Tag: Christmas

Today is Not Friday

Today is the first time since Bellana finished her Fall semester at school (apart from a few hours of miracle on Christmas Day) that both kids are home. They will both be here until Monday morning and I am as happy as a middle aged red head gets.

We were supposed to have a fancy dinner on Christmas Day but we didn’t due to all of the various circumstances. We are having the dinner that we had planned for Christmas tonight. Jen is in the kitchen right now while I watch the clock inch through the last 36 minutes of the work day.

New Years Day is this weekend.

All of these things together have combined to convince my tiny, teeny, tiny little brain that today is Friday. No. Today is not Friday. Today is Wednesday. Wednesday, not Friday. I still have a full day of work tomorrow that I have to get through before the holiday weekend starts.

My brain is broken. My brain cannot process the fact that today is not Friday. I feel like I’m losing my mind!

Back to Reality

Show me an American adult who isn’t day dreaming about week long Christmas vacations and I will show you someone who is either lying or took this week off because they were day dreaming about week long Christmas vacations at some other point in the recent past.

Damn it. As it turned out I could not have taken any time off this week. There are too many pressing things at work. Still… I really wish I had.

Back to work at 9:00. Until then I am moving some of my desk back to the bed room from the office. I think we’ll keep the extra desk in the office for weekends and stuff. I don’t want to try to work in there while Jen is working. We did that at the start of the pandemic and we just distracted each other all day. Nope. Separate rooms is professionally good. Outside of work though, I really liked being in the same room with her even when we weren’t actually doing anything together.

So that’s my first post-Christmas workday morning. I can see how fascinated you all are. Have a good first day back, folks. Hopefully everyone’s jobs are nice and quiet today. HoHoHopefully.

Christmas: Recap

We got a little Christmas snow last night, though it may have actually been Boxing Day snow. I’m not sure. Not enough to worry about, but I started cleaning it off anyway. I’m halfway through and my back hurts so much that I can’t stand. So I will rest up a bit before taking another shot at it and while I do that I will write about what was going on over the last few days.

Last week the kids finished up their semester. Harry drove Bellana’s car home on Thursday. Bellana didn’t come with him. One of her roommates lives down south in the former confederacy (which should be pronounced the way Eric Cartman pronounces it, confederasaw). She and a third roommate helped her drive home. They made it to Virginia on Friday and the rest of the way on Saturday. She was booked to fly home late Wednesday night and get here just after midnight on Thursday.

While she was down south her roommate’s brother started showing symptoms. She saw him on Sunday and then he tested positive on Tuesday. Bellana decided she would do her quarantine at dad’s house while waiting for her PCR test results which probably wouldn’t come back until Sunday. And as such, Christmas at our house was postponed and Jen and I were crushed.

Originally we had talked about moving Christmas morning to New Years Eve as that would be the first day that Jen and I were both off from work and we could do the whole Christmas experience as if nothing had happened. Later it was decided that we would do Christmas morning on Wednesday evening as that would be the next time the kids were here (barring a positive test, of course) and really no one was going to want to wait an extra couple of days.

Yesterday they did their Christmas morning at dad’s house, which they were going to do this year regardless of Covid. In a normal year they would wake up at dad’s and come to our house in the late morning. Next year it will be the opposite. Yesterday though, as the clock ticked over to the afternoon and no kids arrived it was really just devastating. It’s such a silly thing. What difference does the calendar date make anyway. Christmas is a concept. Christmas is a feeling. Christmas is family. So what if we push it off a few days? Well… apparently the calendar date is a big deal because yesterday just felt awful.

And then…

Around 1:00pm, with our Chinese Food “traditional Jewish Christmas dinner” en route, Bellana sent a text. The PCR results were in early and she tested negative. Can they come over around 4:00pm? Yes! Yes you can! They got here and massive hugs were exchanged and Christmas commenced and all was right with the world. They were even able to join in on a quick zoom call with my brother and sister and their families. HoHoHo! Literally a Christmas miracle.

Covid can suck it, we had Christmas after all.

I can’t say it was the best Christmas ever, because the first half of the day was by far the worst, but as Christmas miracles go… I’ll take it!

And that, loyal readers, is the story of the 2021 Christmas that almost wasn’t. Covid Christmas II: The Year that Had a Santa Claus After All.

Dabbling in a New Tradition?

When I was in college (the last time) I had a radio show on the campus radio station, 91.5 FM WUML Lowell. For a stretch of time we did a 30 minute segment with the school’s men’s basketball coach. I don’t remember how we got on the subject, but there was a time when we were talking about Christmas for some reason. It was probably just before the end of the Fall semester and we probably all had Christmas break on the brain. Whatever.

The basketball coach (whose name is escaping me right now, I’m old and this was nearly 20 years ago after all*) was telling us about his Christmas tradition. He is Jewish, so he and some family members would spend Christmas day going out to eat at a Chinese food restaurant and then going home and watching Star Trek. I don’t know about the rest of you, but that sounds like a fantastic way to spend a day to me.

I joked with Jen the other day that, with Christmas day essentially being called off for us, we should follow the coach’s tradition. We laughed about it. Then we started planning what to do for Christmas dinner and we moved on with our lives. This morning, Jen changed her mind. We’re going to try and get some Chinese food for Christmas dinner. I don’t know if we’ll be able to get it delivered so it might not happen, but we’re going to take a shot.

That got me thinking. Is Chinese food at Christmas really a Jewish tradition? I know exactly one person who does it, but television and movies make it seem like they all do it. Do they? To the Google I go!

Why Do Jewish People Eat Chinese Food On Christmas?

So there you have it! NPR says it’s real so that’s good enough for me. That means we are officially stepping on the toes of a major religion’s (unofficial) Christmas tradition. I hope that’s okay with everyone, what with us not being Jewish at all.

I’ll let you know how it goes. Fingers crossed for delivery options.

*It was Ken Barer, the winningest coach in UMass Lowell Men’s Basketball history. Now that I have read this over I am starting to doubt that story a little. I am 90% sure that he was the one who shared this with us, but my usual sense of crippling doubt is making me question if I have the details right. It doesn’t matter to the post, really. I just like getting the facts straight.