I’m sitting here early on Sunday morning, with a chocolate peppermint pecan pie baking in the oven for our usual Christmas dinner at the Drakes (this year, we’ll be bringing our menorah over to light the first candle of Chanukah, too).
Jeff’s up, so I’ve already lost custody of the paper, though I hope to retrieve it before we go to the JCC to work out (wonder if they’ll have turned off the music, since it’s almost certainly going to have a high Christmas content). With nothing handy to read, I turned to the computer and got caught up on my Gmail and RSS feeds (boy, does that ever feel good!), and discovered from Hal that today is Newtonmas, too.
I wish I’d known that yesterday, while we were talking to the people moving in to Diane’s dad’s house. I knew that they were Palestinian, but I didn’t know if they were Christian, Muslim, or something else, and so, as we were finishing our conversation, I ended with “Happy Holiday,” to which she replied “Tomorrow isn’t a holiday for us, but Happy Chanukah to you”. I felt awkward, and said, “well, enjoy New Year’s”. If only I could have wished her a Happy Newtonmas!
Even if they did celebrate Christmas, I’m sure she would be busy cleaning the house today anyway — they’re moving in on the 29th, and there’s 50 years of stuff in the house for them to go through. She’s putting anything which seems like it requires a decision in a storage area in the attic; we’ve told her it’s OK to do anything she wants with the furniture, but there’s still a ton (probably literally) of papers in various places in the house. I’m not sure when Diane or her brother will be able to make a trip to Valley Stream and sort, but I’m sure it’s going to be a busy trip when it happens.