I came, I saw, I conquered. This Christmas was all about gettin' 'er done. No pictures. No Todd.
Here's how it went down.
Todd was home for Thanksgiving. He and Cami put up our modest outdoor lights. Christmas chores on schedule. One week later our apartment was awash in 2 inches of water from a broken pipe in the ceiling. Middle of the night. All carpets pulled up. All furniture moved. Lived with concrete floors and wet walls and ceilings for a week while everything dried. (No pictures of that, either. Who knows where the hell the camera was.) Wet boxes from closets on the porch. Furniture in middle of rooms. We still had to work, chart prep and phone calls. What Christmas shopping I had done was in a laundry basket---somewhere.
What followed was 3 weeks of--oh how can I put this--uh-disorganization. I shan't bore you with all the details, as most everyone has lived in a construction zone at some time or another. My Christmas spirit was just a little wet.
Then the best laid plans again got pooped on when circumstances changed and Todd couldn't make it home for Christmas. Frantic wrapping and mailing of packages ensued.
Oh, and Cami was down with H1N1 flu.
Now, none of this was what I expected for our Christmas season. Some bad Christmas elf had decided to mess with us, but we weren't about to submit. As Cami and I strolled (very slowly, as she was still sickish) the isles of Walmart, we decided to summon our Norwegian-ness to work hard and make it happen.
So, Christmas came to our house. The tree was finally up, the presents bought and wrapped, cookies made, Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner were as usual. It was just the three of us, but, tradition prevailed.
(The phone rang late Christmas Eve. Caller ID said it was Todd. But what we heard was strains of Silent Night. He called and left his phone on during the last few minutes of Christmas Eve church service. It was lovely. So we did share some of Christmas with him.)
I figure if Mary could travel to Bethlehem on a donkey and have her child in a manger, I could do Christmas with a little inconvenience.
Merry Christmas.
