I was going to make this post a rant about how just because I'm married people I've known all my life have suddenly started addressing mail to me as Mrs. Fuzzy'sLastName, and not just MissMeliss, and how this annoys me, because a) I've never introduced myself as Mrs. Anything. Mrs. is not a title I use. If you want to formally address me, use Ms. If you want to address something to my husband and me, “MissMeliss and Fuzzy FuzzysLastName” is my preference. I don't believe in false formality, and I DO believe that people should be called what they WISH to be called. Mind you, if you do use Mrs. as your title, then, hey, cool. But it's not me. It hasn't been me in the nearly eleven years I've been married. It will never be me.

But I'm not going to rant about that, because after eleven years, people should know, and because it's almost Christmas, and who wants to read rants at Christmas?

Instead I'm going to talk about Christmas cards. I love them. I love them for the pictures on the fronts, as well as for the words inside, which, hopefully, are added to in an inky scrawl, and not just perfunctorily signed. I love the surprise of getting a card from someone I've been meaning to contact for too long, and then finally call because the card makes me, and I love the anticipation, as December grows nearer, of receiving the first card in the mail.

My aunt sends me a small advent calender card (sans chocolate) every year – it's become a personal ritual, and one I love. My mother's cards are homemade, printed on her printer, and feature pictures of her beach – this year she forgot to leave room for an address box, so randomly wrote the TO addresses, and frankly, I'm amazed we all received the cards. My grandmother used to begin every card with “Hi Darling,” and it took me til I was fifteen to realize it was because she often didn't remember where the card would end up. “Hi Darling” was her generic family greeting. (It was also the only line many of us could read – my grandmother had abysmal handwriting.)

Today, I came home to find not just cards, but COOKIES waiting for me, and my mood went from tired and crabby to tired and hopeful, just because of a few cards.

(The practical upshot of all this: If you're one of my friends in Europe or the UK, or in Canada, or in the third batch of names on my list, your card didn't go out til today because I'm lazy and slow, and have been really sick. Um. They should get there by Epiphany. That counts, right?)

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I seem to be short on time, short on sleep, and short tempered this week, which is sort of ironic since there's no real stress in my life, except a sore throat I can't shake.

At work, it's day five, and I'm still passwordless, though I think we're making progress. At home, Christmas cards (batch three) are still awaiting postage – sorry, folks some of you will have to wait til after Christmas, as they're going out tomorrow.

My short term memory is blink this week – I keep forgetting Christmas is THIS Sunday, not NEXT Sunday. Somehow, the pattern of days feels 'off' somehow, as if we skipped a whole week somewhere, or something. I realize it's probably just me acclimating to working again, but it's rather disconcerting.

I'm short on patience. A friend questioned why I greeted her then immediately left. While that isn't quite what happened (I asked how she was and got a two word response, I think.), I should have been more patient, but you know, the alternative would have been to idle out, rather than say goodbye, and HER short answer gave the impression she didn't wish to talk. So, for the record, I apologize for being a little TOO short, when explaining myself and then declaring that I simply wouldn't greet any more, but I am only accepting 50% of the responsibility for any further grief. (Which I'm too short on time, to have, actually.)

Next week, I only work three days. THIS week, however, cannot be short enough. I'm tired, and need a break that is NOT short.

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I was first introduced to the King's Singers when I was in high school. They were touring the US, and our performing arts magnet was on their route from San Francisco to Los Angeles, so they graciously agreed to do a brown bag lunch/master class/q&a with the vocal music students. None of us had ever heard of them, and when our choir director, Mr. H., told us they were an all-male sextet that usually sang a capella, we expected a bunch of stuffy old British guys.

Well, they were British, and they were guys, but really only one or two of them qualified as old. They sang a couple of songs for us – the Beatle's “Money Can't Buy Me Love,” arranged in the form of a traditional madrigal, and a French folk song (which might have been “Le Belle Dans La Limosine”), and then they took questions from all of us, and showed us some different breathing and vocalizing techniques, pushed the importance of warm-ups, and generally charmed a room full of teenaged girls (mostly girls, anyway). At the end, they performed their signature closing tune, “You Are the New Day,” which remains one of my favorite songs.

Most of us, me included, were quite taken with a singer named Jeremy Jackman, their alto (aka countertenor, an adult male singer who uses a falsetto voice to provide the treble voice in a male choir). He was tall and sort of gawky, and really sweet and funny, but it's his voice that has stayed lodged in my brain for all these years, more than his face.

Cut to Saturday night around 11:50. Despite knowing that I had to be in bed early, to be up early for pre-Mass choir practice, I was half-watching Forest Gump on TNT and idly scrolling through music on my Zen Micro, when I stopped at a tune called “The Gift” from a King's Singers Christmas album. I played it, and was entranced.

It's hardly a new tune – the melody is taken from the Quaker hymn “Simple Gifts” – Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free, etc. etc. – but had been re-set with Christmas lyrics, and arranged into their usual tight six-part harmony, and I was utterly enthralled, playing it through three or four times.

Fuzzy walked in at the end of the fourth play-through, and laughed at me, he said, “because you looked so focussed and cute but I didn't know what you were doing.” I threw a pillow at him. But I went to sleep with Jeremy Jackman's high notes ringing in my head.

Their Christmas album is not new (Mr. Jackman left the group in 1990), and the singers have changed a little over the years, as older members have retired and been replaced, but if you want really pure tones, really amazing harmony, and really beautiful music, they can't be beat.

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Sitting here in my home office, waiting for Fuzzy to finish getting ready for work (we carpool), I can still hear the music from last night ringing in my head. We have an alto-heavy choir, and our choirmaster, at the last rehearsal, split us into two rows, to balance the number of people in each row, and to balance the sound. I'm the shortest person in either choir, and I was put in the back. When I teased him about that decision, about how I don't know the harmony on some of the older carols, and was relying on the piano, he said, “But I put you in the back because you can hit the pitches,” meaning the three of us in the back row are supposed to sing into the front row, and guide them. That made me feel better, but what really helped is my row-mates agreeing that the alto part on one of the pieces is just really tough – I think we ALL just opted to sing melody, since the congregation was singing along. In any case, C. was able to listen to the master cd of the performance on the way home, and we should have copies of the edited version by the first of the year. Having a brass quartet joining us for the carols was AMAZING, inspiring, and just plain fun, and I had to laugh at our Bishop, who was seated behind us, humming along with all the introductions.

Today, the morning sky is thick with soft grey mist, the kind that makes lights twinkle more brightly, and makes a cozy fireside THE place to want to be. And yet, I'm still so buzzed from singing that I don't even mind getting in the car and heading off to work. (Maybe I'll have a password?) Somehow, it'll just make coming home to my decorated house that much sweeter.

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If you live in the DFW area and are looking for something Christmassy – and FREE – to do tomorrow (Sunday the 18th) evening, consider yourself invited to the Lessons & Carols service at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Grand Prairie. It begins at 7:00 PM, and there's a reception afterwards.

According to the website for the King's College (Cambridge) Chapel :

The original service was, in fact, adapted from an Order drawn up by E.W. Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury, for use in the wooden shed, which then served as his cathedral in Truro, at 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve 1880. A.C. Benson recalled: â˜My father arranged from ancient sources a little service for Christmas Eve â“ nine carols and nine tiny lessons, which were read by various officers of the Church, beginning with a chorister, and ending, through the different grades, with the Bishop.â™ The suggestion had come from G.H.S. Walpole, later Bishop of Edinburgh.

Almost immediately other churches adapted the service for their own use. A wider frame began to grow when the service was first broadcast in 1928 and, with the exception of 1930, it has been broadcast annually, even during the Second World War, when the ancient glass (and also all heat) had been removed from the Chapel and the name of Kingâ™s could not be broadcast for security reasons. Sometime in the early 1930s the BBC began broadcasting the service on overseas programmes. It is estimated that there are millions of listeners worldwide, including those to Radio Four in the United Kingdom. In recent years it has become the practice to broadcast a digital recording on Christmas Day on Radio Three, and since 1963 a shorter service has been filmed periodically for television. Recordings of carols by Decca and EMI have also served to spread its fame.

As tradition requires, our service opens with “Once in royal David's city,” and includes formal anthems, readings, and familiar carols, and through most of it, the congregation is encouraged to sing along. We've been rehearsing Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings since Thanksgiving, both to blend our choir with that of St. Joseph's Episcopal Church (also in Grand Prairie), and to learn the music, and we were told last week that the presiding Bishop of our diocese will be attending. Children from St. Andrew's school choir will also be participating, and there will be a brass quintet as well. It's not a Mass (there is no Eucharist), just a festive service.

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I came home from a long and terribly dull day at work, followed by a lovely dinner with Fuzzy at a local steakhouse, to find this information on my computer.

John Spencer has died.

I'm going to miss his gritty voice, and the subtle detail of his acting.

RIP.

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Like fruitcake, the self-published newsletter is an ubiquitous part of the holiday season. At once a cheerful greeting and an experiment in determining exactly how much cute clip-art one can fit between the printer margins of an 8.5 x 11″ piece of paper, these mass-mailed missives fill our mailboxes during much of winter.

As early as Thanksgiving (American, not Canadian – one hopes), folded and stapled copy paper arrives via post, sometimes sporting stickers or custom-designed stamps, other times merely printed on paper in colors found only in the “festive” section – bright orange, planetary purple, obnoxious pink, and, of course, the traditional red and green, as well as utilitarian white (most often used with colored fonts).

December is when the serious newsletters begin to arrive. These are designed by hard-core mailers, and often come on thick or glossy stock, or written entirely in verse (though the latter is often comprised of questionable rhymes and uneven meter). While most such posts arrive by the 25th, there are often several sprinkled throughout early and mid January. Often, these sport snowflake designs, and titles like “Winter Wonders” or “News of the Great White North.”

It doesn't really matter when they come, though, for holiday newsletters are, in some ways, relics of the days when sending Christmas cards was a normal activity, and not something only engaged in by neo-Martha Stewart clones, or over-achieveing students of Alexandra Stoddard, holdovers from times when written correspondence was looked upon with great anticipation, and not the dread of wondering who is begging for money this time.

As I have an unabashed love of stationery and the written word, of pen and ink and postage stamps, it should come as no surprise that I've succumbed to the pull of the desktop publishing software, and am printing copies of MY holiday newsletter as I write this entry. While it DOES have some clip-art (just a border, I swear) it also features a picture of my tree from last year, in front of a window, with a snowstorm beyond, the whole thing photoshopped by a dear friend into something soft and worth sharing. It does NOT contain a minute-by-minute breakdown of the last year, however, just a few teasers, and an invitation for folks to read my blog. Yeah, I'm shameless.

Whether you send newsletters, or only receive them, and whether or not you actually read those that arrive in your mailbox, consider this when you next come across one: even a kitschy newsletter is still a “real letter,” and real letters are special. After all, a gift from the hand is a gift of the heart, even if a keyboard was involved in the translation.

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Last night after rehearsal, we walked outside to find a soaking rainfall and warm (for December) weather, and the combination of the moist air and the music buzz blended with the soft twinkle of the lights on all the houses, and made me smile. Almost, I wish we had glittery lights all year, but only almost. Some things are more special for being rare. Today, I sat at a window-facing table while I ate my lunch, and watched the rain outside, and read a bit, enjoying the quiet. I love rain.

This morning, I was welcomed onto my new team at work with a Secret Santa gift, and many many smiles. How many people walk onto their first day of a job and find a present waiting? (Actually, they'd also made sure my desk was stocked with a calendar, pens, and post-it notes, which nearly made up for the extremely boring day I spent watching people fill out forms, since IT hadn't yet granted me network access.)

At the end of the day, I also learned that all of the people in my new hire class HAD been added to the list for the company Christmas party, with each of us allowed a guest. I'm not sure how I'll get in, if I don't have an access badge (we're supposed to show them) by then, but it means a lot that they included us. I'm hoping this is a trend and not a fluke. (Last night's email held a party invitation for an event hosted by friends, and while I'm always horribly shy at parties, I'm really looking forward to this one.)

Parties, presents, and precipitation – I wish all Wednesdays were this wonderful.

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Two days into the new job, and so far all I've done is attend orientation classes. I now have more passwords and numbers than any human needs, and have learned much about the company's history and culture, and confirmed that yes, I will get paid on Thursday (not bad, really, to have your first day on Monday, and know on Tuesday by looking it up on the corporate website, what your check amount will be.)

I'm so beyond tired that I have no energy to write, no energy to think, and barely enough energy to shower, but I came home to find that Fuzzy had gifted me with a second tivo unit, which resides in our bedroom. So, yes, we are now a two-tivo household, but I'm too tired to watch anything, and I'm trying desperately not to let this sinus infection/cold/allergy/thing get a real hold on me, because Sunday is Lessons & Carols, and I don't want to miss singing. (Upside: When I'm congested, I can sing higher.)

I've been distracted for days – weeks – which is why I'm not haunting other blogs so much right now. I need to get a replacement check out to a certain Jam Maker (the original one came back to me today, by the way – I'd put MY zip code from when I lived in CA on the envelope (don't know why), and forgotten to put a stamp on it – I am NEVER that out of it, and can only blame the fact that I was about to go on a trip, at the time.

Tomorrow, I report to my actual manager, who has asked me to shadow one of the people who is already doing my job, which I'm not looking forward to, because I'd rather jump in and DO stuff. But, the desks are spacious, and I've met the members of my team, and they seem nice enough.

I had a thought, when I sat down tonight, but do I remember it? No. Argh!

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As I write this, I'm curled up in bed, a dog at my feet, and another with his tiny head resting against my hip. I'm wearing a purple tank top and the bottoms from a set of flannel pajamas that Fuzzy gifted me with several years ago. They are decorated with a lavender grid pattern, darker purple bones and WOOF WOOFs and turquoise terriers. They are too long, unironed, and completely undignified, but they are also soft, warm, and comfortable, and I love them.

I really don't do much flannel. Oh, yes, we have a lovely set of flannel sheets, but we lived in California, and now live in Texas, and the temperatures in either place are rarely low enough to require flannel on the bed. (I use them once a year anyway, around Christmas time, as they are also soft, warm, and comfortable.)

As a child, of course, I looked forward to new flannel nightwear every Christmas eve. One year, it was red flannel feet-in pajamas (I only wore the pants to those as well, and eventually cut the feet off, too.), another year it was a voluminous nightgown with ruffles and little red and orange flowers, most years, though, it was some version of nightgown in solid red, and my mother has oodles of pictures of me, with a cocoa mustache and a present-bow in my hair, from various years – pictures I'm inclined to burn, actually, so it's good that they're with her in Mexico.

Ugly pictures aside, there's something comforting about flannel. It's not bulky, like fleece, and doesn't make corduroy-esque swishing sounds like nylon windsuits, it's just soft, and warm, and somehow satisfies the need to nest, even if you're sitting crosslegged on an wood floor, while wearing it, and not curled up in a warm bed.

Flannel. One of my favorite parts of winter.

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