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fairplaythings survived his first Christmas with my family, and didn't run away or anything. I am ever so proud of him. :)I was thoroughly showered with gifts too numerous, generous, and thougtful to list. I feel utterly spoiled.
And
fairplaythings' family is in town now for a post-Christmas Christmas, and they have also given me an awful lot of very generous and thoughtful gifts. I hardly know what to say, everyone's been so good to me.Anyway.
Y'know, it always strikes me as odd that the winter solstice -- the shortest day, and "darkest" night of the year -- falls in December. It's hard to believe that summer is on its way when we're just hunkering down for the true cold of winter. It's not midwinter yet, at least not in this climate -- that's sometime in mid-February, when you're still over a month away from the next statutory holiday, and you can barely remember what it's like to be warm. Or to leave the house without so many layers of clothing that you look more like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man than a person. I know, I know... the days are getting longer now. But it's a little hard to believe.
It's also impossible to believe that the first day of Spring is in March, but that's another issue.
* I feel I should clarify. I love my family dearly. I would not trade them for the world. It's just that there really are quite a lot of them, and they can be a Bit Much. I'm usually such a quiet person that I find the noise and confusion of a large family a lot to handle at times. I'm not used to it anymore, you see. We've lost the trick of cohabitating without really noticing each other.
