December 26, 2013

Christmas and the Day After

December 26, 2013

There is not a blog posting for Christmas Day.  There should be, but I was just exhausted last night and had things to do this morning.  This will include yesterday (Christmas Day) and today. Christmas is special for so many reasons.  First, and the most important of all, it is the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.  Second, for most people it is a time when families try to gather to spend time with those they love.  Third, it is a time of gift giving.  We give gifts to those we love.  At our house this year, my heart was so full of happiness because all of our sons chose to come home to spend time with the family.  I think a lot of the reason it was so important to them to be with us and with each other is at least in part because of all the medical things that have gone on this past year with Ron and me.

Our four sons

Our oldest son, who lives furthest away, was so eager to come.  He had not been able to be with us since I had my Cochlear Implant.  His wife had come and spent a week with us to help me following the surgery, but I think he wanted to see for himself, how I was doing.  He may be the most soft spoken of the bunch so I have trouble hearing him sometimes, but he is so glad that I can hear!  They will be staying the longest.

It is such a blessing to us that our sons want to be with us!  They want to be with each other.  They all love both of their grandmothers and want to visit with them.  They love to laugh.  They love to tease each other.  At one point yesterday, I watched and listened as our oldest son laughed until he could hardly catch his breath.  What a joy to be able to hear that laughter.  They stayed and played games until the early hours of this morning.  Two of the couples are staying with us.  One family stayed with my mom, and one family lives here in town.

I did amazingly well with my hearing Christmas day.  Much of the time there were 23 of us in the living room opening gifts and visiting.  Besides our sons and their families, my mom and Ron's mom were here as well as a young single mom and her daughter.  They have spent many holidays with us over the past several years.  I sat in about the middle of the room and that helped my hearing.  As always, direction of voices is hard.  I can't tell where a voice came from since I only hear out of one ear.  So sometimes someone would have to point out the speaker to me. 

The food was perfect.  The gifts were great.  The weather was wonderful.  Everyone was healthy.  Who could ask for anything more?  It will be hard to top the gathering this year!

On Christmas Eve I had stayed up late working on last minute gift wrapping, last minute sewing, last minute cooking, and a few other things.  The turkey went in the oven about 1:30 a.m.  (It was a big bird!)  It was 4:30 when I went to sleep.  I was up at 8:30 to start work on the lunch preparations.  Most of the family slept late.  So when Christmas night came, I was the first one asleep at our house.  I think I was asleep by 10:30 or 11:00.  That also means I was up way before anyone else (except my husband who had to go to work).  I fixed breakfast but most didn't get up in time to eat it before it was time to meet my mom who was treating everyone to lunch.  Following lunch our son David and his family had to head back home.

Following lunch, I went to the office for a few hours to pay some bills and make a bank deposit.  After leaving the office I ran two quick errands and came home to spend time with Bob and Vickey.  This evening we all went to Jeff and Barb's for supper.  Barb served some delicious Mexican food and delicious desserts.  Ron and I came home about 8:00 leaving the rest of them to play games or watch videos.  We were both tired, but we also try to allow the kids to spend time together without us there.  We feel it important for them to do that, and knowing we still have several days with them, we came home.

Also, tonight, it was much harder for me to hear.  It was one of those times when I have other loud noises in my head.  It is all a part of the tinnitus, that many hard-of-hearing people have to put up with.  It had been a while since mine had been as bad as it was this evening, but it makes it harder to concentrate on the conversations around me.

My arm continues to improve.  I did not try to deal with the 23+ pound turkey alone.  I asked for help getting it in and out of the oven.  I noticed that those who helped, struggled under the weight of it also.