At this time of year, you often see articles about the children of divorce. It is a hard time of year for them.
We have no children of divorce here, but we do have to cope with #1 daughter’s divorce. We took the position when she married that we were not losing a daughter but gaining a son, and the boys were happy to have a new brother. It has been nice to have him here for Christmas, but also somewhat sad, since I guess we will not have him for future holidays.
#2 daughter goes through boys at such a pace that we try not to get too attached. A family friend suggested at one point that we just call them all “Noah” till she settles down, to save the trouble of remembering names. We haven’t gone quite that far, but we do try not to become too fond of them.
The boys haven’t yet brought girlfriends home. #1 son has had the occasional date, but so far they are pretty indistinguishable. #2 son doesn’t date yet.
We still have time to have our hearts broken some more in the future, I suppose.
If you were wondering about the fate of #2 son’s sweater, I will tell you the sad news. It did not get finished for him to wear to the grandparents’ on Christmas Day. I finished the second sleeve that evening, but the next day he decided that he wanted longer sleeves. Since this pattern does the sleeves from the wrist up, that meant frogging the sleeve caps and adding length, so this will be a New Year’s Day sweater rather than a Christmas sweater.
The song for today is “Tous Les Bourgeois de Chartres,” a sprightly song from 1725. You can find the sheet music for it here. This is a Google Books result, so it won’t be just the thing for printing out and taking to parties with you. You can hear a snippet of it on this page if you search around. You can also find a harpsichord midi on this page. Again, there is searching involved, but it is worth it. It is Suite 1, number 6, and a charming tune, too.
If I could beam you over I would so I could give you a haircut : ). For some reason when I was a teenager I thought that surely by now we would be living like the Jetsons or like on Star Trek where you could beam people all over the place. It seems like it was just yesterday that we were all speculating about what the New Age would be like. Now here we are so now what do we call it, the Millenium. But obviously my expectations have not been lived up to as far as to what I thought the future would hold as far a technology. I guess cartoons arn’t a very reliable source. I’ve really enjoyed reading all your info on the music etc. Great stuff. Happy New Year!!!
At our Christmas gathering there were 4 children of divorce: my niece (her mother and first stepfather divorced 10 months after they were married), my brother-in-law (his parents divorced early on in his life and he was brought up by his father and stepmother) my niece-in- law (daughter of my brother-in-law, her parents split up when she was still a baby and she was brought up by her mother and various ‘step-fathers’ until she asked if she could come live with her father, step-mother, and step-sister at 14 years old) and my niece’s boyfriend/partner, his parents divorced when he was a kid and he was also brought up by his mother and step-father. Talk about blended families
The age range at my sister’s place on Christmas Day (not counting the ages of the 2 dogs) was from 17 to 89, it was fun!