A Delayed Christmas

I’m writing this on Christmas Day. Well, everybody else’s Christmas Day. John, Brittany and I have declared Sunday, December 27th to be Christmas this year. Brittany has to work Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after. That’s what happens when you’re in the hospitality business.

She had a choice between working Thanksgiving Day or Christmas and chose going to Chicago with us to visit my family over Thanksgiving. Christmas was farther off and could be worried about later.

We told her we would wait until she got here to have our Christmas too. We wouldn’t even open our gifts to each other.

She celebrated early with her roommate and other friends. Before they all went home to their families a few days before Christmas. She worked Christmas Eve from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. and I noticed on the phone she sounded a little down. It had hit her she’d be going home to an empty house both that night and Christmas night.

I tried to cheer her up, reminding her that after she got off work on the 26th, it would be our Christmas Eve and we still had all of that to look forward too.

Today was worse. In fact her Facebook status was “Worst Christmas Ever!” When she got off work at 3 she drove 30 minutes to a friend’s house to pick up their dog to bring home to “dog sit” overnight. They had just gone out of town that morning. When she got to the house she couldn’t find the dog. Then she noticed the open back door. They had forgotten to close it and the dog was outside in the rain, looking, she said, totally miserable.

She managed to get him in her car and then wrestled his crate in too. It was apparently large enough for 3 people to crawl inside. She finally got him home, cleaned up, dry and settled and then decided to go to one of those movies where you eat dinner while watching. She got there early; picked out a spot way in the back and spread her dinner out. A little while later a family came in; crawling over her and knocking her dinner to the floor. (I THINK this was when she texted her Facebook status in.)

I’m not worried about her having a better Christmas with us on Sunday. The bar is set pretty low and I’ve got lots planned. John and I have had a really nice Christmas while waiting for her too. Church and a friend’s annual Christmas Eve party last night and a neighbor’s brunch this morning where we all watched Santa Claus water ski on Lake Hickory.

He’s still in town because he’s delivering our gifts on the 27th. He doesn’t mind waiting and neither do we. She’s worth the wait!