Christmas 2022.
You all have 4 days until Christmas! But for us, we celebrated on Dec 8th. It was the day after our anniversary outing. She had a very bad morning on the 8th, and when our hospice nurse arrived that afternoon, she delivered news that Kristi was declining fairly quickly. I did not want to get to a point where she was unable to enjoy or be alert and awake enough to enjoy Christmas as a family and no one really wanted to say it but we all knew this would be the last one with her, so the plans changed and we celebrated that night.
As you can probably guess, I did not have much time to shop and be her primary caregiver at the same time, but the dad in me was determined to try to make this as close to the same as the previous years. Guess what, I'm still bad at that. I'm too practical. My big gifts for Abby and Luke:
1. Matching portable fire-proof safes with their SS cards, passports, and birth certificates in them. Guess what, adults... I am no longer the keeper of these things.
2. Matching automobile engine code readers. Yes, now you can figure out on your own what's wrong with your cars.
Those are definitely "don't thank me now, but you'll thank me later" types of gifts. Had it all been left up to me, this gift opening night would have been really uneventful. Luckily, Kristi is a planner. When she was still able and mobile, she had been ordering from Amazon and other places for months in advance. She even had things wrapped for months in advance and stored away in a closet. Even though Christmas was approaching fast, I had only been concerned about taking care of her, but she wanted this to be a very special Christmas for all of us. She didn't even know if she would still be here with us, but that didn't matter. She had it all planned out. She got to the point where she couldn't wrap anymore so she asked our great friends Jan Freeman and Janet Taylor to please come over and "pretty up" the things she had already wrapped with bows, ribbons and name tags. She wanted everything to be extra special. She even had gifts for me, and they were awesome. A metal detector! A nerd's gift of champions! She knows us better than we know ourselves. She always goes over and above to make Christmas special. From the sausage and bacon bread she would make on Christmas morning - oh, the smell that filled the house - to the stockings overflowing with candy and things she thought the kids and I would enjoy, to the steak dinner that evening with all the stuff we liked to go with it, and then finally a birthday cake she and Abby would bake for Jesus. It was always special because she made sure it was. She did it. I didn't do it. She did it. She wanted "our tradition" to be ours - unique and memorable.
...
I'm not sure what will happen to those traditions after this year. I really don't. Maybe I will try to do those things still. I'm sure Oliver would love a big steak! I guess it depends on if the kids are still here or have gone on to build their own lives and make their own traditions, which I fully expect and encourage them to do. I just don't know... This wasn't the plan. But the point of this is that in Kristi's uncertainty of life, immense physical pain, and her roller coaster state of emotions, her family's Christmas experience was priority one. She did not want it to be about her. No present given from her screamed, "You better miss me!" So selfless. So caring. So personal. Our Christmas on Thursday, December the 8th, even though most of our traditional items were left out, was the best one we have ever had.
From our family to yours, Merry Christmas!
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