Christmas Eve

Right now, my Christmas fantasy is that tomorrow Matt and I will sleep in as late as we want, wake up and do coffee and presents, and then spend the rest of the day in our PJs, snuggled on the couch watching movies and noshing on Christmas goodies, not having to leave the house for anything. Just resting.

But in reality we have to keep up what's become our daily routine of going to the apartment and then going to see Rob. We need to go to the apartment to gather the rest of Rob's things, and then go have Christmas with him at the nursing home and, hopefully, get him out of there for a little while and feed him some proper Christmas dinner.

That place is so depressing, you guys. I know beggars can't be choosers, but, dang. The staff seems friendly enough, but it's a depressing atmosphere. Rob has to have a roommate, and his half of the room, which is tiny, has no window, and the only window in the room is blocked by the curtain separating his half from his roommate's. We'll get some pictures on the wall and try to brighten it up for him, but it's so dreary there. We're both wishing so hard that there was another option. Rob is a survivor, and he's managing to maintain a pretty good attitude, all things considered, but he's seriously hurting. His entire world has been yanked out from under him, and I just wish we could do more to make it easier for him.

Right now we just need to focus on getting through tonight. It's been our Christmas Eve tradition to go over to Mom and Rob's, where she would make Chef Boyardee pizza, and we'd hang out and exchange gifts and watch old movies and eat pizza. We're missing that tradition, and we're missing Mom's pizza, but mostly, of course, we're missing Mom. Christmas Eve isn't supposed to hurt so much.