I used to eagerly look forward to the week between Christmas and New Year’s. We usually got most of that time as “bonus” days off, without having to use vacation time. Since I don’t like traveling Christmas week (everything is crowded and expensive) and I wasn’t spending paid time off, I felt free to enjoy the week in a more relaxed manner.
Many other times, I felt pressure to make the most of my vacation days. But during Christmas week, it didn’t seem like I was “wasting” a day off if I slept late, puttered around the house, and didn’t get much of anything done. Or, if I spent a day catching up with chores, something I otherwise deeply resented doing on a vacation day. I didn’t realize that week was a good preview of retirement!
But then there was the year I got the flu for Christmas. Instead of my husband and me having Christmas Eve dinner with a friend, I slept all through the afternoon and evening and most of Christmas Day. A planned trip to a yoga center later in the week was cancelled, as was pretty much everything else. I felt miserable most of the week, and got better just in time to go back to work - when everything was revving back into high gear. I felt so cheated!
I still felt cheated this week when I got sick the night before Thanksgiving, but in a different way.
We had not only one holiday celebration planned, but two. We were supposed to visit friends on Thursday and family on Friday. I started cooking on Monday to make things to bring to both celebrations: two kinds of cranberry sauce, cranberry orange relish, cranberry square crisp (notice a theme here?), stuffing. . . . until I felt like I was coming down with a cold Wednesday night. And was running a low fever by Thanksgiving morning.
Der mentsh trakht un got lakht, as the Yiddish saying goes. Man plans, God laughs.
The good news is that I tested negative for Covid. And given that 1) this had all the hallmarks of a conventional cold (fever didn’t last long, I went from runny nose to congestion in a day) and 2) experts were reporting that Covid rates are currently low while “common cold” rates are high, I’m pretty confident that the home tests were right and this was some non-pandemic virus.
The bad news is that I missed celebrating with loved ones both days. While the family kindly packed up some leftovers for me so I still got to enjoy some holiday food, it’s definitely not the same eating your turkey with the trimmings but without the company of family and friends. And I do love all the people we were supposed to be celebrating with!
The other good news is that at least I didn’t waste an extremely scarce long weekend in bed, only to be well enough to go back to work fulltime. If, as I expect, I start feeling good enough to be out and about again sometime this week, I can resume my usual retirement routine. 😅
And remember once again how thankful I should be for good health when I have it.
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