Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas!

If I have noticed any coherent pattern in the events of my life, large and small, since the day Hurricane Katrina stomped all over the Gulf Coast it has been one of expecting the unexpected. Day after day we are reminded that things just aren't going to be the same. If we are bold (or foolish) enough to make plans - we can fully expect that anything and everything will happen to ensure that said plans are never carried out. The phrase "This is how we always do it" is just not applicable to anything at all these days. Christmas Eve has been no exception.

We had planned (ha!) on the morning of Christmas Eve being our time to volunteer to drive items to needy families who have been unable to make it to the Operation Vanessa distribution point. Planned. We had planned on it. When I saw Dave's face this morning, however, I knew that we were going to have to play the day by ear. He was white as a sheet and looking rather rough. By the time Mom arrived for morning coffee, I was thinking maybe she and I could still make the delivery rounds while Dave 'rested' as best he could at home with the kids... But then there was the fateful phone call from the Carpet & Tile store: a crew was coming to lay our floors. The next call was from Art Vincent asking if we would be available to babysit the distribution site while he ran some errands and I was so sorry to have to tell him that I couldn't do it -- I simply could not bring myself to leave a sickly Dave home with contractors and kids on Christmas Eve. Mom quickly volunteered to go alone, however... And so dissolved another Christmas Eve expectation -- Mom would not be with us for most of the day.


It's true that a Christmas tree can brighten any room -- and this year's was so gorgeous with the kids' handmade ornaments and all of the extra lights we had (we used a lot of the lights that we normally use for outdoors) that you really didn't notice the unpainted drywall or the contractor's paper all over the floor... It was downright cozy in there.

The kids certainly didn't notice... and they didn't notice the contractors working in the living room either. All they knew was it was Christmas Eve. We took our cues from them and tried to relax.

By nightfall, Mom had returned from Ocean Springs and came in bearing gifts for the kids. Dave had reached the point of total and uncontrollable nausea by then - but he held up pretty well under the circumstances... We put on a pot of coffee and rested while Mom handed out her goodies.




After the first round of present-exchanging, Dave and I started to realize that we barely had the energy to give the kids the presents from us. Midnight Mass seemed awfully far away - and our crew was still working away at the floor in the living room.


It was about time for another plan to fall through -- and so it happened. By the time we were supposed to be getting ready for Mass - I had begun to feel the way Dave had looked all day long. We threw on some clothes just as the flooring crew started picking up their tools for the night and headed to church just before 10pm. I made it as far as one of the steel chairs on the back row next to Mom. I think I sat down for a total of 10 or 20 seconds before I realized I wasn't going to make it and ran for the rest room.

Everything after that is a little fuzzy.

I slept through most of Christmas Day... but from what I remember it was one of the calmest, most peaceful Christmas Days I have had in a very long time.

Can't wait to see what the new year has in store....