Merry Christmas!

I hope that everyone had a blessed and peace-filled Christmas!

One of the Christmas card runner-ups.

 We had a very quiet Christmas. 

My family started battling a stomach bug, and what seems like the flu, over the weekend. The bug is gone, but there are still children miserable with fevers. 

On Sunday night, my Grandpa stopped breathing. Zach couldn't find a pulse. He did CPR on him, not sure what would happen, and Grandpa came back. He was dead, though. For 2 minutes. He had multiple seizures that night, and the hospice nurse told Grandma to call her children. We prayed the prayers in the 1962 missal for a person in their last agony. Some of my Mom's siblings came. My Mom sat up with him all night so Grandma could sleep. 

He's still here. He had another seizure yesterday morning, and after finally eating some jello yesterday (he hadn't been awake enough to swallow since Sunday), he started choking on it again last night. He had another mini-seizure this morning, and has a fever. The nurse who came on Sunday said he has aspiration pneumonia. Right now they think he will probably end up with kidney failure, and then go into a coma and pass peacefully. That is what we pray for.

  We didn't make it to Midnight Mass because of the snow that came down on Christmas Eve. More than half of my family wasn't able to go because of the sickness. Zach took some of the healthy ones to Mass on Christmas morning, and then was sweet and went to Mass again with me at noon.

We opened presents on Christmas Eve, since we were unsure of who would be going to Mass. I am embarrassed to say that Tony was a monster. He had fallen asleep, and then woke up. So did the crab inside.

Completely unimpressed by his lamb.

In a lot of ways it didn't feel like Christmas. But Christmas is more than the dinner you eat, or how healthy you're feeling. Father's homily made me think about that. Did you know that the Irish brought the tradition of Midnight Mass to the United States? Or that the word merry in Merry Christmas means Blessed and Peace-filled? I thought that was really neat. 

I hope that everyone enjoys the rest of the Christmas season! We have snow again today, so people are having fun inside playing board games. (The Lord of the Rings game, anyone?)

Much love,

Jess