Earlier today I read Ms. Tomie's post about the lead up to her Christmas celebrations. I have so been there. The vision of the perfect Christmas. Then the near death experience of trying to pull that all together. I seriously own that T-shirt. It made my heart break a little inside for her when I pictured her nearly killing herself to get it all just so. I was happy to read that it had turned out purrfect in the end.
Last year I was placed on bed rest for the month on December. I HAD to let it all go. There was nothing perfect about the preparations. Nothing was done the way I felt it should be and there was really nothing I could do to change that. I was so hard on myself and really it was pointless because I had done my best.
I resolved that this year would be different. This year the goal of course was to have a lovely Christmas for my family - lovely, not perfect. The underlying current was that I was going to be kind to myself while doing my best. The result was that I was learning to be happy with good enough.
This year I had some major work deadlines that needed to be met before Christmas. This meant some longer work hours in front of my computer that my poor post concussion brain has not quite grown accustom to. The breaks and pacing that I have been using to cope had to take a back seat along with many other things in order to finish what needed doing. I had to carefully plan my days to make sure that everything that must be done, was getting done.
Then.... The flu hit... My perfectly planned universe was met by my sweet girl getting the flu bug the week before Christmas. All I could think was ugh - how am I going to care for her, get the gift purchased and wrapped AND meet my clients deadlines. All this stress and wasted emotion really for nothing. She really just wanted to sleep. The gifts did indeed all get purchased (the list was quite short this year anyway) and wrapped. I finished up the last of my client work at around 1:00 on Christmas Eve with a cheer.
Then it was time to prepare for Christmas dinner. One of our traditions is to have our big feast on Christmas Eve (as long as we aren't having company on the 25th) so that I do not have to cook on Christmas Day. So I started rolling the cabbage rolls and getting our celebration ready to roll. We ate. We hit the Christmas Eve service at church. We came home and opened our shiny new pj's, prepared for Santa and the reindeer (even the trail of shiny reindeer food running down the driveway) and started watching a movie as a family. Awesome!!!!!
The Christmas morning hit... Along with the flu's next victim... This time it was me... I had been so pumped. I was ready for Christmas. I was not ready for this flu bug. I am so grateful that my kids are older. They were so patient with the whole gift opening process which took 10 times longer than it normally would have because mom had to keep tapping out. Once the gifts were done I went to bed and slept.
Boxing Day arrived... This was the day we were supposed to pack up and drive to Calgary for Christmas with my family. That wasn't happening. I was way to sick. I slept through another full day with a crazy high fever.
Now this crazy flu has just settled into a cough and a runny nose but it sure did an amazing job of rearranging absolutely everything I had planned for Christmas this year. I guess it was just a sweet reminder that it is just a day. An even sweeter reminder that I have an amazing family who took such good care of me when I was completely sidelined. And the silver lining is (just like Sifu Brinker requested), I believe I have this year's flu bug out of the way before the banquet. (That is my Christmas gift to all of you.)
My extended family has been pretty amazing too. I believe we are working to arrange another try at a Christmas gathering either tomorrow or Friday at either our house or my parent's place at Pigeon Lake.
Anyways, that was my crazy, unexpected yet surprisingly blessed week.
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