joining Val (and her daughter and two granddaughters) and Karm (and her daughter and two granddaughters) and Edith (with her daughter and two granddaughters) (and Lois and Bruce) at the Christmas Hymn Sing at Clearbrook Church:
All the grand girls are between 7 and 11 years old. They scared me. There was a reason I was praying for a son each time I was pregnant. (hahaha.) (But seriously.) (Girls have hair. And nails. And sparkly accessories.) (And feelings.) (And say many, many words that I don't understand.)
2. I am thankful that I am still a work in progress. When I liken myself to a painted rock...(don't we all?) I am aware of the phases a rock goes through ... it starts with being chosen, washed and painted a base colour.
Then layers of colours are dotted on, starting with white, one colour at a time, each layer looking only slightly better than the one before.
The final touches are the Top Dots and they pull the whole thing together...
I don't think I'm being Top Dotted yet, as He seems to still be adding new colours to His project. ("He" is God. And I'm His project in this scenario.) (Please try to keep up. I am in a spiritualizing everything phase.)
3. Lastly, I am thankful for people who're all in, this advent season. Like, they are full of joy. And it just spills over like a boiling pot.
I mentioned an Instagram account on my Advent 2 post: I was thankful for THIS Instagram account. His sisters gave him 24 Advent gifts with instructions to hand them out/give them away every day. I'm totally invested in this project. For example, the Day 2 gift was supposed to be given to a Becca in Buxton. He had to go to Buxton (he lives in London, and ask around if anyone knew a Becka). Day 4 was for Charlie in Cardiology. He called around to hospitals to see if there was a Charles, Charlie or Charlotte who worked in the cardiology department.
ANYWAY, so fun.
And the other day, (Day 19) he had a present for a "Sam in Swiss Cottage". This whole thing is taking place in London, BUT the SAM in Swiss Cottage was a Canadian! From Langley! Who works at CLA church!
I am totally trying to think of a similar scheme to put together for next year.
If you're on Instagram and you wanna follow a young New York family who decorates their front stairs (it's called a stoop in the States) then this is wild: Stoop and the City.
Lastly. (I know, I said lastly already, but this really is lastly.) I am thankful for writers who don't give up. Virginia Evans had been writing novels for 20 years and none of them had been published. And then, during Covid, she wrote one more book, the type of story that she likes to read. She wrote it in a dark, cramped, hallway closet between her hanging clothes and storage items, every morning from 4:30 - 7:00 am before she got her kids up for school and had to leave for work herself. Took her 6 months.
This is that book. And it's my favorite of the year. It's also the one we read for book club in December, so there's my Academy Awards theory back in play. I can't remember what I read in January. Maybe it was better? But I don't think so. This one was just so very lovely. I recommend it. So do Marj, Kim, Sandra, Sheri, Sue and Laurel.
Thanks for stopping by,
xo
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