Christmas 365 – Days 35 (Feb 4) – 37 (Feb 6)

So I never expected that I would have fallen so behind but several things have occurred that have just waylaid any attempts to write.  I will not be verbose (I think) so that I can get up to speed with what has been occurring.  I think I will also break it down by day so that it makes more sense.

Day 35
We woke up to a Lollipop Friday and it had SNOWED in San Antonio, Texas during the night!!!  Yeah – I guess I’m a typical south Texas gal as I was pretty darn excited about .5 inches of sandy-feeling white stuff!  It was (literally) the coolest!  It’s funny how on a normal school day, we have the hardest time waking up the children…but on this morning, like magic or something, they were awake and playing outside in 27-degree weather AT 6:17 A.M.!!!!  Very interesting…

After a half-day of work, Lilly spent the night with a friend and Pat and I took the boys out to dinner and the thoughtful/mindful thing I did was…I took the boys to HEB and let them pick out whatever dessert they wanted.  This is a pretty big deal in our home so the boys thought they were SOOO lucky!  Liam picked a bag of Hostess Powdered Doughnuts and Dylan picked out Chips Ahoy.  No – I didn’t let them eat all of them…but they did have some for breakfast!

Day 36
I woke up completely depressed…and this is highly unusual for me.  I have a friend that has become rather like a sister to me.  We are very close in age, we both have three children, we both woke up to the Lord at the same time/place…and we have shared a lifetime worth of experiences, laughter and heartache in a very condensed period of time.  So what’s the problem, you ask?  She and her husband have been transferred to Ohio and they leave February 12^th…and this would be their last attendance at church…and I was also in charge of planning their going away party to be held the next day in my home.  And I just couldn’t do anything.  I had to make a grocery list, plan the party’s food, email reminders to the guests, go to the store, clean up, etc, etc…and all I did was start a list…and go back to bed…and wept until I fell asleep.  I woke up…nibbled on some stuff…and was pretty much out of the picture…so no Christmas today.

Did go to church in the evening and all I could do was cling to my friend as we both cried…  I know – pathetic but true.  Maybe the Christmas was that I dared to be real and raw rather than try to be cool.  Who knows…

I did think a lot about depression and how awful it is…and how easy it is to fall into it.  Okay – maybe I wasn’t really depressed…just very, very sad.  I have a feeling I may experience this another time during the year as I still have a LONG way to go before this quest is over…and so I’ll save the topic of sadness/depression for another day.

Day 37
Game Day…literally.  No time to be sad as I would have 27 people in my home by 4:00 p.m.  I got up, finished my list and went shopping.  In my naïveté, I really believed that HEB would be empty at 12 noonish as I thought everyone would have already purchased their stuff and would be home cooking or getting ready.  Wrong!  HEB was positively packed!!!  No worries.  Got my shopping done, picked up the Papa Murphy’s pizzas and headed home.  Started preparing food, setting up appetizers, remembered to comb my hair and put on some lipstick.  People came, food was eaten, laughter was shared…and then it was over…time to clean up…except that it wasn’t really over…  I don’t believe in “good-byes” …only “see you laters.” 

My Christmas for today was making sure that my sweet friend and her family had a splendid time and felt all the love that our group has for them.  Mission accomplished!

Until tomorrow...or whenever I can write again!   Annie