Turkey Day, that is, although we are still working on leftovers. I’m not sure why I bought a 15 pound turkey for five people. I *did* want leftovers and I/we have used some leftovers and frozen others. Still.

I put my beautiful turkey platter away a couple days ago. I always like to say that this is the last xmas gift The Commander ever gave me. She loved to shop even at the end of her life and was much better at buying xmas gifts for adult children than I am. For many years, she would send a box or two of packages for us and the beach urchins. Useful or fun or elegant things.

The last few years of her life, although she was still oot and aboot a lot, she lost the “steam” to do a bunch of shopping, packaging, and schlepping stuff to the post office. That was CERTAINLY okay with me! I was flinging by that time.

Her second-to-last xmas (that was 2010), we got her down here to be with us (Our Northern Correspondent drove her down and the GG and I drove her back). Boy oh boy, did we have a good time, including trips to the Plum Market, which she was entranced with. When she went home, she told people “there was a party there every night!” (at my house). There usually isn’t a party here every night during the holidays but there definitely was that year with FinFam, MacMu, and cFam relatives all coming to visit at various times. I don’t remember any gifts I gave or received that xmas and that is how it should be because gifts are not really what it’s about.

The next year (2011), The Comm was living at the Freighter View assisted living facility up in Sault Ste. Siberia but still owned her house a half mile or so up the hill. We schlepped a turkey and all the fixings up to Siberia so The Commander could have a Christmas dinner in her own house, Command Central. We opened our family gifts with her down at her FV apartment that morning. I received this loverly turkey platter, one that I had admired in an antique store up in Siberia. I loved it so much that the GG and The Comm conspired that he would schlep it for her to give to me. I totally cracked up when I opened it. THANK YOU MOOM! I LOVE YOU! I had a bunch of little gifts for my moom to open. Post-it notes are what I remember but I don’t remember why…

I didn’t expect that 2011 would be The Commander’s last xmas but things went south after that xmas and continued on a downhill trend. One day we were talking on the phone and she was ranting and raving about Rick Santorum (remember him?). And then a couple days later, people (her friends, not the goddamn hospital) were calling me to say, “You need to get up here.” I did and c-diff (Google it, damn it) had set in and it was all downhill from there.

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