Christmas was perfect!

Posted on December 27, 2007 in Holidays, Personal thoughts by DM

I am finally breathing a sigh of relief. My dad’s immediate health issues have been resolved and he is doing much better at home while we look for an assisted living arrangement that meets his long-term needs.

And, while I missed the build-up to Christmas entirely this year due to work and personal chaos, I finally got to breathe from December 21-26. On Friday night my daughter and I headed out to shop for Steve’s gifts - it was nice to have some time with her. I learned about a few things going on in her life that she had not shared with me yet, and I was surprised at a particularly serious issue she’s dealing with in her circle of friends. I offered my support and told her I was thankful she felt she could talk to me - she said she was actually relieved to finally share it, as much of it has been bothering her for quite some time.

On Saturday we went to see Steve’s folks and family over at his oldest sister’s house, then on the 23rd we grocery-shopped for our Christmas Day luncheon - we normally roast a turkey, but had considered just doing cold sandwiches as a way of simplifying things since the past month had been so busy/stressful. In the end, I assured everyone that preparing the lunch was one of my favorite aspects of Christmas Day so we went ahead and bought a small turkey and fixin’s for our favorite side dishes. (”It’s not the turkey that’s a lot of work, it’s getting all the side dishes to be done at the same time!”) That evening, Steve’s grown daughter came over with her family and we had our gift-exchange with them, as well as an absolutely wonderful supper of cheese-potato soup and toasted Italian bread.

My daughter and I spent Christmas Eve Day baking pumpkin pies and Christmas cut-out cookies and making ahead the stuffing for our turkey. On the 25th, I got the turkey into the oven around 9:30; we opened gifts, then prepped all the side dishes for lunch. My dad arrived around 11:30 and visited while I finished preparing lunch, then we all sat down to a perfect bird with stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole and crescent rolls, then pumpkin pie for dessert. Dad left around 2:30, we all took naps, and then around 6 we headed out to see Steve’s folks again before they returned home to Missouri. They were staying with his youngest sister, whose family had just moved into a lovely new home, so we got the grand tour and visited there for a couple of hours.

I had yesterday off from work, too, which was spent doing laundry and helping Dad with a doctor visit and some errands, then a nice supper at home and finally dropping DD off for a sleep-over. Today I was back at work, feeling a lot less stressed and thankful that the holiday itself was about as perfect as it could be.

I hope to also be back to a more lively schedule of blogging as of this week - I have lots of fun bits and side-stories to share, and am looking forward to catching up with all of you through my RSS feeds.

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