Gingerbread Salutations and Wasps

I did this in gingerbread cookies. I am tremendously proud of myself.

Initially, I bought these wonderful alphabet cookie cutters so that each time one of my nieces or nephews had a birthday, I could make them a set of little "Happy Birthday" cookies with their names as well. I thought that it would be nice. But of course, as yet I haven't done it at all.

On Christmas Eve, I stayed up late making a giant batch of gingerbread cookie dough in the vain assumption that I could help some of the little cousins make "Happy Christmas" cookies and put icing on them on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

This was crazy. In practice, I:

• travelled with a giant ball of dough to another town
• put it in the fridge
• proceeded to forget all about it as I had fun with my two children along with their two cousins
• put the dough back in the car for the travel to the other family's Christmas party
• left the dough out of the fridge for most of the day while I proceeded to forget all about it as I had fun with with my two children along with their thirteen cousins
• put the dough back in the car the next day and came home.

Once we were home, I thought it was time to make some gingerbread men with this poor dough. Sonny Ma-Jiminy and I made some of those along with stars, Christmas trees and hearts (which Sonny Ma-Jiminy calls "loves"), and then we started on the letters. It was much easier after he lost interest and walked away. I made a few copies of each child's name and then I made this lovely Merry Christmas message. Rolling, cutting and cooking the dough was soothing, somehow. I think I'll make the whole New Testament in gingerbread cookies as a ministry to gluttons.

And now after the wonder and joy and excitement of Christmas, there's New Years Eve to celebrate. I've never really understood the celebrations on New Years Eve. Tomorrow's just another day, but people seem to think that the calendar clicking over into another YEAR might just mean that there will be better luck, happier times and more prosperity over the next 12 months.

How so? This New Year's Eve has reminded me that there's a real world out there and it will bring similar joys and sorrows as previous years have. This New Years Eve I took the ultimate Reality Pill and tried to do some work in the yard.

The mowing really needed to be done, so I thought I'd get into that. The mower has been recently serviced so that I could actually start the recalcitrant thing, but my little girly muscles couldn't do it.

Disconsolately I put the mower away and decided to try some yard work. Many weeds have sprung up after the recent rain, so I tried pulling them out. I was quickly bitten on the hand by ants, so I tried pruning a wild rambling rose with seccateurs instead. This started with me jabbing my finger on a thorn (a piece of which is still in my finger) and ended when I upset a wasps nest and was stung on the back by one of the wasps.

Initially the sting was bright red and the size of a pea. Now it is white, the size of a pea, and surrounded by a bright red patch the size of a cricket ball.

That, my revelrous friends, is the reality of a New Year - any New Year. There will be good and there will be bad. For example: Gingerbread Salutations and Wasps. Happy New Year, whatever it brings.