I might have mentioned at some point how much I hate having my plans changed.
Whenever that happens, until I finally manage to wrest myself into acceptance of my new schedule, I find myself playing a movie in my mind of the way things were supposed to go.
So today I'm thinking about waking up with my family in the bustle of my in-laws' house in Ohio. I'm thinking about my daughter making cookies with Grandma and my sons plashing about after Grandpa in their boots. I'm thinking about my sister-in-law finally getting to know her newest nephew in person. I'm thinking about Mark meeting old friends for breakfast and me catching up on clothes-shopping with my best friend from high school at the after-Christmas sales. I'm thinking about the annual $15 round-robin gift exchange at Mark's family get-together, with — what was it? ten, eleven?– little cousins running around, so that the Christmas tree will have to be braced with wires running into eye-hooks in the wall. I'm thinking about my own grandma's cookies and pie, and my smaller (but just as loud) extended family gathered together. I'm thinking about looking forward to the long drive back on New Year's Day, the kids in the back seat and fourteen hours of sitting next to my husband musing about all the blessings we have and had and will have.
What I'm doing, though, is making chicken soup in my own kitchen.
Monday night Leo started throwing up. And then it was Oscar, and then Milo, and then me, and now Mark is down for the count. MJ was sick last night too, although she seems pretty lively this morning.
Today I felt well enough to dig out the car and go to the grocery store, and I tried to pick up things enough to make cookies and things. It feels pretty thin though. There's no tree yet (I suppose there's still time for that – but Mark is too ill to help, and I'm not sure I can put up the artificial tree myself with a baby crawling around). Almost all our presents are in Ohio (save one biggish one for the kids that I'm hoping will be exciting enough to suffice).
I could say "Oh well, it's the non-materialistic, meditative Christ-centered Christmas I've always wanted," but I'm not even sure that any of us are going to go to Mass — some special kinds of Christmas cheer, you don't want to spread around, if you know what I mean, and even if we all feel better tomorrow we might still be contagious.
There is some cheer to be had; I sang "Gloria in excelsis deo" as I loaded the groceries into the trunk of the car, and arrived home to find happy children devouring chocolate and fruit from a basket newly sent by Mark's mom and dad. Still, I'm a little melancholy and stuck in the Christmas that might have been.
So I'll tend my soup, and hope that it appeals to everyone by the time it's finished; and I'll clear off the counters and maybe make a batch or two of cookies. I think that everything will be different in the morning. It should, shouldn't it?
Merry Christmas to my little band of readers and friends.
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