Inside:
My husband noticed an ad in our neighborhood electronic notice board for handmade wreaths and forwarded the ad to me. The price was right ($20 for a 24 inch decorated wreath), otherwise he would have ignored the ad. I ordered one handmade wreath from the advertiser, Angel. With a name like that, she had to make beautiful wreaths, right? She, her husband and a teenaged child were making them from scratch and decorating them with colors of the customers’ choice. I ordered mine, wrote that I would pick it up and gave the color of my front door(bright red) on which the wreath would hang and thought no more about it until after Thanksgiving. I went back over my communications with the family and saw, for the first time, that there was never a specific reply. Then I noticed that there was a blanket message saying the family had been overwhelmed with 143 orders and couldn’t possibly fulfill them. So, no wreath.
This morning I ordered a permanent one from one of the catalogues that fills my mailbox every holiday season. I don’t love the idea of a fake wreath, but I do love the idea of tucking it away after Christmas into its canvas wreath bag (also ordered from the catalogue), and unzipping it the next year without having to think about it.
My husband is Jewish. I am not. He could not care less about Christmas. The first year we were together, he decreed no decorations, inside or out. It was kind of a bleak Christmas for me, especially since whatever day of the week Christmas fell on, was just another day for him. No gifts, no Christmas carols playing on the radio, no celebration, no family, no nothing. After that first Christmas together, he allowed as how it probably wasn’t fair to deprive me of a holiday I had happily celebrated for 59 years. I vowed I would never go through another December 25 without my family, and I haven’t.
For five years we have traveled to Madison, Wisconsin where my oldest daughter and her husband and son live. On the way home, I’ve visited my youngest daughter in Minneapolis. My husband announced before Thanksgiving that he is not going to join me this year. He is 86 and afraid of airports and flying with others who may have the virus. I don’t blame him, but I’m disappointed. I’m not going to make the side trip to Minneapolis for three reasons. I’m not so sure about the cleaning protocols of Air BnBs in which I might stay. My daughter is a Trump supporter who believes the election was stolen, and that certain voting machines were pre-programmed to choose President-elect Biden. I am a Biden supporter. I cannot foresee any benefit to either one of us of sitting in her tiny apartment in North Minneapolis, trying to find some topic on which to converse. We’ve had a hard enough time on the phone in the last year. Finally, we will not have the luxury of any kind of distraction including eating out, as out in Minneapolis is usually below 0 at this time of year.
I want to see my oldest daughter and her family. My middle daughter will travel with me. But I can’t say that anything about this holiday feels joyous to me. I’ll miss my husband. I’ll be sad to miss my youngest daughter and sad about the state of our relationship. I hope not to have the ugliest wreath in the neighborhood on my front door. I’ll get through this holiday as we have all gotten through the last nine months. Just don’t ask me for false cheer.
Outside:
I’m doing what is right in front of me. I hosted a small, socially distanced Thanksgiving. I liked that there were only seven of us. It was much less work for me, and I could relax when people arrived for appetizers in our backyard. I’m helping a friend with driving and shopping as she had a serious fall in early November, lives alone, and can’t drive. I walk with two other friends regularly, masked and distanced. I have yoga classes and writing groups on Zoom. I facilitate my granddaughter’s second grade book group once a week and host my Vital Aging Interest Group once a month. But mostly, I’m just going through the motions.
A few nights ago, I barely kept my cool. I had a regularly scheduled dinner with another friend, still outside in Northern California. Even here, fewer and fewer businesses are serving and the one she chose is not my favorite. The drinks are significantly overpriced and the service is slow to nonexistent. I had a burger. Hard to screw that up. The burger was OK. The subjects of conversation were not. She has a problem employee and a problem boyfriend. These are her go-to topics. I’ve heard the same story over and over. I don’t usually offer advice, but sometimes I can’t help myself. This time I tried a different tack. I said I wasn’t having such an easy time in my own life. She dismissed this statement as small potatoes. When I got into my car to go home, I was furious, mostly with myself. I hadn’t said a word.
I got home. My husband was watching The Good Doctor, his favorite program. He has newish hearing aids that help him switch from live conversations to electronic devices. He doesn’t hear me when I talk to him if he is on one of those devices, including the television. I asked two questions. He didn’t respond. I blew up at him, but not at him, of course. My outsides are crumbling.
