Stumbling into the Season

Well, Thanksgiving was pretty great.  Everything after that has been a bit dicey.  Maybe I'm being overdramatic, but let's just say that all of the good vibes from a lovely Thanksgiving have pretty much disappeared in the week since.

Thanksgiving itself was lovely.  We grabbed take out for dinner on Wednesday, packed up, and headed out in the evening, which gave us some time with my parents before everyone headed to bed.  We did church in the morning, which turned out to be less awkward than expected due to the mask mandate recently brought back in Erie County.  Instead of being the only masked people like we usually are, everyone had to wear them.  But with spiking cases and no distancing, it was definitely much preferred for us.  The bad news about the mandate is that it made my dad's Vespers concert that I was hoping to attend this coming weekend remote only, as the county said that in order to have unmasked singers they would need to be 12 feet apart, which means they need to take over the entire church just for the singers!  

We had a lovely lunchtime meal with my parents.  My apple pie turned out the best ever, and everything was delicious.  Carter ate about six crescent rolls with his turkey and stuffing, but who's counting?  We FaceTimed with my brother, niece, and nephew, and after some further digestion, we headed off to Craig's family.  

That dinner is always quite a big to-do.  From fancy charcuterie and shrimp cocktail while the many, many dishes are being prepared, to a giant spread for the meal, it is impressive, but probably much needed with 16 people being served!  Two turkeys, two different stuffings, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, roasted veggies, green bean casserole, regular and gluten-free biscuits, cranberries, and...I'm probably forgetting something.  Oh, and like five pies for dessert.  It's all delicious and tremendously filling, no matter how careful you try to be.  We did determine I will be switching out green bean casserole for mac and cheese (and maybe deviled eggs!) next year.  The Instant Pot should make that pretty simple, and keep one more thing out of the oven (aside from maybe browning some breadcrumbs at the end?).  I've done mac and cheese for lunch in no time, so I'm game!  We enjoyed most of the Bills' win before heading home, and arrived around 11pm.  And yes, that drive was challenging...partly because I was still so full!

I woke up Friday sneezing and sniffling like crazy.  Despite my cold having been mostly fine for days, I was suddenly a mess.  It was reminiscent of Jacob's one-day sneeze fest the previous Sunday, and sure enough, I felt significantly better on Saturday.  Ever since, I've been been mostly fine with only a few daily instances of sinus pressure that make me sneeze and have to blow my nose about twice in a row, and then it passes.  It's so weird.  It could be a blooming sinus infection, but it seems to be getting better, so we'll see.  Nevertheless, my big day of decorating on Friday was not as successful as I'd hoped, between my nose dripping every time I bent down and feeling a little wiped out from the constant nose blowing.  Add in the rest of the usual complications--putting away the fall stuff, moving the toys so we can move the furniture, lugging up two trees, putting up the old tree branch by branch, vacuuming needles, placing all of the other decorations, and finally hanging the ornaments--and it took me literally until about 10pm Sunday night to get everything done.  I also took breaks for a few other things, like basketball practice chauffeuring, cooking meals, and running errands, which were shockingly productive.  I still have window clings to put up, and my big attempt at outdoor decorating didn't happen because it's been extra freezing out, but we'll get there.  I also went to three Targets in two days trying to replace a glass tree I bought that ended up being broken when I got it home.  I had agonized over Target's adorable offerings in the cheap section for a few days, and finally decided on one green mercury glass light-up tree, one clear stained glass-style tree (each $5), and two $1 glass trees, one green and one white.  They were whimsically mismatched and were destined for my mantel.  I tried a couple Targets over the weekend to replace the broken one with no luck, and finally settled on a slightly bigger $3 one Monday morning after dropping Jacob off.  Good enough.  That stop did enable me to get the outdoor timer the other two stores were out of, although I think my delivery would have been here by now anyway.  I think the house and trees look great, truly, but it sure felt like a mess getting there.   The good news is that I get to enjoy it a lot more again this year working from home.

I will say that buying for the kids is going really well--in fact, other than some stocking stuffers and maybe a couple filler gifts, they're nearly done.  I've had some really efficient shopping trips and some good luck, plus one big Amazon order.  We still need to distribute the rest of the kids' lists out to family, but it's a great start compared to most years--December has just begun!  Craig is doing a great job on his family, though I still need to figure out most of mine.  Who knows what extended family exchanges might be this year--even if we have gatherings, is it worth buying ahead with the risk of a last minute cancellation as cases continue to rise?  I figure if I can get the rest done ahead of time, then it will be less of a big deal if I do end up buying for extended family last minute.  

Speaking of COVID cancellations, cases are going up pretty horribly now, to the point we're almost no better off than last year aside from having our own personal protection against severe disease.  I think delta has basically evened out the impact of the vaccines--when people are getting infected, it's in greater numbers than before.  Where there was one or two, now it's five.  Vaccines aren't perfect, either, and I assume a lot of people who put off their boosters now have less protection than they think.  I'm guessing that's why hospital numbers are as bad as they are--that the most vulnerable got vulnerable once again.  But who knows.  And now there's a whole new strain, omicron, that is slowly infiltrating countries despite best efforts to contain it to southern Africa where it started.  It's sobering to think that if it moves as fast as it seems to be, Christmas could be as in jeopardy as it was last year.

And if that wasn't feeling real enough, we got a couple solid reminders recently how quickly plans can change.  First, with my extended family's Thanksgiving cancellation, which I mentioned in my last post, and then Sunday when we got the news that someone who attended our Thanksgiving dinner with Craig's family tested positive.  We didn't have a lot of interaction, but we did sit at the same end of the table, so now we're playing the waiting game.  One other person already tested positive (and it's someone with a suppressed immune system, so we're nervous).  Carter and I both took tests Sunday night at home and both were negative.  Craig had to take a test for work Sunday anyway, which was also negative.  Given that Jacob has had COVID and is fairly recently vaccinated, we're less worried about him, but obviously we'll be keeping a close eye on all of us anyway.  We have a bunch of home tests coming thanks to a sale at Walmart so we'll test both kids tonight, and I'm getting a test through work Thursday (by request of a nurse who reviewed my daily chick-in, which I was honest on), so we're being diligent.  Even though Carter is unvaccinated, we haven't reported anything to school because he had so little interaction with the person who had it, and we're tracking him closely and testing periodically.  I don't want him out of school for two weeks for very low odds, so we're going this route while we can.  Next week the county starts its test-to-stay policy, so if something like this crops up again, it shouldn't be an issue.  It's just that easy, though, that the simplest, most innocent family gathering of immunized individuals can go downhill quickly.

Things took another turn for the frustrating when I found out on Monday that another co-worker is leaving (that's five since August), and as none have been replaced for a multitude of reasons, it's going to be a very frustrating six months or so.  Two of those leaving have been the point people for our two biggest online fundraising events, and our academic team is basically down to my boss and me, with a side assist from the reunion/young alumni/affinity director, who is already shorthanded on her own, and our digital person, who will be taking on considerably more for those events.  I have no idea how things are going to get done.  It was hard enough fully staffed, but now, with so few people and almost two years into a stressful pandemic that has me randomly distracted and exhausted on its own, I'm worried.  The one bright side is that it should give me a VERY good case for the long-awaited, technically much deserved promotion I've been angling to get for the last few years.  If doing most of someone else's job on top of my own doesn't do it, then I will have some serious thinking to do.  Yet, I appreciate the massive flexibility I have right now and that would be tough to risk giving up, but hopefully it won't come to that and my performance will speak for itself.

And then yesterday there was another school shooting, this time at a high school in Michigan.  Four kids that should have been celebrating with their families in a few weeks are now gone.  It's too reminiscent of Sandy Hook for me, as it occurred to me the other day that it's been nine years next week since that one.  Those kids would have been the same age or within a year or two of these latest victims.  This stuff continues to happen every few months on average despite the horror of that one particular shooting.  It's crushing as a parent, and even harder when the kids it's happening to are close in age to yours.  While it seems like it could never happen here, that's what all those other schools thought, too.  I'm just at a loss.

With everything that's going on right now--rising COVID cases, being exposed ourselves, Jacob's crazy basketball schedule (frequency of practices and constant schedule changes), trying to get everyone immunized for COVID and the flu, taking care of other appointments, Craig's busy work schedule and travel, and now my work drama, plus this crazy messed up world in general--I feel very scattered and worry that my Christmas spirit is going to get crushed under all the things.  I will say I found myself very appreciative of the five days after Thanksgiving where I could be productive before the calendar flipped to December and the "official" countdown started.  It was helpful mentally, but I have already been watching the countdown posted on a house around the corner, and we are now down below 25 days--which means less than four weeks!  I know it always goes so fast, too.

I was supposed to be in Buffalo this weekend for Buffalo's Christmas markets and the Vespers concert (which I can still hear online), but given our exposure, it's looking wise to stay home.  I guess maybe I can get some things done?  But Craig will be out of town, so that might be a challenge.  I guess I should appreciate any sort of slow pace I can get right now, but it's a bummer to miss out on any holiday fun or family time...and I can't wait to get my finished nativity!  Maybe next weekend, assuming our tests remain clear and no symptoms show up.  I had really hoped there wouldn't be all these caveats again this year, but here we are, COVID Christmas #2.  Time to try to make it merry!