December 12th just crept up on me and caught me unawares. It’s been THAT kind of a week, month, year… and I realised much to my chagrin that it is time for my yearly countdown: the 12 days of Christmas blogs.
The morning began pretty much like the others, cold and dreary but with the warm of the fairy lights and music to bring in the cheer. I put together a new playlist on my iTunes which is intended to give me a kickstart in the mornings, and have been tweaking it for two days. The cats hate it, but I love it If I had a car I would call it my road trip playlist – it’s the kind of music to blast the bejeerzers out of any car speaker, silence all crows and falcons flying my way, roll all the windows down, wind in my face, and not a care in the world, not even the destination. It includes some of my all-time favourites from the 70s and 80s, one or two from the 90s, but something to really get the adrenaline pumping.
As a result, I ditched the idea of churning out pancakes or bread rolls, and whipped up spicy noodles to get the blood circulating as well, not to mention the palate. The side dish was a fresh fruit salad with mango yoghurt which I placed outside to cool. It’s so darn cold that when I retrieved the bowl a few minutes later it was fruit salad with half frozen yoghurt! Once we all settled down to our respective meals (the cats wait for us to be seated before they begin digging tunnels to Vietnam in their food bowls), the music, the candlelight and the whole atmosphere was almost something out of fairy tale.
While polishing off my coffee, I noticed that I could barely see the flame of the red pillar candle on the table anymore because the wax walls surrounding it. So I got a cutter and sliced off the excess wax, and it was oddly satisfying too feel the blade effortless slide through the wax. Hmmmm, the makings of a murder scene perhaps? Or a gory operation gone wrong… The wax crown that I took off was still soft and pliable, and I suppose I could have technically moulded it into another candle. Instead, my daughter took over and started chopping up the pieces and eventually carved out a wax heart, which is a very natural thing for her to do since she is currently working on some clay sculptures. I didn’t think much of it, and stood up to clear the table but then my gaze fell on the red and white wax pieces and the heart, and I knew immediately what I wanted to do next.
Out came the wooden board and camera, I shaped the wax chunks into a tree and placed the heart on top. No further trimmings necessary, but I did add two little chocolate Santas to create the final image below:
This is my interpretation of Christmas 2020 – the turbulent, confusing, unconventional pandemic year with absolutely no rhyme or reason. We can either fall apart and into irreparable pieces, or pull our shattered lives and tattled souls together and re-interpret life as we know it. In the end, love prevails – self love, love of life, family, friends, community, talents, passions, and all that we hold true. The events of 2020 and COVID-19 have changed our lives, but they do not define us. We still get to call the shots as to how we want to be happy.
FrogDiva Thoughts 