Mom's OK, but she gave all of us a bit of a scare this afternoon. While the whole lot of us ate an early dinner at Dad's house, Mom had some sort of fainting spell. My step-sibs saw her lean back in her chair and stare at the ceiling, twitching her head. Phyllis called 911, and an ambulance was sent. Mom felt better after lying down for a little while, but the EMT's and I persuaded her to go to the hospital. Several hours and a few doctor consultations later, she was given a relatively clean bill of health and appointments to see a neurologist for a followup. They never did figure out exactly what happened. It took about six hours to get out of there, with about thirty minutes of that time taken up by a search for her chart.

All of this followed a painfully awkward meal that I was rather desperate to leave behind (not that desperate, of course). Between Dad's friends who are just acquaintances to me and strangers to Mom, Dad's slightly senile mother-in-law asking too many questions about work, and my grief threatening another crying fit at any moment, it's a wonder I didn't completely fall apart even before the sudden end to the "festivities". Next time, I'm following my instincts and not going through with such a bizarre plan. It's not even quite over. We still have to exchange gifts, a ritual I have been dreading because it will remind me too much of Cat and her loss. My rather meek suggestion that we just take each other's gifts home was immediately vetoed. So I guess we have to go through that charade later. But Mom's going to be all right. As painful as all of that was, it could have been so much worse.

I hope everyone else had a far better day.

So Christmas Eve is gone for another year, and the store is all set up for the After Christmas sale and I am so glad it's over with. We still have the bargain seekers to deal with and the store will gradually become more sane over the next couple of weeks, but it actually feels good to have reached this point. Even with the long lines and the rude and impatient cuss-tomers, I had the best day I have had for too long. I didn't hide even once in the managers office. I wasn't even really tempted to.

I did almost lose it a couple of times tonight at home. Mom decided to get Christmas over with and so we opened gifts earlier. In the past, we had woken up at some ridiculous hour (usually around four in the morning) and opened gifts, ate Entenman's raspberry danish, and gone back to bed. But that was with Cat. We have to come up with new traditions now. It seemed so wrong to not have her here tonight.

Tomorrow, both Mom and I are going to Dad's house for an early dinner and gift exchange. There will be a couple of Dad's friends there too, which will be a little weird, but I guess that's OK. I still have to wrap what I got for Dad and Phyllis. Tomorrow. OK, so it's technically later today, but still...

All of you, have a wonderful day however you spend it.