It’s the morning after Christmas 2019, and Leesa and I are at home in Tennessee. We had a great Christmas Eve and Christmas Day — tiring, of course, and emotionally ranging from joy to sorrow and back again. But ultimately, we lived a good Yuletide, humanity and its frailty notwithstanding.
Tuesday: After a bit of typical Christmas Eve “running about and dancing behavior,” I picked up friend and singer Myra and headed to Cokesbury Church — Johnson City for “Candlelight & Carols.” I play in the band there, and we (the band) handled the carols portion of the evening, starting with our own version of the Barenaked Ladies’ mash-up of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” and “We Three Kings.” We call ours “O Merry Kings.” Other songs we sang for the evening: “Angels We Have Heard on High,” “O Holy Night,” “Joy to the World (Unspeakable Joy),” “Emmanuel (Hallowed Manger Ground),” “Make Room,” and “Silent Night.”
After the candlelight service, Leesa and I returned home and were soon joined by Raleigh, Lacy, and favorite dog Ruby for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of scrambled eggs and sausage, delicious brown gravy (like I grew up with), cheese biscuits, and semi-sweet chocolate gravy. The latter two items are from Leesa’s family in eastern North Carolina and were a treasured part of her growing-up visits to her daddy’s hometown of Ahoskie, North Carolina. Some cubes of sharp and extra-sharp cheese are folded into the biscuit dough and then baked as if they were your normal, everyday biscuits. Certainly Leesa’s Grandmama Harrell is revered for the making of these, but I like the granddaughter’s better, as she’s added the fluffiness of my mom’s to the taste sensation of her grandmother’s. I like to cover the eggs-and-sausage and a biscuit or two with the brown gravy, then put another biscuit or two in a bowl and cover them with chocolate. (We eat like this only once or twice a year, thank goodness.)
Afterwards, we did some giving of gifts, some listening to music, and a lot of laughing.
Wednesday: With no children in the house and gifts given the night before, Christmas morning was relaxed and relatively quiet. Then we left — Leesa and I — for a day visiting our mothers over in North Carolina. We had lunch with Katy, my mother-in-law, in Mars Hill. The buffet was actually pretty good, and we enjoyed it with Walda and Wayne and Ricky, Susan, and Alaina. After lunch we retired to Katy’s room and sang some Christmas songs. It was touching to hear everybody singing, and some folks came in from the hallway to listen.
In Weaverville, we visited with Mom, and I sang some songs for her. Her roommate, Patricia, sang a quiet but beautiful alto to “Silent Night.” Usually this would have been Mom’s part, but she’s often asleep or nearly so these days. My brother Jerry and sister-in-law Cathy came by, so we visited with them and exchanged some gifts.
Leesa and I were on our way back home by half past three o’clock, but we felt the need to counteract the good eating of Christmas Eve and Christmas lunch with a walk, so we stopped to hit the Erwin Linear Trail for an hour. In spite of all our sitting, we still got in our 10,000 steps! Then we came home to leftovers of eggs and biscuits and chocolate as well as a few pieces of sushi from the eve of Christmas Eve.
After the leftovers, I sat watching The Brokenwood Mysteries (Season 4, Episode 1) and typing this blog post; Leesa watched, too, while sleeping on the couch. We saw Christmas end (by the clock) and stumbled off to bed.