It’s hard to believe in December this year because the weather continues mild and snow-less. Still, the TV meteorologist I watch is almost - almost - promising a white Christmas, a pleasure we have not had for several years. So I guess we’ll go along with December and see what happens.

I’m still going along with Christmas. I think the biggest anachronism is the list of Christmas card recipients I write to each year, dwindling each year. It’s something I used to do and still do out of habit. For several years I have been reminding my friends that we keep on keeping touch just to assure each other that we are still here. Every year I get at least one letter from a relative of someone I have sent a card to, informing me that the person has died. That’s the hard way to shorten a list.

I don’t have any Christmas decorations left. My children were still at home when Bill died; they were 12, 14, 16 and almost 18. We were all caught in the midst of our lives, or maybe I was caught in the midst of theirs. I kept on trying to maintain a family and family traditions until they finished growing up and dispersed and started families and traditions of their own. When we moved into Toronto for our first Christmas there, Liz emptied all the boxes of decorations and mementos and strewed them around the entire apartment. We got home from church and she greeted us:

“Merry Kitschmas, everyone!” she said.

That’s when I began to divest myself of the past. As they all established homes of their own, I stopped producing Christmas for my children and went where I was invited. By the time I was living in Muskoka, there was no point in putting out decorations at Christmas time because no one was there, including me. I put a string of bells on the door, was all.

But I still look forward to a white Christmas, with authentic snow.

"Qigong is an ancient Chinese health care system that integrates physical postures, breathing techniques and focused intention."

I’m tired, still or again, not sure which. I don’t think that’s a good thing to say in a blog but there it is . A blog is not a diary or a journal. and yet it is a chronicle, a very personal one. I see my blog as a personal reflection on surrounding events that affect me and that I share with two or three others. Anyway, I was going to share that I’m tired and I did and I am but the day isn’t over yet so I have to deal with that. I promised. Full disclosure: I am tired.

I was going to start some tai chi exercises again. I used to do tai chi when I lived in Muskoka (from 1987 to 2003)), but a friend suggested I try Qigong instead. I’ve had two sessions so far, just learning. It involves thinking, imaging and imagining as well as a full range of accompanying motions. It’s supposed to help you recover your youthful vitality and maintain your health into old age. i’m already old and I’m quite healthy so so what can I say? No thanks to qigong because i didn’t know about it. It’s also credited with reducing the incidence of falling. I can use that. And best of all, or most important of all, is that it “reestablishes the body/mind/soul connection.” I’m not sure I knew I was disconnected. I just sort of drag everything along with me as I go. Don’t we all? Well, no. I think people who are too attached to their cell phones have lost their connection.

I kept on looking up qigong and I got blogged down. I’m not ready to absorb it all at once. I’ll just let it creep up on me, or vice versa.

And that’s all I have to say about that.