Rain Falling on the Wet Snow

Christmas Eve is well underway in China.  It’s 9:00PM there.  Santa has to pick out the believers amidst the masses as he starts his way up from New Zealand to the eastern coast of the Eurasian landmass.  But we ain’t there.  Rather we’re on the other side of the earth in Poughkeepsie, New York.  It’s raining outside.  From a distance I could believe that it might be snow.  But both my wife and my younger daughter have looked out the window a few meters from where I’m sitting confirming that what’s falling is rain.  I’m now going to look for myself. Aye.  Cold rain falling on the wet snow. 

My younger one has been up with me for a while now.  She can’t believe it is Christmas Eve.  I can.  The house is stirring now.  I’ve got Duke Ellington’s “Nutcracker Suite” on.  My wife was doing an English class for some folks back home on Wechat.  “What’s a good song for Christmas Eve?”  Oh dear.  I can think of so many that I’d rather not hear.  A song came to mind that was “traditional” and not simply offbeat. The minor melody for “Carol of the Bells” wafted around my mind but I couldn’t remember the name.  I searched and found instead “Silver Bells.”  No.  No Bing, thank you.  In the time it took for my wife to go the bathroom and return, I’d put “List of Christmas songs” in Wiki and culled through before I found the melody with version after version listed out on Youtube.  Mournful and moody, despite the requisite lyrics of cheer, I suppose that’s why I always this song.  Now I know that it was composed by Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych in 1914, presumably just before the onslaught of the First World War.  

My older one isn’t up yet.  Probably won’t be for a while.  The younger one is understandably asking: “Why are you working?”  In my mind, I’m not.  I’m writing, which isn’t work.  But whose to tell what’s work and what isn’t when you’re looking at someone hunched over a lap top?  She has gone to the basement and gotten a game of Parcheesi.  “Sure.  Just a moment.  You set it up.”  Duke and the fellas have made their way to the “Arabian Dance”, which also feels moody.  

We’ve got an hour or two before the stores open.  Yes.  I have plenty of last minute shopping to do.  It’s too late to consider anything on line.  I am imagining that Taobao might still be able to fulfill orders in under twenty-four hours, were I to be in Beijing.  But Amazon doesn’t work that way.  Not at least until Amazon grows here and forces them to.  So it’s physical shopping up and down the Hudson Valley on a rainy Christmas Eve. 

I didn’t win.  My younger one did.  I was the green bulls.  I didn’t come in last place either.  That was my older one.  It’s been a year or more since the last trip round the Taj Mahals.  I don’t think any of us remembered that Parcheesi was so devoid of drama.  Everyone seemed to make it most of the way around the board to home with most of their pieces before we caught up on each other and were able to bounce one or two pieces back to their holding pens.  But by the time it happened we all felt fairly exhausted at the prospect of having to roll the critter all the way around the board again. When it’s down to two people you just roll and roll and roll.  Perhaps there is Clue or Monopoly down there.