Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Merry Christmas and all that

I'm a bit late for Hanukah, but I hope all my family and friends who do celebrate Hanukah (I'm settling on this spelling this year) had a wonderful 8 days. We did nothing, here. We used to do it, when the kids were little, but we've moved to the French Christmas, which is basically stripped of religious meaning and therefore suits our family better.
We had a good year, over here. Macron was elected president and he's going about getting what he said he'd do done, without too much complaint. Well, at least without the massive strikes almost anyone else would have been shut down with. Let's see what comes out of all this in a year or so. The mood in the country, at least, is more upbeat.
I was not happy with the US election and I haven't been happy with whatever news comes out of the US. Today, it's the tax bill. There was one thing I would have wanted to see in the tax bill and that concerned Americans living overseas -- me. The Republicans, more or less, promised it. Then, well, we "dropped through the cracks" again. I don't believe we dropped through the cracks. I don't think they are at all sincerely sympathetic. Then, I have a second problem -- what if they had taken care of Overseas Americans? Would that have made the rest of the bill palatable? In my opinion, no.
I got all worked up, disappointed, and confused. I am stepping back from it. I've dropped at least one facebook group, limited notifications on others, and am generally ignoring most of what I see, anyway.
The kids and grandkids are fine. I'll be including pictures with the snail mail version of this for family and friends. In the French fashion, that will be coming with the new year, not this week. Right now, we are expecting the home invasion. They are due to arrive from England and the south of France, tomorrow and the house will be at capacity: 10. On Saturday, we're all going to the theater and the Parisian contingent will join us. They will be leaving for the other grandparents on Sunday. At dinner, on Saturday, we will be joined by the Verrières cousins: 18

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!