It didn’t feel like Christmas this year, and not only because I couldn’t totally ignore the news.
My schedule was off. Normally after Thanksgiving, I watch a Christmas movie or two right up until the 25th. Our usual schedule is this:
Christmas Vacation
Home Alone
Die Hard 1
Muppet Christmas Carol
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
Die Hard 2
A Christmas Carol (Alastair Sim version)
March of the Wooden Soldiers
Miracle on 34th Street
A Christmas Story
It’s A Wonderful Life
Tonight, Christmas Eve, I watched my first movie of the season: Miracle on 34th Street.
I was already listening to my Christmas music long before Thanksgiving weekend. Most of our Christmas decorations are packed away and our little tree’s lights burned out. My Christmas village is on top of the TV but totally a-jumble. We haven’t remembered to pick up a new strand of lights and I just haven’t had time to set up the village.
I started training to be a customer service representative with Holland America Line, learning how to book and rebook cruises. Classes began on November 28 and will end on December 29th. There is so much to learn about how to make a booking. You’d think it would be a simple thing, but it isn’t. There are a thousand details to remember and two different platforms to use. Not only that but there was also a great deal of out-of-classwork that had to be accomplished.
There were a couple of glitches. I was supposed to go live on the phones December 12th and start earning but for one reason and another, that hasn’t happened yet. If all works out at this point, it’ll be the New Year before I start earning income. We’ve been having a rough time the last two months because of how prices have skyrocketed. We don’t really have enough fixed income to manage comfortably and that’s why I was looking forward to pre-Christmas income.
There’s another hitch. For some reason, I’m having connection issues with the platforms that Holland America uses and if I can’t get it all straightened out, I won’t be able to continue with them. We are trying a stronger ethernet cable to see if that will help. I’m kind of nervous about it because the cable I have now works just fine with every other website and platform, except for Holland America.
Even though I haven’t been writing about the garbage going on around us, that doesn’t mean I haven’t read about it and had strong feelings about it. When I find myself feeling discouraged, I turn my music up higher.
The most recent doesn’t-seem-like-Christmas event was yesterday. I was busy with classwork and TB wrapped all the gifts except for the ones from me to him. We were having that bomb cyclone storm ("but there's no climate change!"), mostly heavy rain, and very strong winds. I took a break from classwork to wrap his gifts in the back of the house where it was secluded. As I was wrapping the gifts, I heard a ripping sound that seemed to come from above. I thought the wind might be ripping off shingles or even a part of the roof. I went to the front of the house to tell TB and our neighbor from across the street ran over to tell us the tree in our backyard had been torn from the ground.
This was a huge tree. We went to look, and I took these pictures, completely stunned and appalled. There was no damage to us; however, the top of the tree damaged our neighbor’s fence and above ground pool. I learned that our homeowners’ insurance does NOT cover damage to our neighbor’s property. They allow $500 for tree removal, but we have a $500 deductible.
Ho ho ho. Not.
Even though the holiday season this year has been weird for us, we are going to fake it until we make it tomorrow and have a wonderful day with family. We will celebrate the birth of Jesus and enjoy our day despite everything. We’ll watch It’s A Wonderful Life and realize how blessed we really are.
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