it was rather quiet at my house. My son and his girlfriend had planned to drive down from Richmond early Christmas Eve, celebrate with us, have dinner, stay late, then return home. He was scheduled to work supervisory shift at Patient First but became very ill with respiratory infection early in the week. He tried everything but only got worse and finally went in for treatment on Tuesday afternoon. Poor baby was totally out of it for Christmas. He had coughed so much his throat was too raw to speak and his chest felt like it was on fire. His girlfriend called to tell us he was on antibiotics and needed to stay home in bed. Got a call from yesterday; he still sounds awful but said he was beginning to feel better and had been able to stay up a couple hours yesterday and finally exchange gifts with his love.
Christmas Day my husband and I commented on how different Christmas is without the excitement of children in the house. We were both tired from all the doings earlier in the week so had a leisurely breakfast and sat around in our pjs for awhile, made a few calls to family and friends out of the area, then played on the computer for a bit. Didn't feel much like opening gifts so didn't.
In the afternoon my father and his companion came by and visited for about an hour before going on to have dinner at her son's house. Dear June, the last few holiday seasons have been tough ones for her. Two years ago, her daughter, who was a couple years younger than me, lost her battle to COPD and related diseases. That was between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Last year she lost the second of her sons to an unexpected cardiac arrest and had to fly to New York during Christmas to settle his estate. This Thanksgiving she had just had a place on her face biopsied. A week before Christmas she was told it was squamous cell carcinoma and she had to go in for surgery. Thankfully, all reports suggest the dermatologist got all the cancer and she is healing up nicely.
At 5:00, our friend, Brenda, who became a widow a couple years ago at Thanksgiving, came by and had dinner with us. After dinner we exchanged gifts and John and I finally decided to open those we'd gotten for each other. No surprises but all very nice. We sat and talked for hours, finally calling it a night sometime after midnight.
Yesterday we went and visited with our grandson and his family. The kids were happy with their gifts and everyone was in good spirits. From there we drove to Suffolk to see hubby's sister and her family. It was a pleasant visit with SIL, BIL, MIL. Our neices, all of whom are teenagers now, were too tied up with each other and their video games to visit with us. Disappointing that they don't have better manners; they had to be reminded by their parents to thank us for their gifts. Have no idea whether they lliked them or not as they seemed indifferent and eager to get back to their games.
All the running around and, I think, the let down of activity from all the recent shopping an d holiday preparations, got to me and by the time we got home, I was ready to crash.
Won't really feel like Christmas to me until Jeremy, my son, is here. I remember so vividly his first Christmas. He was just 10 days old and the lights on the tree fascinated him as did the Christmas music. Whenever I see a Christmas tree since then, I remember sitting in front of the tree with him that first year. Truly, Jeremy is the best Christmas gift I've ever received with the exception of God's gift to us all in the birth of Jesus.
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