Evan and Paul were in Minneapolis on Monday and learned that Evan will be admitted to the hospital on the 29th; he'll have chemo that week followed by a few days of recovery and then the transplant on January 5th. What a relief to know that he is finally at the stage to complete this long process.
Since the beginning of October we prepared ourselves for Christmas in Minneapolis. When that certainty changed to an uncertainty last week, we began to entertain the notion of going to Racine for Christmas. Once that possibility took hold, my spirits lifted and I really looked forward to the visit. On Monday, while carefully monitoring the weather forecasts for 53402 and 54454, those high spirits took a serious nose dive. Our home was not home to tree or decorations of any sort. Don't kid yourself, I don't ever do excessive decorating, and certainly never do it excessively early. On top of that my excitement over seeing everyone in Racine had been been nipped in the bud. This was a serious no-Christmas whatsoever mood that just had to be changed.
I left work at 4:30 Monday and headed for my favorite gift shop intent on buying a little something Christmas-sy to lift my spirits. I bought a completely decorated primitive tree that fits perfectly on the black chest in the living room (Thanks for the gift certificate, friends!). We now have a tree and decorations, big white flakes have been falling all morning, Nat King Cole is serenading me, and the place is beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
Alyssa and Karl will arrive from points west around 6:00 this evening. We'll make some pizza and decorate the cookies that Evan and I will make this afternoon. (Karl already made the mandatory doughboy supply!) Unfortunately, Alissa Diane has to work both today and Christmas Day, so won't be able to join us. Kit and Violet are heading to Tulsa today to spend Christmas with her family. We'll miss them all, but will still have a Christmas eve of cookies and games. We'll also be sure to raise a toast to them! Christmas menus are planned and last-minute shopping will be completed when Paul heads to Marshfield for more plumbing supplies. (The sub-zero temps of the past week have taken a nasty toll in the barn.) In other words, this will be a completely normal Christmas for us! I'll finish wrapping gifts minutes before they are opened. Cookies will never have time to completely cool and Paul will be doing fix-it jobs in the barn until the moment we're ready for our Christmas dinner. This may not sound all that festive for anyone else. In fact, most of the time, these things grate on my nerves until they are hot raw wires ready to spark at the smallest annoyance. This year, however, it feels great to be normal.
Merry Christmas. May you enjoy every little pleasure, every little crisis and the normalcy of it all!
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