Yule tbh…

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Yule… to be honest…

Every year, I’m less and less enamoured…

Over the years, I’ve eliminated bit by bit all the things that irk me…  which has got easier and easier as most of the family and in-laws self-culled into a couple of categories… the deceased and the estranged…

But still my humour gets increasingly dark… A friend of mine blames it on me being an equinox baby… Karen you were born when things were in perfect balance… of course you’ll feel the gloom as the days shorten and darken…

Whatev’! My sunny disposition disappears into the shadows…

So basically I’ve forced myself out of hibernation for this…

The title filled me with chagrin…The Joy of Gifting…

Gifts!!! OH NO!!!! Please No… don’t give me gifts… or more precisely, please don’t give me gifts that I have to open in front of people… It fills me with horror… I have one of those faces that moves and betrays every fleeting thought… and I am a genuinely dreadful liar… Opening gifts with an audience… Looking at faces eager to see a pleased reaction and the agony of unwrapping and discovering what’s inside… please, please, please don’t let it be something I’ll hate… Because guaranteed, my face will crumple… And then the donor will ask me – don’t you like it? And there will be a painfully long silence until I say… errrr no… actually no… I don’t… Which generally goes down like a fart in a spacesuit but I have this highly mobile and expressive face so white christmas lies aren’t going to fool anyone… I’ll get told that there was no need to be so rude and my face will gurn as in my head the words flow…. rude? rude? me rude? why have you done this to me? what on god’s green earth made you not only think of me but also think that I would like this??? don’t you know me at all?? do you know anything about me? why? why? why? honestly…

Yeah… generally…. given the choice of opening gifts and skinning myself alive and rolling in rock salt… I’d go for the latter…

And don’t even get me started on the levels of mortification I feel when I realise that I’ve given a truly bloody awful gift… I have seen someone’s crestfallen face and caught their look of utter despair before they pulled their facial muscles into a mask of social niceties and I have broken down in tears and wailed… I know!!! I know!!! It’s awful!! I’m sorry!!! I don’t know what I was thinking… I think I was pre-menstrual and just wanted to get out of the shop… I’ll make it up to you! I promise!!

Though… interestingly… surprise gifts on random whims on non-official and non- pre-determined dates… Spontaneous splurges… I abso-bloody-lutely LOVE!!! I’m a very merry unbirthday to you! type of girl… An out of the blue gift of the tiniest thing will launch me instantaneously into a happy happy joy joy dance and squee overload!

Anyway!!! Enough of the bah humbug… I guess I’d better put the Grinch on ice and get down to the task in hand…

Arwen asked us to draw some cards for the following…

 

The Joy Of Gifting

So… here’s some cards I drew… I’ll apologise in advance to any Lenny readers as I’m not studious but I like the images and so I make things up… Besides…. they’re not Lenny’s cards… they’re mine!

1. What gift would you give the world if you could?

Well… after that petite outburst… this may come as no surprise…

I give the gift of choice… pick what you like, when you like and do with it what you will…

2.  What gift would you want from the world?

Yeah… this is probably kind of selfish… but I’d like a tip off on how to move into somewhere big enough to run both my home life and my business from. I live in a house full of creative people and it’s chaos! The kids are getting bigger, the space is getting tighter and the house fills with all manner of art supplies and musical instruments… Myself and Mr S have tried all manner of conventional routes and lost count of the number of times we’ve felt to be on the brink of progress just to be informed by a suit behind a desk, that ‘computer says ‘no…” Maybe it’s time to start backing the horses, to throw a few quid on some long shots and try and pull off an against all odds accumulator… But then again… the house always wins in the gaming business…

3.  What gift have you gotten that has brought you joy?

Oh… OK… this is kind of personal… That’s definitely Mr S there in the middle and I’m doubly sure as the coffin sits beside him… He’s a sexton, he’s spent 35 years standing next to coffins… Ok… so it’s popped up in the cards, so now I have to tell you something I don’t talk about… See… Me and Mr S have this strange kind of thing we do in the bedroom… Ha!!! Calm down!! It’s not going to get TMI!!! Sorry to disappoint you!

Whenever I have a major decision to make on which direction to take, just before I fall asleep, I will place my hands on Mr S’s head and say to him bring me a picture, find me an image… Now I never tell him what the question is but every time I do this he will bring me three images, which at first seem very random but then there will be a word that connects them and that is where my answer lies… he calms my mind and lays my worries to rest… and that’s not joy as in happy happy joy joy but I feel joy in a deeper way, in a sense of profound calm and clarity… and that feels joyous…

4. What gift have you given that has brought you joy?

Well… this is how I reciprocate to Mr S… I saw these cards and I instantly knew what they meant because he’d told me about a year ago what my greatest gift to him was. He sat and thanked me one day for being his pillar of strength through his darkest times and always being there and patiently waiting for him to pull himself out of black wells of depression, for giving him a reason to want to make fresh starts and to see the world as a brighter place.

5. What is one last thing you would like to share about this season?

 

Ha!!! Sorry folks… The Grinch is back!!

Ok… basically I am finding this delightfully hilarious as I’m seeing laid out, the conspiracy I indulge in with all my very best friends every year… We have a little plan… we aim to see each other for a good old chinwag around mid-December, then we make a pact to blissfully ignore all the festivities, not write cards, not swap gifts, we laugh and make jokes and wish each other the best of luck in surviving the onslaught of family bliss that’s due to unfold and we agree to speak again in the Spring… See you when the clocks change! Catch you at the equinox! Though… to be honest… we rarely last that long and usually we start to  emerge around February…about the same time as the crocuses start to pop up…

And on that note… I’m heading back off into hibernation…

I may be packing more Joy come next hop…

I’m solar powered don’t ya know?! 😀

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