I think everyone in the whole entire world (as my granddaughter Mylee would say) would agree that there has been nothing normal about 2020. Well, let me amend that statement a bit. There’s been nothing normal since mid-March of 2020.

I hear people say all the time that they can’t wait until they see the end of 2020. Heck, I myself blame 2020 for anything that goes awry. Alas, we all know that when the clock strikes midnight on January 1, 2021, nothing will magically change. COVID will still drive our lives. We will still be wearing masks. Our kids and grandkids will likely be looking at their teacher on the screen of a computer. If they are lucky enough to be in live school, they will still be wearing masks as they work on their math problems.

It’s no surprise , then, that many of us are looking at a holiday season that will be quite different from what we are used to. Our holidays have always been predictable. We spend Thanksgiving with our kids. For a long time, Bill and I hosted. When Jll and Dave redid their house, making it very conducive to entertaining, they took over as hosts.

I put up my Christmas trees on the day after Thanksgiving. Any or all of my grandkids help me decorate my angel tree. The lights go on our trees outside and my house is made festive inside. We celebrate Christmas with our Denver kids/grandkids the days before December 25, and fly to AZ for the winter/spring on Christmas Day.

This is what we’ve done for many years, but it’s not what we’re going to do this year.

For the first time ever, we will be in AZ for Thanksgiving. We have generally driven to AZ in October, and flown home before Thanksgiving. This year, however, our kids will be elsewhere for Thanksgiving. Not wanting to be alone, we decided to leave this upcoming Saturday, and drive to our AZ home. We will spend Thanksgiving with Bec’s son and daughter-in-law and their kids. We will fly home a week or so before Christmas, and then fly back Christmas Day.

I am at peace with our decision. But I had been feeling sad that I was going to miss out on our traditional Christmas activities, i.e., decorating my angel tree. Saturday morning, as I awaited the arrival of Kaiya, Mylee, and Cole, with whom I was spending the day, I had a lightbulb thought. Why not decorate the tree with the three grands that very day? Who says you have to wait until the day after Thanksgiving?

And that’s what we did…..

I thought about sending an email to my neighbors, justifying my early Christmas lights. But then I figured this would be the least of their surprises for 2020. And much to my surprise, as I drove the grands home that evening, I spotted a remarkable number of Christmas lights.

It’s 2020. What can I say?