Boxing Day Burning the Old Year

Boxing Day! I love boxing day. I have watched three Fred Astaire movies since Christmas. Which was just yesterday. We had a good Christmas!

The photo is a picture of Aslan, the lion from the Chronicles of Narnia. My friend had this drawing when we were kids in Corvallis. Her mom had an artist draw it for her. It hung in her room when we were kids.

Last summer when I went to see her she gave it to me.  A few months later she died.

I am thinking about not keeping it.  Sometimes I think about just burning the whole picture. It sums up a part of our childhood that is now, well, gone. She's gone and her mom's gone and I'm here.  I wonder if it's not helpful for me to hold onto it.

I remember a few years ago calling this same friend around New Years, and telling her about that "burning the year" ritual. Where you write things on pieces of paper - things about yourself that you want to say good bye to in the New Year - and you burn them.  I did that that year. It's a fun ritual, but most of those things I burned that year are still with me.

So there's that!

I am reading The Leftovers.  I'm off all week and I like that!