Post Christmas Day

This year I resolved that the Christmas season would slow down in our little world.  I actually wore Christmas t-shirts that I usually don't remember owning until December 31.  We listened to lots and lots of Christmas music, including many of the Christmas CDs we own.  My spiritual focus was on the shepherds this year and I spent a lot of time thinking and pondering their lives before, during and after the angel's announcement that a savior had been born.  We enjoyed our Christmas social life this year.  It was one of those years that all the Christmas gifts received were a home run.  For most of my adult life I have hurried through the Christmas season, counting the days until after the new year aching for the normal to resume.  The hurry wasn't from the rush of the season but from my dislike of the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas day.  I'm glad we did these seasonal days differently this year and just like the shepherds after worshipping the baby in a manger returned back to normal life, but they returned to life changed. 

Christmas had to look differently this year.  It is our first Christmas without my mother.  If we tried to replicate her touch, I think we would have felt a tad bit empty with a whole lot of sadness, missing her presence.  Roy and I had contemplated traveling this holiday but we instead stayed around to help my dad get through the day.  We picked him up and took him to church with us.  After church we ate at T. Jins for lunch.  Chinese food is not a different thing for Roy and I.  We usually went to Fu's Garden on Christmas night the past few years.  I had given my dad several suggestions on what we could for lunch and I never even once suggested that I try cooking Christmas dinner from scratch.  Too painful...for me.  :)  He chose Chinese food because somewhere in those Alzheimer's years with my mom, she decided she didn't like Chinese food.  We were the only people that ate in at lunch.  Most of their business was take out.  After our delicious lunch, we drove my dad around the area on Farm to Market Roads that he had driven as a young salesman.  I think he really enjoyed that.  In fact, he was downright interesting telling us stories of how different stores began or history of the area we were driving through.  His conversations were so refreshing since he wasn't talking about his usual repeated topics.  We came back to our home for dessert and after a little while, we took my dad back home.  Once Roy and I returned home I don't think either one of us budged too much off the couch for the rest of the night.  I was exhausted both emotionally and physically.  We finally opened our stocking stuffers to one another around 9:00 pm.  That is the latest we have ever opened gifts on Christmas day.  Roy loved all his stuff from the Tractor Supply store and I loved all the things he had picked out for me.  Roy knows my love language of journals and pens....and books....and jewelery. 

The Houston area received the much needed gift of rain over the weekend.  Just a little bit of rain greened up pastures and fields around us.  Since it was so cold and rainy on Christmas Eve we opted out of the 8:00 pm service and stayed home.  Roy had gone on Thursday to a place right down the road a piece called Good Old Boys.  They have a restaurant and a catering company.  He ordered Cajun fried chicken and a cherry pie and he picked them up on Saturday.  Oh my, the chicken and the pie were so good!  Who knew? 

I feel fortunate to be alive after braving a Target run yesterday afternoon.  If we still lived in Houston there isn't any doubt in my mind that we wouldn't have made that choice.  The store was busy but not as bad as I thought it would be.  We got the stuff on our list and then some and we were home within the hour.

Today is putting away Christmas decorations day.  Hopefully Roy will help just a little if I can pull him away from the computer and working on his website.  I ain't going up in the attic...