We made it through the Christmas craziness!

Years ago I read a couple books about de-stressing Christmas but I’ve never been able to manage it as well as I’d like. It was interesting having an outside perspective on our Christmas this year. James comes from a culture that is much more “chill” about the season and I was very aware of it this Christmas. I wanted to be careful about not overwhelming him with our American obsessions but Anne was hoping for everything she missed last Christmas. Fortunately, James is an easy-going, adaptable young man and handled all the fuss just fine. Their mentors in New Zealand, an American woman married to a Kiwi, told them that Christmas was one of the biggest differences between their cultures. It will be interesting to see how James and Anne blend their different styles in the Christmases to come.

I love how families develop their own traditions. We all make them up as we go, borrowing from others and discarding ones that don’t fit. For years, my mother made lots of Christmas cookies and stored them in a mountain of tins, as did her mother before her. My dad used to keep track of how many cookies she made on a 3 x 5 card, obviously pleased with the results of her labors. Early in marriage, I tried to follow her tradition but as the years have gone by it is one part of Christmas that doesn’t happen in the Hurni house. I usually manage to make one batch of gingerbread cookies and that is all. (My mom must have had more self-discipline than me because my main reason for discontinuing the tradition was that I ended up eating most of them.)

But we have a growing nutcracker collection that belongs to Anne, a Father Christmas display and matching Christmas dishes. We have oyster stew on Christmas Eve and homemade cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. Many years ago we learned from Petersburg friends to include sharing small gifts with friends and neighbors so we share our cinnamon rolls with two neighbors each year (and faithfully receive a plate of those Christmas cookies and a loaf of yummy bread back.) It isn’t quite the same as the Petersburg tradition of visiting on Christmas afternoon bearing gifts, but it is what works for us. We read the Christmas story before gift opening to remind ourselves what it’s all really about. We write–and receive–Christmas letters. And now we have developed a fun tradition of “Family Gifts” on Christmas Eve. This year the family gifts were red union suits complete with butt flaps. I also started collecting the 12 Days of Christmas pieces from Pottery Barn, purchased in the mark-down sales after Christmas.

 

 

 

 

Speaking of cookies, my Mom made no Christmas cookies this year, a first. Since Thanksgiving, she has been battling anemia and extreme fatigue and has had several falls. She spends three days a week getting dialysis and other days receiving blood transfusions. Her hemoglobin has dropped to 6.0 and below a couple of times now. She was able to enjoy a short part of a family Christmas on the Sunday prior (after dialysis at 7-10:30 am) but was exhausted the following day. On Christmas Eve she went to the ER to have an x-ray after a fall and was admitted again for dangerously low blood counts.

I decided to drive to Detroit on Saturday thinking that she was going to be released from the hospital to home and I could help with her care. Friday night my brothers told me that they’d requested rehab instead since she was so weak. By Saturday it was obvious that she wasn’t going anywhere. Lizi and I arrived in the late afternoon and I’ve just been sitting at her bedside, mostly watching her sleep. She drifts in and out of consciousness and says something, but often falls back to sleep before completing her thought.

From this hospital room it seems odd that three days ago we opened our stockings and gifts, roasted lamb for our holiday meal, and enjoyed relaxing by the fire when it was all over. Today I’m remembering the end of Kellen’s two videos, one announcing the gender of his baby brother, the other heralding Christmas. Near the end of both videos, Kellen leans forward and says “He will be here soon” in a voice obviously filled with excitement. Though I feel sad that my mother’s life on earth is drawing to a close, there is a small part of me that wants to lean forward, like Kellen, and announce she will soon be in heaven. Like Kellen, I really don’t understand what is coming but I’m excited anyways.

Excited seems like the wrong word to use at a time like this so I looked it up in a thesaurus, hoping to find a more appropriate word. I liked “enraptured” and “enlivened” because that is the truth of what we believe. My mom will shed her earthly tent but will enter a life that is more real, more blessed, and more lasting than we can ever imagine.