Day 81: on finding a bit of merry after all

It was raining when I woke up this morning. In colder climes, this would have been snow, and the perfect recipe for the fabled "White Christmas." As it's SoCal with its "Liquid Snow," it turned out to be a Wet Christmas for most of the day, much to the cats' dismay. ;)

With an invitation to attend the annual Christmas feast and party at the Live & Live Alano Club in San Diego, I had a choice: part of me saw the rain and wanted to stay home, nice and quiet. Part of me wanted to get out of the damn house and be a Social Person, to see and to be seen, and see if I could find a smidgen of the holiday spirit I seem to have misplaced with my back misbehaving. I had a choice, and I chose to push through the quiet melancholy in search of a bit of jolly for my holly. Glad I did!

After a quick breakfast, Himself and I grabbed some holiday beverages ("unleaded" eggnog for me, coffee for him) and braved the soggy roads for the trip south. We passed a handful of accidents along the way; people seem to forget how to Drive in Weather in SoCal on an annual basis. We made it unscathed, fortunately, and our prayers went out to those who wound up having a way worse Christmas, thanks to the slippery highway.

I've posted pictures of the festivities on both Messenger and Instagram in my Stories sections. There was plenty of food to be had and plenty of gifts to be opened and exchanged. I dutifully picked the ham out of my collard greens and enjoyed a vegetarian plate, while Himself enjoyed the meat. We split a dessert plate with cheesecake and chocolate chip cookies. As for the White Elephant gift exchange: we started with a hand soap + lotion set, then wound up with a set of tealights. This made me very happy - in taking care of myself and the family, "getting tealight candles" has been far down the priority list, well behind "securing cat food and people food," and also such matters as "paying bills." So to finally get my hands on some tealights made my Inner Priestess very happy.

By the time we were ready to leave, the rain had stopped, the skies were much clearer, and the roads were much drier. We made up two plates to go: one for Doug, a friend who's going through some challenging times these days, and the other for the Queen Mother, with smaller portions this time (lesson learned from Thanksgiving). Now it's a quiet evening, and I have rested my back sufficiently to be able to blog about my day.

Christmas turned out to be not bad at all, and perhaps I can carry this serenity and sense of Grace through the rest of my Yuletide. :)