What the holidays look like at Kathleen's home this year

Kathleen Anderson

This holiday season has been a strange one. My great-granddaughter and great-great grandson are spending Christmas in California. My granddaughters and great-grandkids, who live next door, will be spending it on the East Coast.

That leaves the two older grandkids, 11 and 12, who will be here for a week before returning to Montana. Since these two no longer believe in “you know who,” the excitement level is not quite the same.

We will have one gathering before everyone takes off and, hopefully, it will go smoother than Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving was a bit of a challenge. I spent a week in September and another in October in the hospital recovering from pneumonia. When I came home in October, it was with a walker in tow.

Shortly before Halloween, my granddaughter fell and broke her foot. This required her to purchase what I refer to as a knee scooter so she could continue to work. We also had to make other work schedule changes to get the little ones to school and preschool, since she could not drive.

It was all going well until early November when my daughter stepped in a pothole, covered by water, in a local big box store parking lot. The end result of this mishap was a broken ankle.

Since her room is upstairs, she required two knee scooters, one for the top of the stairs and one for the bottom.  After spending two weeks in bed with her foot higher than her heart, she would scoot on her bum up and down the stairs to reach a scooter.

Since she was the main transportation for the little ones to get to school, more rescheduling was required.

I have always believed in the adage, “It takes a village,” and our little village came together to make the holiday meal happen.

Menus were decided upon, food was purchased, and everything seemed to be on track until Thanksgiving morning. My son-in-law, who normally rotisseries the turkey on our bar-b-que, discovered that function wasn’t working.

Having baked our pies the night before, we weren't overly concerned since the oven would be relatively free.

There was just one more hurdle to get past.

We have a tiny kitchen and when three women with medical devices were in the room, we discovered we could not open the oven door wide enough to insert the turkey.

We, the women with the devices, just stared at one another for a minute or two, as the latest obstacle to dinner sunk in, until my son-in-law ordered everyone out and took over.

Luckily, we still had three women in our village who were without broken body parts, and they took care of the side dishes and snacks while my son-in-law prepared the tri-tip on the bar-b-que and turkey in the oven.

After dinner, we shared memories of other not-so-perfect Thanksgiving meals, like when I set the oven on fire while basting the turkey and then put the fire out by covering the bird and oven with flour. We had our Thanksgiving dinner that year at the Flying A truck stop.

Although all the aforementioned devices are still in use, we are not the least bit concerned about the upcoming holiday meals. We are just grateful for the food we will have to eat, the company we will share, and the incredible village we have built over the years.

Happy Holidays from our village to yours.

Kathleen Anderson writes this column each week from her home in Olympia. Contact her at kathleen@theJOLTnews.com or post your comments.