Wow, that was quite the holiday!  A whole heckuva lot of fun, but not nearly what we’d thought it would be a month or so ago.

The differences started with good news, when my partner called and said that he’d be able to be in town for the holidays instead of the expected 6 hours away (yes, this is a new relationship for those of you keeping score).  A wonderful and unexpected Christmas present!  We hadn’t thought we’d be able to see each other until the end of January.

The next difference happened on the evening of December 23 when I was just getting started on the last of the baking projects.  I got a call from Mom saying that she’d just called the ambulance to come for Dad, and would I please come and drive her to whichever hospital they took him to.  He’d awakened from a nap and was so weak that he was unable to sit up on his own.  After 4 hours in emergency we learned that he had a touch of pneumonia.  They gave him a honking great bag of IV antibiotics (I swear that thing was nearly the size of the bag of saline), and an hour later his temperature had dropped a full degree and his blood oxygen levels were on the rise.  *whew*  Although they had things well under control, they decided to keep him in for a few days to make sure there were no complications due to his pre-existing COPD.  Baking was completed at 2 a.m. and turned out very well, all things considered.

The upshot of all this was that we ended up having either 2 or 4 Christmas celebrations this year, depending on how you count.  Mom & I had one of our own on the morning of the 25th, then my partner picked us up and all three of us went to visit Dad, bearing gifts.  Having to wear masks and gowns made us look like an odd medical version of the Three Wise Guys.  One of the nurses tried to charge us $5 each to go in and visit him; as usual Dad had lucked out bigtime in the nurse department.  Probably not the best circumstances to introduce my partner to my parents, but I suppose it can only improve from there, eh?  The three of us then returned to Mom & Dad’s place to have a rather large Christmas feed, including my very own “faux turducken”.

The rest of the time was a whirlwind of dinners, coffees, parties, and “touristy” stuff before my partner had to return home to the deep south.  Staying home and watching TV with the dogs on New Year’s Eve was restful, if not terribly exciting.

Dad came home on December 30th, so on New Year’s Day we had another Christmas celebration, with prezzies and dinner, to make sure he didn’t miss out on the traditional oinkfest.   :pig:

All things considered, it turned out to be a really great Christmas.  A bit unusual in places, but over all very enjoyable.  Now to tackle the debris field that I euphemistically call my “kitchen”….