Winter’s official launch. I love it’s short days, it’s 5 PM-ish dusks. It puts me in a good mood. Which is good, because there was an eruption of whooping and hollering rather early in the neighborhood this morning — the annual Virginia Highlans/Morningside Holiday 5K run.

This time next year I won’t be sitting in my kitchen, at the breakfast bar, having my tea, watching hundreds of runners stream past the front gate (many sporting Santa hats, of course). I’ll be heralding the first day of Winter from France.

Last night before bed I read Adam Gopnik’s, Paris to the Moon, in which he writes, “Loss, like distance, gives permission for romance.” It’s the chapter in which he and his wife learn they have to vacate their Paris apartment (the owners are returning early), and they contemplate returning to New York sooner than planned or staying in Paris and looking for another apartment. Just before moving to Paris, they began to experience New York with new eyes. Now that leaving Paris was on the table, a similar romance with their current city bloomed.

That’s exactly what I’m starting to notice as the months between our move to France wane. Last year I probably bitched up a storm about the 5K run — didn’t they know that working people might be trying to sleep in! Has it never occurred to them that residents of this neighborhood might have somewhere to be while they humor themselves with their little run?! Why not someone else’s neighborhood?! Last year the itch to move was so insistent. All I wanted was out of here.

Between July (when we decided that to France we were headed) and now, a kind of romance has rekindled. The itch has been soothed. The lens through which I take in our house, our street, our neighborhood, the neighborhoods beyond ours is the color of old bricks — a softer, forgiving red. I haven’t changed my mind about the move, but the parting is far sweeter. And every time I notice something I once ignored or groused about, like this morning’s 5K, I can’t help but feel thank you. Whom or what I’m thanking, I don’t quite know. It’s just a feeling.

As I look at the forecast for the next few days, I can’t help but think that the rain gods are softening, as if they are ackowledging how stingy they’ve been with the southeast this year. We’ve been wasteful and heedless, and we needed a wake-up call. There’s no wake-up call quite like a hundred year drought. So, if we get the several days of showers that are predicted, I’ll be profoundly grateful. Rain gods, like other gods, seem to approve of a bit of buttering, although of course they want it to be sincere. Mine is, swear.

At a Christmas party last weekend, I chatted with an Atlanta native who’s lived here all his life. He was profoundly shaken by this drought. They’ve had droughts over the years, but none like this. At the same time, there’s never been a drain on the water resources as there is now. When he was a boy, Atlanta was not a major city of nearly 5 million people. I wanted to hug this man when he mentioned that he and his wife keep 2-3 gallon buckets in the shower, so that they can collect water as they wait for it to heat up.

It’s good to hear that the message of conservation is being heard and earnest efforts being made. It’s also an unusual topic for Christmas party nattering, but then so is a 20+ inch deficit in rainfall, the driest year on record. Wishing for rain on Christmas day? More unusual still. But there you have it. Frankly, I think there’s much to be said and gained by yearning for something so basic as rain. I mean that sincerely and butter-free.

Almost…almost missed noticing that I’d been tagged yesterday by Kristina who’s doing her level best to spread holiday cheer spread to her by friend Col who had it spread to her by…you get the picture.

Melissa’s Christmas factoids:

1. Wrapping or gift bags? Both. I’m no Martha Stewart wrapping expert, so after my first few attempts at creating crisp edges and neat folds FAIL MISERABLY, I beeline for the plan B gift bags.

2. Real or artificial tree? Real. Love the ones with softer needles. As a kid my parents always spent the extra money for a live tree with a root ball so that it could be planted in the yard after it’s Christmas performance. This year I made a tree from twigs because I just wasn’t in the mood for feeling guilty about sending a cut tree to the wood chipper on January 2nd.

3. When do you put up the tree? The first Tuesday that’s in the first full week in December…kidding. There’s no pattern. It happens whenever “the spirit” lights a big enough fire under my ass.

4. When do you take the tree down? January 2nd. Christmas malingering…irritating as a splinter under my nail. I want to throttle the people who leave their decorations up for the twelve days of Epiphany. Take them down, already! Please. Thank you.

5. Do you like eggnog? Yes, but it’s not the first thing I reach for. I’d reach for a stiff Mudslide before eggnog.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Funny what first comes to mind is the gift I didn’t receive that would have been the favorite. A pony. I know! You can’t help but groan! But, yeah, a pony. Still waiting….

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Nope. As a kid we had one though, and I really liked it. It was old and the paint on the figures had a nice, Old World Masters kind of patina. Better than the Nativity scene, though, was the Advent calendar that my father had made out of wood and that my mother had fun filling with little surprises.

8. Worse Christmas gift ever received? A set of luggage. I was 17. I had no place to travel to and no way to get there…which is exactly what they would say to me when I would declare that “anywhere but here would be a VAST improvement since current conditions weren’t fit for swine.” Oh, Memory Lane, how I wish you would stick to the program of presenting me — at all times — in more favorable light and not reminding me so vividly of what a little shit I could be as a teen.

9. Mail or email Christmas cards? Both. This year I’m shifting my tradition to be New Year cards. A) It gives me a little more time to get something out via snail mail. B) I like the idea of sending best regards and best wishes for 12 months rather than just for one day.

10. Favorite Christmas movie? Don’t have one.

11. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Don’t have to. Happily, my family has moved beyond the present exchanges. We have enough of what we need and a good bit of what we want. We’re very, very fortunate in this regard and the best way to express that is to just hang out together for the day and have a good dinner. Tim and I give each other something for our birthday’s, but we pointedly remove ourselves from the minefield of finding a gift that says “I love you”. It’s better, in our opinion, to say it as you look the other person in the eye.

12. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Spritz cookies.

13. Clear lights or colored lights on the tree? If I was doing the tree thing in the usual way, it would be big, bright colored ceramic lights. This year I strung a couple strands of those on the front door wreath…love it.

14. Favorite Christmas memory? The year I was 10, we had just moved. Our dog, Biscuits, wigged out about her new surroundings, jumped the fence, ran off, and ended up being hit by a truck. We were devastated. Our parents surprised us by getting a Springer Spaniel puppy, Patches, who we adored as a puppy and cherished as a grown up dog. I still have a photo of her napping on the pile of wrapping paper and bows. That dog was legend.

I know that I’m supposed to tag others now, but all of my other blogging peeps have already been tagged with holiday meme’s and would kill me if I tagged them with another. Maybe next year.

To stay longer than 90 days in France you have to apply for a long stay visa. The first time I perused the application requirements I must have read the info for a different, less complicated visa. (If such a thing exists.)

While I knew I would have to schedule a meeting at the consulate in Atlanta, until this weekend I was blissfully under the impression that all I would have to do is sashay in with my application and proof of US citizenship.

Not the case.

There are several documents I have to produce at the time of the meeting, some of which have to be notarized, all of which have to be translated into French. Multiple copies of everything of course. Several passport photos, too.

Why can’t one document be scanned and then electronically distributed?

Why are the instructions for the various required letters so vague?

Why can’t they just state plainly — French or English — that in order to get the visa you must have x number of dollars in your account and your health insurance must include x amount of coverage for y and z?

Why is it that I can’t schedule my appointment at the consulate sooner than 90 days before my planned departure when it can take up to 3 months to get the piece of paper?

I know I shouldn’t complain but obviously I am. Yet, each day thousands suck it up and do what they need to do to go where they want to go. We’re a herd of visa hurdlers.

As if we didn’t already know, but an article by Patrick White in the online edition of Canada’s Globe and Mail discusses a study that puts some bona fide statistics behind this assumption.

According to a study by Statistics Canada, women are more likely than men to make multiple stops during a single car trip.

Uh huh!

This practice of making multiple stops during a single car trip has been given a new buzzword: trip chaining.

Some Trip Chaining Comparative Stats:*

Men: 45 per cent of the car trips men make involve just one stop.

Women: 39 percent of the car trips made by women involve just one stop. More than 20% of women drivers make three or more stops during a single car trip.

Men: 45% of male drivers make no stops on their way to work. Almost 80% of men drive straight home after work.

Women: On trips to and from work, women are more likely than men to make stops at daycare, the bank and the shopping center, etc.

Don’t read too much into these stats or let them elevate your blood pressure experts in this article warn. The trip-chaining differences between men and women probably don’t boil down to differences in male and female psyche. More likely, they contend, the contrast in behavior results from the traditional arrangements still in place in many households. So, while men have become more involved with household chores in the house, their spouses and significant others still tend to handle the grocery shopping and dry-cleaner drop-offs.

If for some reason the numbers still rankle you, consider this: trip chaining is also one seemingly small thing that has a positive impact on our environment. Fewer trips equals carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere, and thus lessening our greenhouse-gas footprint.

So, chickadees, those sundry errands laced into your daily drives do more than just stick you behind the wheel, they have you leading the way.