I uploaded the photos before Christmas Day was even over, but never quite got past the first line of copy:
“My Mom had already given us notice on Thanksgiving that she wouldn’t be driving out to see us on Christmas this year.”
Instead of leaving these memories to languish in my Drafts folder, I’m opting to share them now, with captions for context.
It was a low-key Christmas, but a relatively merry one that deserves to be remembered.
My work-from-home snuggle buddy came to say hi. I can still use both hands to type, as long as he’s perfectly balanced.
When he hears the shower turn off, Baxter will scratch at the bathroom door, asking to come in. He loves to lay on the drippy bathroom rug while one of his humans is drying off, and he starts purring at maximum volume if that human then covers him with their damp towel.
Seeing Connor with Baxter this morning reminded me of a similar vignette nine years ago as he stood at this same window with Mei.
I miss that kitty. Come to think of it, sometimes I miss that toddler, too.
One common trait of ADHD brains is the inability to gauge how long a given task will take to complete. In my case, it didn’t occur to me that tallying up 11 months’ worth of daily gratitude might take more than, say, an hour or so.
I was way, WAY off.
I had hoped to get a quick blog post up for Thanksgiving Day, just mentioning the things I’m always thankful for in my nightly gratitude journal. As it is, I spent some time on the project on Wednesday and Thursday morning, and still only made it through July before I needed to dive headlong into all the necessary preparations and other adulting over the long weekend.
We hosted Thanksgiving again this year, with my brother-in-law and my Mom coming to visit. Sous vide turkey, oyster stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, roasted root vegetables, cinnamon-honey spread, rolls, and my brother-in-law’s famous green bean casserole comprised the feast, with sugar-free mini pumpkin cheesecakes for dessert.
Since my Mom isn’t keen on driving in the dark, and she would have had to leave our house by mid-afternoon to get home before sunset, she stayed overnight and slept on the pull-out hide-a-bed in the living room. From what she told me the next morning, our cat Baxter got pretty cozy with her at times.
The next morning, before Aaron got up, Connor beat Grammy and me at a game of Sorry, then he went off to play his Switch while I let Grammy beat me in rummy. Once Aaron got up, we all went to lunch before Grammy headed home.
Saturday afternoon, we put up the Christmas tree. At Aaron’s suggestion, we drilled eye-hooks into the baseboards to anchor the tree in hopes of some measure of cat-proofing. We also decided to leave off the delicate and breakable ornaments, like the vintage Baby’s First Christmas or anything that would shatter if it met up with the tile floor in the foyer.
This was actually one of our more successful tree-trimmings, in that no one got irritable or frustrated during the course of the afternoon. Connor even took the initiative to go play with Baxter elsewhere in the house while we were anchoring the tree, to redirect all that nervous kitty energy.
And so begins the holiday season…
