Last Week of the Year

It's a thing, right??

It’s time for that post-Christmas hangover.

Do you feel that too?

There are things I always do this week. I make a playlist of all the songs I discovered during the year. I take a look at how many books I read, how many movies I saw. Yes, I’m a big Excel spreadsheet nerd from way back.

A few years ago, I reinstituted a tradition from when I was ten. I texted my dear ones and asked, “What did you get for Christmas?!” Everyone laughed at me, but everyone loved it.

I watch the Kennedy Center Honors, something I’ve done since childhood. I always admired awarding lifetime achievements in the performing arts. The Center honors five recipients and I usually know four of the five. When I introduced G to this tradition, I explained that the unknown one represented opera, classical music, or ballet, the arts that didn’t necessarily speak to me. It was a great learning moment.

I was a serious, sober child. This week between Christmas and the new year was difficult for me.

Elementary school age, I’d spend New Year’s Eve at my grandparents’ house. Grandma bought sparkling apple cider and we’d cheer the new year, well, at ten o’clock anyway. Midnight was hard to reach.

A few years later, somehow I entered an existential phase (teens are fun!) Dick Clark was on TV, Mom served appetizers, balloons and noise makers were at the ready. My family didn’t have issues with New Year’s Eve. Morose me was in the throes of realizing another year had gone by and the people I loved were getting older. Not only getting older, but smoking and drinking and not taking care of themselves, essentially putting themselves at risk for even less time here on Earth.

Total downer, I know. Funny thing is, I was right.

I never became someone who went out and partied on New Year’s Eve, but I’m happy to report that I got over that painful phase.

This final week of the year has become a time to relish the holiday, rest, and slowly enter January with resolve and hope.

G and I do takeout on New Year’s Eve and sit in front of the TV. Sometimes a football bowl game is involved that day, but we always tune in to watch The Thin Man. If I haven’t fallen asleep on the couch, we pour some champagne and make a toast at midnight.

My brief time as a Nashvillian has stayed with me since my twenties. New Year’s Day brings roast pork and black-eyed peas, cornbread, and you guessed it, leafy greens.

This year, I’ll stuff a pork loin with garlic, Swiss chard, and golden raisins, a recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table. Instead of cornbread, I think grits will make an appearance on the plate.

I hope you take this week to be good to yourself. Celebrate your wins this year. I know you had some.

Thanks again for reading! I care about you. Don’t forget to eat those greens.