I know I wrote recently about Halloween not being quite the same in 2020, along with a lot of other holidays and events that were altered in the past 10 months due to Covid-19. However, the differences this Christmas and New Year's went beyond anything we could have imagined.
Like everyone else, we missed the concerts and school events that usually make the holiday season special. We had Zoom concerts for piano
and we watched video presentations from the schools, which were kind of nice but not quite the same.
Like most others, we missed being with family on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and--aside from Covid restrictions--this year was especially difficult without Grandpa. We never thought a cemetery would be part of our Christmas Eve celebration, but this year we took part in the Finnish tradition of taking a candle to my dad's grave.
The snow was a nice touch, but we were sad.
Afterwards, we visited my mom, wearing masks and sitting across the room. It wasn't the same at all, but we were happy we could at least be together in that way.
Not to break completely with tradition, we looked at a few Christmas lights on the way home and the kids opened their presents from each other.
Then we watched The Muppet Christmas Carol and left cookies and milk for Santa (Eric once again left out nine carrots for the reindeer, too!).
We were also moving during the last two weeks of December, which meant packing up most of our belongings before Christmas. I tried to keep our living room intact so we could enjoy our beautiful tree, and I resisted packing up the kitchen so we could make our turkey dinner on the 25th, but the house was becoming less and less homey with every passing day.
I guess I haven't mentioned yet that we signed a contract on Dec. 12, doubling up on half a month's rent so we could ensure we had a place to live before our landlords moved into our driveway (something they thought would work until we found a new home). I'll admit that I was pretty upset about this move--the timing was terrible, with Christmas coming and the rental market so dismal. Any house we looked at was smaller, grungier and much more expensive than where we were living, and I felt it was too much to ask me to find a new home under these conditions, just months after losing my dad. I think I cried every day during December.
The house we accepted was one of our few options, but something about it made both Jason and me come back to it a week after we had originally ruled it out. It was on a busy street, had discolored carpets and was smaller than our little house on Huggins Avenue (with a kitchen half the size of our already small one), but it had a big backyard and was a little closer to our middle school/high school. The landlords seemed nice and had little children who were running around when we went to see the house. They were looking for a family and liked the idea of a landscaper moving in. When we called them back a week after our viewing, they were excited to hear from us and willing to rent the house to us right away (this, after not getting called back and having people wanting to scrutinize our finances before giving a viewing).
So, we signed a year-long contract and started packing and cleaning.
We took Christmas Day off to enjoy opening presents and cooking a turkey--which turned out very nicely.
We had bought some carpets to cover the discolored areas at the new house, and the living room started to look better with our furniture in it.
I started calling the house "The Emerald City" because it has a lot of green: carpets, blinds, kitchen and bathroom tiles, curtains.
The furnace only works sporadically and we'll never be able to buy anything again with how much more we're paying for rent, but we're settling in and feeling more comfortable.
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