Corrinne E: A Walk on Christmas Day

This was my first Christmas as a divorced person. My 19 year-old son JE and I share our home and we are still trying to figure things out, like how to do the holidays as a split-up family. I often work holidays, and worked Christmas Eve, so I was off Christmas Day. I spent Christmas day with my son. I liked that.

We had no plan, that is, let's get up at such and such a time, open gifts, have dinner (dinner? what? no planned Christmas dinner? )...yes, 'tis true, we did not have any dinner planned. We were winging it this year since it was just the two of us. JE slept until noon and it was at that point that I woke him because I couldn't wait any longer and I couldn't imagine missing our Christmas day walk. I really wanted to be outside in nature, enjoying our time together.

We ate some breakfast, PB&J for him, eggs for me, and in our conversation past Christmases came up. We haven't had really joyous Christmases in the recent years. Rather, it's been more going through the motions and some traditions got bypassed just because it was easier than arguing. This year though we bought a real tree and decorated it. With lights and ornaments and everything. That was a big deal since we haven't decorated our tree for years. Oh, sure, we went and bought a real tree at the tree lot for many years and that used to be fun, but choosing a tree as a family became a fight, no longer fun, no longer a cheerful family tradition. Buying a tree became a chore, joyless, so actually decorating it stopped happening. I couldn't find the energy to do both; buy the tree and decorate it, so I didn't, and neither did anyone else.

But this year, JE and I went to the tree lot and bought our little tree and decorated it. I didn't realize how much I missed decorating and looking at the ornaments we've accumulated over the years. Ornaments from my childhood, ornaments from JE's childhood, ornaments from students when I was a kindergarten teacher's aide...all brought back wonderful memories seeing them once again.

Charlie kitten

Lyddie, my old girl

We talked about past Christmases but I didn't want to spoil this first Christmas as a rehash of previous ones so I recalled only the good memories. We looked at photo books to see pictures of our family, and extended family, celebrating together. We looked at happy pictures. We edited our past Christmases, seeing and talking about only the happy moments.

We opened gifts. JE had to search for hidden gifts with a "cold" and "hot" parameters kind of thing. It was fun.

Wembley looking for Santa

And, then, we went for our walk.

It's not a long walk; it's nearly two hours around the lake, so it's not short either. I invited one of JE's friends to join us, and was surprised when he actually decided to meet us since it was Christmas Day. We were only about 10 minutes into the walk and another friend joined us.

And so, the four of us walked around the lake. The three boys in front and me just a bit back.

I saw what I thought was a bird flying above but as I continued to watch it flying I recognized that it was a bat. You can see the bat in the picture below. He flew around and around the tops of those trees, back and forth, and back and forth, circling, and I wondered what he was looking for, or what he was watching, or if he was somehow lost. Can a bat be lost?