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
The Kitchen's Garden 
44 responses to “Flying Turkeys”
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!