Christmas 2020

Christmas 2020 was unlike any other. It wasn't like the year we were married, when we went on a great American road trip over the winter break. It wasn't like the year we left town on Christmas Day to visit Baltimore, and I had to take a bus back to Pittsburgh 48 hours later in order to work the New Year's shifts. It wasn't like the last two years, when I worked nights over Christmas at the children's hospital (ask me sometime why that was so great!). So what was it like?

Christmas this year was reading The Light of the World: A Beginner's Guide to Advent by Jewish New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine with Rosamunda on a quiet Sunday morning. It was our Adult Sunday School book in December. We could debate what "beginners" means, since everyone from the pastors on down learned something new every week, but I'm not complaining. She writes the kind of thoughtful, text- and history-based theological books that you can read and re-read.

I came home from working my first Christmas Eve as an attending to discover that Dear Husband had cooked Montgomery Inn* ribs and Brussels sprouts for dinner, set the table with our good Christmas table linens, AND put on a suit. (*This Cincinnati staple came with Graeter's ice cream from his parents.) The church service on Zoom was very nice and included videos of DH playing the organ for the carols.

Christmas Eve I brought in fresh bagels; and on Christmas Day one of the fellows shared homemade cinnamon rolls. The residency program provided a catered lunch, which I finally enjoyed in "my office," mostly warm, at 2pm, until one of the residents needed me to chaperone a gynecological exam.

Nevertheless, I was able to sneak off in the afternoon to take a walk through the snow in Frick Park with DH while there was still some daylight. It was Pittsburgh's snowiest Christmas on record!

When my 9 straight days of COVID jeopardy and Christmas coverage were over, we finally time to do the baking that was delayed by DH's isolation for not(?)-COVID earlier in the month. We used J.S.'s famous sugar cookie recipe to make reindeer, snowflakes, Christmas trees, candy canes, eighth notes, und unicorns. Most of the 69(!) cookies were packaged up as gifts for the church staff.

Finally, Christmas this year was visiting the 80-foot Duquesne Light Company Christmas tree at the Point. Dear Husband had heard that the state park department had decided to end the 30-year tradition due to concerns about preserving the area and it not fitting into their historical mission, so we figured we had better check it out. Then 9,200 people signed a petition asking them to reconsider, and the last that I heard is they will do something smaller going forward. I can understand why, as everyone who visits has to trek across the muddy grass to get to where the strands of lights and garland are staked into the ground. But it is quite a sight to see from various vantage points along the rivers. After taking some photos, we used a gift card to pick up tacos from täkō to eat for dinner while watching Saturday Night Live sketches.

2020 is practically in the rearview mirror, which means it must be time to write my annual rememberlutions post. Stay tuned...