Living in Japan gives us a lot of freedom when it comes to holiday celebrations. I don’t think we’ve had the same Christmas twice.
This year, Tod opted to work in Tokyo over Christmas week and I preferred to stay home with the cats, so we decided to celebrate our holiday early and stretch it out a bit more.
12/21 Solstice Dinner
12/22 Cocktail Night
12/23 Gift Sharing
Things did not quite go as planned.
Thursday, December 21
The solstice seemed a fine place to begin celebrating. I also started taking my heart medication again (it’s a long story why I wasn’t taking it, but a doctor told me not to). That 25mg of Atenolol helped me to feel better than I had in months.
Tracey invited me to have lunch with her family in Tokyo on Christmas day, and I was delighted. Family lunch followed by dinner with Tod in the city! Maybe I’d spend the night, too. The cats could look after themselves so that Tod & I could have Christmas together after all.
But that invitation didn’t change our pre-Christmas plans at home.
I made us a “tree” from branches trimmed in the garden. After work, Tod came home and we had a candle night dinner. Our menu was mushroom risotto, lemon chicken, and spinach. And a lot of wine.
Friday, December 22
I spent time in the kitchen making mohamara and then baking the 555 Fruitcake (recipe coming soon) and playing candymaker with melted chocolate chips. We had a dinner of dips and nibbles. But with too much wine the night before, we had a single cocktail each on what I imagined would be our tipsy evening.
Saturday, December 23
We designated this day for our big Christmas celebration, so opened gifts over breakfast, then ran errands and enjoyed lunch at Naan House. In the evening, we had another Christmas dinner of aranchini made with Thursday’s leftover risotto.
All sounds good, right? It was! And then the “real” holiday arrived and things started to fall apart.
Sunday, December 24
While Tod ironed and packed for work, I played with botanical colors again, simmering up some Japanese cinnamon leaves.
In the afternoon I noticed that Maura had an injury he’d licked the fur off. Timing was really bad: the vet is 45 minutes away, and Tod’s bus station is 20 minutes in a different direction. I set up the carrier and told Maura that when he was ready to go to the vet, he should get in and I’d take him. He did not get in before I had to drive Tod to the bus.
Returned home, and realised I didn’t know where the keys to the house were. I wasn’t locked out, but if I wanted to lock it while I was away, I couldn’t. So I tore the house upside down and found all sorts of things in random boxes I’ve ignored since moving in. I became increasingly panicked as the obvious places didn’t yield the keys. Eventually I found the house keys inside envelopes, inside plastic bags, inside a drawer with similarly packaged remotes and odds and ends. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief and slipped a key to the house on my keyring.
I heated up Thursday’s leftovers for dinner and queued up a Christmas movie so terrible I couldn’t watch it. For dessert, I boxed up most of the remaining Christmas baking to take to Tracey’s and nibbled on a few leftover cookies.
Played Wordle with Tod & Jo, and then my phone bricked itself. WTF? Remembered that a friend mentioned it was Mercury retrograde ’til January 1. Okay, then. Tried the usual remedies but nothing worked. That phone is done being a phone. Highly inconvenient with a trip to Tokyo imminent – I’d lost my bus ticket, maps, communications.
Monday, December 25
Woke on Christmas morning to find Maura’s abscess burst open and him sitting in the cat carrier. He’s a smart one and he 100% understands what I tell him even if he gets to things a bit late.
I taught a Christmas-themed yoga class, cancelled my Tokyo plans, then put Maura in the car. He loudly shared his second thoughts all the way to Tateyama. We arrived just before the vet opened.
10,000 yen and 2 hours later, we were home with pills to take for the next week (oh, fun) and a follow-up appointment for 11 am Wednesday so that they can stitch up up the wound that is so deep it needs to drain a while longer.
While I waited at the clinic for Maura to be treated, I rewrote the lyrics of a Christmas classic to fit my feelings about the holidays. Christmas songs are relentless propaganda for a seasonal world of joy and delight. They definitely don’t take into account our trauma, distress, or disinterest.
I recorded when I got home. Listen carefully to hear Maura in the background.
Although Christmas day is only half over, I am calling time out now. The rest of my day is for tea, one of those boxes of Christmas cookies, and a good book.
