Merry Christmas 2020

December 26, 2020

We had a wonderful, though unusual, holiday. Even though we couldn't do the things that we usually do and missed seeing family and friends, we were all together. Every year we can manage that with adult children is not something I take lightly. Plus, it was possibly the first year in possibly forever that there were no tears or seizures during the entire Christmas Eve/Christmas holiday.

We started out with attending our church's Christmas Eve service. I didn't think this would be in the cards for us this year, but they added a 4pm candle lighting service outdoors. I was thrilled that we wouldn't have to miss this even if it was going to be different. It was cold! At one point I think someone's phone said windchill -4 (F). We had all (well, most of us) dressed warmly, so with the big fire pits our church had put out, we weren't too uncomfortable.

We then broke with tradition and had ordered take-out Vietnamese food for dinner, having discovered a somewhat local Vietnamese place. Half of us went to pick-up the food, the other half went to take care of various animals. The idea was that it would be a much more casual dinner since we were going to be doing our more formal dinner the next night. I still couldn't help getting out the good laquerware bowls and chopsticks. (Usually people use dishwasher friendly chopsticks for every day use.)

We then sang carols and younger people went to bed while older people fussed with gifts.

The next morning was extremely relaxed. We knew we didn't have any sort of time schedule since we would be eating dinner at home, so took our time. We got up after 8 and opened stockings, then some of us went to do the horses and chickens while others got breakfast ready. (Cinnamon rolls, fried rice, with grapefruit or dragon fruit or mango depending on a person's personal fruit preferences.) At about 10:30 we finally got ourselves organized to begin opening presents.

Breakfast with J. lighting the Christ candle on our Advent wreath

After gifts were opened at about 1:30, we had lunch. Our standard fare is waffles, bacon, and sausage. The afternoon was spent playing with new toys or resting or whatever people felt like doing. Eventually we pulled ourselves together and thought about dinner.

Dinner this year was oxtails in a red wine glaze, Yorkshire pudding, cooked carrots, a green salad with gruyere cheese, followed by Jesus' birthday cake (a gingerbread cake with maple-whipped cream frosting).

See those Christmas crackers at each place? This means that all during dinner you have people playing with the little toys inside... ring toss, miniature decks of cards, harmonicas, etc. The table may be formal, but we rarely are.

Today, Boxing Day, is perhaps my very favorite day of the year. It's like Christmas except there is nothing I need to take care of. There was a lot of game playing and relaxing. Probably the biggest news is that Y. got her ears pierced. She has been waiting for this moment since her birthday last February, with getting her ears pierced being a birthday gift. Then, before I could arrange it, Covid happened and everything shut. There was a brief moment when the place we were going to go was open, but I wasn't able to get an appointment before everything shut down again. In the interim, TM had bought a home piercing kit in case Y. wanted to go that route. She didn't and so it sat. Well, today, she was done waiting. W. said he would do it, so....