Post Christmas Blues
The Christmas gifts have all been opened. Our afternoon meal is just a memory and I turned on the outside decorations, but they seem to have lost much of their shine. I started to remove a few of the bulbs and other decorations from the Christmas tree. It juts out into my living room and people in only two seats can see the television. I found several wadded up Christmas wrapping “snow balls” caught in the boughs of my artificial fir tree and put them in the trash. The house is empty but for me. The kids and grandchildren have gone back to their homes. The silence in my house seems almost deafening.
The jaunt up and down two flights of stairs to my basement to feed the ever hungry wood burner distracts me for a few minutes about five or six times each day. But that fills only ten minutes every four hours. The television is a temporary attraction, but the tree is in the way if I want to claim the couch. Since I can’t use the sofa, I have the plastic storage cartons on the couch waiting to be filled with the rest of the Christmas ornaments.
The Christmas cookies and candy are squirreled around the house and tucked beneath the tree, but if I succumb to their lure my morning blood sugar will tell the tale on me, so I will nibble a cookie or piece of candy only occasionally. I was feasting on carrot sticks as a distraction. Whoopee! Not only do I have to watch my sugar intake, my dietician wants me to eat healthier with more fiber in my diet.
I have begun to work on the next edition of the Chestnut Ridge Historical Society’s newsletter. I know what I want to write about; it’s just looking at the blank page and not wanting to start the prolonged editing. I do have a couple of other society members that help do research to add to my scribbling. They will also submit articles which help me a lot. I like to have a common thread throughout that tie the entire newsletter together without becoming boring or repetitious.
What I enjoy compiling the newsletter is that I have found so much forgotten local history from southwestern Pennsylvania; the Laurel Highlands, and the people. In the upcoming newsletter I plan to combine the oral history of an older lady and information gathered from published historical accounts. The trick is to weave them into a seamless story that holds the reader’s interest.