'Feel Good' Birthdays

 In past years, I indulged in the ‘feel good’ things on my birthday. Lingering over a coffee downtown Sarnia always brought memories of when I was a kid waiting in line at The Odeon with my friend Barb. We’d pay a quarter for a movie and then stay to watch it over and over. Good times.

And at the end of one summer I spent all my babysitting money on clothes at Pacesetters. Wow, that was a lot of babysitting. My special day usually included a visit to the library for a couple of hours to luxuriate in the smell of books and the pleasure of having literature of every kind at my fingertips. There would be shopping, too. I’d drift in and out of stores looking for nothing in particular and being delighted to find some small thing that I couldn’t live
without. My day normally included lunch with friends and… well, the list of things that pleased me about my birthday could go on forever.
But this year, ye gads! What to do? Not to worry, my friends. I tossed my scarf, gloves, and hat in my

Tis the Season to Try to be Jolly

 These last few years decorating for Christmas has become less important to me. We generally go to our son’s for a dinner celebration and, since we don’t often entertain, it’s a thankless chore hauling the bins of decorations upstairs to sort and allocate. And then there’s the cleanup process to eradicate the sparkle and glitter off floors and carpets. Only to reverse the whole process a few weeks later. To be honest, I’ve become resentful of this ritual.

Two or three years ago, I gave away our gorgeous large tree. Yes, an artificial tree, but it had beautiful drooping branches and at first glance it looked ‘real’. It was pre-lit so there was no fussing with strings of lights…don’t even get me started. But the tree was extremely heavy and although it was in three pieces, it was an effort to assemble. It was glorious, but for the short time it was up it hardly seemed worth it.

Besides, I also had three tall, skinny trees that I decorated each year. They’re gone, too. I decided that