Christmas traditions...

I got to California only 2 hours late (they forgot to find someone who was allowed to fly the plane, as opposed to the pilots who had been flying for so many consecutive hours that regulations would not allow them to fly 2 more hours to get to Ontario from Denver so we had to wait until they could recruit 2 pilots who thought they'd spend the night in Denver, but instead had to spend the night in Ontario, and this would be okay with them... can you tell I spent many of my formative years reading Sassy the parenthetical mama magazine of them all?)

I got home and, true to tradition, there were no Christmas decorations up. Well, almost none. My sister has had a disabling illness for the past 5 years, and everyone has been so busy for the last 10 that it has become my LEAST favorite Christmas tradition that I have to decorate the entirety of the house by myself, usually on Christmas Eve day whenever I stroll in off of a plane from wherever I happen to be living. So on the 23rd, since I got in around 10 pm, had been up since 3:30 California time, my family took pity and didn't push the decorate NOW issue. I went to bed and woke up on Christmas eve day.

With a blazing migraine (the likes of which haven't been seen since the ugly incident this March that kept me out of workfor a week, and made Dilaudid my friend. ) And I slammed the Mountain Dews, took the drugs, slept in the dark room (which isn't fun for a whole day, when you only have 4 to visit with friends and family), and eventually wound up going to Urgent Care.

Ah, Urgent Care, the next Heatherfeather's Family Tradition. Usually it's my sister with her inflamed cranial nerve who goes to Urgent Care on a major holiday (usually Thanksgiving or Christmas, but sometimes Easter). If it's not my sister, then it's my dad with a Slicing Onions Gone Horribly Wrong injury, pulmonary embolisms, etc. But this year, it was ME. We had planned to go to midnight mass for Christmas (which here is 11pm - mass, not Christmas) but didn't even get back until 11:30, so that plan was out the window. Not to mention the re-visiting of the Attack of the Killer Sidewalks after the Demerol and Visterol (sp?). So I went to bed. And this morning I still have a touch of migraine, so will go back to bed soon.

Merry Christmas from my house to yours!