Birthday Hangover

So, it’s December 18. My birthday is over. My sister flew back to AZ yesterday. The house is very quiet with just Bill and me wordlessly falling back into our uneventful routines. This morning I put the three coffee cups that I hadn’t even gotten around to removing from our kitchen table after yesterday morning’s coffee into the dishwasher, thinking, well, today we only need two cups.

And then I told myself, “Get a grip. You’ll see her again in a week-and-a-half.”

I’m always sad to see visiting family leave. But the world is really small these days. I remind myself of the days when I would visit my sister when she lived in Washington D.C. and we didn’t have email, cell phones, or social media. I would know I probably wouldn’t see her for months and months. Now I talk to her almost every day, sometimes a couple of times. We can talk face-to-face via Facetime. I see pictures of her kids and grandkids on Facebook.

Having a December birthday always sort of split up the holiday season for me. Granted, as I have grown older, my birthday has been less of an event. This year, of course, was an exception. When I was younger, people often asked me if I hated having a December birthday. I would always tell them that I loved having a birthday in mid-December as a child because people would be out buying Christmas presents and would buy me a little something extra for my birthday. My brother David’s birthday is a bit different. His birthday is December 28, and his birthday was always a letdown. People were exhausted from Christmas shopping and celebrating and barely remembered his special day. Once Mom even forgot to make him a birthday cake and, in its place, brought home from the bakery a cake that someone hadn’t remembered to pick up. It said Happy Birthday Frank from Friends. Poor David.

As a random and meaningless side note, I distinctly remember my two favorite birthday gifts of all time. The first: My Aunt Cork, who was also my godmother, always got me a

birthday present, and it was invariably something fun. When I was probably 6 or 7, she got me a set of three plastic wigs – blonde, brunette, and auburn. No artificial fiber; just a molded piece of plastic that you placed on your head. Oh. My. Goodness. Did I ever love those wigs! I was the happiest child alive. Now they are in some landfill somewhere, where they will never break down.

Second: After my divorce, I bought a small house in an old, established Denver neighborhood in which my son and I lived for four or five years. They were very happy years. We loved that house. Anyhoo, it sat on an alley, and had a garage right by the alleyway, unattached to the house. We would drive up to the door of the garage and my son would get out and manually open the door for me to drive in. One year, when Bill and I were dating, I was out of town on business sometime near my birthday. He picked me up at the airport and brought me home to my little house. As we pulled up to the garage, to my surprise, the door began to open. While I was gone, Bill had installed an automatic door opener. I was in seventh heaven, and so was my son.

Now that the house is quiet and the birthday festivities are over, we can move towards Christmas celebrations. For us, they begin tonight as we will celebrate Christmas with our son and daughter-in-law and the grandkids who will be leaving Friday for Mexico where they will spend a week with her mother and sister. Christmas with palm trees. Now that doesn’t stink.

And now…..

Unbaked Peanut Butter Cookies, via Bec B., via her mother-in-law

Ingredients
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. corn syrup, light or dark
3/4 c creamy peanut butter
1 t. vanilla
2 c. Special K cereal

Process
Bring sugar and corn syrup to hard rolling boil. Then add peanut butter, vanilla, and cereal. Roll them into balls and let harden.

Bec’s notes: I used 2 c. Rice Crispies and added 1/2 C almonds. We think they taste like a salted nut roll. Make a double batch; they'll go fast. On the back of the card it says: Remember it is a hard rolling boil, not a hard boil stage.