December 31, 2025
2025 Holiday Wrap-Up
december 15
running errands in the car, carols playing
dear pat,
remember once at starbucks
i told you that when i sing certain hymns
or christmas carols or patriotic songs
my throat closes with emotion
and i literally cannot voice
the next notes until i force myself
to recover because i don’t want to miss singing
the rest of the song? even before i could finish
telling you, you yelped,
me too! me too!
we laughed and exclaimed
and laughed and exclaimed
and then went on to who knows
how many more topics du jour.
it was a little snippet of conversation
that probably didn’t take more than
two minutes of the two hours
we spent gabbing, but a snippet
that nonetheless lodged itself
firmly in my pat heartspace.
i’m guessing that was before
your cancer diagnosis, and therefore
years before
you died on a december day
that itself is now sixteen years gone.
but today is another december day,
one that neither
of us could imagine back then, and
adeste fidelis comes on the car’s sound system.
i crank up the volume immediately,
start singing
at full voice
until my throat closes
which is when you join in,
joyful and triumphant!
we manage not to
choke up at the same time
for the rest of the hymn.
between us,
eyes shining,
we don’t miss
a single note,
dear pat.
—dotty seiter
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Notes about poem and art:
• “december 15” speaks for itself, sings its own music.
• Painting the four sheets of paper gift wrap I used during the holidays was a satisfying and grounding part of December’s busyness, bringing light and warmth to days at the onset of the dark and cold of winter.
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11 responses to “2025 Holiday Wrap-Up”
I so enjoy the weaving of your stories through poetry! They are so much more alive. How a song that chanced on your car radio brought such sweet memories of a very dear friend that has passed long ago.
What double gifts with your hand made paper gives! Hoping for a Happy Healthy and Creative New Year for you and all your family! xo xo xo
Thank you for your feedback on my weaving of stories through poetry. I was thinking about that just the other day in response to a book in which the term “narrative poem” occurred; I realized that without consciously setting out to do so that is a poem form that I frequently use.
I love making a little batch of hand-painted gift wrap each year. It is a very calming grounding process, and I do then feel as though the result is a “double gift.” : )
Thanks for your responses, MaryAnn, which have led me to see now, in a way I did not when I paired this poem and this art, that this is a post of double gifts—the gift of loving Pat when she was alive and the ongoing gift of loving her now; the gifts being wrapped and the gift of the wrap itself.
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Lola, thank you for your sweet affirming words! ‘Tis indeed a season of emotion. So grateful for you as a key creative source of inspiration and a key creative source of cheerleading and feedback and encouragement for coming up on TEN YEARS in February 2026 (do I have my dates right—we met, I think, through Leslie Saeta’s 30 Paintings in 30 Days that year; does your blog go back that far??).
What a beautiful tribute to a beautiful friendship. I now have that song in my head. Thank you for bringing this reminder of the wonderful spirit of Christmas music. So touching. I have often wondered about the mechanics of that choking feeling. That lump. Maybe thinking about how that works, was there to distract me from why I was feeling it. ;o)
I love the wrapping papers! I love that they are a different color way, from the standard greens and reds. Very festive, and very Dotty! xoxo
Sheila, thank you for your thoughtful musings on the beauty of friendship, the power of music, and the mechanics and pathway of emotional lumps in the throat : )
Love the description of yours of “a different color way.” Such pleasure I took in painting sheets of gift wrap in Decemb
