Here is a shocking fact: A few days from now, 2019 will be five years in the past. Five years ago! Think back to your innocent, ignorant, candy-floss-filled brain. In January 2019, you had NO IDEA.
What a time!
I thought about this as I sat in the perfunctory waiting area at the Shaker Square CVS as a wet-behind-the-ears pharmacist prepared to jab me with the flu and COVID vaccines. How quotidian it is, now, to saunter up to some pharmacy window next to a display of gummy vitamins and request a COVID vaccine, please. In January 2019 you had never heard of such a thing, and by the spring of 2021 you’d be booking shot appointments online with the fervor of a Boomer trying to get Rolling Stone tickets.
Christmas was good, but as I write this, I am procrastinating wrapping the last straggler presents and driving down to my parents’ house for something like the fifth holiday family get-together in a row. I am all done with Christmassing and am not feeling very jolly about this party, but the things you agree to in mid-December are very often the things you regret two weeks later. After today nobody is going to get me to do jack shit out of the house unless it is a quiet dinner with maximum two people.
On December 26 we had 15 people at the house, which is about as many as our house can comfortably entertain. It was a very successful party, although we overestimated everyone’s appetite for foie gras and underestimated their appetite for Beaujolais. (We got the champagne juuuuuust right.)
For New Year’s Eve we are staying home and my husband is making cassoulet, which will feel unseasonal if the temperatures remain in the 50s and 60s, as they did on the day after Christmas. We left the patio door open all day while we cooked, which was nice but felt ominous. I expect a Christmas cookout is probably in all of our futures.
My 2024 advice to you is not to make any resolutions but to definitely try something new and maybe weird, ideally a hobby that lets you buy some wonderful little supplies or accessories. Last year I said I was going to try and drink more water and take our dogs to daycare less often, and I definitely nailed the second one. I’m still parched! When will I ever crack the code??? If only I knew how to stay more hydrated!