Christmas Eve is traditionally family time. But if you have no family members available, it can be less than celebrative--especially when the husband's toes are sticking out of a big black boot, vulnerable to the cold and to everything else. He is still thinking that his toe was not dysfunctional enough to warrant this kind of surgical recovery time, but next summer when he is out golfing with his new shorter and straighter toe, the pain and inconvenience will be long forgotten, I am sure. Not unlike a women who loves her new baby so much that she forgets the pain of pregnancy and delivery, he will be glad to have a fully functional foot.
Yesterday the pinned-straight toe was x-rayed and re-wrapped. Everything appears to be normal. The husband asked the nurse to photograph the bare foot with his phone. I will spare you that sight! The four-inch, red, raised incision, and that pin, fitted through the marrow of the toe and sticking out front...it was not pretty.
Our gift opening and Christmas dinner will be tomorrow evening, including a video-skyping gift opening with the Florida contingent of the family. But the prudent thing to do tonight, given the situation with the convalescent-one, is to just stay home. Last year I was missing a few essential ingredients as stores closed early on Christmas Eve. I had no broccoli for the family favorite, The Chicken/Broccoli Casserole. I will not be caught short this year. I am "making a list and checking it twice" and soon will be picking up everything I need until Monday.
Yesterday there were several late afternoon FedEx deliveries. Suddenly my extra tall and fresh backyard-cut Christmas tree has a respectable amount of presents under it. My inner Christmas child's grinchy heart is growing just a little in anticipation.
This morning I awoke to a light blanket of snow. We have had the warmest December that I can remember, with only a few days and a few flakes of snow which did not last. This too will pass--as my mother might have said (more likely about the toe, though, than the snow!)--that is, will most likely be gone by Christmas morning..
Later:
As our home-alone evening unfolded, dark and quiet, my inner grinchiness was beginning to emerge. We decided to escape our fate of nothing to do on a holiday by taking a short tour around town. It was interesting to observe that nothing was open. "Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse." (I had caught him in a peanut butter-laced trap under the sink.) Downtown, especially, was virtually deserted, a rapture-like Saturday night. Was it the second coming (and we, left behind) or just another celebration of the first coming of Christ?
Actually, one Thai restaurant was open for business. And there were some parties happening. But otherwise, it was an eerily silent night--a good night to reflect on that pregnant virgin of long ago, enduring the labor pain of the birth of the Christ-child.
The husband with the p(a)in-in-the-toe soon wanted to return home from our lights tour. He stopped the car (no traffic) and allowed me to take a few photos. In this season--the darkest of the year--the festive lights around the city did help to cheer our spirits and to prepare our gloomy hearts for the coming celebration of the birthday of a King.
"Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!"
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