Christmas

Here I am almost 65 years old, and I have never known a Christmas like this one.
Invariably there has been getting together with family and friends.  Celebrating together.  Lots of effort beforehand to make things as good as they could be.
But this year there has been an unwelcome visitor.  Covid.  It did not choose to visit at a way more convenient time.  A time in the middle of the year when we were noy likely to be getting together.
But no.  Covid visited at Christmas.  The day before we were to celebrate Christmas with my brother.  He had been getting stuff together.  We could hear the excitement in his voice.  We were excited to.
But Merril and I had been feeling weird.  We did a test.  I have never seen a positive before.  I thought all would be as it has always been.  But no.  Merril was positive.  That meant a change of plans.  We so did not want to expose others to the virus.  Particularly the old and the young.  Some are ok and some really get it bad.  It is just not knowing.
But we still had four days until we were due to visit with Merril’s relations.  We had watched closely.  Merril had been sickest the first day and although still unwell gotten progressively better.  All looked good for our going over on Christmas day.  We knew heaps of work had been going into things, and it would be a great chance to get together with relations that lived elsewhere.
So we did another test on the Saturday.  I fully expected there to be two negative results.  But it was not to be.  Merril was positive.  I then made a call which neither of us wanted but both knew was best for all concerned.  We called off going to the Christmas get together.
Not going was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  Merril bought the presents off the internet.  I had wrapped them.  Merril had the fruit salad needed.  Oh, we could have gone, and chances are nothing untoward would have transpired.  But then if something bad had happened we would have forever blamed ourselves.
Often doing the right thing is not doing the easy thing.  What it came down to is did we care more about ourselves than the others?  That is sort of a no brainer, but even so, we knew what it meant and did not like it.
So here we are at home celebrating Christmas.  We have done it before, and will no doubt do it again, but it was not our first choice.
But no matter what the situation there is one thing that is constant.  We want the best Christmas possible for all and may 2023 be the best year so far.