Christmas is in the air

Yes, Christmas is only a few days away and I am feeling like Santa Claus. Well, no, not really. My sack is empty and there is almost no chance of my filling it with actual gifts but I would love to be able to do that. Giving things to loved ones what they need, want or maybe don't want, is the epitome of Christmas for me. Every year I would spend days shopping for little gifts and wrap them carefully. We would do the whole secret Santa thing and even the secret pixie stuff. Leaving gifts of food or treats on people's back doorsteps while trying not to let them see you. Great fun even those Christmases when our pantry was totally empty and the most we could afford was baked beans on toast for our Christmas luncheon. We still tried in a simple way to foster the spirit of Christmas.

Barry and I would buy gifts for the police Christmas party where gifts are given to needy families. I would make bags filled with the necessities of life and deliver it to the women at the Refuge centre. But not this year. Without Barry there to shake his head in despair at my efforts, I have lost my mojo. He would always laugh that he would be just as surprised as the kids when they opened their gifts because he had no clue what was inside the packages. In his last few years of life, he did try to get involved and we made things together. Things that hopefully, the kids would treasure through the years. The loneliness after Barry's death has been life-altering for me.

I was reading an article about loneliness and its effect on people. Brigham Young University did a study on the correlation between loneliness and mortality. Yes, it does actually have an effect; it is similar to smoking 30 cigarettes a day. You develop greater levels of anxiety and low self-esteem. And yes, that is me. I often think that people and family only put up with me because I was connected to Barry. I think, 'what an awful person I am, no one wants to spend time with me.' And yes, it might not be true, but that doesn't help at all. I would reach for the phone to talk to someone and then think, 'They have a life and they don't need me and my sadness messing up their day.' Negative self-image and critical self-talk ... Yes, I know all the psychological phrases and jargon.

Covid did nothing to help at all. Suddenly I was all alone and there was literally no one to care if I got out of bed each morning or not. I could slouch around for days in the same old clothes, and it didn't matter. Smelly Pat to the fore... except that I hate being smelly. In England, they have a Minister for Loneliness. They discovered that one pound spent on tackling loneliness equalled to two to three pounds in medical savings. So, what do I want for Christmas this year? Do I want someone to knock on my door and force me to go to Bingo? No.................. save me from things like that.

I spoke to my cousin in England and she was bemoaning the fact that her husband is more of a problem than help to combat loneliness. She says even though there are two people in the house; she feels very lonely and as soon as he dies she is taking off with a caravan to travel the world. The advice given in the article was that you should do nothing dramatic while feeling lonely. Oops, I sold my home and moved closer to the family. Too late to change my mind there. They suggested smiling at a stranger. Well, I did that last week and this strange woman started this long involved conversation with me on the sidewalk ... all about being lonely and how she has filled her home with toys that are motion activated. As she walks past the reindeer it sings, 'Rudolph' and Father Christmas sings, 'Jingle Bells.' She took one look at me and told me where to buy a singing elf. Did I look that desperate? Obviously. I am not looking forward to Christmas this year. Can I just put my head under a pillow and wake up in a year or two? Another suggestion was to talk to a neighbour. Well, I have only just moved into my new home and yes, I did chat to the neighbour. He spoke about building a fence in January and cutting back trees... did I feel less lonely at the end of the conversation? Not really. I did enjoy two friends who popped around to hang my pictures for me and then took me out to lunch. I could enjoy that, and for a while, I did feel great. Almost back to normal positive Pat. But only for a moment. I was moving the cats from my daughter's home in the country to our new house in the city. Shadow was in a cage on the front seat, Venus on the back seat and then roof high boxes of stuff and off we drove. Within five minutes I knew it was not going to work. Venus was in the direct sunlight and was yowling at the top of her lungs ... so was Shadow actually. I pulled over into a farm driveway and started re-packing the car. I had an armful of dishes when all of a sudden Venus managed to escape and dash up the driveway in search of greener pastures. I don't run much anymore and I 'not so carefully' placed the dishes on the floor and dashed off after the furry refugee. She was disappearing into a field of sheep and llamas and lots of handy bushes. She stopped for a second to plan her next move and I did a weird rugby tackle thing and managed to grab her tail. It wouldn't have passed any test of style, but it did the job. The cat screamed her head off, but she was recaptured. The two cats yowled for the next two hours of driving and I took to singing every song I could remember to drown them out. There were some songs that were more efficacious than others and there were some that they seemed to join in with their harmonies.

Talking about singing ... when the kids were little, I tried to start up a tradition of singing in the home. I thought that Christmas was the perfect setting and the first year I sang to my little baby son. Barry put up the radio so he would not need to listen to me ... how was that for bruising the ego? When I sang louder, he took off into the garden. I would sing in the car much to the disgust of the kids and so over the years, I gave up. But those songs are stuck in my memory and I sang to my heart's content to those kitties till we reached the new home. Did they settle in okay? Yup. They took a walk around the new garden, tested out the stairs and the deck and Shadow peed on my blanket and towel ... and then climbed on my lap and purred. Venus did not seem to regret not living wild with sheep and llamas and now spends her days lying on her back in a sunbeam waiting to have her tummy tickled.

Now for something totally random. Do you notice that some removable road signs have an emblem stamped into them? I was driving along and noticed that this particular set of signs had a Club ... as in cards ... stamped in the sign. Curious who this could be, I looked at other signs. There were those marked by the rugby stadium that said Waikato Rugby union and then the Auckland Roading company, but who owned the Club? Well, that would be the Contract Bridge club. But did you know that there are some weird card games out there that I have never heard of before? 'Exploding Kittens', 'Egyptian Ratscrew' and 'Beggar my neighbour' are a few. I might have to invest in some of those for my own Christmas stocking?

My Gran loved playing Rummy with us kids. She would win most times. But if we looked like we were getting too upset with losing, she would let us win once or twice. She didn't go easy on us at all. She felt that we would never learn to play if she made things too easy. In the days before computer games, she always had her trusty pack of cards tucked away safely. I wonder where those cards went? Did some old lady at the aged home inherit them and then pass them down to the next old lady and so on and so on through the years until they were worn out?

As I was unpacking the boxes this past few weeks, I found the memories of loved ones returning as I unearthed their stuff. My Gran's tea set. It's badly smashed due to some careless mover, but I glued it back as good as I could get and I love looking at it. My father's drawings are hanging on the wall and I have an old white coat that Barry used to wear when he wanted to protect his clothes. It is stained with grease and paint and worth absolutely nothing to anyone but myself. What will my children and grandchildren remember about me when I am gone? Will there be good thoughts? I have carefully stored my Gran's painted glass jug even though it is cracked and unusable. My daughter suggested that I smash the jug and just retain the small flowers on glass and mount them in jewellry. Perhaps some earrings? I remember my Gran pouring home-made lemonade out of that jug at Christmases past. Ah, Christmas. Will earrings engender the same emotion as that cracked jug? Who knows?

The new house is lovely. We have birds hopping in and out the backdoor in search of the cat food and last week one bird got trapped inside. Chad and I ran like crazy, demented people around with long sticks (the windows are high in the wall and there is no way either one of us could reach the bird perched on the sill) trying to chase it out an open door. No luck. Chad tried tempting it down with food and it did descend and then the cats sprang out of their hidey-holes and it flew up again. This time we managed to entice it into my bedroom. I closed the walk-in wardrobe and the bathroom and left the balcony door wide open and hoped it would find its way out. And it did. But now we have to get up to those high window sills and clean off the bird poop. Maybe the Christmas fairy will do it or else I will have to hire someone to do it for me. I have settled in well and we even had a nice house warming party for a few friends. Talk about two degrees of separation. Even though some of the five guests did not know each other, it turns out that they are connected in some way or other. One was the neighbour to one person and cousin to another. Me, well I know them from between 26 years and 11 years. I guess I am building a few connections and hopefully one day I will feel like I belong somewhere. Ooops all those negative self-talk things are creeping back in. I had better get going.