A Christmas to Remember

We have had a great Christmas at our house, which I will save for last to end on a good note, but the holiday has been most typical of this atypical year.

In starting, I need to touch on the news with Kenny and Lori's family. The good news is that Jimmy and Morgan's daughter, Piper James, was born healthy and whole back on the 16th and we are so happy for them. Then, pretty soon after Morgan and Piper came home from the hospital Morgan had a toothache that required a trip to the dentist. But that was small potatoes when last Friday (the 18th) Kenny had what is probably best called a minor heart attack. The artereogram revealed a 95% blockage in the main artery with multiple other blockages. He had bypass surgery Wednesday and is now on the road to recovery. Praise the Lord for that!

The pandemic had long scrubbed the community Christmas Eve Eve party that Kenny and Lori always host, but with Kenny's bypass surgery any lingering hopes of our traditional brunch were, of course, shelved. We had our own brunch here in honor of the long standing tradition, but when we started cooking we discovered we had far fewer eggs on hand than we thought and had to cut all our recipes in half. We still had plenty to eat, but had a near miss with disaster when Nate was passing a small glass bowl across the table to Jenna, dropped it, and it shattered all over Vicki's plate. Glass went everywhere! Fortunately none of it went into the casserole that had just been pulled out of the oven and placed on the table nearby.

Around 6:20 Christmas morning, downtown Nashville was rocked by an explosion that was felt as far away as Hermitage. This is a developing story and while most of you reading this live near me or are keeping up with the news, I am going to briefly tell this from scratch for the benefit of those who may read this in the future.

Apparently someone parked an RV full of explosives on 2nd Avenue near Commerce Street. The police were alerted to trouble because it was playing a countdown and warning to stay away loudly enough to be heard outside the vehicle. Unable to get into the RV they went into action and ordered residents of the area to evacuate. The good news is that only three people sustained minor injuries in the explosion, though the structural damage to property may be significant. Had this happened on another day when activity would have been more normal this story would have been tragically different. Praise the Lord for that!

The bad news is that this happened very close to the AT&T data center (the iconic Batman Building) there in Nashville. By midday we began to experience a near total telecommunications blackout. Our only means of any contact with the greater world from our house is over-the-air TV and radio. If we want to call, text, or use the internet we have to travel somewhere that is not using AT&T's infrastructure. (I am parked outside of Historic Perk in Springfield using their guest wifi to send this out.)

This is a minor inconvenience for us. What is truly concerning is that numerous 911 call centers across Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky are down. Thousands, if not millions of people have no way to call for help in an emergency right now and AT&T can't yet get into the damaged area to begin making repairs, nor can they estimate how long it will take for them to restore service.

Of growing concern, should this outage be prolonged, are the number of people who are quarantining due to the pandemic. They are dependent of being able place orders for supplies online and either have them delivered or schedule a pickup. If they are in our boat, they are facing some unexpected challenges for an unknown period of time. Also, how many stores can't run a credit/debit card transaction because their internet and cell service depend on the AT&T backbone? I won't pursue this line of thought any further here, but the wide-spread effects of this event are most sobering.

In the middle of all this we did have a good Christmas. I am tempted to feel guilty when I say that, but then I also know it is important to be resilient in life. People have celebrated life in hard times throughout history. Mom and Aunt Mar's stories of growing up in the Great Depression and World War II still ring in my ears. I don't know how the current day truly compares with back then, but the lesson for me is to keep living and be grateful for what you have. So, this has been a good Christmas.

This year is the last year we celebrate Christmas as just the five of us, and that made it special. We love and enjoy Nolan and look forward to him being fully part of the family next year, but it was nice to honor this as the last year for our family before we grow. By the way, Nolan and his family left Christmas morning to spend a few days in Gatlinburg. We did enjoy hosting his parents for dinner Wednesday evening. Nolan also learned how to make the boiled custard this year.

I don't want to ignore or be disrespectful of Mom here, but as the year has played out and we know how isolated she would have been from us this whole time, I am most grateful that she has missed out on all this. This brings me peace that I have not had for several years.

So, we had a great Christmas. I think we all got what we wanted. I know I am primed with reading material to last a few weeks, though without the online distractions or the ability to work from home I may burn through it all much faster than I suspect. The important thing is that we have been together in a home where love abounds. That is, by far, the best Christmas one can hope to have. Praise the Lord for that!

Joe