Cultural Stuff

Okay, so TOMORROW is American Thanksgiving Day. Thanks to my fellow non-Americans for your greetings to the Americans, to the married Americans' votes of support for the Single Americans and to the Single Americans who signed up for the annual Singles Thanksgiving Survival Game. Make sure you get your tallies to me either just before you go to bed tomorrow night or first thing on Friday morning, so I can post them before I go to bed on Friday night. (I'm on Greenwich Mean Time.) If you play the Orthogals' Single Clichés Bingo, too, take a photo of your card and send it in. Don't forget: the more your relations comment on your single state, the greater your chance of winning. But no cheating by wearing a grey tracksuit to dinner, etc. If a remark is addressed to all the Singles at the table, every participating Single gets a point.

If you manage to write down the more amusing of the comments word-for-word (keep pen, paper and bingo board hidden in the nearest bathroom), that would be awesome, too.

Thoughts of American Thanksgiving and its centrality in American life, even in these days of Obamacare and support for mass illegal immigration and the "Knock Out Game" and all kinds of hair-raising things that are none of my Canadian business, lead to thoughts about the importance of shared cultural stuff in marriage.

For some people, national or ethnic traditions are not a core value. As I live in the UK, I do not celebrate any Canadian holidays except Hallowe'en, which I recognize by carving a pumpkin and putting it in the window. I used to have a Hallowe'en party (with Canadian Thanksgiving food), but this proved impractical and led to squabbles with my Scottish husband, who could not understand my attachment to the most suspect of my national holidays when I gave up Dominion Day without turning a hair. The annual squabble ended, though, last year when we were in Poland, where the priests all think Hallowe'en is satanic and the people have much nicer, totally Catholic All Saints celebrations. So now I just carve a pumpkin (or squash) because if I didn't I would DIE.

My ethnic Christmas traditions are just as important as Mr. Jack O'Lantern, and every year I rise from my couch and bake the Christmas cake and wrap it in brandy-soaked cheesecloth because what kind of woman would I be if I didn't, eh? Three weeks later I get off the couch again and start baking Christmas cookies according to my mother's recipes and then on Christmas Eve itself, I am on the phone to my mother to review the Traditional Christmas Morning Bun situation. Then on Christmas Day I make exactly the same dinner my mother does and afterwards collapse, half-dead, into bed.

B.A., whose ideal Christmas would involve Midnight Mass and then a romantic getaway in the snowy Highland countryside, watches all this activity in trepidation and keeps his head down because although I saw reason about Hallowe'en, I will never, ever see reason about Christmas baking, which must be done or I am a failure as a woman and Christmas will be ruined.

Fortunately it has not escaped his notice that English Christmas conquered Scotland a long time ago, and the shops are full of Christmas cake, and the mammies or grannies of his fellow Brits make Christmas cake or Christmas pudding, and bake endless cookies, and cook ginormous Christmas dinners. Christmas food obsession is very British, so my attitude, if rather noisy-colonial, is also British and therefore normal.

Meanwhile, my mother's mother, her mother, her mother, and her mother, stretching back through the centuries, were all Scots of the east coast (very different from the west coast), and B.A.'s mother, her mother, her mother, and so on, were also all Scots of the east coast. Which seems to mean that I automatically make all the right remarks to all the east coast Scottish platitudes and understand that it is sinful to pay £80 for a dress in the High Street when I can get one for £8 in the charity shop. I'm told people on the west coast think it a matter of pride to spend a lot of money on something, but this is surely just anti-Glasgow propaganda.

What is the point of all this navel-gazing? Well, I am pondering the fact that even though I married a fellow across the ocean, we seem to be culturally compatible because although we don't share the same NATIONAL culture, we share the same ethnic culture. If B.A. gets all very Scottish patriarch, I recall stories of my grandfather behaving like that. Naturally it makes me cranky to think that I have married my grandfather (or, somtimes, his father), but at least it feels familiar and [east coast Scottish platitude].

The poor old Canadian parish priest we bullied savagely during our pre-marriage interviews warned us that we might experience some cultural clashes, and he turned out to be right. Fourth generation Canadians of British descent are as American as we are British, a sort of hybrid, like our spelling. However, despite our arguments about self-promotion (e.g. sneaky British self-deprecation versus honest American boasting), B.A. and I understand each other pretty well. Of course it's more important that we share the same core values of Christ and His Church, but on the other hand, when it comes to the little things of daily life, the social interactions, the shopping, the cup of tea for the visitor, the farewell to the bus driver, the shared unspoken assumptions mean a lot, too.

Families Are Who They Are...

...and not necessarily who you want them to be.

Once upon a time, we got our ideas about reality from sermons, books and our elders, be those elders our mothers, our teachers or our superiors at work. Now most people get their ideas about reality from the television and the internet. Imagine if everyone in the West spent as much time in prayer and serious reading as we do watching television. That would be something.

That said, I got my ideas about family from books, and the principal book about a family that set my expectations of reality was Louisa Mae Alcott's Little Women. And in Little Women, the father is so WISE and the mother is so KIND and, even though the family is so POOR, Meg has to work as an upper servant (i.e. governess) and Jo as a professional companion to awful old Aunt March, they have a housekeeper. Jo and Amy have their clashes, but they are resolved and even when Amy gets what Jo ought to have had (in more instances than one!), instead of resenting this her whole life long, Jo is very understanding.

Little Women is a romance about the Alcott Family's life, so the reality will shock the stuffing out of anyone who thinks Little Women is real. First of all, the Marches/Alcotts were Unitarians and didn't believe in the divinity of Our Lord. Second, no Fritz came along to shame Louisa Mae/Jo out of writing penny dreadfuls, for she continued churning them out. Third, Bronson Alcott, who in Little Women seemed to be a sort of Methodist minister, started a commune so dire, Marmee dearest threatened to take the girls and go.

A re-write of Little Women to reflect their actual reality would be AWESOME! And there would even be a Polish angle because Louisa claims Laurie was based on a Pole named "Ladislav." (Has anyone done this yet?) All this said, I still think Louisa Mae Alcott is a great model for the contented Single Life, as long as you don't get entirely wrapped up in your father and die within two days of him.

My point is that if you get your idea of Ideal Family Life from television or 19th century children's fiction or Ralph Lauren adverts, you are naturally going to be disappointed with your own family. Time after time you return to the nest to discover that, although a bit of distance has done you good, they have not changed very much. You like what you liked before, and you are exasperated by whatever exasperated you before, and it may take you awhile to adjust to the family rhythms, if you can. Personally, I love going home to Mum and Dad. Although I am startled by the noise (human and television) at first, I enjoy the routines, the orderliness and the laundry system. Visits to my married brother are similarly noisy (human and toy) but fun and bracing. Oh, now I'm getting homesick. Wah.

I am fortunate in that I know exactly what my family is like, and I know that as families go mine is amazingly blessed, and I have no irrational expectations of perfection. Although we have our challenges, we are not dysfunctional, and I would LOVE to go home for Canadian Thanksgiving and/or Christmas, if it weren't so darned expensive. (I try to tempt my family over here, but they also find it darned expensive.)

But that's me. Some of you come from dysfunctional families, and go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas, hoping it will be better this year, and it never is. And my question for reflection is "Why go then?"

I have in my mind's eye a teary-eyed 50-something woman who keeps hoping year after year that her maternal and filial love and cooking will bring the whole family around the table where they will be delightful and humorous without being drunken or quarrelsome, even though drunken and quarrelsome is generally what they are. Time after time, she summons the same chemical mixture to her dining-room or kitchen and then weeps when, yet again, the house blows up. Her magic talisman, her Single daughter, did not work after all to avert the catastrophe, and she feels betrayed. So naturally she takes it out on her Single daughter, because if you can't take out your disappointment on your own daughter, whom CAN you take it out on?

If this sounds like your own mother, you may want to have a blunt conversation with her over the phone before you go home. Once you are grown up (particularly if you are no longer a financial dependent), you are in a position of strength vis-a-vis your elders' dysfunctions. You can say things like, "About Thanksgiving. I'm tired of the drunken free-for-all that happens after the pie, and this year, just so you know, I am leaving the minute the men start on the whisky. I've suffered through seeing my relations at their worst for twenty years, and I won't do it again. I'll go straight to the kitchen to wash the dishes, and then I'm going out."

Another option is to not go home at all, which will torpedo in advance your mother's or grandmother's fantasy that this year will be different, and she will have the Perfect Family Dinner. This may seem like an extreme measure, but I assure you it is physically possible. What you say is, "In light of the fact that two years ago A, B and C happened, and one year ago, X, Y, and Z happened, I will not be attending Thanksgiving Dinner this year." Then you don't.

In this scenario A,B,C, X,Y and Z are examples of real abuse, be it verbal, emotional, psychological or physical, either to you or to someone you love. You don't deserve abuse, and you don't deserve to see someone you love abused. If there is any likelihood that this is what you will suffer if you go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas, then please don't go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. You may have friends in your own town who would love to have you for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, especially if they are Single or childless, and apparently many people find great contentment in serving Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner to the homeless. You might even book a room in the guest house of a monastery for the weekend, and enjoy the peace and the food for the soul.

Update: What I said in 2010.

Four Parties in a Row...

Goodness me. I found myself crawling into bed after 2:30 AM yet again. It's a Christmas Party Marathon. Christmas Eve. Christmas. Feast of St. Stephen. Feast of St. John. Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, but I don't think B.A. and I are going to any parties. I'm going instead to my favourite cocktail bar for a Girl Drink.

Squinting back into the past, I am absolutely sure my parents did not go to many parties (or any cocktail bars), so I think all this partying--at least at my age--is an offshoot of being childless. (I'm mentioning childlessness again as it is something most of my Single readers and I still share and, indeed, something that you do risk if you wait past the age of 35 for The One--although how much worse if you marry The Zero at 25 and still don't have kids?)

Christmas is apparently a time of great gloom for many, so I think the best things anyone can do are to (A) plan ahead to ensure oneself and those under one's influence a happy, emotionally supported Christmas and (B) concentrate on what you have instead of on what you lack.

I have a lot of parties.

Not to be a Smug Scot, but parties are more fun here than they were in North America. I think this is because they have structure. The usual, North American stuff-everyone-in-the-same-room-and-pour-drink-into-them model just didn't work for me. What really work are dinner parties. Dinner parties involve a clear plan, easy rituals, procession, recession, a three part structure.

For example, dinner parties at the Historical House involve aperatifs in the sitting-room, then a procession to the dining-room for supper, and finally a recession back to the sitting-room, sometimes in two parts: if dinner conversation has been terrifically male-dominated, the ladies leave first, to be joined by the gentlemen when they have finally grown tired of what it was they were talking about and are curious to know what the ladies are talking about. Otherwise, we all leave for the sitting-room together.

Personally, I like to end a dinner party with a film, which breaks up the very long after-dinner drink fest, and adds something to think about.

Another wonderful after-dinner activity is to sing around the piano. There was singing around the piano after a dinner party I went to yesterday, and as we sang Christmas carols, this was particularly enjoyable, for us, if not for the neighbours.

I hasten to mention that life in North America and, indeed, Single Life, is perfectly suited to dinner parties. I had occasional dinner parties when I was in my early and mid-twenties, living with Mum and Dad: all I had to do to secure permission was say, "May I have a dinner party, Mum and Dad?" and make sure dining-room and kitchen were left cleaner than I found them. These dinner parties started at a later hour (say 8), which gave my family a chance to eat their own dinner.

As I had a large family, family dinners were arguably dinner parties in themselves. And this in itself is an incentive to those, like me, who grew up with a lot of people and now find themselves living with only one or two. It's a return to the normal life of childhood, with a lot more drink.

Update: The research on gender differences in conversation is incredibly interesting. The more women there are in a group, the more comfortable women feel speaking, apparently, and one Harvard study revealed that women students at Harvard were more likely to speak up in class if their lecturer was a woman.

What this suggests to me is that at work and school, women should do our best to assert ourselves in conversations and classroom discussions, but in private life to take more of a conversational back seat and become famous good listeners. It strikes me that the centuries-old libel that women talk too much is bandied about by some of the men who want to talk even more than they do and feel frustrated and hurt when they don't feel sufficiently listened to. Bless their little hearts.

Incidentally, we already know how useless it is to talk to 90% of the men of the world about their feelings, right? Just remember this is not because they don't have any; it's just that male feelings are not that connected to male knowledge and male speech, especially when the males are young.

Non-Reader: But how do you FEEL?

Honest Young Male: I don't know.

Non-Reader: What do you mean you don't know? How can you not know?

Honest Young Male: I don't know.

Non-Reader: But that's crazy! Meanwhile I NEED to KNOW how you FEEL!!!

Honest Young Male (extremely uncomfortable): I'm leaving.

Very often, the least helpful way to figure out how young men feel is to ask them.* It's a better idea to pay attention to both their body language and then what they do. I remember one young man getting dead drunk at a wedding while punching his male pals boisterously and glaring at the pretty girls and yelling "I'll never put my head in a noose!" Dear, dear, dear. What a lonely soul.

*I suspect this is much more true in dating relationships than in friendships. Although men are usually reluctant to tell you exactly how they feel about you, they often have no problem telling you how they feel about other girls, at least if they have no reason to believe you will get mad at them for it.

Worse Than Drowning?

This post involves "It's a Wonderful Life" plot spoilers.

Last night a party from the Historical House went across the fields to the nearest Fellow Historical House (14th c, mostly rebuilt early 17th c) and watched most of "It's a Wonderful Life" before sitting down to St. Stephen's/Boxing Day supper.

B.A. had never seen "It's a Wonderful Life," and I hadn't seen it for well over a decade. B.A., who admittedly was well-primed with wine, thought it absolutely fantastic. I was struck by how very often Providence frustrates the hero's plans and how Mary actively worked against them by countering George's wishes with her own wishes. By the way, I know it looked like it worked for Mary, but playing "Buffalo Gals" on the stereo four years after singing it with your crush object is kind of pathetic. Also pathetic is embroidering a cushion with the drunken rantings of your crush object and leaving it where he can see it.

What is not pathetic is being a middle-aged Single librarian in glasses. The most--perhaps the only--annoying part of "It's a Wonderful Life" is the lead up to the awful revelation of what George Bailey's non-existence would have meant. (PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD!)

We go from random acquaintances of George, to the moral health of the town of Bedford Falls, to his brother, to his wife and kids. There seems to be a progression: Nick is nasty, not nice; George's old boss did 20 years in the joint for murder; Bedford Falls is not a nice family town but Las Vegas, New York; Violet has gone professional; Harry drowned at nine, which meant a whole lot of American sailors died (although, as no-one ever mentions, this also meant a bunch of German pilots survived--Jawohl!); Ma Bailey is a lonely, crabbed old landlady, and as for Mary--!

Ah, Mary. Not only did Harry Bailey drown at the age of nine, but Mary became an Old Maid and a Librarian and Near-Sighted. How Mary would have become near-sighted in the absence of George is one consequence left unexplained.

Possibly I am being unfair. The real horror is not that Mary is an Old Maid--and, incidentally, she could have married Sam Wainwright, although I admit it would have taken all his gold to gild the pill of having to listen to him shout "Hee-haw" for the next 50 years--but that she doesn't recognize George. Even Mary does not know George. And if Mary doesn't know George, Mary doesn't love George, which is terrifically sad for George, who loves Mary to distraction. Let us focus on that, especially if we are Single, and very especially if we are Single Librarians.

Anyway, it is no longer 1946, and none of us live in Bedford Falls, a place from which, we must remember, George Bailey was always longing to escape. So watch "It's a Wonderful Life" without a pang, and don't forget to giggle at Mary's mysteriously unexplained glasses.

Super-Trad (if Childless) Christmas

My electronic spy tells me that someone in the South of England who ought to be in the Central Belt of Scotland keeps checking my blog, so I suspect at least one person wants to know how Christmas is going for the Trids of Edinburgh, particularly the ones who drink gin and think about socks. So I shall write an account of a Super-Trad Young Fogey Trid Edinburgh Christmas.

Super-Trid Young Fogey Edinburgh Christmas at the Historical House began shortly after five on Christmas Eve when the first guest arrived for Wigilia supper. Wiglia is the Polish word for Vigil, and the Poles eat their big Christmas supper during this Vigil, before going to Midnight Mass. But as Advent used to be a fasting time, this is traditionally a meatless meal, featuring a lot of fish and pierogi.

The reason for this Historical House Wigilia supper was two-fold. First, most of our Single friends had somewhere else to eat on Christmas Day, so we tried to tempt them over for Christmas Eve instead. Second, I had a version of my usual conversation with the Lord of History, which went metaphorically like this:

Seraphic: Dear me, Christmas just around the corner. How nice it would be if You sent me a baby, Lord, hint hint.

Lord of History: Now that you mention it, I have a Polish student in his mid-twenties who needs somewhere to eat Christmas Eve Dinner, as his family is abroad and he won't be able to get a visa in time to join them.

Seraphic: That's sort of so not what I meant.

Lord of History: How sad to be Polish and alone in a foreign land on Christmas Eve. It's going to rain, too.

Seraphic: Okay, okay. What do Poles eat for Christmas?

Lord of History: A twelve course meatless meal.

Seraphic: What!?

Lord of History: Involving a lot of herring.

Seraphic: What!?

Lord of History: Plan ahead.

So I made a twelve course meatless mostly-Polish meal* for Christmas Eve, and great fun it was, too. As our table wasn't big enough to accommodate the diners, the traditional place setting for the potential stranger who arrives out of the night, and twelve dishes, I put the dishes out on a side table, and it all looked very impressive, and I was quite pleased with my uber-feminine cooking self.

(B.A., I should mention, made the salmon and rolled some of the pierogi dough. I discovered, at 4:45 PM, that I no longer had enough energy to roll pierogi dough. Thanks to the reader who suggested that at such times men ought to be allowed in the kitchen. Good call!)

So let me see. We had the reading from the Gospel of Luke instead of grace, and we ate an astonishing variety of things, including (of course) herring in two guises, and at ten an invited guest who had had too bad a cold to come to supper came with a hired van to whisk us away to Midnight Mass. First, however, I made her eat a little salmon and some barszcz, which is the correct spelling of borscht from a Polish point of view.

So off we went to Midnight Mass, where 44 Trids gathered to celebrate Baby Jesus and, amusingly, indulge for once in the Three Hymn Sandwich: a`British hymn I didn't know for the Procession to the Crib, "Adestes Fideles" during the Offertory, and "Hark the Herald" after the Recession. The servers were the Grizzled MC and the Marooned Polish Student as Thurifer (and Cross-bearer), as a reader in the South of England will be keenly interested to know. The candles were many and the vestments were gold.

By then the rain had stopped, and it was a clear, fine, mild moonlit night, such as Edinburgh had not known the last three Christmas Eves, believe me. The Trids therefore stood about cheerfully in the car park afterwards, exchanging Christmas greetings and mostly turning down pulls from the Marooned Polish Student's whisky flask. And then the Men's Schola and its Ladies' Auxiliary climbed into the van and were whisked away.

The McAmbroses arrived back at the Historical House at 2 AM, which gave me enough time to take the dough rising in the fridge out of the fridge and transform it into embryonic Traditional Christmas Chelsea Bun, leaving it in its baking tin to rise overnight. For such is the way of the Women of My Family. I went to bed at 3:30 AM, and got up at 9 AM to bake the precious thing. It turned out perfectly, i.e. exactly like my mother's. I had passed my own standard of Women of My Family Femininity, and therefore my superego acknowledged that I had the right to a happy Christmas.

The van returned on Christmas Morning for B.A., but I had no time for such pleasures as Christmas III Mass (Christmas II having been said at 9:30 to a congregation of one). No, no. For now it was time to wash the remaining dishes from Christmas I Supper and Christmas II Breakfast (the Bun), and to make Christmas III Supper. Perhaps if women understood that making three traditional Christmas meals in a row is in itself a kind of priesthood, we would not have so many unhappy Catholic women with bad haircuts rushing off to the Anglicans or excommunicated weirdos for a curious ritual they call ordination.

B.A. skipped the after Mass festivities to come home and labour over the turkey, the gravy and the potatoes. B.A. is a master roaster. No matter what else I do, I leave the cooking of meat and the roasting potatoes to him, for lo, he always gets them right. Instead I made the Traditional Christmas Trifle, the Traditional Christmas Vegetable Soup, the Traditional Christmas Curried Carrots and the Traditional Christmas Green Beans with Red Pepper and Toasted Almonds. Then I got dressed for dinner while B.A. entertained the Guests (Clerical and Polish) in the sitting-room with champagne and the sacred Bun.

Then there was great feasting and drinking and offering of the seven different kinds of desserts I seem to have made for my family of two (literally seven**) and a great deal of after-dinner conversation, into which I popped in and out, on account of having many dishes to wash.

Seraphic: St. Monica used to have trouble with that. As a child, she would steal sips of wine.

Cleric: Really?

Seraphic: Oh yes. St. Augustine wrote about her childhood sins as well as his own. You know, though, St. Monica was not just the weeping mother of the Confessions. In a lesser known work St. Augustine presented her as a great Christian Intellectual.

Assembled Trid Men: Oh? Ah. Mm.

Benedict Ambrose: Apparently it was her prayers that led to St. Augustine's conversion.

Seraphic: Yes, but that's the weeping mother in the Confessions, so that's not my point. My point is. My point. My point is that St. Monica was also a GREAT CHRISTIAN INTELLECTUAL!

Marooned Pole: Have more wine.

Seraphic: No, I'm going to wash more dishes.

And more dishes were washed, and more wine was drunk, and the clerical guest went home at a very prudent hour--about 9:30, gracious--and then the vodka came out. So there was vodka, and Belgian chocolates, and--oddly--the watching of a Polish film called Rejs (1970), and so ended the First Day of Christmas.



*Kutia, kompot, barszcz cierwony, uszka, śledzie w oleju, śledzie w śmietanie, pierogi ruskie, pierogi z grzybami i kapusta, łosoś, carrot-orange salad, kompot owece, makowiec. Wesołych Świąt!

**Christmas fruitcake, florentines, makowiec (poppy seed roll), kutia (wheat berry pudding), kompot (cooked dried fruit with honey), trifle, and Chelsea bun. There were also mince pies, brought by a guest.

Christmas Party Survival Guide

What I absolutely hated most about being Single, other than not knowing why I was Single when I was so obviously a splendid catch, was going home by myself after parties. Or work. Or anywhere really. But going home alone after parties really rankled. If I had ever learned to drive, I think it would have been different. I could have had a rockin' CD to go home with, and a heater to turn on, and protection from the hooded claw. On the other hand, I guess I wouldn't have been able to drink at the party. Hmm.

The solution to this is, quite obviously, taxi cabs. I think it absolutely worth it to factor taxi cabs into your December budget, particular if you have a nice fur wool coat and want to avoid being harassed by the avengers of the mink sheep family. It is also comforting if you can get a handsome young man to see you to your cab and say "Corby Hall, driver" (or wherever) in that commanding yet amiable voice handsome young men all seem to have in films. Then you can wrap yourself in your mink serviceable wool coat and settle back with a sigh of comfort. Make sure it's a real cab, mind you, with a driver who actually knows the neighbourhood.

Then you should have something really nice waiting for you at home. Home should be tidy, first of all, as it's so nice to come back to a tidy home. And you should have a clean nightgown or pyjamas and your robe set out instead of scrunched on the bathroom floor. And there should be a tempting new DVD set out, in case it is still early enough for a DVD when you return, and a delicious pot of barszcz in the fridge or good quality cocoa on the shelf. Hopefully you have warm slippers for outside bed and a hot water bottle for inside bed. Beside this bed should be a reading lamp and an uncomplicated book. (Recently my own uncomplicated book has been Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos. I heartily recommend it.)

My experience of life is that you have to take better care of yourself when you are Single than when you are married, unless you are unhappily married. In that case you must take very, very good care of yourself indeed. But that is a subject for a different blog altogether.

I see that I have started backward, i.e. when you leave the party. Well, in my end is my beginning. The beginning of a Christmas party is you preparing for when you leave the Christmas party. Having prepared your home to receive you from the party in its warmest embrace, you can now get yourself ready for the party, which means turning yourself into your best-looking version of you. It can be difficult to gauge what this is, but although I am much older than most of you, even I have moments when the image in the mirror passes my critical gaze.

At the party you greet whoever it is who lets you in, introducing yourself if the person doesn't know you, and repeating his/her name back when he/she tells you what it is. Then you silently associate this name with something about them, e.g. if his name is David and he is very well dressed, mentally dub him Dapper David. Then you find your host or hostess, who will hopefully introduce you to whoever they are speaking to (repeat name, make up association), and take away your coat, leaving you speaking to the new people.

In general at parties you should not talk to the same people for too long at first, but circulate. Circulating is made even more easy if you grab a plate of hors d'oeuvres and take it from conversation circle to conversation circle. (This, by the way, is a good way to get out of a boring conversation, including your own. If you see the eyes of your interlocutor glaze over, say "Would you like a coconut shrimp? I myself am dying for a coconut shrimp." Then lunge for the plate of coconut shrimp and carry it around like the goodwill ambassador for coconut shrimp.)

You can also ask the host if you can do anything, and you can listen for cues from your host or hostess for things he or she might like you to do. Thus, at a party earlier this month, I found myself with a dishtowel stuffed into the top of my new-to-me 1930s evening gown making pierogi with a very interesting woman painter.

It is perfectly acceptable for you to sit by yourself on one end of the sofa or in a chair with a drink in your hand and silently watch the proceedings. If someone sits beside you, it is acceptable for you to introduce yourself and memorize their name and ask an open question like, "And how do you know our host/hostess?" But if no-one does, then it can be great fun to watch the party dynamics and try to guess who likes whom. It is kindly to keep an eye out for someone even shyer than you--the girl whose arms are crossed and whose legs are wound around each other like a pretzel, for example--and to go over and talk to her/him. If he or she bolts, it's not you; it's him or her. The body language for "shy" is remarkably like the body language for "I've just discovered my lover is cheating on me, and I don't know how to react."

I would counsel you to be particularly careful of how much you drink when you go to a party unescorted and to never, ever be alone behind closed doors with a man you have just met. Beware of any man whose chatting up technique is to insult or confuse you. If any stranger insults or confuses you, it is time for the coconut shrimp manoeuvre. You might also want to complain to the host or hostess, which gives him or her the chance to say, "I don't even know who he is. Scooter brought him." Your amount of trust in any guest uninvited by the host or hostess should be zero.

It is the host's or hostess's job to make sure that nobody is harassed or made to feel uncomfortable at his or her party. However, not all hosts and hostesses are created equal, so if a word in the host's or hostess's ear does not result in a better time for you, then it is time to call Mr Taxi and return to the warmth and comfort of your home.

If, however, you feel you are having the opposite problem, i.e. that instead of getting too much attention, you are getting none, you can comfort yourself that there may be reasons for that beyond your control. For example, I know a beautiful woman who went to a party in a lovely black dress and opera gloves, and a young man of 24 said to their mutual friend, "Who is that girl in black?" and the mutual friend said, "That's a Married Woman", and so this young man never spoke to me her again.

Lastly, you do not have to go to every party to which you are invited. I know perfectly well that many Single girls go to parties they'd rather not go to in case this is the party in which they meet The One. Thank heavens I did not think like this, as my One was living across the ocean and never went to a party in my town until after he was engaged to me. The only point to parties, I think, is to eat and drink yummy things in the company of people you already know and like, in the expectation that you will meet other people your host or hostess knows and likes. If you have good reason to suspect that a party will be deadly dull, or that your host or hostess has spotty judgement when it comes to guests, then you can save on your cab fare and just stay home in your clean pyjamas to watch that tempting DVD and drink that yummy barszcz or chocolate.

(Relatively) Alone at Christmas

I am not sure how much "count your blessings" advice Singles can take at Christmas time. As I recall, Christmas is a lonely time of year to be Single. It is also a lonely time of year to be apart from your family, if you are an expat like me, but if you are a happily married expat, you can't really complain too much.

I definitely cannot complain too much because I keep thinking about all those families in Connecticut facing a first Christmas without those little children who were so looking forward to it (and, of course, the families of the murdered teachers). Sometimes I am sad that I have no children, but then something like what happened happens, and I think, nothing can be that sad. Yes, I am sure the families are grateful that they had their little ones for six or seven years, but... Eeek. I don't want to think about it anymore.

There is no such thing as a perfect Christmas. I wonder if we don't get the longing for a perfect Christmas confused with our longing for that truly perfect and everlasting Christmas we hopefully will one day see. As for romantic Christmases, I come from a big family so I have never associated Christmas with boy-girl romance but with family.

Before I got married to B.A., at Christmas I put being home to family above everything and everybody, except the Infant Jesus at Mass. Then I would walk miles to get to Midnight Mass and then miles more to be with my family on Christmas Day. I know this for sure because I have indeed walked at least one mile in the freezing cold dark night from a train station to get to Midnight Mass and then one and half miles from the subway station to get home to my family.

My first married Christmas, the only family around was B.A., and how I cried, poor man.

My second married Christmas, my parents and one brother and one sister came, so I was very happy.

My third married Christmas, the other sister and her son came, so I was again very happy, although more tired, as my mother wasn't there to do the toughest cooking jobs.

This married Christmas, my family isn't coming, and B.A. and I couldn't afford to go to Canada, so we are having Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners, having collected as many Single friends as have not got other Christmases to go to. This is not for them as much as it is for me, as the idea of Romantic Couple Christmas--me, B.A. and a chicken--is shockingly pagan to me. Valentine's Day is for couples. Christmas is for family, or if you haven't got any family, friends.

However, I am sympathetic to those Singles who watch romantic comedies set around Christmas time and think they are really missing something if they can't go mittened hand in gloved hand with a man to the local Christmas market and drink hot apple cider together. B.A. said he always felt cranky when he could not do Christmas market-y stuff hand-in-hand with somebody. Amusingly, although we have been to the Edinburgh Christmas market with family twice, we have never gone by ourselves. This hand-in-hand thing with mittens, gloves, snowflakes and apple cider never really happens, which is okay, since life is much richer and more joyful than anything Hollywood can come up with.

Pirate and the Old Joke

Scene: Thursday, car park in North Berwick, Scotland. The McAmbrose and Single families are in a rental car. Auntie Seraphic and Pirate are in the back seat, and Uncle Ben and Pirate's Mum are in the front.

Pirate: Guess what?

Uncle: What?

Pirate: Chicken butt.

Auntie (genuinely): Ha ha ha ha ha!

Pirate: Ha ha ha ha ha! Guess who?

Uncle: Who?

Pirate: Chicken butt. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Auntie: Okay, cut that out. I only laughed because I hadn't heard it in twenty years.

Scene: Friday, highway in Perthshire, Scotland. Pirate's Mum is again in the driver's seat, and Uncle Ben is beside her. Auntie S and Pirate are once again in the back.

Pirate: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Auntie: Chicken butt. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Pirate: Ha ha ha ha ha!

Pirate's Mother (to Uncle B.A.) I'm really sorry. Now Seraphic has been influenced by Pirate and you have to live with the results.

Auntie: Chicken butt! Ha ha ha ha ha!

Matchmaking or Meddling?

Many married ladies begin to scheme for their Single friends' marital happiness before the ink is dry on the parish register. You may have noticed this trend in your own married friends. My darling friend Lily has spent a goodly amount of time plotting and planning, with some notable success. She never came up with anyone for me, which is just as well, as I found someone for myself, although she did veto a Potential, which is just as well. B.A. got her stamp of approval, which was expressed with the sentiment "I'm very relieved. I was worried he'd be too normal."

I suspect that married ladies love to matchmake for the same reasons we love a cracking good romance novel: the great love crisis of our lives has been resolved, and we either miss the buzz of the A-HA moment, or we hope to relive it. At any rate, it is a great temptation, and we weigh the blame we might incur if we too obviously seat our Single girl friend next to a Potential against the gratitude she will feel on their wedding day.

Most of the time I am able to stave off the temptations of matchmaking because I live across the ocean from most of my girlfriends, and few of the greying bachelors I know on this side of the ocean would suit my girlfriends anyway. However, I am feeling a sense of lost opportunity because my young, handsome and witty Single brother and young, pretty and witty Single sister are here, and most of the delightful young things of my parish are at home in Poland for Christmas. What a tremendous tragedy, I think, that I cannot introduce my Single kin to the lovely Single Poles of the parish, woe, woe.

W would do so well for X, and Y would do so well for Z... Stop me if this is just too meddling married ladyish.

Update: Stay tuned tomorrow for a brilliant Auntie Seraphic letter on this very topic!

A Few Thoughts on Christmas

This is the second year I've been married at Christmas, and the first Christmas that I have been in charge of Family Christmas. This is definitely where a sense of vocation kicks in. For example, the kitchen drainpipe, whose oldest bits may be two hundred or so years old, is completely blocked by ice, which meant I spent an hour and a half this morning boiling water and washing the dirty dishes of six people in two plastic basins. This is what marriage and subsquent hosting of Christmas can mean.

Christmas is often tough on Single people because Christmas has been recently marketed as a Couple's Day, although why this is beats me, since the central couple of all my Christmases until last year was my parents. For me, Christmas has always been a Family Day, which is why I had a fit last year when the only family around was my poor husband.

Christmas, however, is not really a Family Day or a Couple's Day. It is the celebration of the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, whose Holy Name embarrasses advertisers everywhere. It's not about you; it's about HIM. The central event of Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day is not the food or the presents but the Mass or Masses. Keep the Mass in Christmas, that's what I say.

When you are at Mass, you will notice the absolutely crucial role of Singles. These Singles are called priests. Like other Single people, priests go home alone or with other Single people or (more rarely) with their families. They are too busy or holy to sit around feeling sorry for themselves. Besides, feeling sorry for yourself on Jesus's Birthday is not a good thing to do. It is classical sloth, and although I remember being hit with waves of it as a long-term Single, I generally tried not to encourage it in myself. And everybody go read the part of my book where I run away from my former (and non-Catholic) in-laws to get to Midnight Mass.

Priests and, I imagine, most married women, are incredibly busy and stressed on Christmas Day, so although I didn't realize this when I was Single, I now think it might be the Christmas job of non-ordained Singles to help priests and married ladies in any way needed, even if that is just staying out of the way or handing around tissues to the sneezing.

My father has just come into the sitting-room, and addressed my mother and me:

"Why aren't you guys cooking?" he asked.

He was joking, so we didn't kill him. However, I must go. But before I do anything else, I will put on another layer of skin cream because my poor scalded hands still feel dry and my thumbs are starting to flake.

Merry Christmas to all, and remember that Our Lord lived His earthly mission as THE most Seraphic Single of all.

Singles with Married Siblings

No huge post today because three members of my famiy arrived at the Historical House this morning, and one more arrives tonight! Two are Singles, so I have decided that one of the great treats of Single life is visiting your married sister in Europe.

On the other hand, my sister already lives in Europe. Hmm... Hmm... Well, I think of Scotland as being a midpoint between Canada and the Continent. At any rate, I still think one of the perks of Single life might be visits to siblings who generously married foreigners, thereby eliminating the need for hotels when visiting exotic locales like Edinburgh.

Feel free to exchange messages in the combox!

Drinking Alone

"Hello. My name is Seraphic, and I am helpless over other people's alcoholism."

This is what I did not get to say one rainy night in the year 2000 because the lady on the Al-Anon hotline sent me to the wrong church basement. When I got home, I called a friend to complain.

"Maybe she was drunk," she said.

Ha ha ha.

Having dated a so-called "high-functioning" alcoholic, I never want to be in a romantic relationship with an alcoholic ever again. In fact, I don't think I could be in one without turning once more into the stereotypical weeping mess who goes from bar to bar looking for her man. Ugh. Never, never again.

That is my tragic alcohol story and the only way alcohol has any power over me. I seem to be okay around non-drinking alcoholics, and I am friendly with at least two women who are drinking alcoholics. Their drinking does not affect me in the slightest, although that may be because I don't see them very often. I do not like how heavy drinking is so firmly ensconsed in British culture, but as long as my husband doesn't get drunk and the police give drunk drivers merry hell, I can cope.

When it comes to drinking, I myself am a lightweight. At last Sunday's gin-and-tonic party, someone employed a liberal hand, and I found myself instantly drunk on a single g-and-t. And although my dad keeps a friendly bottle of gin for me back in Toronto, I am perfectly happy just to settle back into the general family habit of not drinking much.

However, I would like to state for the record that I have never taken this freedom from alcohol for granted. I never drink alone, and I never drank alone when I was Single. I never drank when I was lonely and depressed--except in one or two ceremonial post-break-up rituals with friends. The one dark period of my life when I self-medicated, I self-medicated on Ben & Jerry's ice cream. I cared about myself way too much to look for solace in a bottle. And, after that disastrous episode in 2000, I learned to recognize alcoholic men, and I crossed them off my Potentials list.*

How much alcoholism is rooted in genes, how much in environment and how much in bad habits is anyone's guess. But I am relatively sure there are widows and widowers who developed their alcoholism only after their spouses died. I am sure there are lots of lonely elderly men and women who have gradually become addicted to their nip, and I never, ever wanted to become one of them.

So, my little Singles, since the Christmas holidays can be some of the toughest days of the year for Single people, I thought I would trot out a little sermon about drinking alone. Don't do it. If you're drinking more than you usually would, then stop. If you can't, call a crisis hotline. You can find them online and in the telephone book.

Meanwhile, you are powerless over other people's drinking, so if you find yourself turning into a crazy, weeping, crumpled tissue over someone else's habit, call Al-Anon. Hopefully you will be directed to the right church basement.

Incidentally, one of the most helpful books I ever read in my life was Melody Beattie's Co-Dependent No More. And, meanwhile, I am not a doctor and I was never trained for ministry specifically to alcoholics. If you suspect that you are an alcoholic, the best I can do for you is to refer you to Alcoholics Anonymous.

*His own admission (usually when drinking) that he drinks too much is a dead giveaway. The hard part is actually hearing him and accepting his words as fact. I dated an alcoholic not only after he told me he drank too much, but after his bartender told me he drank too much. I was not rooted in reality. I even had some sort of notion that nobody of my generation could possibly be an alcoholic. We knew better than that, he must be exaggerating, blah, blah, blah.

Today I Miss My Friends

Today is one of those days when I contrast the busy, scholarly life I had in Toronto--packed with students, family and friends--with the much quieter, rather isolated life I live in Scotland.

Tell me what holiday japes you've been sharing with your friends or plan to share with your friends in the next two weeks.

Auntie Seraphic & Gift-Receiver

It is like my undergrad self travelled forward in time and sent me this email.

Dear Auntie Seraphic

Thanks so much for your blog and advice! It's been really helpful to me (both as a Catholic and a Single).

I suppose I'm technically single right now, in that I'm not engaged or married. I am, however, in a relationship that seems to be heading that direction. I'm nearing four years of dating a young man who I really like, and who seems to like me equally -- or maybe more. He's 2-, and I'm 2-. [Seraphic's Note: she's younger; he's working.]

My question regards Christmas/birthday presents and relationships in general.

He has a tendency towards lavish gifts, while I'm more on the frugal side. I think he's planning to get me a nice [piece of jewelry] that I've wanted for some time, and has already sent me an early Christmas present -- a really nice and expensive [piece of clothing] that I had at one point expressed a liking for, but noted was way too pricy/un-useful to justify purchasing. He has expressed a desire for a nice watch and some other things.

The conundrum: I'm a little uncomfortable with our present status (ha!). I feel like a nice watch is something that a wife would give a husband (or a fiancee her fiance), while simple jewelry is slightly more acceptable in a pre-marital state. I do want to be egalitarian in gifting, but I'm not ready to act like we're married. We have been dating for a while, but I want to get him to slow down on the nice presents. I feel as though spending $-00+ on each other is excessive. Although I like the [piece of clothing], I kind of feel as though I should return it, especially if he's planning to get me this [thing] as well.

I don't think he's trying to "game" or own me with these presents; he's generous and a giver by nature, while I'm on the frugal side. When I try to push back, his response is something along the lines of "I have a beautiful girlfriend who I love and think is worth spending money on, and I want to get you X because I know you wouldn't get it for yourself," which seems to be a typically male rationalization. I don't want to be rude or mean by returning the [piece of clothing], or imply that I don't think he's worth X amount because I tend not to spend in the same way. Am I being irrational/stingy? Any ideas as to how to respond?

Perhaps those questions lead to an underlying issue.

This young man has said that he would like to marry me. He hasn't explicitly asked me yet, possibly because I've hinted strongly that I couldn't possibly entertain proposals until I'm at least 2-. However, he has also hinted strongly that he's willing to wait until I'm ready, if that's what it takes. I'm pretty sure I want to marry him, but I'm definitely not ready to right now. I have things to do, like work, graduate school, being young, etc.

Sometimes I almost wish I wasn't in a relationship yet, as though maybe we met too early. And sometimes I eyeball other guys who have things that he doesn't have (like Y or Z), even while acknowledging that he has all of the qualities that are most important to me. (He's a NCB!, handsome!, loving, kind, tender, caring, my best friend, and loads of other amazing qualities). I think we've helped each other grow and improve since we've been together in a real way. But then again, sometimes I don't think his jokes are funny, and sometimes he annoys me, and sometimes we fight.

Basically, I have lots of conflicting feelings, and don't really know what they mean or what to do.

Do my hesitations indicate that I've just been deceiving myself into thinking that I like him enough to marry him, and I really just don't like him as much as I tell myself I do? (Sometimes I worry because I don't feel as incandescently and obviously "in love" as my newly married/engaged Catholic friends seem to be.)

Or am I just being swayed by the "You're young! You should play the field! Date lots of guys so that you get lots of experience! Make out with a near-stranger!" track that most of my non-Catholic friends are on?

Are they right? Does this mean that I should break up with him? (We've broken up before for awhile; it was horrible for both of us.)

Are all of these seemingly negative or conflicting feelings natural in pre-marital relationships at a point of seriousness, but blown out of proportion by me because this is my only real relationship, and I'm trying to live up to some self-created "ideal" that doesn't exist in reality?

Also, more immediately, how can I deal with this Christmas thing?!?

I know that you can't answer all of these questions for me, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

And I hope you're having a wonderful Advent!

Gift-Receiver

Dear Gift-Receiver,

This is heavy stuff, reminding me of how difficult it was to be your age. (For some reason, I can't get my alma mater's bookstore out of my head as I write.) It also reminds me of how painful it is to date a guy for a year or years without knowing if this is the man you want to marry. It is just so easy to get attached to a comfortable routine, the cool presents and the compliments. You become like half of an old married couple, without any commitment on your part, although you become uneasy when you get a sense that it is time to pay the piper. Breaking up feels impossible, but getting married seems unthinkable.

But let's talk about presents.

First, you don't have to give someone an expensive present. Ever. The most expensive present I ever gave my husband was his wedding ring, which was something like $200. The next most expensive thing I ever gave him was a cool messenger bag which was £60.

Before we married, the only thing I gave him was a secondhand novel which cost me $2 for the book and $5 for postage. But I would have given him my left kidney if he had needed it because I was so in love I was just this side of insane.

Never give men you're not related to or married to expensive presents. Never. Incidentally, I don't believe in egalitarian gifting. Women make less than men and spend more on their appearance. This means women shouldn't have to cough up just because men do, hello.

Second, you shouldn't be pressured into accepting expensive presents. I don't like the sound of this piece of jewellery that you've wanted for some time, and I don't like the sound of this pricey piece of clothing. My mother always told me I could accept only flowers, candy and books from men. The problem with accepting expensive presents from men is that it can make you feel obliged to them. This is bad. Very, very bad.

I suggest telling him that you loved the first gift, but you are not comfortable with accepting such expensive presents. This Christmas you think you should be creative rather than lavish and spend no more than $50 on each other. (He can use his own money to buy his watch himself.)

In future, stop sharing your enthusiasm for expensive clothes and jewels with your boyfriend, for in doing so you are sending mixed messages. You will have to exercise some discipline, which I know is easier said than done.

Now, love. I notice you haven't said you love your boyfriend. You said "like." Like, like, like. Like is enough for marriage in India, but not in the West.

Four years of dating without getting engaged is usually too long. (Childhood sweethearts excepted.) I wonder if you are bored. The fact that you are actively comparing your boyfriend to other men suggests it. I understand that your break-up really hurt. I wonder what would have happened, though, if a Yer, Zer man had swooped in during your break.

St. Ignatius basically said that when you don't know what to do, you make no sudden changes. So I wouldn't recommend that you break up right now. Meanwhile, of course you have conflicting feelings, and of course you don't know what they mean or what to do: you're 2-. It's a frightful age to be. Your skin is probably fabulous, but your poor brain cells are zapping and your hormones are zipping and it sucks. It is very smart of you to hold off on any marriage decision until you are 2-.

But don't marry a guy you're not in love with. Ask yourself, "Do I want to have sex with him twice a week for the rest of his life, have his babies, scrub his kitchen floor, be nice to his friends, do his laundry and watch TV shows with him?" Because THAT, not some glorious all-expenses-paid Mediterranean vacation, is what marriage is. If you're not head-over-heels with a man, it's hell. If you ARE head-over-heels, you can't sign on fast enough.

It's okay if you don't want to marry him now or ever. Just please don't accept any more expensive presents because if he does ask, and you do turn him down (or worse, go through with it and later get divorced), those presents will come back to haunt you.

Dating guys "for experience" and making out with strangers are both incredibly stupid activities. There is a golden mean here. It is seeing who God sends, dating them cautiously, and marrying the one who is a good man AND makes you feel crazy-in-love.

I hope this is helpful. I hope you understand that your mental freedom and ability to make life-changing decisions without pressure is worth more than any rag or piece of jewellery. Meanwhile, I can't tell you if you really love this man or not. Yes, it is a pity you met him at such a young age.

Grace and peace,
Seraphic

P.S. Readers, park any envy at the door before you write in the combox. Thanks!

P.S. 2: Being "in love" is not a myth. It is a beautiful reality that, like a match, lights up a well-prepared hearth, creating the warm fire that marriage should be. What is a myth is that a married couple feels crazily "in love" for the rest of their lives. It comes and goes. But if it's not there at the beginning of a love match, there is a problem.

Incidentally...

...buy my lovely book!

Canadian/UK/Irish version: here and here.

American version: here.

Of course, you can buy it elsewhere online, or you can toddle into your nearest Catholic bookstore and tell the friendly nun behind the counter that you read my blog, too. (At my favourite book shop in Toronto, Crux Books, it won't be a nun but a hungry theology student, probably male and incredibly cute.) If you read the book very carefully, without squishing the pages, you can give it away as a Christmas present when you're done.

The more copies of my book that sell, the more likely it is that my lovely publishers will take another risk on original (and, let's face it, super-trad) little me!

Single at Thanksgiving Dinner

Tomorrow my American readers celebrate Thankgiving, and it won't be fun for all of them.

Thankgiving is a traditional family day when feelings of disappointment and resentment that one's own family is not perfect bubble up like boiling turkey gravy. To encourage these feelings, there is American football for the men to watch on television while the women cook and clean. And on top of that is the dreaded, "Any boyfriend yet, dear?" question aunts and grandmothers can't stop themselves from asking.

How to cope?

Back in 2006, my advice was not to go and, when your mother said "AAAAAAAUGH" at the news of your non-advent, to say that you are sick of people giving you a hard time for not being married.

I'm not sure how practical that is. However, I must say that I believe firmly in being rooted in reality, so if you have regretted every time you have gone home for Thanksgiving for the past five years, you should probably not be in an airport today. There is no law that says you have to go home for Thanksgiving. There's no law that says your mother has to cook Thanksgiving Dinner. In fact, if you are calling your mother to say you aren't coming, why not suggest she escape the whole thing herself by flying out to you? You and Mom, fugitives together, the men wandering around, reading cookbooks instead of watching football, poking at the turkey to see if it has thawed yet... I'm loving it.

But if you think you can go home for Thanksgiving without accruing an unacceptable amount of psychic damage, then there are still some things you can do. For example, assign yourself a point for every time someone mentions your Single state. The goal is to get as many points as possible without mentioning your Singleness yourself. Post results here in my commbox.

The answer to "Why is such a lovely girl (handsome boy) still Single?" is, of course, "Because I was born that way." If relations push, however, tell them it is because you have always been in love with (married) Cousin [Whomever] and have despaired of ever finding a man/woman who can compare. Do this in the most dramatic fashion possible, wiping away invisible tears with your dinner napkin. If you have no cousins, pick some other relation with a sense of humour. There's nothing like a fine incest joke to change the topic pronto. (Obviously, think of something else if there is an incest survivor at the table. Say you were holding out for Prince William/Kate Middleton and it's a very difficult time for you right now.)

In short, you have to be funny. Just because your relations are making you feel terrible doesn't mean that you need to lose your dignity by wailing, sulking, snapping back or doing anything else that will give your aunts gossip fodder for months. You can bitch about it all later with friends, but for now grace under pressure.

Incidentally, nobody's family is perfect. And almost everyone gets the gears for being unmarried some time.

Between twelve and three years ago, none of my mother's children were married, and this annoyed her very much. My father did not have cousins his age because in his father's family almost nobody got married. His grandfather had a dozen children, and something like only one of them got married, and he so late that my dad had only one brother, who died unmarried... Marrying never or late, my mother long ago decided, was something that came from her husband's side of the family.

One holiday, as she was cooking the dinner or baking the cookies, my mother stared fiercely at all her flock of children and announced, with frustration, "You're all a bunch of bachelor Cummingses!" But then her green eye fell upon me, meek, divorced and constantly dating Mr Wrong. "Well," she amended. "Except for you."

Merry Christmas, Dear Singles!

Nobody is completely alone at Christmas.