To Days to Come / All My Love to Long Ago

The subject line is a quote from the Doctor Who charity scene "Time Crash," starring Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor alongside David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. After seven minutes of frenetic banter and offhandedly saving the Universe from a hole "the exact size of Belgium," the two versions of the Doctor each pay tribute to the other, and to the portion of the Doctor's long life that each represents.

No, this isn't a Doctor Who entry. It's just that those two lines of dialogue make a nice hook to hand this entry on. More than any other holiday, Christmas resonates through one's personal past, and can be a foundation for building one's future as well. Well, maybe. Well, bits of it anyway.

All I'm willing to show you of the Christmas pot luck

As I reported last night, today was the Christmas pot luck at work. I rushed over from my seminar and discovered that the party had hardly started, and that nobody had heated up my rutabagas. I ate them cold. Judging from how full my Jadeware bowl was afterward, I don't think more than about one other person even tried them. Ah, well. Rutabagas are a bit of a tough sell, especially when there are a few dozen other food choices set out, most of them much more familiar-looking. It's just a link to my childhood, meaningless to everyone else in the room.

In my office today was a china Christmas stocking full of candy, three Christmas cards and I forget what else. I gave out my three individual gifts, but it seems I really need to do something for everyone in the room. So I've edited my Christmas party photos, and will be distributing them by email tomorrow or Friday. Best I can do, I think. I spent most of tonight asleep with one of my periodic naps (5 hours!) and I've got the seminar again tomorrow, and I don't get paid until Friday anyway. But meanwhile I'm slowly catching on to names and faces and personalities around the office. That's a big step forward for shy old me!

And it occurs to me that I've forgotten to mail a present I bought my godson months ago, when our local Discovery Channel store went out of business. I'd better find it and get it sent out. 'Cause the future we build from these Christmas rituals is more than getting to know co-workers and corporate culture, or picking up a few random gifts. It's mostly about the people we care about. And I've been neglecting them lately, I think.

Karen