An Unusual Holiday Season

This is the time of year that I usually start scouring food sites and recipes to decide what I’m cooking.  The holidays are usually a very busy time for me, as I love to hang with friends, feed people, and entertain.  Over the past 5 years, I’ve had to be a little more creative than in the past due to life circumstances.  2020 will prove no different, thanks to COVID-19.

Many of you who know me personally are aware that in 2015, the holiday season took an awful turn.  My mother, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer, began to lose her battle just around Thanksgiving.  She loved the winter holiday season and she was determined to make it through, not for herself, but for us.  She had a request in 2015…she wanted all of us (her husband, children, grandchildren, her remaining siblings, her nieces, and nephews) to all gather with her to celebrate Thanksgiving.  Since she was not able to travel, my sister Dana and I jumped into action.  We reached out to everyone and were very candid…mommy didn’t have long left and she wanted to be with her people.  We asked everyone to make all efforts to join us.  We had a photographer friend come to capture the memories.  And Dana and I cooked a huge feast for the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  Everyone came out and we had a blast.  Despite mommy not feeling well that day, you could see the joy on her face and feel the love.

Just days after, mommy’s health began to rapidly decline.  Since she lived only 15 minutes away from me, I visited daily over the next few weeks, bringing her all kinds of meals, protein shakes, ice cream…anything to get her to eat.  There were trips to the ER, blood transfusions, visits from the hospice nurse.  All during this time, she was giving me instructions.  She showed me where she hid the Christmas gifts that she bought for us.  She gave me the little gift tags that she got from a Salvation Army tree and asked me to go buy the gifts for these anonymous kids.  She held my hand in between naps.  We giggled and we cried, as I watched her slowly slip away.  Her brother, Jerry, came from NJ to spend a few days with her.  I have no idea what they talked about or how they spent their days, but do I know that it was a precious period for them both.

Dana came home from NC as soon as she could.  I have never been so happy to see my big sister in my whole life.  No one but her could know what I was going through at that moment and I was grateful to have someone to lean on.  Mommy had a doctor’s appointment on December 21st.  We knew that she would not be coming home.  We took her straight from her Oncologist’s office to the hospital, where she was put on inpatient hospice service.  As we got her settled in her room, mommy spoke her last words to us.  She looked at my sister and me and said, “Why are you here.  Go home and take care of your families.”  

Dana and I knew that we had to carry on with Christmas or Mommy would never forgive us.  My stepfather got the fake tree out of storage and the children decorated the tree.  Dana and I decided who was doing what for Christmas Eve.  We ALWAYS spent it at mommy’s house having dinner and exchanging gifts.  My mom always made the meal every year: roasted leg of lamb, roasted baby potatoes and creamed spinach.  We divided up the tasks and we were going to make it work.  While all of this was going on, we were taking turns sitting at mommy’s bedside (luckily, her apartment was directly across the street from the hospital).

I think we all knew in our hearts that mommy would not die on Christmas.  She would not want to ruin the holiday for us.  On Christmas Eve, I took a miniature Christmas tree to her hospital room and put her wrapped gifts around it on a table in her room.  We then had a very somber Christmas Eve meal.  As we were eating, I remembered that mommy showed me where she hid everyone’s presents so I went to get them and handed them out to everyone.  We laughed and we cried.  

On December 27th, Dana was getting ready to go back to NC.  She and her family stayed for as long as they could, but since they knew they’d be back very soon for a funeral, they needed to go tie up some loose ends.  Dana and I agreed to meet at the hospital to visit mom before she headed out.  As we entered room 309, the nurse stopped us at the door. She said, “Please wait a few moments, she’s leaving us now.”  She was finally at peace.  And our world had just fallen apart.  

Now that I am in tears (maybe you are too), let me get to the heart of what I am trying to say with this sad story.  The show must go on.  This may be an unusual holiday season for most of us.  Many people are practicing social distancing and avoiding large gatherings with our most vulnerable family and friends: the babies, our elderly family, and our immunocompromised loved ones.  That doesn’t mean that we need to ignore the holidays or not celebrate.  It means we have to re-invent them.  We have to start new traditions and remember what this holiday season is about.  It’s about love, it’s about festivity, it’s about being thankful and about giving.  While I can’t have my usual Friendsgiving the Saturday before Thanksgiving, I’m going to do a Virtual Friends Happy Hour.  Instead of my usual big fried turkey dinner, I am doing buttermilk-brined cornish game hens for my small family of four.  Instead of hosting my typical cookie swap at my home, I will hold a virtual one on Zoom and offer a digital cookbook of everyone’s recipe submissions.  

Life is crazy.  It’s full of surprises; some great and some gut-wrenchingly awful.  But isn’t that what makes life beautiful?  We can’t stop these crazy things from happening, but we can be flexible and bob and weave with the punches we are thrown.  So whether it’s coping with the loss of a loved one, keeping distanced from those that you really want to be with, tough financial times, or poor health, please just find a way to be creative, make a plan and find some joy this holiday season, because this really is the “most wonderful time of the year.”