Waiting for Santa

This morning started a bit iffy.

Yesterday after buying the feather tree and James baking some pumpkin bread for Christmas dinner, we visited the DeKalb Farmer's Market to pick up ground turkey and ground pork to prepare next week for Bill and Caran's party. I love going to DeKalb before Christmas; they have all sorts of ethnic Christmas food like stollen and panettone and it's fun to see what each group likes for Christmas. Then we had supper at Boston Market and, because we were early for the Atlanta Radio Theatre performance of An Atlanta Christmas, dropped at Borders for a few minutes to pick up a gift.

When we returned to the Stage Door Players site, I was getting a slight stomachache and retired to the ladies' room. Nothing. But the pain continued to increase througout the show.

The show was so good I could ignore the pain. They had lost their prerecorded music and most of the cast sang a capella, which was fabulous. They did most of the usual presentations, including my favorite, "Are You Lonely Tonight?" and a new World War II story called "The Gold Star." I had my heart in my mouth when the car carrying the Navy man pulled up to Grandma's door.

We stopped to chat with everyone afterwards, but the pain was making me increasingly uncomfortable. If it had been a plain old "stomachache," it would have been okay, but I was concerned because it hurt when I moved, whether I just shifted position in my seat or stood up or walked around, hurt not just down there but my back and upper legs.

To keep it short, I wasn't feeling well most of the night, despite a few bathroom sorties. I was cold, and I even wore flannel pajamas to bed, which I haven't done for nearly three years due to the hot flashes. The movement pain, however, went away this morning, which was quite welcome because I had tons of things to do. Mom always said the house should be spic and span for Christmas Eve, so I vacuumed, did another load of clothes, mopped the kitchen floor, washed some dishes, swept the hall and the foyer, and vacuumed the stairs.

This afternoon we did something special: watched a DVD our friend Mike Waters sent us. I sat and laughed and cried throughout the entire thing. It was the broadcast of The Hollywood Palace from December 25, 1965, and the DVD came complete with commercials for Clairol "Loving Care," Sylvania Blue-Dot flashcubes (I remember when flashcubes came out; I suppose today the kids would say "what's a flashcube?" LOL), Schiltz beer and Sunoco gas. The host was Bing Crosby, the singing guest Dorothy Collins, and the special guests included a guy and his spaniel, Louie, who basically just stood there, limp, while his trainer worked him through a series of "tricks." The headliner special guests were the entire cast of Hogan's Heroes, who "escaped" from Stalag 13 with Sergeant Schultz and Commandant Klink in hot pursuit. Later Werner Klemperer and John Banner sang "Silent Night" in the original German and Robert Clary sang a verse of "Il Est Né." Too wonderful for words.

James has been making mashed sweet potatoes for tomorrow and now we are watching "O Christmas Tree" on WPBA, the Atlanta PBS station. Later they're going to have a Boston Pops concert with excerpts with Arthur Fiedler and John Williams. We both miss the annual Holiday at Pops! concert that used to be on A&E.

In the meantime, the birds have been running riot at the bird feeder almost all day. They are so much fun to watch: woodpeckers, goldfinches, chickadees, sparrows, titmice, nuthatches, and even a young bluebird, flying in and out, chittering at each other, chasing each other away and coming back, and munching and pecking seeds. Any seed that goes "overboard" is cleaned up by the mourning doves who peck industriously under the deck.