Unconventional Christmas

My sister has been scheduled for surgery on Tuesday, and will probably be in the hospital until Christmas Day.

She is actually relieved about this - she wanted to have the surgery before the end of the year, for a variety of reasons. (See her blog post about it here.)

Thankfully, this will not alter our plans for Christmas. It is our year to be with Mike's family on Christmas, so my family had already planned to delay our celebration until New Year's Day.

This all seems a little surreal... While we join the world around us in the hustle and bustle of last-minute Christmas preparations, we are also preparing for a surgery. My week will include wrapping presents, packing to go out of town, and visitng my sister in the hospital. Honestly, that just feels a little wierd.

One good thing about this week is that I only have to work on Monday. Woohoo! The college's offices are shut down from Christmas Eve through New Year's Day, and because of the surgery I am also taking Tuesday off so my nephew and niece can come to my house for the morning. So, I officially have one day left before Christmas break, and then I will have almost two full weeks off. Nice.

It will be great to have a break from work, but more importantly, it will be great to have time to spend with my family. My other sister, Andrea, is flying in on Tuesday evening from California. What a blessing that we will all be together, and that God arranged for us to be available to help as needed.

And, as awful as it is to have to go through this, I have two friends who are dealing with things that are just as (or more) awful. Despite my family's circumstances, we feel very blessed.

This Christmas will be incredibly bittersweet - looking back to last Christmas, we never would have guessed all of the struggles this year would bring. But we've also been reminded of what's truly important and have drawn closer as a family.

I intend to have a few more posts up this week, but I'm not sure if that will happen. If not, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!