2020, We Hardly Knew Ye

 

Well, I didn't get much Christmas-ing done this year -- no cards even though I bought some on sale in January last year, no we-are-still-well newsletter even though I started planning one in October or thereabouts (we've never done one before but having missed so much family news this year it seemed a good idea), no decorated mantel over our fireplace/bookshelf even though we raided -- with permission! -- the trimmings pile at the tree lot, no cut-paper snowflakes in the big living-room window, a rather Cratchit-like Christmas dinner though in all fairness that was mostly on purpose as it was just the four of us and not a dozen as usual, no "12 Days of Christmas Carols" series which I've enjoyed doing here in years previous.  It isn't for lack of Christmas spirit, mind you, just that weird sense of time shifting and turning just outside the door but rarely actually inside or at the same time as oneself.  But there it is -- 2020 has been a bit of a bust, to say the least, and Christmas has been as weird as pretty much everything else.  (Even my search engine doesn't know what day it is -- the other day its calendar had the 28th highlighted, while the taskbar on my computer said it was still the 26th.)

(I can't tell where this graphic came from, but it's brilliant and I wish I could credit the artist.  Its days not only melt Dali-like and disintegrate more with each week, but the numbers get increasingly out of sequence, or even non-existent, very like the surreal normality, or the new-normal surreality, that has been 2020.)

I couldn't help noticing that the Los Angeles Times's year-in-review section in Sunday's paper was 27 pages of their top columnists mostly in a sort of "WTF?!" daze and one page at the end of "well, there were some good things, though".  There has been a lot of stress and disappointment just here in our house, and none of us has been sick so in comparison with others we've had it pretty easy.  But I thought it would be good to say goodbye to this year on a positive note, so here are some of my "Best of 2020" lists --

Best New-to-Me Recipes (in no particular order)

• Skillet Turkey Chili from Smitten Kitchen (now a regular go-to meal)
• Finnish Rye Bread from Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess (Nigella's version of recipe isn't online, but here is a slight adaptation)
• Bien Cuit's Salted Chocolate Buckwheat Cookies (do read and follow at least some of the advice in the comments, though, especially the one about refrigerating the dough overnight before baking; mine didn't look at all like the photo but tasted amazing)
• Honey Wheat Rolls from King Arthur Flour
• Cream of Celery Soup (and we hate celery!)

Best Escapist Fiction

• Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series and Arthur Ransome's "Swallows and Amazons" series tie for first, partly because they are both wonderfully transporting into their respective worlds, and partly because there's a whole series of each and so therefore all the more immersive.  As Emily Dickinson said, "There is no Frigate, Sloop, or Sailing Dinghy like a Book / To take us Lands away"!
• D.E. Stevenson runs a close third only because I'm reading The Young Clementina along with the DES list at the moment, and it's rather sad for much of the middle of the book
• Molly Clavering deserves an honorable mention for Near Neighbours (1956), a charming novel in which "nothing much happens" but everything turns out satisfyingly well

Best Needlework for Daydreaming Over as well as Potentially Actually Doing

• Darlene O'Steen's counted-stitch samplers
• scrap quilts (Amanda Jean Nyberg -- whose book I got for Christmas -- and others)

Best Old Song that's Suddenly Pertinent Again

Comments

[juliet brown]

I totally know how it is, Christmas/New Year slid past us too. Quite frankly I think it is no bad thing to have a bit of driftage. I absolutely adored Arthur Ransome and still think his writing is an absolute delight, and I am rather excited that when we move to Carlisle sometime (we are in lockdown so who knows how that changes things), we will be in the Lake District and nearer Coniston Water where it is based - exciting huh???