Dec. 26 - Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas -- a day late.

I think everyone expected us to have a rough time with Christmas this year, but we managed all right. We were supposed to go up to my mom's in Ramsey, but decided it would be best not to push our luck on the icy roads. That's par for the course for our holidays this year, though. We already missed Thanksgiving with the Kleins and Christmas at my dad's on the 12th. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if we were all sick and had to miss the Klein Christmas next weekend, too.

Once Jonathan woke up from his nap, we headed down the road to spend the rest of the day at Chris' parents' house. We got there in time to watch the second half of "A Christmas Story," and afterward enjoyed some turkey and stuffing, green beans, cooked carrots, and mashed potatoes (of which Jonathan had three helpings -- "more tatoes"). It wasn't the normal hustle and bustle of Christmas, but it was a good time with family just the same.

Jonathan thought it was his job to keep tabs on people that evening, too. We weren't a large group (Grandma, Grandpa and uncles Tom, Jerry and Pete in addition to Jonathan, Chris and myself), but if someone left the family room, Jonathan would put his hands up and ask, "Where Uncle Jerry go?" or "Where Ganpa go?" etc.

I think the main reason it wasn't too depressing is that we hadn't thought much about the holidays with all the chaos since Garrett was born. We hadn't done any Christmas shopping, so we didn't have any presents for Garrett to make his absence more poingnant. And I hadn't played out the family gatherings in my mind -- with the exception of the Rossing Christmas, simply because that date was approaching when Garrett had seemed so healthy. I had been looking forward to introducing Garrett to great grandma Rossing, my uncle Mike and Renita, and other family members who hadn't met him yet. But that get-together came and went the day after Garrett died, so we were in full grieving mode then anyway.

If I had already thought about a happy Christmas day as a family of four, this would have obviously fallen short and been overshadowed by the sense of loss. I guess being too busy to set many expectations was a blessing.