Just barely are the Thanksgiving leftovers cleared out, then comes the company Christmas party. The hostess armed with Ziplocs and enough food to feed a small town, insisting, "Take this home, I'll never eat all that. This will just go to waste. Take some home."
So I do. A plate of deviled eggs. Half a lemon chiffon cake that she knows my husband loves. Crackers and salami and ham and dip and... Leftovers.
The day before Christmas Eve, I'm at the store. Buying food for the relatives that will be over. Crackers and little smokies and carrots and cookies and dip... Leftovers
New Year's Day, a stop at my Uncle's for a family gathering to greet the new year. With food. Ham and crackers and, well, yeah, you get it. Leftovers, sigh.
But, there was one more thing. An old box. Filled with old papers. A picture of my great, great grandparents. Copies of birth and death certificates for relatives I've only found while researching our ancestry. Names I'd not been able to find.
A guest register from a funeral seventy some years ago. A wedding registry from as long ago. Newspaper articles, copies from one hundred year old archives, telling of the death of my great grandfather. He owned a tavern, among other businesses.
An envelope full of birth congratulations, with the sympathy cards that came less than a year later when the infant that would have been my aunt died.
Bits and pieces of lives begun and ended. Bits and pieces of lives remembered. Leftovers.
Well, the new year is here and the holidays are behind us. Speaking of “behinds”—how about those holiday leftovers? The food, the sweets, the bills-to-come… it’s that time of year where we all try to set a plan in motion to “toss out” all of those leftovers.
