This Is Not a Hallmark Christmas Special

As many of you know, I was on jury duty this week, until I came home from Day 1 yesterday and tested positive for covid (little-known fact: this does not get me out of jury duty, it simply defers it.) So I have spent the past 24+ hours in bed with a really nasty case of it — this variant is NOT here to play around and scoffs at things like my booster and masking and my previous cases. I don't even know where I got it, so to anyone I inadvertently exposed, I'm truly sorry.

People have been amazing, bringing by food and oximeters to lend (turns out mine was reading several pints low so a new one stopped me from freaking out so much) and pie and hot toddies and gag kleenex boxes and the like. I have amazing friends.

I've missed several important events but that does not seem like such a big deal right now.

You see, December 12 is the day I always kind of start to lose it. December 12 is the day that my mom went into the hospital via the ER, never to come out again. It's a kind of deathly advent, leading up to Christmas Day when she died.

And so every year at this time, I get into a funk (don't believe me? Go ahead and search "Christmas" on this blog and you'll see So Many Posts.) I know that funk, and know that if I don't get ahead of it with holiday planning and shopping and decorating and scheduling it's going to be ugly. 

And this year it looks like it's going to be a little ugly (though the tree is up and Beatrix made some cookies on baking day at Norwegian dance and such). Hopefully I'll get sprung from here by the end of the week, but the way I feel now, I can't imagine it. At best, it's going to be a Very Scrambly Christmas. At worst, a lot of things will get missed — including presents, because in some kind of modern-day Gift of the Magi, Patrick and I got each other the exact same thing.

But most of all, I'm just really, really sad right now, despite all the things I have to be grateful for.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Brutus

Image
In 2019, we were on our way back from spring break when Cheryl, who Beatrix had interned with at GiffyDog, reached out to us about fostering a pomeranian (since she knew Beatrix loved the breed). The day we got back, the person who had been fostering him brought him over. Brutus sauntered in, grabbed a rawhide as long as he was that Coya had been chewing, and settled in next to me in the chair. Patrick says "I knew at that point he was never leaving." And he didn't. He got the name "Brutus Brewpup" when, as we initially had him and thought we should expose him to people who might want to adopt him, we took him out to a taproom and found he LOVED it. Pretty soon, taking him to taprooms turned into a regular pastime. But he liked other things too. He loved Christmas: And Halloween: And springtime: And snow, especially the first snowfall: And really winter in general: He loved to go up to the cabin (and I'm so glad we got to go up this last weekend): And to sun...
Read more

Choosing Happy

Image
This post is brought to you by a few thoughts from yesterday: First and foremost, Patrick's new book that he wrote for Beatrix for her sixteenth birthday. Available for a hot second before we leave for spring break tomorrow. The response of someone he knows on the internet, who wrote yesterday that he had decided years ago that he would never be happy (and reading his posts, he seems to be right.). It was one of the saddest things I've encountered in a long time. A friend's social media post, in which she discusses another person's comment of " I really think a sizable proportion of the population has become addicted to being angry" with the sage response of " I think a lot of them are doing it because it's more enjoyable to be angry than to be depressed." A nd we finally finished watching this season's Fargo last night. I won't give any spoilers, but it's extremely on theme with this post. So this is the deal. There's a lot on ...
Read more

New Year's Eve 2023

Image
I did not want to be laying in bed, wearing a fleece onesie and still shivering, while my husband and daughter headed out to the several wonderful NYE parties we have planned. I have a beautiful new dress that I got in Duluth for tonight, and was looking forward to the collection of friends we would be seeing. Our friend Whitney in particular is throwing the last party at her B and B, and it's breaking my heart not to go. But I feel logey and coughy, and more to the point, I have a low fever, and I don't want to mess around with possibly getting anyone sick. I'm still holding out hope that I'll miraculously feel better and the fever was a mistaken reading, but I doubt that. And I feel lucky to have 3 sets of people who want me in their lives tonight and who I don't want to get sick. As our yoga teacher Viv says, it's not like a page turns and everything is magic. You get some things that are good, and some that are not, and life is living in the middle. -- In 20...
Read more