We survived Christmas, though I still have not been to the cemetery. Now it's snowing and blowing, and even though the flakes are light, this does not look like good weather to be visiting a grave site. We will have to wait a day or so.

I'm actually on this site because I finally managed to forget my password and had to reset it. Then I looked this morning at my browser history and wondered if I could remember the new one! Clearly I could. Thomas was not a fan of the internet until he discovered Starcraft (a game, I think I've remembered the name correctly) at which point he became a bit addicted. He never did e-mail us frequently, but he did correspond with his friends pretty often.

I am at best a desultory blogger, and lately I've wondered if I've run out of things to say. New stuff keeps coming up though and I know I'll want to talk about it. But to my loyal readership (I have three followers!), Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Christmas is fast approaching. Mostly I would say that holidays haven't bothered me much (you see how I feel about Thanksgiving) but this year seems harder. Maybe because this year we have Leah and I know that Thomas would have loved her, or maybe it's just the accumulation of surrounding events. I'd just like him to be here with us.

I had lunch today with one of my Gold Star mothers (these are my people now). It was good to meet and talk and eat and then I just ended up crying a little. We've met for lunch several times over the last few years (we always think we'll be able to do this more often but life comes up) and I always end up crying. Just for a moment--then the storm passes and I'm OK. If there had been more time today after lunch, I would have gone to the cemetery to see the place where Thomas lies and maybe more important to see the place his friends visit. Hopefully I will be able to carve out some time tomorrow to take flowers or at least leave one of the flags that I buy whenever I find them.

When I came downstairs this evening to write this, the lights in the display cabinet were on--they just seem to come on spontaneously sometimes (judging by other events, I think it's related to fluctuations in the power supply). I need to pick up the stuff that we lent to the library--the lights reminded me that his picture is missing from our living room.

Here we are, already in December. It was a busy month, even after the 11th. In fact, I felt let down after all of the Veterans Day hoopla was over but I still had to do Thanksgiving so the letdown part had to be put off until the day other people went shopping. It's better now but there were a couple of days there that don't bear thinking of.

I don't have any particular memories of Thomas and Thanksgiving--since I am not enthusiastic about turkey, especially turkey that I am theoretically cooking, it's never been a holiday of enormous importance in my mind. Of course, the year that I ordered all prepared dinner from La Madeleine which meant that all I did was pick up a box containing our meal, OK that year I found out that my family really preferred that I cook, no matter how unenthusiastically. We did go to a movie afterwards (Toy Story, I think). They liked that. But I've never bought Thanksgiving dinner again except the year that Thomas died. That year, as I must have written early in this blog, we went out to dinner at Maggiano's in Chevy Chase. The restaurant was incredibly crowded and noisy and the dinner was served family style so there were a lot of elbows flying around and I don't think I've ever been that miserable in my life. It was just me and Richard and Matthew and my mother-in-law Edith who I felt was resentful that we were in a restaurant (she never said anything, I was probably just projecting). But as a friend of mine observed later, we were going to be miserable no matter what we did.

Every Thanksgiving since then has been home-cooked and the day is no longer a focus of misery. I still don't like turkey.

I have some thank you notes to write. Several people had Masses said for Thomas this year, and a contribution to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund was made in Thomas's memory (the contributor may wish to remain anonymous, but I am very grateful!). This afternoon, I am meeting a reporter to talk about ways that people can contribute either time or money to our service members. I'm mostly going to point out organizations, including a couple of small ones that I know of, who are doing this kind of work. This is not about me and that is a very good thing.