And Now We Are Four

I drove down to Small Liberal Arts College yesterday and picked up Oliver for his semester break.

It was a pleasant drive, even with every pickup truck in the midwest stuck in second gear in front of me, and we had a good time catching up on the way back. He’s got a history paper to write still – his semester doesn’t end officially until Wednesday, but since everything is virtual at this point he can do that from home where the food is better and there are cats – and it’s been nice being a resource on such things.

Local Businessman High went virtual over Thanksgiving so Lauren has been taking classes at home since then. She usually camps out at the dining room table because the wifi is better there. Kim and I have our offices for our various meetings and classes, and we all make it work.

And now we’re all home together, for at least the next few weeks.

It will be a pretty quiet holiday, all things considered. We will not be traveling to visit any family or friends this year, though with the vaccines now on the scene we do have hope for next year. We’ll hang out at home and take it easy. The tree is up and decorated. Kim has a project where we’ll plan various Christmas dinner menus from around the world over the next couple of weeks, just to be a bit festive.

We’re behind on the Christmas cards, which adds a note of normality to an otherwise deeply abnormal year.

The Christmas shopping has been hit and miss, and likely will stretch out into January, which is fine. As you get older your list gets shorter anyway and it includes more things that you can’t just go out and buy, and having the family together is at the top of that list. We’ll miss the extended clans – there are Zoom calls being planned to help get us past that, but they’re not the same as being there – and it will be sad not to see friends this time of year. But we’ll be glad for what we do have.

We’re healthy, so far. We’re employed. We’re warm and fed and cozy.

In 2020, even more than perhaps other years, these are enough.