I don't stress about presents, either.

I'm doing pretty well today, all things considered. I've been thinking about Christmas and New Year's... wanting to plan for and enjoy them. It feels so hard, though, to make plans.

I'm not namby pamby regarding my enjoyment of Christmas. I love the shininess of the decorations and I love the music. I love having Christmas dinner for our friends, setting the table, eating Eric's feast. I love going to see Tom play his harp on Christmas eve. I love decorating the tree.

I really do love Christmas. My mother used to say that she loved Christmas, but if she did it was at best bittersweet. She tired. There would be a flurry of Christmas plans at the beginning of December, but by the time the 25th rolled around she was depressed and/or angry. Perhaps it was having children that ruined it for her. Who knows? I'm sorry that she couldn't enjoy it.

As for me, when I limped away from Long Beach (where the natives have a 100 different words for the color of asphalt) I decided to create my own traditions. How fortuitous it was that I met Eric and found the very best co-creator in the world. My first just-my-own Christmas was Eric's first-ever Christmas.

Eric carried the enormous tree (which he had driven me 'round & 'round to find) upstairs to my attic apartment. He didn't want to help me decorate because he'd never decorated a tree before and he didn't want to mess it up. But we decorated it together, and this year will be the nineteenth tree we've made beautiful together.

Escrow closed on our house just a few days before Christmas. We pulled up the carpeting and painted the downstairs lickety split, and moved over just what we needed to make Christmas dinner for 20 friends. Our house was inaugurated with a long table and friends at Christmas.

Christmas blends into New Year's, which has always been fun for us, and for 5 out of the last 6 years that's meant Camp Martha. This time of year has been about sparkles and dancing, friends & silliness, and fun.

I guess I just want the fun to continue. This year, and the year after, and the year after that. More sparkles and dancing, silliness and friends. That doesn't seem to be the way my hand's playing out. It doesn't seem that way. I just don't know.

I'm a sucker for wishing on stars. I've wished on every first-star-of the-night I can ever remember seeing, and since I first fell in love with Eric -- have I ever not loved Eric? -- I've made the same wish, every time. I really have. I've had the same wish for first stars and wishbones and any other wishing occasions that have arisen.

My wishes have come true. As always, I just wish for more of the same.