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silveradept[O hai. It's December Days time, and this year, I'm taking requests, since it's been a while and I have new people on the list and it's 2020, the year where everyone is both closer to and more distant from their friends and family. So if you have a thought you'd like me to talk about on one of these days, let me know and I'll work it into the schedule. That includes things like further asks about anything in a previous December Days tag, if you have any questions on that regard.]
Another question pulled from the many places where the December questions are going on:
Where I grew up had four distinct seasons: Thunderstorms, Humidity, Animals, and Snow. There's a certain something about being able to see dry pavement as you are driving and then a line where it changes to soaked and rain bouncing off the puddles. And then driving through that downpour, where speed slowed down significantly because even though the wipers were running full on, it couldn't really keep up with the reason coming down, right before the other line, where we went abruptly back to dry pavement and sunshine. Thunderstorms are fun to watch from a distance, not so much when they cause power outages that can take days to restore, or when a lightning strike runs enough current up the telephone line to blow out your modem (thankfully, the rest of the computer was fine). Animals season isn't all that much fun, either, because deer have no sense of self-preservation and will bound onto the road right in front of your vehicle, causing a close enough miss for you as to strike the vehicle in the opposite lane that was crossing you. Or many of the other times where we have had to mention there were animals in the road or close enough to it to warrant caution. Because while many car-deer collisions will be fatal for the animal, almost all of them will be fatal for the car and possibly injurious to the people inside. Snow season comes with some hazards of its own, the sort where you slide on a patch of undetected ice, get sideways to the road, and then bury your front end into a snowbank while correcting your own course. This is in the days before ubiquity of cell phone, so it's not like you can call a parent or roadside to get you unstuck. Some very kind truck drivers and others helped push me out of the snowbank so I could make it home. And then there was that time when I drove home from a friend's house during a lull in a snowstorm where everything was covered in fresh powder, including the highways, and while there was some slip and slide, everyone behaved sensibly and nobody tried to go too quickly and make problems for themselves and others. Humidity season is no fun at all, because it's hot and humid and there's never enough climate control everywhere to avoid suffering the consequences of that terrible combination.
Where I am now has two seasons: Rain and Cold Rain. Neither of them is particularly enjoyable to be in, but they do have some nice things going for them if you can observe them from inside a warm few and listen to the sound of the rain as it pounds on where you are. Very little thunder and lightning, though, so it doesn't quite compare to the Thunderstorms season of my youth. And while it gets colder here in the cold time than where I grew up, there's maybe one snowfall a year, and I find I very much miss that. For as much as I know that people here do not drive and probably should not drive in the snow and what kind of disruption it is, the lack of Snow season is something I feel very keenly. Snow season is ice hockey season, is Winter Olympics season, "maybe I can catch some curling on the CBC" season (and a certain annoyance that none of the digital streaming television services I have subscribed to carry the CBC, nor do they offer it and/or TSN as part of any package or add-on that I can see, even the sport ones. I'm sure that it's not just as easy as "ask the CBC for their international feed and offer it to those interested", but I wish it were. If for no other reason that I might occasionally want to hear a different take on international affairs than the cable news cycle in the States.) It's a time for shameless amounts of comfortable and warming drinks, and making and enjoying feasts that reflect on the successes of the year and having made enough not only to provide for ourselves through the cold and dark, but to share with others.
The season of Snow has remarkably few traditions for me, given that, being raised a Roman Catholic, the liturgical year right around this time is one of Advent, a time of anticipation and contemplation, focusing on birth this time, rather than on death (that would be Lent), but all the same, choosing not to engage with a lot of feast and merriment until after the holy day is observed. Christmas was the one time in the year where the normally austere church of my upbringing would indulge in a little additional music and go from a single organist and the joyful noise of the congregation to the organist (playing piano) and whichever instrumentalists could be volunteered from the community to play. In practice, that usually meant the siblings and I, who can provide most of a brass section ourselves, plus or minus the occasional additional instrument or two. This would be for the Christmas Eve service, held at a reasonable time in the afternoon, and while there was always applause for the effort, I'm not sure we ever did more than provide a different noise to listen to. (Then again, I always think I sound terrible. Now that I know slightly more about myself I wonder how much of that is unrealistic expectation and how much of that might be that my hearing hasn't always been perfect about discernment of pitches.) The service finished, the siblings would all pile into a vehicle to take a trip to another Christmas service, the increasingly misnamed Midnight Mass (which tended to begin singing around 10, and the service itself anywhere from 10:30 to 11:00 at night) at the church where my relative, the Catholic priest, would celebrate. The places where my relative would celebrate were generally larger, more ornate, and had actual musicians and singers, rather than relying solely on the congregation to provide the voices. It doesn't hurt that my relative can sing as well and doesn't hesitate to do so for specific occasions. (My connection with this relative would have a certain amount of hilarity involved when it turned out that the section leader for my university marching band, the first year of my attendance, had been a regular at my relative's church. How did I learn this? Because when said relative came to a football game to watch the band performance, the two saw each other. Cue "your relative is the priest of that church?" "Yep.") Still, two services in such a short time is pretty exhausting, but we make our way through all the same, because we know at the end there will be proper feasting. Because one of the things that's true about being the priest of any given church is that the parishioners want to make sure you're well fed and have plenty to drink for the holidays. Which means that having your relatives come by for treats helps get rid of them without having to eat them yourself. There's almost always cheesecake involved, plenty of soda and other drinks (including a bottle of Crown Royale for many of those years), and we set to it with a gusto after the second service and then went at it again in the morning with breakfast to try and dent the large sugar supplies involved.
The other thing involved in the trip was a stop, usually in the town where the first church was located, at a Chinese restaurant, one of the few buildings open on Christmas Eve, of course, to obtain dinner after the first service, because playing is hard work. Almost always the same place, getting much the same food, and then going on. Moments like that of sibling bonding and eating together. Better when we were older and could be ourselves, rather than being someone's sibling. Because, for the most part, the season of Snow is about being close to the people that you want to be close to and having moments of togetherness and cheer and otherwise looking at the snow as it falls and having proper discussions about whether or not Santa flies at an altitude that radar would even pick up.
I miss the snow, but I miss the people, too, and most of the memories and traditions that I have around these times are ones that are best done with others. I do what I can, and telepresence helps, but there are times where I really would rather be there with everyone, to catch jokes and play cards and do what makes gatherings gatherings: eat lots, poke fun at each other (consensually) and make rude bodily noises. I still wouldn't wish a pandemic on anyone, and I'm still furious that there are people who are deliberately going to bet all the rest of their holidays against this one having to happen in person, but there's a certain amount of easier breathing that comes because this year, all the sensible people are going to have to do their Snow the same way that I have been for a while, so I don't feel like I'm weird or missing out, comparatively speaking.
Another question pulled from the many places where the December questions are going on:
Favorite season? And traditions or memories you associate with it?
Where I grew up had four distinct seasons: Thunderstorms, Humidity, Animals, and Snow. There's a certain something about being able to see dry pavement as you are driving and then a line where it changes to soaked and rain bouncing off the puddles. And then driving through that downpour, where speed slowed down significantly because even though the wipers were running full on, it couldn't really keep up with the reason coming down, right before the other line, where we went abruptly back to dry pavement and sunshine. Thunderstorms are fun to watch from a distance, not so much when they cause power outages that can take days to restore, or when a lightning strike runs enough current up the telephone line to blow out your modem (thankfully, the rest of the computer was fine). Animals season isn't all that much fun, either, because deer have no sense of self-preservation and will bound onto the road right in front of your vehicle, causing a close enough miss for you as to strike the vehicle in the opposite lane that was crossing you. Or many of the other times where we have had to mention there were animals in the road or close enough to it to warrant caution. Because while many car-deer collisions will be fatal for the animal, almost all of them will be fatal for the car and possibly injurious to the people inside. Snow season comes with some hazards of its own, the sort where you slide on a patch of undetected ice, get sideways to the road, and then bury your front end into a snowbank while correcting your own course. This is in the days before ubiquity of cell phone, so it's not like you can call a parent or roadside to get you unstuck. Some very kind truck drivers and others helped push me out of the snowbank so I could make it home. And then there was that time when I drove home from a friend's house during a lull in a snowstorm where everything was covered in fresh powder, including the highways, and while there was some slip and slide, everyone behaved sensibly and nobody tried to go too quickly and make problems for themselves and others. Humidity season is no fun at all, because it's hot and humid and there's never enough climate control everywhere to avoid suffering the consequences of that terrible combination.
Where I am now has two seasons: Rain and Cold Rain. Neither of them is particularly enjoyable to be in, but they do have some nice things going for them if you can observe them from inside a warm few and listen to the sound of the rain as it pounds on where you are. Very little thunder and lightning, though, so it doesn't quite compare to the Thunderstorms season of my youth. And while it gets colder here in the cold time than where I grew up, there's maybe one snowfall a year, and I find I very much miss that. For as much as I know that people here do not drive and probably should not drive in the snow and what kind of disruption it is, the lack of Snow season is something I feel very keenly. Snow season is ice hockey season, is Winter Olympics season, "maybe I can catch some curling on the CBC" season (and a certain annoyance that none of the digital streaming television services I have subscribed to carry the CBC, nor do they offer it and/or TSN as part of any package or add-on that I can see, even the sport ones. I'm sure that it's not just as easy as "ask the CBC for their international feed and offer it to those interested", but I wish it were. If for no other reason that I might occasionally want to hear a different take on international affairs than the cable news cycle in the States.) It's a time for shameless amounts of comfortable and warming drinks, and making and enjoying feasts that reflect on the successes of the year and having made enough not only to provide for ourselves through the cold and dark, but to share with others.
The season of Snow has remarkably few traditions for me, given that, being raised a Roman Catholic, the liturgical year right around this time is one of Advent, a time of anticipation and contemplation, focusing on birth this time, rather than on death (that would be Lent), but all the same, choosing not to engage with a lot of feast and merriment until after the holy day is observed. Christmas was the one time in the year where the normally austere church of my upbringing would indulge in a little additional music and go from a single organist and the joyful noise of the congregation to the organist (playing piano) and whichever instrumentalists could be volunteered from the community to play. In practice, that usually meant the siblings and I, who can provide most of a brass section ourselves, plus or minus the occasional additional instrument or two. This would be for the Christmas Eve service, held at a reasonable time in the afternoon, and while there was always applause for the effort, I'm not sure we ever did more than provide a different noise to listen to. (Then again, I always think I sound terrible. Now that I know slightly more about myself I wonder how much of that is unrealistic expectation and how much of that might be that my hearing hasn't always been perfect about discernment of pitches.) The service finished, the siblings would all pile into a vehicle to take a trip to another Christmas service, the increasingly misnamed Midnight Mass (which tended to begin singing around 10, and the service itself anywhere from 10:30 to 11:00 at night) at the church where my relative, the Catholic priest, would celebrate. The places where my relative would celebrate were generally larger, more ornate, and had actual musicians and singers, rather than relying solely on the congregation to provide the voices. It doesn't hurt that my relative can sing as well and doesn't hesitate to do so for specific occasions. (My connection with this relative would have a certain amount of hilarity involved when it turned out that the section leader for my university marching band, the first year of my attendance, had been a regular at my relative's church. How did I learn this? Because when said relative came to a football game to watch the band performance, the two saw each other. Cue "your relative is the priest of that church?" "Yep.") Still, two services in such a short time is pretty exhausting, but we make our way through all the same, because we know at the end there will be proper feasting. Because one of the things that's true about being the priest of any given church is that the parishioners want to make sure you're well fed and have plenty to drink for the holidays. Which means that having your relatives come by for treats helps get rid of them without having to eat them yourself. There's almost always cheesecake involved, plenty of soda and other drinks (including a bottle of Crown Royale for many of those years), and we set to it with a gusto after the second service and then went at it again in the morning with breakfast to try and dent the large sugar supplies involved.
The other thing involved in the trip was a stop, usually in the town where the first church was located, at a Chinese restaurant, one of the few buildings open on Christmas Eve, of course, to obtain dinner after the first service, because playing is hard work. Almost always the same place, getting much the same food, and then going on. Moments like that of sibling bonding and eating together. Better when we were older and could be ourselves, rather than being someone's sibling. Because, for the most part, the season of Snow is about being close to the people that you want to be close to and having moments of togetherness and cheer and otherwise looking at the snow as it falls and having proper discussions about whether or not Santa flies at an altitude that radar would even pick up.
I miss the snow, but I miss the people, too, and most of the memories and traditions that I have around these times are ones that are best done with others. I do what I can, and telepresence helps, but there are times where I really would rather be there with everyone, to catch jokes and play cards and do what makes gatherings gatherings: eat lots, poke fun at each other (consensually) and make rude bodily noises. I still wouldn't wish a pandemic on anyone, and I'm still furious that there are people who are deliberately going to bet all the rest of their holidays against this one having to happen in person, but there's a certain amount of easier breathing that comes because this year, all the sensible people are going to have to do their Snow the same way that I have been for a while, so I don't feel like I'm weird or missing out, comparatively speaking.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-12 10:18 am (UTC)Whether it is actually worth asking any of the services you subscribe to, in terms of how likely the service is to listen, I do not know.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-12 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-12 04:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-12 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-13 12:18 am (UTC)