Tonight is the annual Crabby Playground Lady Christmas Dinner Out.

Only one other CPL has been working at the school  as long as I have and we've seen a lot of women and men (honorary Ladies while they are working with us) come and go in the job.  I'd wonder about the high turnover rate in the job, but we've had temperatures around thirty degrees below freezing the past couple of days and being out in the cold, tramping through snow gives me a hint of why people come and go.

Every year, though I look forward to the evening out and I find myself wondering how we will function as a social group.  Can Carol smile?  I wonder.  If we get too loud at the table, will Debbie pull out a whistle and blast us back to good behavior?  If I want to go to the Ladies' Room, must I raise my hand and get permission?

Well, probably not, right?  But I'm going to run get my hair done before tonight.  If I do misbehave, they'll never recognize me without my usual case of BadHatHair, and tomorrow I can join their scandalized gossip about the discipline problem at the table.

One can never be too careful at professional functions, can they?

I'm nearly ready to leave.  In about an hour my sister will be here and we will be on our way to join our other sister on our Annual Pilgrimage of Inappropriate Holiday Joy.

Two days of being sisters and not wives and mothers!  I'll think of you while I enjoy that cosmopolitan at the Four Seasons.

Mmm hmmm!

I have a few blogs.  Well, maybe more than a few.

Some people question why anyone would have more than one blog.  It confuses them.  No, more than that.  It makes them nervous;  what am I trying to hide in those other names, those other voices?  What tricks am I playing?  What exactly is wrong with me?

The answer is simple.  With the exception of one blog, I'm not really hiding anything.  That one blog is an interesting case, even to me.  I simply don't want the stuff in that blog to be part of the others.  It needs a place of its own.  I need a place of my own there.

But the other blogs--how many?  I haven't counted recently--are easy to explain, with a variety of explanations.  One (or two) have names that amuse me; I like being those people.  That other one (or two) came about because I liked the layout, liked playing with photos and colors, seeing what can be done with simple elements combined in new ways.  And the one (or two) that are there besides are for new experiments, things that I'm trying out but not really ready to set in plain view, but aren't really going to benefit by being stowed in a dark closet to come to maturity.  And one is for a passion of mine.  Well, two.  Who wants to hear me prattle about things like gardens and bugs?  Maybe not the readers here.  But I like prattling, and I indulge my passions.

Usually people recognize me, in whatever voice I'm writing and posting.  Once in a while someone doesn't, and I know it, and sometimes I'll email them a "Hey!  That nutbar you were talking to?  That's me!" and I've never had anyone out of sorts about my multiple blogality disorder.  That term came from another multiple blogger.  Someday I'll recognize him in more of his places; so far I know only a few.

I've discovered something about myself through these several--or more--blogs.  I'm perhaps not the simple person I thought I was when I started blogging.   Different interests, different challenges, different strengths all work within me, sometimes working together, sometimes working against each other, but changing and growing and thriving when I don't keep myself in one template, one voice.

This, for example, is being posted in two blogs.  Just two, because they speak for those places, and not the others.  It's not as if I'm out of control, of course.  I don't have to quit blogging;  I can just post a little.

Eric is a college graduate.

He is the first of the twenty-one bright people of his generation in his family to earn a bachelor's degree.  In all the years he has been in school, starting when he was three years old and continuing through his very self-dependent college years, he has only given me one bit of trouble.

Now, that bit was a doozie, true, but

he's made having my son be a student a pleasure.

"Proud" doesn't do the feeling he gives me justice.

Jean and I just constructed a huge pan of the most wondrous tiramisu for the Christmas Eve celebration at Rose's house.  The place will be packed with people we're related to, husbands, grandmother, wives, brothers, mothers,  sisters-in-law, in-laws-to-be, sisters, neices, brothers in-law, nephews, grandchildren, one-yet-to-be-born.

The house is three bedroomed and small,  and once housed a large family with seven children.  The flat upstairs, now empty, was the remote location for the grandmother, dear great aunt, and great uncle.  Those were the uncrowded days.  Tonight people will gather around the tree,

and in the hallway,

and in the kitchen,

and in at least one of the bedrooms

as the gifts are handed out by the Santa of the Year and opened.

And then there will be dessert and Jean's tiramisu will be served, along with Auntie's cakes and Cousin's cookies.

I hope your Christmas is as happy and warm as mine will be.

Merry Christmas.

Being a kind of immigrant on this UK site, I wanted to wish all you members of the Commonwealth of Nations a Happy Boxing Day.

But actually being a citizen and resident of the United States, which doesn't celebrate Boxing Day, I wasn't exactly sure what I was chirping that cheery salutation about, so I asked someone.  Well, I didn't actually ask, as much as I kind of eavesdropped around the place and came to my own conclusions.

And here is what I learned about Boxing Day.  I invite all my fellow-non-commonwealthy people to learn from my research.

Boxing Day is celebrated on December 26th, the day after everyone celebrates Christmas, and Christmas is really the reason that Boxing Day exists.  On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day everyone goes and celebrates in close, loving family groups.  Little irritations with the rest of humanity are set aside and everyone embraces one another in a spirit of wholehearted goodwill.  On Christmas, people exchange presents, eat and drink without thought of nutrition or moderation, and the parties last late into the night.   They travel back home in dark night, the memories of the days filling their minds. 

Upon waking the next day,  as I was saying,  it is Boxing Day. 

With the "blessings" of overlooked "kindly" family remarks and "interesting" gifts they've received, and feeling a bit raggity from alcohol, sugar and fat overloads, the British Commonwealthers have had enough.  (We in the States, on the other hand, feel that we have been bountifully blessed.)

But the Commonwealthy put on festive garb:

And go out into the world, looking for meaningful interaction with their fellow man. 

Celebrating Boxing Day is taken very seriously and for some people, the joys of Boxing Day are undertaken with even more enthusiasm than those of the holy nights and day preceeding it.  Those big-time Boxing Day fans celebrate until they can't celebrate any more.

I can't say that Boxing Day would work very well in Wisconsin.  It's not that we lack holiday spirit, but we usually smile while we have holidays.  On the other hand, I like the monkeys hat.  If we had monkeys in our families, no way would we pass up celebrating Boxing Day.  I mean, any excuse to let our monkey's be happy would be reason enough to have a holiday.

And that's what I've learned about Boxing Day, and I wish all of you Boxers a happy one. I'd also like to send a very special "Happy Boxing Day" to my good friend MJ.  Knock 'em dead, MJ!