All you want on Christmas Eve is some peace and quiet,
right? A chance to spend time with your family, eat well, meet Santa and curl
up on the sofa with a hot drink and a good book. Ok, this almost never happens;
there are always meals to prepare, guests to greet, kids to bribe and messes to
clean up but still, Christmas has that certain je ne sais quoi to it. It’s the
finish line after a month of racing and hopefully, there will be no last minute
errands to run.
We woke up on Christmas Eve knowing it would be different.
We had chosen to spend our first Christmas at home in our new house in China,
Christening it at Christmas if you will. We would have no guests joining us,
only the family having a nice time before flying off to Vietnam on Christmas
Day. When we planned this, we had not counted in that our things would have
arrived four days earlier. You can imagine the mess in our house; boxes
everywhere, filthy floors and sofas, Christmas decorations still in boxes and a
general disaster area look to it overall.
Still, it was Christmas and as we woke up in the morning and
had the kids and the cat all in bed with us, we felt…Christmassy. I stretched
and got ready to get up and for some reason, touched my armpit. Hm. Felt it
again and yes, definitely, there was something there that hadn’t been there
before. A lump. Yay. Knowing I could not go on holiday no knowing if I had
breast cancer I scheduled an appointment for as soon as possible the same day.
Up until now, the only thing we had to do that day was leave
the cat at the kennel, five minutes away by car, a doctors’ appointment was
easy to fit in.
It got the cat in the car and headed for the vet. “Are you
ready to go now?” the receptionist asked. I knew he was to be at another
facility but not that I had to personally take him there, all the way in town,
45 minutes away if we were lucky. Ok, slight change of plans again. I left the
cat with the vet and got in the car for my appointment. 15 minutes later I
walked out relieved not to be sick and made a mental note to buy new, sharper
razor blades…
Rushed the cat to the kennel downtown, stopped by the market
to buy burner gel for the nights fondue fiesta (like pizza! We told the kids,
minus the tomato sauce, right?) and finally made it home.
“When can we open the presents, mom?” Santa had already left
a whole sack of presents by the fire place, he must have been there while we
were still sleeping because he had eaten all the cookies and drank the milk. “At
three o’clock, let’s do it at three, kids. Mommy and daddy needs to fill out
the insurance claim forms first, why don’t you guys decorate the trees?” I had
found two small plastic Christmas trees in one of the boxes and all the
ornaments. “Go ahead, decorate!”
Ulf and I got to work trying to decipher the packing list
and matching the items with the insurance form, posting pictures and
explanations to what had been destroyed and where. At three we took a break for
Christmas. The kids had decorated beautifully, we lighted all the candles we
could find, drank warm drinks and ate cookies and cocooned ourselves from the
mess around us. The presents were plentiful and we tried our best to get into
the spirit. Too soon it was over and we went back to the claim forms while the
kids touched away on their new tablets. Forms were eventually sent off and we
enjoyed our cheese fondue (“not exactly like pizza, mom”) and toasted to not
ever having another Christmas like this one.
With dinner over and dishes done we started packing for our
holiday. Peace and quiet? I don’t think so.
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