Christmas Eve

I got up at 9 and found Mom sitting in the den watching TV and waiting for Dad to give her Fosamax. I put a few stitches in the quilt, then decided to start juicing. I did broccoli, cauliflower, and celery. Then I fed Mom the juice and several Ensures and took her to the bathroom. I left her there for a few minutes and when I came back, she had fallen on the boxes between the toilet and the tub. And her bowels had kicked in. I was able to get her back on the toilet. Dad had to come in to stabilize her in a standing position so I could transfer the pile from the boxes to the toilet. In doing do, my splint got messy. So I threw it away. When everything was cleaned up, Mom went back to the den and I filled the tub with hot water. I worked on my own breakfast to let the water cool down while heating the bathroom. After my bath, I ate my breakfast. I needed to buy more veggies, so Dad gave me the keys to the station wagon. I did not want to drive it because of its size, but it was blocking better cars in the driveway. So I went to Fresh Market, and then to Bed, Bath and Beyond for a last minute gift. The traffic was heavy, but I asked my angels to get me through it, and they did. I was able to make a left turn out of the shopping center onto Huguenot. I was home in time to talk to the neighbor across the street who was delivering baked goods from his wife. Then it was Dad's turn to go. Because the station wagon stayed put, I thought Dad hadn't gone. I fed Mom again, and then I got wrapping paper from the attic and we wrapped gifts. Then Dad came home with a few more for me to wrap. They all went under the small tabletop tree. Then I took Mom to the bathroom and changed her shirt to a Christmas sweater. We put on her coat and took her to the car. Dad let me drive to Christmas Eve service. Of course we had to take the station wagon. We got there in time to settle in a pew. There were lots of unfamiliar people who did not know that Mom always sits in the short pew on the right. We had to sit on the left. There was no room for Kurt, who had to sit in the pew in front of us. It was a low-key service based on the lyrics to an old hymn. The last song was sung by candlelight. My candle dropped wax on the hymnal. Maybe that's why the hymn was printed in the bulletin, but I did not have one since I gave mine to Kurt. We were home by 9pm. Kurt and Patrick wanted to drive around looking at lights. Kurt called up the Tacky Light tour on my tablet and tied it to his phone as the hotspot. Then he drove us all over Richmond looking at displays they'd seen before. We stopped at a Walgreens for a planner. When he got lost, he used my tablet as a GPS and a map to the last site.

When we'd seen it, we needed the tablet to go back home. We dropped Patrick off at his house, and then went home. Dad turned on the Christmas tree lights for us. Since my camera is wi-fi capable, Kurt tried to connect my laptop to the camera, but the connection would not hold and there seemed not to be a way to transfer the pics. So we had to resort to using the cord. Then Kurt played with the tablet while I posted to my blog.