Christmas Eve...

[fajrdrako]

A momentary pause between finishing housework and going out with my friends. It's been a great day - any day that starts with writing a story has to be good, right? And I got to listen to John Barrowman: A Musical Christmas while doing the housework, and that made it a pleasure.

I think my little budgie Logan is tired from just watching me!

Can't believe it's Christmas Eve, with no snow. Usually it's thick on the ground by now, and snowing heavily on Christmas Eve itself. Many's the time I've gone to carol services trudging through heavy snowfall.... As one of my friends said yesterday, "It's December but it looks and feels like April."

Merry Christmas!

Comments

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Bear with me; I just mistakenly deleted my entire almost-completed reply, so... sigh.

Snow. Talking about snow. Snow and Christmas...

When I was little, it was keenly important to me that -- even if there was no snow on the ground -- it had to be cold enough that it could snow after I'd gone to bed, so that there would be snow for Santa's sleigh to land on. I didn't have to see the snow myself; it was enough that my mother assured me that it was cold enough for it, and there you go. You see, there was something about the snow that made the sleigh possible -- this is highly intrinsic physics.

Earlier this week, it was 62 degrees F here in SW Pennsylvania, which was near a record for this time of year. The news types did mention that the actual record high had been 64, and it had happened in 1964.

This clarified a memory for me. I distinctly remember one Christmas Eve, in the early evening, when I was concerned enough that it was clearly too warm for any possibility of snow that night, so I approached my mother as she sat having a Grown-Up conversation with her father, my Bappy, who lived with us till I was nearly eight. I had a serious topic to broach: how was Santa's sleigh going to land? I am (now, at my current angle of view, all these years later) not sure she caught my unstated reference to the necessary factor of the snow making possible the full functionality of the sleigh. To my question, my Bappy answered, "On the roof," politely enough to a five-year-old, and then they kept on with their conversation. This didn't entirely satisfy my worries, but I could not figure out how to ask the question again; and, I was troubled enough by the cognitive dissonance of the moment that I have remembered this exchange as clearly as if it happened only last year. Thanks to the near-record high temperature from earlier this week, I now am pretty sure that that exchange happened in 1964, when I was less than a month away from turning six. I'm glad to know this, as both Bappy and Mother are celebrating Christmas away from me (but together) now, and I cannot ask either of them.

No snow on the ground here, either, right now, but it's plenty cold -- the sleigh will have no trouble, I'm sure.

Merry Christmas to you and Logan!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Snow and sleigh. There's a logic to that. I mean, a sleigh was invented just to travel on snow. So it stands to reason that even a flying sleigh would need snow just to exist.

I certainly remember the Christmas of 1955, when I got a toy truck for Christmas and was able to play in the sand in the back yard with it - no snow in sight. Not very cold, either, as I remember, though not nearly as warm as 62F.

I don't remember 1964 so well...

From me: Merry Christmas! From Logan: Chirp!

[dewline.livejournal.com]

It's creeping me out, personally.

Granted, I've long known that the weather was trending this way for some years -- closer to a decade and more, actually -- and yet to see this happen with the regularity that's beginning to accumulate...it's December, yes, not April...and it's not really like either time of year for me now.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I've become very relativistic about time. Months are just names given to time so we can sort out our schedules.

I've been pretty laid back about Christmas this year, though. Usually I make more of a fuss about it. I think the lack of snow might have something to do with that.

It's still fun, though. We were looking at the Christmas lights around the city earlier on. Fun. It felt Christmassy, even without snow.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Not very Christmas-y here. We didn't even bother with the tree this year. And it's just sort of dull grey outside (snow not all that common here: I can't recall more than a couple of White Christmases in my 41 years. Various small birds are feeding on the nut-feeders and fat-balls outside. I probably won't get out of the house till Wednesday (a week since I arrived): bus services over the festive season are limited, and we're on a council estate at the edge of the city.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

We didn't even bother with the tree this year.

Well, no, neither did I, but the decorated harp is cheery and always seems just as Christmassy to me as a tree is. I'm not sure how many of my friends have trees this year - I think perhaps we are getting lazier as we age, the details seem less important - that is, the details that involve hard work!

My visiting people is going to involve some fancy schedule-work with the bus system (note to self: figure it out today), and some fetching-and-ferrying by my friends with cards. (Bless 'em.)

They're predicting some snow tonight or tomorrow - but rain as well, so who knows what form it will eventually take? It may snow, and then all wash away.

Anyway, Ottawa is in a 'snow belt' and we usually have a great deal of snow for five months of the year. Piles and piles. Really, life is so much easier without it, and I'm sure City Hall is saving a lot of money on snowplough services.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

My parents certainly can't be bothered any more (Mum is nearly 82, Dad is 72). Being here in Hull is more or less like house-arrest in many respects. However, I can get on with playing with Conrad... (Any mediævalist of taste's pipe-dream...!)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Spending a day with Conrad sounds about perfect to me!

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I take the laptop to bed with me to work on him into the night. So yes, I do really take Conrad to bed sometimes! ;-D

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

My goodness, I wish I could! Maybe if I put a laptop on my wish-list...

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Snurk! Oh indeed...!
I've pretty well finished the chapter on fictional representations. It has been a marathon: 51 pages, and a lot of emotional distress, given how nastily so many writers and film-makers have portrayed the poor darling!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Fifty-one pages is a lot of words. Well done! You must be glad to have that part over and done with.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Yup. Mind, it includes lengthy quotes, especially from the out-of-copyright stuff (the romance of King Richard, Ellie Porden, Scott).

But, struth, there is just so much Conrad-abuse out there in fiction and film, and some of it is so vicious and nasty... I just wish I could give him a hug.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Ellie Porden

I'm glad you're quoting her. I tried to order her book on ILL, as you know. They phoned me and said they could get me a microfiche copy that I could look at in the library for $30. Since I have neither the time nor the money I reluctantly passed up the opportunity, so your quotes are probaby the only chance I'll have to read Porden at all.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Her other, science-fiction-y work, The Veils, is available on line; I would hope that Cœur de Lion will follow at some point.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I live in hope! Let me know if you ever see it anywhere.