Christmas and other stuff
So we did Christmas at my parents house yesterday. We always do gifts for the kids and the occasional ones for each other and then the adults all do a dirty Santa-- where each person brings an unmarked $10 gift, you all draw numbers out of a hat, and then the person who drew #1 picks a gift out of the pile and opens it; #2 then has his choice of the gift #1 opened or an unopened one; #3 can steal from #1 or #2 or choose an unopened one, and so on. Most people bring candle sets or fancy food items or the odd gadget. My brother always manages to find something more unique. This year it was a genuine bullwhip. I don't know what it says about my family that it was the most-stolen gift...
In the midst of things yesterday, my father-in-law called and told hubby that he wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be over to sister-in-law's for Christmas. He's been in the hospital not once but twice in the past two weeks for pneumonia and also has a diabetic ulcer on his leg. He's on oxygen while he heals from the pneumonia and between the illness and everything, his blood sugar's been all over the place. So, we made plans to do Christmas dinner with her and then stop by his place (which is just down the way and across the street from her) for gift exchange.
Only, when hubby called him this morning, he didn't answer his phone...
Seems he fell about 5:30 this morning and felt too weak to get up. So, we ended up over at his place making sure he was okay. And while we're sitting around, I pull out the bread for the stuffing and start tearing it up. Whereupon sister-in-law says, "Why don't I just go get the food and bring it here and fix it?" F-i-l is self-conscious because his table isn't cleaned off (Dude, you've been in the hospital for two weeks! We so don't care) and us just sitting around with plates in our laps is so informal it'll "ruin" Christmas dinner-- as if a perfectly-set table is what Christmas dinner is all about. Well, we talked him into it. Had a nice, lazy Christmas day for the most part, but hubby and S-i-l didn't want to leave him alone tonight. So, the Things and I are at home. Hubby's spending the night with his dad and taking him to the doctor's tomorrow, then going into work late and, therefore, getting home late (ordinarily he could just take the time off, but there are Issues at work and he's been missing a lot with his dad's illness already, so he really needs to put in a full day).
Between all the usual Christmas busy-ness, plus dealing with this illness, we are exhausted-- hubby especially!
Ah, well. Despite it all, it was a better Christmas than it looked like it was going to be a week ago.
And then at some point Real Soon Now, we're picking up one of those paging devices people can wear, a la Life Alert, but we're looking at one put out by Radio Shack or... there's one other one hubby's looked at. It's not a service. Instead, it calls a list of phone numbers until it gets a human answering it (indicated by the person hitting a number on their phone). Anyone have any experience with these things and how well they work?
So, anyhow, happy Christmas, late Solstice greetings, and blessed Chanukah, and well, all those early winter-ish holidays. I hope yours were good.