How to End a Year

It is four-thirty in the afternoon on the thirty-first of December. The house is quiet and the fog is rolling in. The celebration has not begun yet, but it will soon. The champagne will pop and the glasses will sparkle and we will eat and laugh and love as if it were the last time. It is, at least until 2009.
My sheets are clean and my kitchen is too. The food has been bought and the parties planned, the purple dress ironed and the last latte drunk so I can stay up as late as needed, at least until midnight.
The errands have been run, and a new skein of yarn has been purchased to knit into something small and soft as the holiday football games go on and on over the next few days.
The bags are unpacked and the presents are put away.The wreath is still up, the white lights are too, but the thank you notes have not been written. These, and other things, can wait till next year.
For now I savor the last moments of 2008. It was a very good year, indeed. I'm not altogether sure I am ready to say good-bye to it. A new year is coming -- what will it bring?
I will begin to find out tomorrow and share all that I discover.
Happy 2009.