Merry Christmas from Northview

 I truly hope that each and every one of you is able to salvage some joy in this season of renewal of faith and hope.

For us, things are pretty dark. Dad is in the hospital with pneumonia and COVID. So much for being safer under care than at home, where he was falling with alarming regularity. One of my dear aunties is also hospitalized, same situation.

Mom is still at the nursing home in Palatine, where he was until yesterday.

It is raining. There is flooding. At least most of the snow vanished overnight.

As most mornings, I am the first one up, although I see by the objects under the tree that Santa came through right on schedule. The weird elf has left for a few seasons at the North Pole, while the one who stays here all year and is played with until he/she is reanimated with a cinnamon bath is still sitting on the American Girl style horse. The two of them have been cavorting all over the house on that poor animal for days now. I am sure it is happy to return to its toyland slumber. I won't miss the thunder of its little hooves at all. I will miss the fun of its mistress finding where they parked it after their escapades, and sharing possible stories about what went on overnight.

The pink guitar is on the futon, encased in a great big box, and nicely wrapped by my s-i-l Lisa. (Thank you, thank you, thank you, for taking care of that!) We smuggled it in under guise of being grandpa's pressie and its been sitting there in plain sight for several days. There is a story to go with his real one, but that will have to wait until later to be told. Trust me, it's a good un.

Although sadness is an envelope I have yet to step outside, there is much to be grateful for. My brother is home from the West Coast and he and his wife are doing as much as they can to get the bases covered with my folks' affairs...and they are many and challenging.

The girls and Peggy live with us, so we are surrounded by family all the time. Right now that is a major league blessing for me.

Alan calls every day, sometimes more than once, so I am a part of his and Amber's lives, even from half way across the state. They are healthy again after their own go round with the plague.

Thanks to Facebook we can enjoy our other two grandbabies, and their sweet and loving parents. Maybe someday life will return to normal and the boss can go to the races with them on Saturday nights and come home tired and full of new stories to tell when we drive around the neighborhood birding.

Also thanks to that biased and flawed platform from the Netherworld, I get to talk to many of you every day and that is a bright spot indeed.

So, Merry Christmas from the farm, and best wishes for a hopeful New Year. Love to all.