The above picture is from Poland when I was there in February 2007. It has been decades since I have had a wintry Christmas, but childhood memories from Southwestern New York State have not yet faded and despite the lack of snow in Los Angeles, Christmas and snow are synonymous for me.This has been a year. The election. The economy. While there is always the possibility of an apocalyptic end, I suspect human beings will continue to muddle along for a while yet. While things are bad now. I am not sure that the early 21st century is even in the running for the 10 worst eras on the planet. So this is my cheerful holiday message. It has been a lot worse. It might not get a lot better soon. I'm currently reading Barbara Ehrenreich's Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy and my advice is put on some music and dance. If you can't get out of bed and dance, dance in bed, in your memories and dreams if nowhere else. My New Year's resolution is to dance more. Not post-modern art dance, but turn-the-music-up-and-boogie dance.
Osbey and I aren't doing much for Christmas this year. We did put up our artificial tree. The tree at the left is the little tree Ben Teller and I put up in India in New Delhi in 2006 when we were staying with our friend Veronica. The Indian middle-class tends to do Christmas and all the ex-pats do so it was easy to find a tree and ornaments. I might be going up to San Carlos again after Christmas so I am not sure what Osbey and I are doing about our annual little holiday get together. I've made another resolution and that is to spend all future winter holidays and birthdays abroad. As I get older, I find the emotions brought up by these festivities almost too intense to bear. Therefore, I intend to run away.
No holiday greeting from a grandfather is complete without pictures of the grandchildren, so here they are, Kyla on the left of the picture and Chloe on the right. I'm pretty happy when I can forget that I am by nature and heritage a gloomy Swede. I hope that you are pretty happy too.
Terry/Luke
