O Christmas Eve, O Christmas Eve

Well, here we are. Christmas Eve in the Year 2020. It's a year we will no doubt look back on with more shock than awe. The Year of the Great Pandemic, the Year of the Great Threat to Democracy. Fortunately, there is a small glimmer of light at the end of this long, winding, cold, dripping, nasty tunnel. At both branches in that tunnel.  

I don't think we'll ever look back on this year and laugh.

Too many people have died, many unnecessarily. And democracy nearly died, completely unnecessarily. (Thanks, Republicans, for giving Trump a pass on just about everything and leaving it until way too late before a few broke ranks and finally and half-heartedly acknowledged that we were, indeed, hanging by our fingertips, dangling over the cliff, while Trump, Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn and a few of their equally disturbed and disturbing pals stomped on our fingers.)

But we will look back on it - at least those of us who survived it will - and say that we're survivors. We were cautious. We wore our masks. We washed our hands. We didn't eat out. We didn't eat in with much of anyone else. We ordered in. We socially distanced.

On the political front, we supported the Good Guys. We made donations. We made calls. We wrote letters. We mailed postcards. We knocked on doors. We even prayed. (Even atheists pray when they're in the foxhole that sure looks more like an abyss.)

And so this is Christmas Eve, 2020.

Christmas Eve has always been the big deal in my family, and I've been hosting it for nearly thirty years now. (Oddly, it still feels oddly grownup to host a holiday get together. I'm 71, FFS. It's not like there's a generation ahead of me slacking off. Well, I guess they did slack off, only permanently.)

This year's gathering is pared down. The folks in my tiny bubble (all four of them also in tiny bubbles) will be here. The others will be Zooming in.

The Zoomer's will miss my tree, other than in background. And they'll miss the in person comfort and joy that we experience when we're around each other. 

With the exception of my West Coast brother and sister-in-law, I have - very cautiously - seen each of the other virtual guests a couple of times since March. But as winter approached, our yellow caution lights have turned red. We've pretty much all settled down to a metaphorical long winter's nap. So until the vaccines start rolling out to the Phase Two and Phase 3 cohorts, Zoom 'R Us.

Anyway, Christmas Eve should be fun - just not as much fun when we're all here together. 

Christmas Day is supposed to be warm and rainy, with the last of last week's foot of snow likely to be washed away. I will read, doze, eat leftovers, consider (and reject the thought of) taking down my tree, nap, and Zoom-ebrate with my friends Sam and Sarah, marooned in Maine; and, later, my friends Joyce and Tom, sheltering in place in Dallas.

At holidays, my grandmother always toasted with some variant of the Irish toast: may we all be alive at this same time next year. As the family elder, Nanny pretty much thought she'd be next up. But she outlived both of her sons, my father (58 when he died) and my Uncle Charlie (died age 66). And my Uncle Ralph, her son-in-law (who was in his mid-60's somewhere). Nanny died a few months short of 97 years of age. 

Anyway, may we all be alive at this same time next year. 

Merry Christmas to all, then, and to all a good night.

In keeping with Pink Slip tradition, I'm taking the week off and will be back in the new - and I have every reason to believe - far, far better new year.