The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

Noel

The wee one looks at me with her big blue eyes, hopeful and innocent despite the obvious manipulation and asks me if she could 'pwease get a chocklit from my stocking?'. Of course, I smiled, because it's the time of year for it. She hurries over, likely thinking I might change my mind if she dawdled, and she extracted a tiny chocolate yule log from the box, wrapped in pink paper. A 'Barbie' themed year, the yule logs are no different, and she is thinking she will be closer to princess-hood with each morsel. She comes over to me, expertly rips the paper down the middle exposing a perfect, waxy tube of chocolate before looking at me who is watching, bemused, and says in all seriousness, I'm sorry, mom, would you like a chocolate? I say no, that they are hers and are for her enjoyment alone. But mom, she says sweetly, I would really like you to have one. It's Christmas-time after all. I want to share with you.

Needless to say, I ended up eating one, impervious to the sickening syrupy chocolate as it slid down my throat. I was too busy being in love with my girl to notice.

My Christmases tend to work along the lines of themes. Some years have been given to clothes, while others have been given to basket after basket of Body Shop soaps. This year was one of my favourites: food and books. I have several new books, courtesy of M. and the gift card I'd been hoarding from my birthday which I redeemed today. From him there is the healthy foods cookbook, since I am currently into eating properly which is working well on all counts. Nine pounds since November, gone, and also the food is actually tastier, if I must say. I am enjoying experimenting with different spices and vegetables, and most of all, I am enjoying wearing clothing that feels as though it drapes me rather than cuts me. I watch fast food commercials on television and I feel nauseous. I know it's not food, even if they try to tell me it is. Other books include one about local ghost stories, which I think I've already read but haven't mentioned to M. who was sweet enough to indulge my nonsensical side, O's Big Book of Happiness, because I am an unabashed Oprah fan, even if this brings the cynics to their knees in a fit of eye-rolling and expressions of disbelief, because I appreciate her imperfections as much I adore her effort to bring a little reason back into things. With my gift card I purchased a new calendar (photos of the world, ranging from Tuscany to Norway), a Maya Angelou biography and a Bette Davis biography. I am all about the biographies. People interest me, particularly strong women.

My parents gave me a huge grill thing, which I used tonight and found myself loving even if it is shaped like a spaceship and weighs more than my child does. I made turkey and spinach sandwiches, which does not sound immediately pleasing but were actually just this side of delectable. I mixed chopped turkey with chopped spinach and onion, tossed it with a dijon vinaigrette, grilled it between two slices of sunflower flax bread, and made my own garlic-lingonberry mayonnaise to go with it. Yesterday, I made my own plum pudding with rum sauce, so tonight dessert was fruit salad drizzled with the rum sauce and it was mildly orgasmic. I am so happy that I have been finding ways to love food even when it's (mostly) good for me. I have had many glasses of wine and nibbles of chocolate here and there, and I made it through the most important days without a gall bladder situation. Moderation, I guess. Eating real food helps too.

M. also gave me a bottle of hazelnut oil, a portable chocolate fondue (from France, apparently, and it comes in a clay pot), gourmet hot chocolate (ginger lime hot chocolate with a pineapple praline infusion, which reads kind of disgusting), a state of the art ice-cream scoop (despite my not being able to consume ice-cream at the moment) and a meat thermometer (looks just like the one Gwyneth Paltrow kills her attacker with in 'A Perfect Murder'). In turn, I gave him organic corn nuts, dried goji berries, an organic macaroon, assorted Rowntree candies (they remind him of his childhood in London), a wine-coloured bathrobe, and sugar-coated caramel mints. The rest of his gifts have not arrived yet which soured me a little. I am sick of ordering things online only to have them go missing or turn up late. It's like it's personal or something. It doesn't appear to happen to anyone else. Two years in a row books I ordered did not show up, both lost in the mail or some such, forcing me to demand a refund (which I received on both occasions), but left me giftless for M. who likely thinks I never actually ordered anything in the first place. This year, it's a customized mousepad with him and the wee one, as well as a personlized coffee mug. Sounds boring, but it's what he's into. Coffee and computers.

Though I desperately wanted clothes and jewellry, I'm content with my lot. Mostly, it was about the wee one who has been high on Christmas fumes for days now. So many toys, despite a deliberately lean year, and the attention span of a four-year-old. It's been wild. It touches me how much she appreciates her things, how delighted she was to see the gifts as they sparkled under the tree lights. She's at the age where the gift could be a box of rocks and it would be exciting.

True to my word, I did not venture into stores on Boxing Day. I don't believe in it.