Another Christmas done and another year almost over. I loved seeing family and the little grandsons. The smallest was just a few hours more than three days. How special is that?

Looking forward, I was semi-planning my craft projects and an unnatural thought came to me. I am going to have to buy online from here in out. This is not a choice I want to make, because I would much rather support the ma and pa stores, but they are no more in my neck of the woods. There used to be four craft stores in the next town up the road until WalMart moved in. They are all gone now and with that demise, Walmart has stopped stocking the goods those stores sold. The same can be said for our capital city, Edmonton. There was a chain of craft stores of various types and we also had a Craft Canada. Then WalMart and Michaels moved in and hey, what is left? Yep, you guessed it. What is more, either those things I purchased previously are no longer offered, are of vastly inferior quality, or are outrageously priced. If I spend the gas money to get to the city I have no guarantee I will get what I want, added to that, I have the hassle of a wasted journey. Even Fabricland has gone so far downmarket that it is just hanging to the lid of the toilet before sliding down the hole.

What are the results of buying online? I expect I will buy a whole lot less as it is so easy to make a mistake if not there in person. This is going to cut out any impulse buying. My sites will turn inward, to my stash, which I intend to whittle right down this year. I will forgo the joy of shopping, touching the craft/fabric/whatever. Those times have gone and will never return.

That said, I feel so sorry for the upcoming generations. Does the future hold nothing but xboxes that may or may not work on xmas day if some mean toad decides to hack? Or Frozen dolls/paraphernalia based so loosely on a traditional fairytale Disney have mutilated that I actually haven’t a clue which one it is supposed to resemble? I think back to all the craft and board games formerly available that were a precursor to lifelong hobbies or choice of career. I guess there has been a shift from a creative society into an entitled society and that is sad. If the power ever went down for good there is no hope for humanity now.

This is going way back to a long lost age. I guess people did the best they could with what they had and they were kind to each other. My mother’s widowed older sister moved in with her much older sister in law when the latter got beyond living by herself. My aunt and that aunt’s sons were the lady’s only living relations, her being a spinster as they used to say.

The two lived in a very old house that had been the property of the single lady’s parents. At one time it didn’t possess an inside bathroom. There was an ‘arrangement’ plumbed in to a small cubbyhole accessed on the outside of the house and next to the coal cupboard. It stands out in memory, not for use, (shudders), but because it had more than one accepting orifice on the single plank seat. We won’t go there…

While there was hot running water for the bath, in the new bathroom, courtesy of some cylindrical monster, fired by gas and optimistically attached to an internal wall directly above the bathtub, the taps in sink and kitchen ran only cold water. I think it was the pervading aroma of burning gas that sticks in my mind the most. Coal gas fired the monster in the bathroom, the stove in the kitchen and in every other room there was a gas powered fireplace. Heat at the turn of a lever and the strike of a match. There was a definite aroma caused by the heating. It wasn’t unpleasant, just different. I guess it stood out as my parents had central heating in their place that was fired by solid fuel.

Aside from that, there was always the aroma of cooking, as both ladies liked to cook, particularly the older single lady and especially at xmas. She really loved sausage rolls and mince pies, but eld is unfathomally cruel and her digestive system was no longer happy with ingesting her choices. My kin aunt used to get very annoyed with the single lady for eating what obviously upset her when the inevitable re-visitation occurred. What I remember and admire was the instant response. “At least I had the pleasure of eating it.” Yep, she did and at 80+ she got in the pleasure she could. Go her.

I am not really thinking of Christmas as being the highlight as Christmas, or what it has become has been thrust in my face since the Halloween candy got taken off the shelves. This is not what I remember from my young days. A gift was more about someone spending time making something special for people. It was more about families and of course, the church. Now, it is referred to as the festive season for fear of being politically incorrect. It is swamped with commercialism and drowned in greed fest.

That is not why this time of year is special to me. I used to look forward to the winter solstice as it meant  the days would start drawing out again and I could look forward to planting in spring. It also became a time to say goodbye. My husband’s grandfather, who I loved dearly, passed over on the 21st. My own mother passed on the 23rd. Not all gloom and doom, though, as my middle daughter decided to make an early appearance, (by a month), on the 22nd one year.  It was the best Christmas present I have ever had.

Up till now, that is.That daughter’s second child will be arriving very soon and there is another reason right there to celebrate the time of year. Birthdays form place-markers through the year. The strange thing is that the placemarker used to be a what could be described as a bucket, with a whole lot of birthdays clumped in the winter months and the singleton in June. Despite the shift in people, this is still the case. One dear little grandson is a June baby, just like his great grandfather was.

Chalice of the Shadows.

Shadow Over Avalon on Thunderclap.