The Christmas that Wasn't

Leaving for our trip on Christmas Day, a Tuesday, meant we celebrated Christmas with dinner and presents on Sunday. Saturday did not feel like Christmas Eve, and neither did Monday, Christmas Eve proper. Christmas proper feels very much like Easter Sunday. The gym and pretty much all businesses are closed, and there are fewer cars out on the roads. The air has a deep stillness, much like a warm blanket pulled around everything.

The dog and I go for a walk in the stillness. Our next-door neighbor, who remembers our first dog’s name and its source even eight years after we said good-bye to the beast, has not gone away for the holiday; the car is still in the parking area by the garage. I know the family in the other house on our lane is at least in town because if they’re going to be away even for one night he sends a y’all call email to the entire subdivision so that others might keep an eye on his place.

The next house has been empty since June or July but is now under contract. In two houses facing each other across the road live a widower marking his first Christmas without his wife and a couple who were supposed to become first-time grandparents earlier in December. That their newspaper is in the driveway tells me that the retired couple who follow the sun on cruises and in resorts is at home; they’re religious about stopping the paper and mail while they are gone.

Going in the opposite direction, we run into another dog walking its Upright. There is life besides us out in the fresh air! Approaching the other cul-de-sac we see that the monster minion inflatable has been deflated. I guess it looks better after dark. The couple renting the house across the way will be leaving before New Year’s Day; they’re emigrating to Lund, Sweden. Turning around to head home, some of the stillness seems to have lifted. The air feels lighter around us. The warm blanket has been kicked off leaving just the sheet around us.

It still didn’t feel like Christmas.