(The image is from Iceland last year.)
Those of us who are single and childless and from semi-detached families have strange holidays. For me, this year, it’s been stranger than normal, even by my standards, and I have had years I was utterly alone for Christmas, and years where I went to a party where I knew not one single person just to see what it was like. Thanksgiving plans evaporated to be replaced by other, totally different (and as it happened equally fun) plans. Medium-large pre-Christmas plans collapsed the same way, not just once or twice but three times. And now I am camped in my brother’s basement until tomorrow when I go to Iceland and spend Christmas with Elizabeth, who is flying from Norway to meet me there. At no point in my life did I ever think my holidays would be like this, and yet, here we are, and it is lovely and fine. I hope that your holidays, whether conventional or eccentric, feed and warm your souls, as well. If they aren’t and if you can do it, look for something surprising, and open yourself to that. Pizza and Edgar Allen Poe alone on Christmas Eve can be the most affirming thing you have ever done.
In any case, I may be off the grid until after Christmas. OR, I may post about the trip every time I have internet; we’ll see! There will be pictures….