The Third Day of Christmas

On the 3rd Day of Christmas
Nearly three weeks since surgery. We have been snowed in and iced in: have celebrated a quiet, unique Christmas, and have bravely--if tentatively--attempted new tasks such as going into the garage (so that I could travel outside without the need for the medical transport.) Today I may even go up the stairs!

Sometimes Jerry and I look like Frick and Frack, two folks trying to do normal things from a sort of abnormal position. Yesterday I fell off my scooter--no big deal since I only fell about 18 inches onto my right knee. You should have seen us trying to get me up. Suddenly I realised all I had to do was put my weight on my left foot and get up--simple as pie! That's what convinces me I can go up stairs: as long as there is a chair at the top for me to land on and launch from, I should be OK.

The commode has been moved into the bathroom. That means a lot, believe me.

Susan will come for supper tonight. It will be our Christmas supper. She went to San Jose to visit Lisa last weekend and her return home was delayed til Christmas night. Late! Jerry gave her the Trooper (with its 4-wheel drive) to get home--she needed it! Thus we were even more stranded yesterday. But the weather has changed; the snow is melting and the Court is clearing for driving. Things are slowly getting back to normal.

But it is NOT normal for us to be confined to this house. Jerry has gone out (to get the mail, change the hummingbird feeder, shovel the front path) but there has been no driving because of the ice and snow--and the fact that on Christmas just about everything was closed! We've spent the time quietly reading, doing a puzzle (thanks to Joanna, my neighbor), inspecting the Garmin Nuvis we each gave the other for Christmas (imagine that: two old folks each giving the other a means of getting directions so we can know where to go!!)

I've spent some time thinking about Bethlehem and the Nativity and how things went on the first Christmas. When we were there (just four weeks ago!) the guides spent a lot of time talking about the veracity of the traditional sites of the manger, the barn, etc. But I figure that, for the most part, Jesus was pretty much an unknown. Folks likely didn't know his family all that well (since Joseph had left Bethlehem to practice his trade somewhere else, like Nazareth) So the likelihood of his birthplace REALLY being remembered after even thirty or forty years let alone a couple of centuries is pretty low. I can go along with what is known as the "Traditional Site" but I also realized that the site is not as important as the fact. ANYWHERE in Bethlehem is good enough for me. . .so long as I can stand in that tiny city and say my Savior was born here!

I saw the TV shots from the Church of the Nativity at Christmas. Of course it was crowded and rightly so. Interestingly, there are three churches which use it but each church celebrates Christmas on a different day! Nevertheless, each service is full--just as when I was there there was a Patriarch coming so folks had filled the Church; there were lines of school children (all in their school uniforms!) come to pay honor to the Cardinal. It made for an impressive sight! But it also meant for crowds so we didn't see the traditional birthplace. Ah, well. Like I said above, I really didn't need to. And I wonder if I could have ambulated and stooped down to see!