Flying Turkeys
Did you know – well, who knew – turkeys fly?
They sure love to be all over the roof of my house, but they talk nicely.
Though they do not like to be separated. If they are seperated they cry and pace. Then they will fly.
Fly across to their family. Is that why I love to fly? Because it takes me home to my tribe? Fly me away home? And yes, in February I will be flying home. Home is not a place anymore – it is a people.
Cows love to stand close to each other too. They call their people home. Not a field. A herd.
Not so much with cats. Cats don’t care. Cats can stand alone with ease. This is LuLu – we don’t see her often, she keeps to herself – she is my oldest cat. She does not like people very much and I respect that about her. Most of the time I feel the same, though sometimes I Long for talking company so strongly it straightens my spine with a jolt. Not the Hi honey I am home, where is my IPad company. Sometimes I miss my own garrolous, loud, chatty, messy, large, gorgeous, prickly, foodie, filthy, coffee and wine loving family so much I could lay my head on the floor and HOWL. But that is just the Spirit of Christmas catching up with me. I am not a Christmas girl. The Spirit of Christmas is my nemesis. It is my end. It is the poster girl of the tired girl. It makes me feel lonely. I want to cancel it this year. Run it off. Boot it out. I would send John somewhere festive if he would go because I know I am the downer in his Christmas. I want to just sit in this home of my many homes – alone and turn off.
There you are – it is only November and already the Spirit of Christmas is biting at my wrists and ankles. 
But my animals and their pictures are my saviour. So I am working on the calendar and the little book of farm pictures for the children. Lots of pictures for smiles.
And on that fine and miserable note.
I miss you. I hope you have a lovely day.
Love celi
44 Comments on “Flying Turkeys”
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thekitchensgarden 
I feel you.
We understand. Take heart. You are loved by so many, near and far.
xoxo
Oh, I do feel for you. My large, noisy, opinionated, Christmas-loving family is 11,000 miles away, most of it. My nearest living relative is a thousand miles away. My new tribe does not ‘do’ Christmas very much. I miss it. And them. I try very hard not to howl in sympathy. Please can we help you build some wonderful Christmas memories? What can the Fellowship do to help?
We love you, happy, sad or pensive…no matter the mood , you are loved to the hilt..from the farmy Family all over the world
Just last week I gave all my Christmas tree ornaments to Good Will. I am not a Christmas girl either. The whole season makes me sad – I wonder if it would make me sad if it were in sun, long-dayed July?
I’ve often said the same thing…about Christmas in July . You wouldn’t have to worry if family couldn’t make it because of snow and ice. A long warm day outside celebrating would be wonderful.
My Christmas is in high summer, the hottest time of year. It doesn’t stop me missing my distant family, but it does make cooking a bit of a trial!
We here in the Fellowship are also part of your family, and some of us are even further away in the flesh. But thanks to modern communications technology, we don’t need to be out of touch. Gird up your loins with cheerfulness – and remember February is just a spit and a jump away.
Lots of love,
ViV, who is also dépaysé at Christmas.
xox
Yep I am with you on the Christmas thing! When I was back home I had so many traditions with my family (which my daughter, bless her, still carries on with her four kids!). But here I have no family (plenty of friends though). Christmas now is, for me, a quite time of reflection and memories. Some good, some not so good, some down right horrific! So I curl up with my furry family, toast the past, and shed a tear or two. And hope like crazy spring will be early next year!
I am also not a Christmas girl. Partly as we do have Christmas in “July kind of as the temps are very warm here” But it puts me off as the stores start earlier and earlier each year-some Christmas stuff in some stores in September!!!!
Makes me think of an old classic episode of WKRP in Cincinnati- a 1980’s show in which America learned that turkeys can’t fly! I bet you could look it up on YouTube – might make you laugh in your holiday blues!! It’s dumb but it’s funny…
You beat me to it! When I saw the heading my mind went straight to that WKRP episode. 😱
You are not alone in your feelings about Christmas. It brings so much baggage with it. I have no sage words to offer here so I won’t try. When I have those feelings, I sit with them awhile and rock them until they sleep again. No, they never go away. Something will always wake them again.
Hogs and snout kisses to you my sweet friend. My mom says she relates. She would love to jump right over the holidays and move on. XOXO – Bacon
Oh dear. Hoping to send you Sheila looking in the bakeshop window soon. Hopefully that will stave off the Spirit of Xmas Blues for a minute or two.
I thought that I might be alone in the feelings surrounding Christmas, the simply wanting to bypass the season all together. Yet as I read this morning I see I am among friends once more in this wish. Of course we all have our own individual reasons for the putting aside of the holiday part, but I am glad to know that so many of you of the Fellowship share my sentiment. Perhaps we are inadvertently creating a small celebration among ourselves with these revelations. Thank you all 🙂
What a lovely idea, a quite christmas – happy as clams for us.. c
So I am not alone. For years I listened to my school pal complain about having the ‘Mothers’ every Christmas. It was fine when the children were young, but became rather a drag (her words) as the old dears got older. When Jack died seventeen years ago, I made the decision not to spend Christmas with anyone two years in a row. Elly is expected to spend the day with her in-laws. I told her never to have an argument with them about me. We can have ‘Christmas at any time of the year… summer with longer and warmer days suit me. I no longer put up decorations, I plan my food and drink, what I want to do during the day. and it works for me. December days are short, I close up the blinds early and sit by the fire with some craft work, music, a drink and dark chocolates. The world does not end.
I will include you and all the fellowship when I raise my glass to absent friends!
Once December comes, February will not be far behind!!!
I so understand…although it isn’t Christmas that does this to me, it’s winter. It’s a terrible struggle every year.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
https://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/sherlock-boomer
It’s a good job turkeys can’t fly very far 😉
Peacocks can fly further and they don’t fly far either.. c
For those who have particular religious beliefs, reverence and ritual recognition are deity-mandated—but holidays, *those* are wholly human-designed. So why shouldn’t we choose when and how to celebrate, and when and how to recuse ourselves from celebrating? The solace of solitude can be a celebration, when it’s chosen. The raucous crowd, with food and drink and music and laughter all around, that can be a celebration, too. Nowadays it’s possible to substitute for proximity with a good email, phone call, or real-time online visit, if that’s what saves the day for us. And sometimes it just feels good to escape, to have a cathartic moon-howl over sorrows, losses, pain, and loneliness, to exorcise them for a while and clear out space for the next real celebration.
You are deeply and widely loved and your choice of venue or mode won’t change that.
Turkeys may not be the great geniuses among living creatures, but if they sense enough to fly toward their bliss, that’s at *least* as good as a high IQ, isn’t it. Plus, it just looks pretty when they fly!
Fly on, whether inwardly or via plane, my lovely!
Kath
I am a Christian but I have never seen Christmas as being particularly Christian, and it’s getting even less so. It didn’t even start out as Christian – it was a pagan festival originally, before the Church got hold of it. I think everyone should just celebrate the holiday in their own way, with what works for them. I am not a ‘people’ person, but I do like to spend part of the day with extended family, and slip away before it gets too noisy and drunk! A walk or a good reading book on the beach is my idea of a perfect Christmas 🙂 Enjoy your time in NZ Celi.
I will do exactly what you want to do …. I have done for the last three years. I have politely turned down invitations and spent the day quietly at home, that way I haven’t overeaten, witnessed tantrums and had to face any family politics, wonderful ;0 The only thing I would envy you for would be the s- word, our temperatures of 39C/112F and still no relief from our drought. I will quietly raise my face to the sun and raise my glass to you far away. Laura
Here’s to crackling low fires, hot drinks, good books, soft blankets, and anything else that may soothe your soul between unmet needs of another sort.
Beautifully said !!
I’m another to join the no-Christmas fellowship. My children and grandchildren are far away and although there’s always invitations here and there locally, I don’t always take them up, it makes me feel sadder to be amongst what feels like false cheer, you can feel the ghosts of long past resentments simmering away……and don’t get me started on the gluttony and alcohol fueled merriment……..I almost don’t recognise my friends on Christmas Day. So I’ll be doing whatever I want, home with my animals, a good book, a bit of sewing maybe and finding a cool spot to do it all in as the day will be hot. Love that Queenie’s Bobbie, such a sweet face.
I do Christmas, but I cherry-pick the best bits and do it on my terms, for the little girl I once was who still lives in my psyche, and her memories. Some years we opt out or opt for minimal. I don’t buy into the sentimental hype, in that I agree with my Dad, it’s just another day. A bit like the turkeys and the cows it’s about people… the ones who are here. For the past few years I’ve been doing Christmas lunch for the G.O.’s family… they’re getting older and won’t be around forever. Next year Christmas is planned with my family and our new niece, the start of new memories. I think Christmas is easier in the southern hemisphere. If we don’t have company we eat Christmas sandwiches for lunch and go for a walk on the beach.
awww big hug has been sent your way! My sweetie hated Christmas til he married me- now he loves it. Last year I debated not even decorating the house since the kids wouldn’t be with us….he INSISTED on Christmas….so there you go. Wishing you a happy chatty day with the cows, pigs, turkeys, and even the cat!
I haven’t done Christmas for a long time now. Once my parents were gone, it just wasn’t the same. The spouse isn’t interested either and the kids and grandkids are scattered all over and not close. So we usually have a nice dinner, just us, spend a quiet day, listen to the music of the season and receive or make phone calls to the kids and grandkids. There are still a few of the traditional cookies baked from my mother’s recipies, but only a few, not the piles she used to bake back in the day when the whole family would gather. I look back now and am glad all that work and clean up isn’t necessary anymore and neither is the shopping for gifts or the tree. It seems so much more fitting to spend the day quietly, reflecting and remembering. I think a lot of the hoopla is overrated anyway.
I am trying to figure out how I can hibernate right through Christmas. xx
We used to let our chickens outside to roam, scratch and fly (a bit – usually to the top of a fence post) but we never allowed our turkeys outside. I suppose they would’ve gone into roost at night but I was afraid they might not. Our Rhode Island Reds always went back in the Hen House to roost but the white ones (can’t remember the type of chicken they were… I was probably only told the name in French) seemed to have had all the ‘chicken’ bred out of them. I might have told you the story of how I let them out – only once – and only a few returned to the Hen House and I had to chase the others around the next day. ++ It’s gotta be hard for you being so far away from home. When we lived in Malta, it took about 18 hours (all totaled) to get back to Massachusetts. But flying all the way to New Zealand is A LONG WAY. ++ I, too, don’t feel the way I used to about Christmas. Luckily my grandchildren – and sons – give me a reason to bake French Canadian Meat Pies and Christmas Cookies!
Your words today sound so sad. I think you are homesick. Badly. In all its deep meaning. Feeling kind of homeless. It’s a very severe and sad disease. Longing for the good old times where family was not yet scattered to the four winds. Back then, where everything was just fine. It’s missing the good times having spent in deep harmony and love with the beloved – mostly on Christmas.
I once worked as a taxi driver for several years. And I worked – volontarily – on Christmas Days and Eves, too. I met quite a number of very sad people who fiered a lot being alone on Christmas Eve, who had nobody for comforting their souls and suffered about that badly. They opened their heart to me during our drive. And I listened, I just lent them my ear and I sent out my heart to them – mostly at the end, before they got out, their hearts were filled with love and happiness and they called me an angel. I did not know how that worked. But it made me happy of course, too. –
In the last years I have spent my Christmas Eves alone. I wanted it. I did not suffer. I did not miss anything as it always was such a stressing thing. I just had the loveliest evenings with me and myself. I celebrated them and I spoiled myself as much as I could and sometimes I just fell asleep. And that was good too. That were my best Christmas’s ever (except when being a child). I even felt disturbed once, when my neighbours rang my doorbell to invite me to their home, because they couldn’t stand a woman being alone on Christmas. Oh, and it’s of course not that easy when living with a partner and the conceivabilities and expectations to that day or eve differ too much.
Missing beloved people is quite another thing for me. There my heart speaks – and suffers. It does not depend on a special date or a festive day at all.
I’d love to gently strike your soul, Celi.
Irmi – thank you for these wonderful words.
Well, you gently struck my soul, Irmi. Thanks for the warm love you gave to strangers at a time of sadness for so many. I blame the marketing/advertising world. They know how to find the dark, sad places in our hearts and make us feel we are somehow lacking . . . . and if only we buy buy buy insane amounts of gifts, food, decorations, alcohol and travel, that we might have a Christmas with loved ones that will be what it is “supposed” to be. That we might be able to “live up” to the desires for perfection we all cherish secretly. Bah! Let’s refuse to be sucked into that trap, and just love them on all other days in all other ways.
On the day itself, there will be thousands of Fellowship folks around the world thinking of one another, especially Celi, and circulating a round of love and gratitude.
Celi – allow yourself to be you and do not ‘stress’ about it. I haven’t ‘done’ Xmas since it was mandatory with small children and have managed to make such a quiet, joyous, personal time of it . . . tho’ for practical reasons am always glad when things run ‘normally’ again in January! I hate the commercialism forced upon one and keep well away from malls loudly proclaiming ‘I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus’ . . . [rude words WP would not pass 🙂 !] As far as religion goes;: let’s face it – it is a ‘pagan’ holiday thought up by a dying Emperor Constantine about 324 BCE or something: JC of course was born in March 7 BCE if I remember correctly! Family holiday: great – methinks the American Thanksgiving has a whole lot more going for it 🙂 ! Relax . . . do things you like and normally do not have time for . . . enjoy . . . I know I shall . . .
Such nice comments. You will undoubtedly find some soul mates. We expect so much from our holidays. I’ve spent some lovely ones with family, with friends, and deliberately alone. I’ve found choosing something is important–whether it’s a walk, the food, curling up with a good book. I hope your winter is lovely and your holidays deliberate and different this year!
Holy cow, I thought I was the only grinch around. I used to like Christmas, I decorated like crazy and really got into it. Now my fondest wish would be to spend it somewhere warm with a nice beach. If I were still single I probably would as I have no kids of my own and my parents are both gone and my brother & sister have kids and grandkids of their own. My John’s kids and grandkids (who I love to pieces) are what keeps us here. I too feel badly for my John, I’m sure I’m a bit of a downer for him. For him, I try, I put up a tree (fake and small) and decorate it. At least I still enjoy finding him the perfect present and I do look forward to watching him open it so that’s something. Maybe the problem is not Christmas but what comes after – JANUARY, yikes!, and FEBRUARY, worse yet!, probably the two worst months in existence in Wisconsin!
Which babe is that in the last photo?
Love that header photo, and the others too of the flying turkeys. I had no idea! February must seem a long way off right now, but how great that you’ll be making a trip home. Sometimes nothing will do but your own tribe.
” Spirit of Christmas is biting at my wrists and ankles. ” Somehow I’m tired already – although I do love a nice big Christmas tree and manger scene of collected figures over the years ( each with a story). Cheered a bit at tiny signs some are taking Christmas back: Nordstrom stores are not putting up Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving. “We feel holiday should be celebrated one at a time”. Maybe a smart PR campaign, but I like it.
Gorgeous flying turkey picture – I’ve seen the wild ones fly, but didn’t think the farm ones could get off the ground. (Cats belong to places…sometimes they share them with us…but cats don’t move well.)
I understand the mood… Christmas never really worked out for me either. Thanksgiving isn’t quite as bad, but most of the time it too finds me flaking out and refusing invites to partake in festivities. I would be perfectly fine to hole up in a cabin in the woodlands from about now until February or March. Come to think of it, that might actually prompt me to get on with writing more of my book and maybe finish it!
Beautiful images .. Turkeys sure can fly! 😃
Holidays in general are difficult for me. I gave up Christmas-ing years ago. I celebrate the Solstice with journaling and good music—like I celebrate every day. I do make Solstice cards every year and send those out. It’s part meditation, part infusing the little pieces of art with gratitude and love that I send all over the world. THAT feels like a celebration.