TL;DR: This year has been ridiculous. There have been some ups and a lot of downs. Mostly ups personally, mostly downs politically.
I finally began organizing my beautiful disaster of a house. We got new windows in September which required making room for the installers to be able to move around, so we began sorting through things room by room. I was able to donate or recycle BAGS of stuff we had but didn’t need. I’ve kept a donation bag upstairs and one downstairs to add things to whenever I find them, and have gotten rid of even more.
I had some junk hauled away, items too old or damaged to be useful and too big to haul myself.
I got our generator fixed so it’s up and running again if we need it, which we inevitably do either in the winter during snowstorms or in the spring during change-of-season storms.
My two younger children and I joined a Unitarian church the Sunday after the election and have gone every week since. We’ve found a wonderful community of like-minded individuals and a place we genuinely enjoy visiting weekly.
I began hosting a bi-weekly Worth Fighting For community meeting (our 2nd meeting was last week) to plan ahead for what’s coming in the next administration.
We did the WAIM Walk for Warmth to raise money for the Fuel Fund. WAIM is the Windham Area Interfaith Ministry, and does a lot of good work in our area.
We donated gifts both to the Angel Tree that one of our bank branches runs with the Salvation Army, buying gifts for four children ages 7 months to 12 years old.
We donated gifts to the family the church adopted (also through WAIM) and helped wrap gifts for a surprise 2nd family (mother and son) that needed some help.
We went as a family, all four of us, through a drive-through light display at a local fair ground, something that is becoming a yearly tradition with this being the second one we’ve done.
On Monday, December 16th, the bank I work for announced a merger between my bank and another local bank in the Northeast. Mergers may be good for business, but they are never fun or easy. I am trying to keep an open mind, but I have been through a merger before and to say I’m optimistic would be a gross exaggeration. I am merely waiting out the limbo that will be the next few months of my life.
We baked 13 dozen cookies for Christmas. Some, the ginger snaps and the Toll House chocolate chips, were great. Some, the spritz cookies and the Ghirardelli chocolate chips, were not. We discovered that any recipe calling for unsalted butter is a lie and should be avoided. And we reaffirmed my near complete inability to use a cookie press, not matter the kind. My mom took that knowledge, as well as her spritz cookie recipe, with her when she passed in 2022, and I honestly believe she laughs every year when she sees me trying to duplicate her cookies, which were the best in the world.
We’ll be spending Christmas Day with my in-laws (my late husband’s family) so my youngest can see her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. We’ll have our own small family Christmas first in the morning with our usual hot cocoa, Peanuts Christmas music and unwrapping gifts.
New Year’s Eve will be spent having a dinner of appetizers and drinking sparkling apple cider, as is our tradition. It’s more relaxing than exciting, but we enjoy it.
To all of you, I hope your holidays are happy. I hope you have a moment to reflect on the good parts of 2024. I hope you are ready to fight to keep the good in 2025. And mostly I hope you relax and enjoy whatever holidays you celebrate, or just the peace and quiet of this time of year if you don’t celebrate at all.
2024 Lara Johnson