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Last year was the last year of the Creme de la Creme.  I can’t say that it will never run again because who knows how we will all feel in another year or two or twenty?

But participation had dwindled over the years, so I declared last year’s Creme — the 9th one — to be the final one for the time being.  Part of me considered extending one more year just to have it end on a nice, even 10.  But that’s not life.  Life isn’t neat and symmetrical and orderly.  Things sometimes end on a 9th year instead of a 10th.

I felt an odd twinge in the fall when I didn’t put up the call for submissions, but I didn’t really think about the project again until this week.  In years past, this week has always had a panicky vibe as I move through the entries, reading and thinking and sometimes reading again and thinking again and then writing.  This year, there was no panicky vibe.  There were no entries to read or blurbs to write.

It’s an odd feeling to stop celebrating something, sort of like declaring yourself done with a holiday.  It still rolls around on the calendar, but all the rituals you once did to mark the occasion aren’t performed.

There is no point to this post except that I wanted to mark the moment.  Because I was thinking about it.  While I know the posts I liked and mark them in the Roundup, it’s different to hear the post each writer was proud of from their yearly collection of posts.

If I had to pick one from my blog, it’s probably “Lasts” because it’s summing up the year for me.  What is yours?

A long time ago, my cousin and I were in a store in Salem, Massachusetts.  There was a barrel of tarot cards by the cash register, and I got a strong vibe that I was meant to own a certain deck in the barrel.  So I plucked it out and paid for it without a lot of thought.

They look like playing cards, but they have an object on each card along with a short description of what the object means.  The cards came with instructions on how to lay them out and give a reading.

Like the cards, I was drawn to Mental Floss’s recent post about tarot cards.  I especially love that they were historically a form of Choose Your Own Adventure story since my new book is about interactive fiction.

Most of the time they sit in my drawer.  I’m not really sure I believe in it at all. (Even though I totally believe that my body somehow knew I was supposed to buy this specific deck in a sea of decks.)  The ChickieNob is always begging me to read her cards, though I have no clue what I’m doing.  It’s sort of anticlimactic when you need to keep pausing to consult the how-to directions that come with the cards.  It would probably help if I memorized the instructions.

But there’s another part of me that thinks it’s better not to know anything.  That hearing something could make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.  And while I would be okay with life spoilers since I like having time to get accustomed to change, this in between — this maybe real or maybe not — probably isn’t helpful.  Right?

If there was a time traveler who could come back and definitively tell you the highlights and low points of your life, would you want to hear them?  Even knowing that there was nothing you could do to change the path because the time traveler could prove these fixed events in time?  (And yes, this “what if” assumes that you have no free will and your destiny is set, so just roll with that.)  Or would you rather not know anything and be surprised by life in the moment?

A P.S. to the story: I was in Salem a few years ago, and I swung by the store again.  They no longer sell them, and when I asked about them, the woman said they never sold them.  Creepy.

Up until last year, we always volunteered on Christmas. It made sense. We were off from work, we had nowhere we had to be, and there were plenty of people who were in the opposite position, needing to spend time with family. So we did volunteer work.

And then last year, we didn’t.

And then this year, we didn’t.

This year, we ate appetizers for dinner on Christmas Eve since everything tastes better when it is on a toothpick. Then we piled into our bed to watch Fellowship of the Ring, which is our yearly tradition. Take whatever you sense about my love for Harry Potter and double it, and you come close to understanding how much I love Tolkien.  The books, of course, but I also love the movies.  So every year we watch the trilogy between Christmas and New Years.

Christmas morning, we all slept in and then ate cake for breakfast.  Why?  Because we freakin’ could.  We spent the day reading books and playing video games.  In the afternoon, I pulled together dinner, and then we played more video games and watched the Doctor Who special, chowing down on candy.  By bedtime, I was finally done with sugar.  Though not video games.  I have terrific stamina for that.

It was a really fun day because it was completely hedonistic.  And maybe we need a hedonistic day like that every year, though my Protestant work ethic gave me mad guilt over the idea that we could have volunteered… and chose not to.  Which is a weird feeling.

I felt like Pinocchio in the Land of Toys.  Even if volunteering is optional, there is a strange feeling when you know you can help out and you should help out, but you choose not to help out.  Perhaps my guilt dial is stuck on ten.

Anyway, that was my Christmas.  How was your Christmas?

I was debating whether or not to post the rest of the week.  I mean, is anyone really going to read it?  Probably not.  Y’all are busy making Christmas dinner and wrapping presents and prepping for Santa.  Whereas I am ready for the start of Lord of the Rings night and the Doctor Who Christmas special.

It sort of felt like “If a tree falls in the woods…,” you know?  Is it worth posting if no one will read it?

Clearly, I think the answer is yes.

I mean, the answer was yes when I started this blog and no one knew it existed.  And if it was yes back then, why wouldn’t it still be true now?  It enhances the experience when a post has an audience, but it’s still worth going through the writing process even if the words will not be read.  Even inconsequential drivel like this.

If I only write when I have an audience, I will never get better, I will never express myself, and I will be putting the power in someone else’s hands rather than keeping it myself.  So I’m posting, whether or not anyone reads this.

But if you are reading this, I am going to tell you two things I learned about Christmas trees due to social media that I never knew until this year.

One, when you buy a Christmas tree from an outdoor lot, you are supposed to inspect the tree for chipmunks and other… critters… before tying it to your car roof and heading home.  If not, when you unfurl the branches inside your house, a chipmunk that was hiding inside could race out.

Two, you are supposed to balance the ornaments on the tree so that you have equal weight all around.  If not, the tree can fall over.  Again, had not considered this though it makes perfect sense.  I think I would only purchase/make wooden or fabric ornaments knowing that a tree could fall over and glass ones could break.  I am glad I read about this because I’m going to go with sturdy ornaments as gifts going forward.

There are probably other things about trees that I have no clue about having never had one.  But what a wonderful world it is where there are still things to learn in middle age.

Merry Christmas.

I love email.  I prefer it over all other forms of communication.  I like that the other person receives my messages instantly.  I like that I can open the emails I receive and read them at my leisure.  I like that I have a copy of what I wrote in my sent folder.  I like that I can use the search function and find old emails.

I am better at expressing myself through written communication than verbal communication.  I can hold messy, difficult conversations as long as the other person allows me to jot down my thoughts first in an email.

I can toss off an email to Josh in the afternoon and it becomes his shopping list on his way home.  Email helps me schedule plans, keep in touch, and do my job from home.

I love email.

Which means that I’m over 41.

By a weird coincidence, I am over 41.  By six months.

Gizmodo recently reported on their study that found a communication gap between generations.  People over 41 tend to love to communicate via email, and people under 41 prefer to meet people face-to-face or use a bunch of different apps:

First-generation internet users (people between 41-70) say they communicate with email more often than they communicate face-to-face with co-workers. 91% of them reported talking to colleagues with email, while 86% said they talk in person.

That’s me: first-generation internet user.

Most of my friends (I think?  Unless they’re humouring me?) prefer to communicate via email vs. try to connect over text messages or Twitter or Facebook.  But it does make me wonder what happens when one person is an emailer and the other person is a Twitter-er.  Does one person have to forgo their communication comfort zone to speak to the other person?  And which person budges themselves over to their less favourite format for communication?

As a side note, I love that Sarah Silverman still emails her mother though she died this past summer.  You can’t do that with a phone call.  And Facebook feels a little too public for that type of intimate conversation.  But I love that you can still email someone after they’re gone; pretend they are reading it and feel close for a moment.

How do you feel about email?  Or do you have a different favourite form of communication?