It is customary to reflect on the past, sometimes with regret or even remorse as a year comes to its designated end and a new one commences while we either sleep or drink champagne. Thus we either ignore the arrival of the new year in our timezone, or we celebrate it as if we achieved a goal. And maybe we have, simply by surviving yet another one! As the new year approaches, some people attempt to catalog their wishes and dreams for themselves, only to discarded these aspirations within the next few weeks. I am, however, neither a philosopher nor a dreamer, just a realist who has never written a list of resolutions. I gladly leave such endeavors to proper thinkers.

I am simply happy that I feel better after a rather unpleasant upper respiratory infection which restricted the lighting of our Hanukkah candles this year to a grand total of twice. We lit the first candle, but then I wasn’t upright again till the last night of Hanukkah.

Above all, I am happy that my husband and I are both in a reasonably healthy condition, that we enjoy our life together despite our creaky joints and all those physical nuisances which assume hallmark status on our way toward Really Old Age. Come to think of it, it’s not only the physical issues, the mental lapses clearly, or rather foggily, become unpleasantly numerous as well. That dastardly word that’s on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t quite spit it out. Yet, for the time being, we can still help each other out with a choice of vocabulary options.

That said, we are anticipating major lifestyle changes for the year 2018. We shall attempt to domesticate ourselves. We have tried that once before when we moved to our ranch in Central Texas and it didn’t work out. We loved traveling far, wide and beyond too much to remain home. Nevertheless, we shall once more endeavor to settle down and, glorious novelty, stay put at home.

We are serious about outfitting our new home in Cognac, Charente, France, to include guest space for visiting family and friends. We are serious about adding two dogs to the family and we are committed to undertaking only short-range train or car travel. We are already anticipating the visit of dear friends in June and in July, crossing fingers, our kids will bring Izzy, the apple of our grand-parental eyes, over from Austin, Texas, for a nice, long European vacation. It will be new and different and exciting for us.

Meanwhile, still in Saintes, we’ve pulled out our 30-plus-years old Marimekko Christmas placemats, enjoying a Christmas Eve dinner and getting started on that year-end Champagne. We wish you all a wonderful and warm Christmas Season and the Best for the New Year. As a little year-end puzzle, I hope you will tell me the reason why I wrote the year 2018 upside down into Julie’s wreath in the picture above? Looking forward to your guesses!!

Barry had to purchase a Bûche de Noël for us this year because I wasn’t up to baking my usual bûche. Next year, we’ll have my version again!

Before we bid goodbye to this year, I want to tell you a little anecdote about my dad. In the Fall of 1977, Barry and I drove across Germany to Kiel, to introduce my brand-new fiancé to my parents. They hosted a family dinner in our honor culminating in a Schnaps-drinking lesson for the son-in-law-in-spe. My father’s favorite Schnaps was Aalborg Akvavit, a caraway-flavored liquor. In northern Germany, it is customary to drink combinations of beer and liquor, which differ regionally. In my father’s hometown of Hannover, something called Lüttje Lage is the way guys drink their brandy with the local beer. Later in his life, our father’s liquor preference moved a little further North, all the way to Denmark where Akvavit is distilled. After our dinner, he initiated Barry into the secrets of this viscous, sharp-flavored Northern spirit. For my father’s seaburial in May of 1994, I brought aboard a bottle of the most exquisite Akvavit I could find in Hamburg and we all got completely smashed in his honor. It was a true Viking Burial! Ever since Barry and I drink an Akvavit toast to my father’s memory on his birthday, the 25th of December.

[Since neither of us actually likes the taste of Akvavit, the bottle stays safely stored in the freezer for the rest of the year!]