WILL IT BE DIFFERENT?

It happened to me many times. Picking up a book just to have something to read and I'll end up treasuring every word it spoke. Another clincher that sometimes, best things breeze in when you least expected it. Its not only true with books, or gifts, or food(does this need to be on the list) but also with people that comes along.

This Year It Will Be Different by Maeve Binchy - is a compilation of 15 short stories all in Christmas setting. Each tells NOT the usual "so good to be true" on how this season is anticipated, spent and viewed. A realistic characterization of contemporary individuals that will make you say, "Hmmnn, I know him/her!"

There's one story in this book about a wife who made her Christmas different by not doing the usual preparations for the holiday. She did not decorate the house, did not bake the traditional goodies to be feasted on and declared a "strike" on "domesticity".

She got tired of enslaving herself from her 3 grown up children and her husband so she decided to join them. When she goes home from work, she avoided the kitchen and sat in front of the TV like everybody does. "Mom aren't you going to do supper?" were the question on her family's faces, yet she ignored and continued to enjoy her "protest".

Her family realized how they took her for granted and started to work and help in any way they can. The mother still glued to the tube while the rest were always having "family meeting" in the kitchen. Eavesdropping at times, she knew her points were being taken.

One day as Christmas day draws nearer, the family asked the mother to come home hours later and maybe go out for a drink after work. How her "drama" paid off, her children and husband will prepare her a grand dinner that never in her life she imagined to ever take place, or so, she amused herself.

Excited to finally get home after a toast for success in the bar with a friend, the house was all lit and her family led her to the kitchen eyes closed. Taaadahhh!!! She opened her eyes and there's her surprise, a A NEW TV in the kitchen Ohmygoshhh!

For the ending of the story, get a copy of the book......

Hehehe kadi...The conclusion was a realization by the mother that changes come one step at a time. Transformation doesn't happen overnight and she also understood that she contributed to why her husband and children depended everything on her. She made them to.... So at the same night, there she was, the mother, preparing an instant supper of can goods and other quickie stuff.


I hope I recounted the story as it is. I sent my copy to my father in law. I might have missed some parts as I have read it more than two months ago.. 'Scusa' for any inaccuracy...