esrosedotblog

ENDING

We try to have most of the holiday stuff put away by New Year's Day or week.

The poinsettia, sadly, is beginning to wilt. I did water it enough. That will go out tomorrow, trash day.

Tonight, I went through the holiday cards.

I am ruthless about it. I found out that other people do not keep a record of who they sent to and who they received from. Well, not a lot of people. My friend Lynda in London for one does it. She is ruthless too.

Here is how it works. I have all the last five years. If we send to you without an answer two years in a row you are off. You can even be family and you are off.

I take two years to avoid the accidental miss. The stumble where we stop sending and the person decides out of guilt or whatever to send even though they missed a year. This way it is solid. Two years. Not too much to ask.

We have been cut from some lists before we did the cutting. Actually most. We will give a go twice without you. Then, no dice.

This year we lost a very much older work associate. Age? Gone? We lost an old Boston friend who moved to Florida and has been slooooowly fading over the years. No emails. We lost a couple that we wondered about. Why were they continuing to send us cards? Now they don't and they are off. They must have been wondering the same thing. We never see them.

There is a couple who we never see, saw once when we were vacationing here. John has insisted on sending a card to them every year. Once they came to dinner at our house. Never again. This year they mentioned in their card they had been here every year. And they never called? I cut them the fuck off. Actually I never wanted them on in the first place and kept nagging to have them removed.

If you wait long enough, you can get to have your cake and eat it too. Quit sending and not seeing them either. Double good.

I think that the outside lights will stay up for a little while but you never know. Tuesday will be here very soon. Then it is over and we can all go back to being regular people and no ho-ho-ing around required.

There are tons of videos of people burning their christmas trees. These suckers were sitting in their houses.

Labels: holidays